The Forum > Article Comments > Blurring the lines between science and political activism > Comments
Blurring the lines between science and political activism : Comments
By Mark Poynter, published 30/10/2008Green links and personal agendas are hurting the credibility of ANU research.
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Posted by MWPOYNTER, Friday, 7 November 2008 9:15:09 AM
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Thank you cinders and IanC for your informative posts. It's good to know we have people scrutinizing these documents. The meticulousness of your reviewing is, ahem, peerless.
Posted by fungochumley, Friday, 7 November 2008 10:18:48 PM
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Ditto Fungo
The special report and the TAR are a little jaded now, any updates - anyone? Bernie, thanks for the clarification - one would have thought you were losing the plot :-) Dickie, hang in there - for all we know, you could be a sock puppet of the neo-cons :-( Posted by Q&A, Saturday, 8 November 2008 11:35:48 AM
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Hello Mark
Your book title: “Saving Australia’s Forest….” grabbed my attention. On which page I could read up on WA’s jarrah forests? Mark, my qualifications are irrelevant. I and 21 million others are stakeholders in Australia’s biodiversity. The majority of those millions are not held directly responsible for the state of our forests – you are. I note your members of the “Rivers and Red Gum Environment Alliance” are: Australian Deer Association, Australian Environment Foundation, Field and Game Australia, NSW Forest Products Association, Sporting Shooters’ Association of Aust. (Vic), Vic. Assoc. of Forest Inds., Timber Communities Aust., VRFish, Wakool Shire, Murray River Action Group. Of course the interests of the above stakeholders are completely self-serving are they not – and their motives are hardly altruistic when I see a myriad of shootin’ tootin’ cowboys on the list. While the myth is peddled that opponents to the timber industry are all urban dwellers, sipping café lattes, I advise I’m from the country Brother – pastoral lands. Pioneering ancestors were on the First Fleet. My concern is your public statement : “Using firewood from a sustainable source is one of the most environmentally friendly forms of home heating if it reduces electricity use.” Did your degree incorporate a segment on environmental toxicity Mark? Did you know that in very recent years, (2006/7 from memory,) the WADEC have written papers on the health and environmental ramifications of using wood fires? While I understand the logic in prescribed burning of forests (better a small fire than a large one,) one can never claim that incineration in any form is environmentally friendly. If a burned ecosystem regrows, the carbon dioxide is eventually removed from the atmosphere and is incorporated into the new vegetative growth. However, other gaseous emissions remain in the atmosphere – impacting on the troposphere, stratosphere and human health. How do you prevent the release of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, NOx, VOCs or particulates from a hazard reduction burn, Mark? How do you control the combustion to prevent the release of the ghastly PCDDs(dioxins)? Scrubbers!!? Naughty boy Q&A! Posted by dickie, Saturday, 8 November 2008 4:15:59 PM
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Mark, it looks like, all your science, all your experience, as well as some very good information in posts supporting your article is being totally ignored by a ‘dickie’ critic that has an interest in toxins but refuses to give a qualification.
This reminds me of the National Toxics Network and the Tasmanian pulp mill where they got a bloke from WA to write a paper and do media interviews all about the impact of the pulp mill. Turned out this bloke had a Master of Arts and no expertise in pulp mills or modern elemental chlorine free mills. But then again the national “expert” for the NTN is Dr Marion Lloyd Smith who told Tasmania that “The elemental chlorine-free pulp mill proposed by Gunns should be rejected on public health grounds” But, she is not a Doctor of Medicine she is a lawyer with a PHD based on community advocacy. Yet the media quote her as an “expert”, she even claimed "In Victoria, in Lake Coleman, they found levels (of dioxins) in carp because they were exposed to effluent of an ECF pulp mill," Yet the Lake Colman incident was over a decade ago and the Victorian Pulp mill only received approval for an upgrade to ECF on 24 August 2005. The Upgrade also proposed treated effluent to be only released into Bass Strait. The Commonwealth government’s experts with appropriate science qualifications decided that there would be no significant impact from the ECF mill on Commonwealth environmental values. (Decision 2005/2234 EPBC Act) In a twist, based on the nonsense claims of lobby groups like the NTN, the Tasmanian Pulp mill was finally approved but with all sorts of conditions related to the Commonwealth marine waters and the treated effluent. Despite the pulp mill to have no impact on Wilderness and not use old growth forests it is still being opposed by the Wilderness Society quoting the same figures from the Greens Institute that Ajani muddled as well as figures from an earlier Mackey model on carbon in old forests. Posted by cinders, Saturday, 8 November 2008 5:25:26 PM
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Cinders
That “bloke from WA” you referred to, happens to be an acquaintance. Lee Bell has a BA, MA (ESD) and is an expert on toxic waste. Apart from the National Toxics’ team he is head of the Contaminated Sites Alliance, was appointed Co-chair of the Core Consultative Committee on Waste in WA and is a university lecturer. Lee is a humble man - in demand as a speaker at many conventions and has written papers on the subject to which he is qualified including papers published in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health. Add another National Toxics committee member - Dr Bro Sheffield-Brotherton who has over 30 years experience in environmental NGOs, including senior positions in the Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Project Jonah, and the Conservation Council and Environment Centre of WA. He has been an expert and/or representative member of over 50 State and Commonwealth Government taskforces, panels and advisory committees on environmental issues. He has worked in Government in social policy, energy policy and environmental education, and since founding Sustainable Solutions in 1990, has built a reputation for groundbreaking, outside-the-square consulting on sustainability issues. In addition to the above, I have also met Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith (a lawyer by profession) who has 25 years experience in chemical and waste policy, public participation and information systems. She has worked for more than 20 years in the Australian and international environment movement focusing on research, contaminated sites management, chemical information systems and stakeholder capacity building for the resolution of national and international toxic disputes. She is the Director of the research group, BioRegion Computer Mapping & Research Pty Ltd. You state: “she even claimed In Victoria, in Lake Coleman, they found levels (of dioxins) in carp because they were exposed to effluent of an ECF pulp mill," It appears Cinders that you are most adept at manipulating the contents of published reports when you falsely claim Lloyd-Smith was referring specifically to the ECF technology in pulp mills: http://www.oztoxics.org/ntn/pulp%20mill%20brief.pdf http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/publications/chemicals/dioxins/report-6/pubs/report-6a.pdf (page 43) http://tapvision.info/node/117 Integrity is a pre-requisite for honest debate Cinders! Cheers. Posted by dickie, Saturday, 8 November 2008 8:07:44 PM
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If you know about my book, you should know (its on the inside cover) that I have a university degree and a diploma in forest science - that's five years of teriary education - plus about 30 years of work in forests and plantations. So, I am quite well qualified to write about my field.
Now that I have done you the courtesy of answering your question, perhaps you could let us know what your qualifications are?? I won't hold my breath.
I don't disagree with you that the wider public are concerned about native forests - not just 'environmentalists' - but you have to consider why they are concerned. As most of us live in cities and have zero, little or limited personal experience of forests, public concern is overwhelmingly shaped by media-based campaigns driven by 'environmentalists'
Consequently, the public have a very skewed view of the reality particularly in relation to proportionality, because obviously no environmental group is going to acknowledge that 87% of Tasmanian 'old growth' forest is reserved, or that timber production is limited to within just a 9% portion of Victoria's forests to name just two examples. Instead, the campaigns create a deliberate impression that we are going to lose all our forests - trying to correct this misconception is a critical motivation.