Author: David Boyd

Dams

Letter published in today's Weekend Australian:"At last a senior politician has had the political courage to tell it like it is.("Dam them -- Abbott's solution to harness flooded rivers", 7/1). The last seven to 10 years of drought and the recent "big wet" is a classic example of Australia's natural variability.We need to conserve water … Continue reading Dams →

Conventional Wisdom

The front page of today's Australian has no less than three clangers, all in passing.1) Reference to "carbon pollution"!! Carbon pollution? What the hell is that? I thought carbon was an essential part of life?2) Reference to the "ailing Murray Darling Basin". Perhaps they mean "ailing" from excessive water flows! 3) "Ailing" from "excessive farmer … Continue reading Conventional Wisdom →

Climate Change

A quote from Joanne Nova in an article in last Saturday's Weekend Australian"The swelling ranks of sceptical scientists is now the largest whistle-blowing cohort in science ever seen. It includes some of the brightest: two with Nobel prizes in physics, four NASAastronauts, 9000 PhDs in science, and another 20,000 science graduates to cap it off. … Continue reading Climate Change →

The World Has Been Cooling for 15 Years

The following is an extract from the UK Daily Mail:-"But buried amid the details of those two Met Office statements 12 months apart lies a remarkable climbdown that has huge implications - not just for the Met Office, but for debateover climate change as a whole.Read carefully with other official data, they conceal a truth … Continue reading The World Has Been Cooling for 15 Years →

Murray Darling Basin

There is a very widely held view that we need to "restore the health of our rivers". This statement assumes that they are unhealthy, which might well be the case. However, we have just been through nearly a decade of the lowest rainfall/run-off that has ever been recorded.Whilst this is extreme, under natural conditions it … Continue reading Murray Darling Basin →

Irrigation

Letter published in The Weekend Australian on 16th October:In your front page today (Heated backlash Forces Murray inquiry) you categorically state that:"The move to reduce water usage is an attempt to address the fact that states have sold irrigators licences to extract so much water from the system that not enough water is being left … Continue reading Irrigation →

Climate Change-Carbon Demonisation

The science of climate change/global warming is most certainly not settled. In recent months we have had:-the revelations of the "climategate" emailsthe very balanced Review Committee of enquiry into the IPCC's alarmist reportingthe revealed gross exaggeration of the Himalayan glacier melting claimsthe back-off from an extreme alarmist position by the highly respected Royal Society of … Continue reading Climate Change-Carbon Demonisation →

Banjo Paterson

The Banjo is not famous for his philosophical input. However, I have long been attracted by his poem "Come-By-Chance" from which the following extract is taken-Though we work and toil and hustle in our life of haste and bustle,All that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free;Man may weary and importune, but … Continue reading Banjo Paterson →

Conservation v’s Preservation

I have long had problems with the "dark green" philosophy in respect to land management. I am indebted to a favourite branch of my own Church for putting some very clear words around what I have often struggled to express.The Brisbane Diocese of the Anglican Church has commissioned a report on the Queensalnd Government's Wild Rivers … Continue reading Conservation v’s Preservation →