one little black book

ABC's new editorial policies come into force today. A little black book to match that black skivvie, that black shirt, that black suit...One little black book to rule them!

We'll be exploring the content and consequences of ABC's new editorial policies over the coming months. Of interest is the new guidance on balance in section 4 that includes the following statement:
"ABC is  guided by these hallmarks of impartiality: • a balance that follows the weight of evidence."

Based on this can we now expect ABC to dump its continued support of Tim Flannery's debunked Blitzkrieg theory of megafaunal extinction? Or will this piece of popular fiction be further defended against the tidal wave of scientific evidence.
Does an emphasis on "evidence" mean our missing stories on climate change will be covered? The editorial standard expressed in section 4.5 "Do not unduly favour one perspective over another." seems to suggest a wave of those missing stories are about to be unleashed.
We shall wait and see.

Tim Flannery: climate change denier?

An open letter to our Climate Commissar.

Dear Prof. Flannery,
Is your continued support of the Blitzkrieg theory for the extinction of Australia's megafauna* and apparent ignorance of the overwhelming evidence supporting the long term role played by changing climate in the decline of the megafauna a sign that you are a climate change denier?
(*an increasingly marginal theory lying outside the current consensus of mainstream science that claims humans were solely responsible for the extinction of Australia's megafauna)
Looking Forward to Your Response.
ABC NEWS WATCH

PS. We note that ABC still host your Future Eaters site. Do you think it is fair that tax payers continue to support debunked theories?

Missing News: Flannery's future eaters fictitious

 EXCLUSIVE
Australia's Climate Commissar Tim Flannery is a big believer in the theory that Australia's megafauna were driven to extinction by a human-induced culinary blitzkrieg. The notion that human's were to blame for our missing mega-fauna was explored at length in Flannery's best selling book "The Future Eaters". Flannery has stated that he believes "that in the absence of humans, the giant marsupials would still be in Australia today".  That "the megafauna went out with a bang and not a whimper." 
The notion that man has had such a drammatic impact on the environment in the distant past obviously accords well with the current paradigm of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming in which Flannery is also true believer. However it appears to be wrong.

Flannery's pet theory has been blown away (again!) by new research published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.  Under the title "Dating megafaunal extinction on the Pleistocene Darling Downs, eastern Australia: the promise and pitfalls of dating as a test of extinction hypotheses" researchers based at the University of Queensland used a suite of sophisticated dating methods to show "that the progressive loss of local megafauna was initiated well before the accepted period of human continental colonisation. Hence, the data suggest that humans were unlikely to have played any role in the extirpation of the affected local megafauna during that interval."

"... the new dates suggest that that the loss of at least some local megafauna occurred over an extended interval of time through the late Pleistocene and was not a geologically-instantaneous event. Hence, data from these controlled excavations do not support the blitzkrieg or attritional overkill hypotheses, which suggest that the losses should have occurred over short timescales of only 500 -1500 years."

Researchers point to drammatic natural changes in the environemnt as the main causeof the decline in the megafauna. These include:1) decreasing temperatures as climate shifted into a glacial interval; 2) falling sea levels (>60 m); 3) step-wise increases in aridity, including widespread megadroughts; and 4) significant changes in vegetation consistent with contraction of wet-forests and spread of sclerophyllus vegetation and grassland.

From the abstract: "Importantly, the dates suggest that the local decline in biological diversity was initiated 75,000 years before the colonisation of humans on the continent. Collectively, the data are most parsimoniously consistent with a pre-human climate change model for local habitat change and megafauna extinction, but not with a nearly simultaneous extinction of megafauna as required by the human-induced blitzkrieg extinction hypothesis. This study demonstrates the problems inherent in dating deposits that lie near the chronological limits of the radiocarbon dating technique, and highlights the need to cross-check previously-dated archaeological and megafauna deposits within the timeframe of earliest human colonisation and latest megafaunal survival."

The site of Flannery's dating (Ned's Gully) is now under further investigation. More careful dating may reveal the earlier dates were erroneous. Regardless, the new research indicates Australia's Future Eaters are but a figment of an overactive imagination.

We await ABC's coverage of this important revelation.

Missing News: Medieval warm period in Scandinavia

Figure 8 from Gunnarson et al 2011 showing re-constructed temperatures that appear to be at odds with ABC's Groupthink position on climate change..

ABC further reinforces its Groupthink climate echo chamber by failing to inform its audience of a recent peer reviewed study that finds temperatures 900 years ago were similar to those today. The rate of warming also higher in the 1100s than 1900s. The Hockey Stick is dead but its Zombie staggers on at the ABC.
The Title: "Improving a tree-ring reconstruction from west central Scandinavia: 900 years of warm-season temperatures"
The Journal: CLIMATE DYNAMICS Volume 36, Numbers 1-2, 97-108, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-010-0783-5
The Authors:Bjorn E. Gunnarson • Hans W. Linderholm •Anders Moberg
The Abstract: Dendroclimatological sampling of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) has been made in the province of Jamtland, in the west-central Scandinavian mountains, since the 1970s. The tree-ring width (TRW) chronology spans several thousand years and has been used to reconstruct June–August temperatures back to 1632 BC. A maximum latewood density (MXD) dataset, covering the period AD 1107–1827 (with gap 1292–1315) was presented in the 1980s by Fritz Schweingruber. Here we combine these historical MXD data with recently collected MXD data covering AD 1292–2006 into a single reconstruction of April–September temperatures for the period AD 1107– 2006. Regional curve standardization (RCS) provides more low-frequency variability than ‘‘non-RCS’’ and stronger correlation with local seasonal temperatures (51% variance explained). The MXD chronology shows a stronger relationship with temperatures than the TRW data, but the two chronologies show similar multi-decadal variations back to AD 1500. According to the MXD chronology, the period since AD 1930 and around AD 1150–1200 were the warmest during the last 900 years. Due to large uncertainties in the early part of the combined MXD chronology, it is not possible to conclude which period was the warmest. More sampling of trees growing near the tree-line is needed to further improve the MXD chronology.
The Link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r6783q20q4u56t68/

Fishing for the truth

Updated below...
ABC HEADLINE: "Toxic caesium found in fish off Japan"
ABC REPORTED: The first sentence reads: Traces of radioactive caesium have been found for the first time in fish off Japan's east coast.
THE COMPLAINT: The claim is a blatant falsehood. Radioactive caesium has been known in fish off Japan since at least the early 1960s as confirmed by the following article published in the Journal of Radiation Research in 1973. Here's the abstract:

Cesium-137 Contamination of Marine Fishes from The Coasts of Japan Journal of Radiation Research
Vol.14 , No.4 (1973) pp.382-391 
Y. SUZUKI1), R. NAKAMURA1) and T. UEDA1) 
1) Division of Environmental Contamination, National Institute of Radiological Sciences
[Received: 1973/07/16]

[Published: 1973/12/15]

[Released: 2006/07/14]

Abstract: The uptake and accumulation of cesium-137 by fishes from sea water was studied through the field studies for eight years (1963-1970). The concentrations of cesium-137 in marine fish muscles have decreased with time since 1963, and the concentration factors ranged from 11 to 81. On the other hand, the concentration factors of stable cesium remained in a narrow range between 34 and 52. The mean value of the observed ratio (OR) calculated by cesium-137 and potassium was 5.7 during the period from 1964 to 1970, and the OR value based on stable cesium was 5.9. The ratios between annual mean values of the specific activities of fish muscles and of sea water were found to be from 0.6 to 1.5.
From these data, if the concentration of cesium-137 in the environmental sea water is known, it is possible to estimate the approximate concentrations of cesium-137 in marine fishes by using the concentration factor or observed ratio without any analytical procedures.

OUTCOME: Received from ABC Audience and Consumer affairs via email sent 19/4/2011:

On April 6, in a report about contamination found in fish off the coast of Japan, the ABC incorrectly reported that “Traces of radioactive caesium have been found for the first time in fish off Japan's east coast”. In fact, traces of caesium have been found before, however it is believed that the radioactive caesium is believed to have come from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

The story has been corrected and an editor’s note attached.

ABC News apologises for the error.

Accordingly, Audience and Consumer Affairs have concluded that the story was not in keeping with the ABC’s editorial standards for accuracy.

Thank you for taking the time to write; your feedback is appreciated.

Note added to story reads...

Editor's note (April 12): This story has been amended to remove a reference saying this was the first time caesium had been found in fish caught off Japan.

COMMENT: ABC News: once again caught fishing for the truth.
Score +1

Help restore the balance: support Menzies List

ABC have published their annual report into Equity and Diversity. While there has been an increase in the number of women, indigenous Australians, the disabled and  Australians from non-English speaking backgrounds, it seems that the number of ABC employees voting for conservative and center-right political parties remains at an all time low and if anything the numbers are falling dramatically*.  This does not reflect the spread of political attitudes in the community that are pretty much evenly divided between right and left.

To instill some balance, common sense and rational opinion to "our" ABC, we propose the establishment of "Menzies List". From now on, as vacancies arise in the ABC, positions will be filled from Menzies List until balance is restored (given there are currently so few conservative employees this may take some time).

Extreme prejudice requires extreme action. You know it's right. Write to your MP today, insist the ABC employ Menzies List to fill future vacancies. Do your part to help break ABC's GROUPTHINK culture.

*Perhaps this helps explain ABC's falling productivity? 

The wrong hat?

ABC Environment continue mixing headlines and images. No surprise considering the way they confuse propaganda for news ...