As the Georgians and Russians prepare this week to play with their fancy and very dangerous firecrackers in the Balkans we were reminded that humans have been red in tooth and claw for a very long time.
One of the great slugging matches of Australian science, some would say our very own academic Balkans, is over who or what killed the diprotodons, giant wombats and other megafauna.
In one corner is Dr Tim Flannery, who says humans slaughtered the megafauna in a blitzkrieg of carnivory, and in the other is Dr Steve Wroe, who argues climate change was the biggest factor.
Every year or so one side or the other manages to scramble together some evidence supporting their case and it is lobbed like a dead carcass (literally) inside the walls of the other team’s fort. This week the megafauna battleground shifted to Tasmania and the war cry came from the Flannery team – and it all centred around the skull of an extinct 40,000 year old kangaroo.

Last week we had news of the discovery of a previously-unknown population of 125,000 lowland gorillas in the Congo. This week one of the world’s biggest humpback whale nursery grounds has been discovered off the coast of Western Australia’s Kimberley region. As the ABC reported:
The Western Australian Marine Science Institution said 607 humpback whales were sighted in one of the Kimberley’s largest bays, Camden Sound, within a week.
“We believe it surpasses the number found in the Carribean’s Silver Banks region, which is usually listed as one of the world’s main humpback whale nursery grounds.”

One of the great things about environment stories is what is known in the trade as the ‘perverse outcome’. The conservation battlefield is littered with these nasty little mines – the unexpected consequences of good intentions.

Anyone who has ever been a poor student and had to rent a cockroach-infested flat above a shop on Parramatta Road would tell you a silent car would be high on their wish list. But no, it turns out silent cars are deadly to pedestrians and the visually impaired. Inventors have made a device that simulates car noise. Toyota, however, who make the Prius has ruled out using fake car noises in their hybrids. Are you sure Mr Toyota? There could be a marketing opportunity here!! What about resorts with fake jack hammers on stereo, so stressed city holiday makers don’t get too relaxed? Or an i-pod that only plays different photocopier noises?

As long as people have been killing each other and giant wombats the sea level has been going up and down dramatically – in the last ice age around 10,000 years ago Bondi beach was as far inland as Parramatta is today. Scientists are now promising us the most dramatic sea level rise humans have ever experienced but you will all be pleased to know that seachangers must know something the scientists don’t. Beachside house prices are soaring – even in suburbs expected to be worst impacted. As News Limited reported:
‘Another picture-perfect beachfront home at Narrabeen, earmarked by scientists as the Sydney suburb most vulnerable to rising sea levels, sold last month for $4.03 million — 20 per cent up on the price it fetched three years ago.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report predicts sea levels will rise between 18cm and 59cm over the next 92 years, and another 10cm to 20cm if ice sheets melt faster. For every centimetre the sea rises, scientists say, the beach retreats 1m — so, by the end of the century, the worst-case scenario is that properties within 80m of the beach will be under water.’

This week’s award for idiocy goes not to any one individual but to all of us….For several generations national and state governments have given out water licences as freely as aunts and uncles give away socks and undies for Christmas. And now we find out that the sock and undie shop has gone bust – there’s no knickers left. And so it has been with water – it’s all gone. As Real Dirt has been reporting these past months the Murray-Darling is sick as a dog and the Australian Conservation Foundation has asked the Federal Government to buy back six water-rich properties.

As the Age reported:

In a proposal delivered personally to federal Water Minister Penny Wong, the Australian Conservation Foundation has collated a hit list of major water-hoarding properties whose water could be purchased or leased by the Government in a bid to save the Coorong and lower lakes.

Despite the dire forecasts, the ACF has urged the Federal Government to look again at six properties in the western parts of NSW and Queensland which, if purchased, could yield up to 300 billion litres annually for the river, depending on flows.
The list includes the famous Cubbie Station, which ACF spokeswoman Arlene Buchan said could provide up to 200 billion litres to the river system.

Anyone would think these knickers and socks had been worn by one of the Beatles. The bill to buy back the water, which was actually ours in the first place is upwards of $600 million. Make sense to you?

Starved of oxygen by the Olympics, Carbon and Dioxide have been a bit quieter this week with a lull expected until Professor Garnaut hands down the next stage of his emissions trading report next month. Even so the environmental pages of the nation’s media are still serving up emission control as this season’s main course, with a few different side garnishes – solar rebates, petrol prices and farming.

And finally some self promotion – for those who missed it last week check out the latest kangaroo eating world wide exclusive story that was published on Real Dirt and in the Sydney Morning Herald . I especially enjoyed the comments the story attracted on the website.