Pearls and Irritations

Torres Strait Islanders and the people of Vanuatu pursue legal action to force inept governments to stop climate change. The Great Barrier Reef is at severe risk of disappearing as a result of climate change, which is also causing Earth to wobble on its axis.

Torres Strait Islanders v Australian Government

In June the ‘Australian Climate Case’ being brought by Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul against the Commonwealth Government began with Justice Wigney of the Federal Court visiting the Torres Strait for two weeks for ‘on-Country’ hearings. Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul are asking the court to order the Commonwealth stop the harm to Torres Strait communities by reducing emissions in line with 1.5 degrees and the best available science. While in the Torres Strait, Justice Wigney visited sites on the islands of Boigu, Badu and Saibai to witness the damage already suffered by a church, religious monuments, cemeteries, culturally significant trees, areas used to grow food and beaches as a result of climate change, particularly rising sea levels.

Proceedings started with barristers’ opening statements and the examination and cross-examination of community witnesses. Interestingly, during his opening statement the Commonwealth’s barrister conceded that the Torres Strait is vulnerable to climate change and that impacts are already being felt here.

During his evidence to the court, Uncle Pabai said ‘[The ancestors] are giving us who we are today. They are the most important people to us. When we do a ceremony, we invite them, call upon them. If I can’t do that because my community goes underwater I will lose my identity underwater. I will lose everything that is important to us.’ Uncle Paul spoke of the importance of being on Saibai to practise culture, saying: ‘If we leave the island and leave our ancestors behind, underwater. We lose everything, our culture, our identity, our livelihood – it will be all gone.’

The case will continue at the Federal Court in Melbourne between 6-27 November, with closing submissions to be heard in Cairns from 29 April next year. A decision is expected towards the end of 2024.

Since the end of the hearings in the Torres Strait, Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul have joined Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior on a journey to Vanuatu. There they will meet with other climate activists to build stronger relationships between Torres Strait and Pasifika peoples, both groups living on the frontline of the climate crisis. As Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul say, ‘Mura Kalmel Sipa’. Together we stand

Earlier this year, following a campaign led by students, the Vanuatu Government successfully proposed a resolution at the UN with the support of 132 countries to seek an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice regarding climate change. The court now has the opportunity to deliver a ground-breaking opinion which could force governments to consider the human rights impacts of climate policy, compel more ambitious action under the Paris Agreement and give lawyers the tools to effect broad, accelerated change.

The journey to Vanuatu is the first stage of a longer voyage across the Pacific by the Rainbow Warrior to demonstrate support for climate action by Pacific island states, strengthen relationships, collaborate with communities, and amplify the visions of climate justice activists.

By coincidence, the story behind the bombing by France of the first Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985 began on SBS on Wednesday evening. It’s three-part series that demonstrates the callous bastardry of both France’s nuclear testing in the Pacific and their state-sponsored terrorism. It’s well worth watching: ‘Rainbow Warrior: Murder in the Pacific’ *****.

Coral reefs in hot water

Dr Anne Hoggett and her partner Dr Lyle Vail are internationally respected marine biologists. They have been Co-directors of the Australian Museum’s Lizard Island Reef Research Station on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) for the last 33 years. In May, Dr Hoggett delivered the Talbot Oration, Coral Reefs in Hot Water, at the Australian Museum. In just 30 minutes (from 21-51 minutes in the link), Anne described, with great photos, the mutually dependent, symbiotic relationship between corals (animals) and zooxanthellae (single-celled plants capable of photosynthesis) that live with them. Marine heatwaves cause the corals, which are white, to eject the zooxanthellae, which are colourful, resulting in coral bleaching. The corals are still alive at this stage but if the water remains too warm for several days the corals die.

Anne also explained the apparent paradox that much of the GBR was destroyed by the devastating marine heatwaves of 2016 and 2017, leading to great concern for the Reef’s future health as global warming increases, and yet it’s also reported that coral is growing again on the Reef. Yes, there is encouraging evidence of coral recovery but it’s patchy and it’s only some species of coral.

It is obvious that heatwaves and coral bleaching have become much more common in the last 7 years but they are not the only human-caused insults the GBR encounters. Nutrient and sediment run-off from farmland, industrial and plastic pollution, ocean acidification and overfishing all threaten the Reef. Then there are the cyclones which are frequent visitors to tropical Queensland. These seldom exceed Category 3 but since 2009 five highly destructive  Category 4 or 5 cyclones have hit the Reef. The intermittent, approximately 5-year long outbreaks of crown of thorns starfish also cause havoc to corals.

Like all ecosystems, given time the GBR can usually bounce back from the occasional disruption but when multiple disruptions occur in rapid succession the consequences can be permanent. The figure below, courtesy of Dr Hoggett, shows the disruptions experienced by the Reef at Lizard Island between 1973 and 2023. The Reef has suffered marine heatwaves and coral bleaching in four years since 2017 but the water cooled just in time to prevent coral death.

Dr Hoggett was clear that the survival of the GBR is completely dependent on the urgent reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide to halt global warming – without that coral reefs globally will completely disappearing in the next few decades. Expanding the Reef’s marine parks and controlling nutrient run-off, plastic pollution and overfishing are also important for the Reef’s health but will be pointless if global warming continues.

The Serpent’s Tale

‘This is a story about water and thus life.’

‘In our law, rivers must have a right to life. And their contribution to all other life must be protected and respected.’

‘Water is very important. It is alive. It keeps people alive.’

A few weeks ago I wrote about the relationship between humans and nature, about the need for humanity to move away from seeing nature as existing simply for us to exploit and towards an indigenous perspective that recognises that nature has its own existential value and rights; a relationship not of separateness, duality and human dominance and exploitation but of humans being one part of nature and having a reciprocating relationship with it.

The Serpent’s Tale is a 25 minute video containing archival and contemporary footage that tells the Aboriginal story of the Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) in Western Australia and the relationship between the Traditional Owners and the Country around Martuwarra.

Global daily average temperature hits a new record

The worldwide average temperature reached 18^oC on Monday, July 3^rd, fractionally higher than the previous high of 16.9^oC set in 2016. To demonstrate the new record was no fluke, however, on Tuesday the average temperature hit 17.18^oC.

Did you feel Earth wobble too?

Rising sea levels are one of the well-recognised effects of global warming. This is attributed to two factors: water in the oceans expanding as it warms and the melting of mountain glaciers and polar ice sheets. A long-suspected third human-induced cause of sea level rise has now been confirmed – the draining of groundwater principally for irrigation but also for mining and drinking.

The relative contributions of the various causes of sea level rise over 20 years around the turn of the century are (approximately):

Melting of mountain glaciers             10 mm

Melting of the Greenland ice sheet    7mm

Melting of the Antarctic ice sheet      6mm

Draining of underground aquifers      6mm

Water stored in dams                          -4mm

An interesting consequence of this anthropogenic shifting of the location of frozen and liquid water around the world is that it moves the axis on which Earth spins. In fact, each element exerts its own effect, some pushing the northern axis of rotation to the east and some to the west, with an overall slightly westward drift.

Other factors not attributable to human activity – the oblate spheroid shape of Earth, the movement of the atmosphere and oceans and even the still rebounding of Earth’s surface after being compressed during the last Ice Age – also cause Earth’s rotational axis to move around and not always smoothly. It wobbles. I’ll remember that next time I drive into a lamppost, ‘But the Earth wobbled officer, didn’t you feel it too?’

New species of Parachute Gecko

Word of the week: crypsis: the ability an animal (or plant) to avoid observation by other animals.

86 species of geckos live in south and southeast Asia. The happy chappy below (forgive the

anthropomorphism) is Gekko mizoramensis. S/he lives in NE India and recent morphological and genetic studies have shown her/him to be distinct from Gekko lionotum, a similar looking lizard that lives in countries to the east. Gekko mizoramensis is a new species of Parachute Gecko – thirteen species of mainly nocturnal geckos with elaborate skin flaps that facilitate gliding and allow them to hide from predators (and scientists) by preventing a shadow being cast.

It’s great to know that these sorts of discoveries are still being made, although the philistines probably think it’s a waste of money funding the research that makes this happen.