Tag: Royal Society

You can’t always get what you want

The Awa Book of New Zealand ScienceHot Topic didn’t win the Royal Society of New Zealand’s first Science Book Prize: the cheque went to Rebecca Priestley, who compiled and edited The Awa Book of New Zealand Science — a very worthy winner. I had a glass of wine with Rebecca before the event, and we were both picking other books to win. We were both wrong… The judges said some very nice things about HT, which I’ll stick up in the sidebar when I can remember what they were, but the real honour was in being shortlisted.

Apart from the excitement of the presentation, the evening’s highlight was an amiable Sean Plunket pressing Richard Dawkins on which religion he’d choose if his life absolutely depended on it. After no more than moment’s thought Dawkins revealed himself to be a Pastafarian: a devotee of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The author of The God Delusion prefers a delusional god…

[Update 18/5: Kathyrn Ryan interviewed Rebecca Priestley on Nine To Noon this morning: audio here.]

[Stones (not obscure at all, StephenR)]

What’s a few tears to the ocean?

coccolith.jpgNew Zealand could be amongst the first places in the world to feel the effects of ocean acidification, according to a new “emerging issues” paper released today by the Royal Society of New Zealand. Surrounded by cold oceans which absorb CO2 faster than warm waters, and with a $300 million shellfish industry based on mussels, oysters, scallops and paua, NZ is vulnerable to disruptions in the carbonate chemistry used by these animals to build their shells, but the risks cannot be quantified at present.

At a briefing to launch the paper, Professor Keith Hunter of the University of Otago pointed to recent work which suggests that for creatures that build their skeletons from a form of calcium carbonate called aragonite, the Southern Ocean could be reaching a critical point as early as the 2030s, as this slide shows:

OAcidRS1.jpg

The magic number is 450 ppm: at that point low pH waters in winter could begin to make it difficult for creatures to build aragonite skeletons or shells. How this might cascade through marine ecosystems is unknown, because the impact on different species can vary through their lifecycle and by season. Some species are also known to be able to adapt. Sydney rock oysters, for example, have been bred to withstand more acid conditions, but it’s not known whether this sort of work would be possible with mussels and other shellfish.

Work on ocean acidification is beginning to provide a valuable and independent line of evidence supporting the need to shoot for stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 at low levels. It may also point to problems with emissions trajectories that are allowed to “overshoot” the desired target: if oceanic CO2 uptake does produce a biologically critical response, exceeding that point might be very bad news for oceanic ecosystems.

The new Royal Society paper gives a very useful overview of what we currently know about ocean acidification and its potential to impact New Zealand ecosystems and marine farming operations. The RS is also organising a workshop in September to discuss the issue.

[Dimmer]

Hot Topic shortlisted for Royal Society of NZ science book prize

I am very pleased(*) to report that Hot Topic has been shortlisted as one of five finalists for the first Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize. The competition’s stiff. HT is up against four extremely good books: The Awa Book of New Zealand Science, edited by Rebecca Priestley (Awa Press), Falling for Science, by Bernard Beckett (Longacre Press), In Search of Ancient New Zealand, by Hamish Campbell and Gerard Hutching (Penguin), and Wetlands of New Zealand: A Bitter-sweet Story by Janet Hunt (Random House). More details here. It’s a great honour to be shortlisted, and not just because the prize is worth $10,000… The winner will be announced by Richard Dawkins (via a video link) on May 15th in a special event at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival. I wonder if I’ll have the chance to draw his attention to the error about truffles in The Ancestors Tale… 😉

[* – Something of an understatement.]

Coppiced willow farming here

This column appeared in the Waikato Times in August 2008.  I have altered some of the wording to update it for this Hot Topic post.

The change to renewable energy sources can seem daunting. Those with stakes in fossil fuels are often negative, claiming change will be too expensive, too difficult, or not yet necessary. Cries of economic doom have greeted even the modest emissions trading scheme which may or may not be carried forward by the new government.

It was encouraging therefore to read a few months ago of the plans of renewable energy company Pure Power to launch a variety of shrubby willow as a biofuel crop in New Zealand. Biofuels which use food crops or destroy rainforests have had a justifiably bad press. But not all biofuel crops are equal. Coppiced woody plants like the willow Pure Power plans to use have a very good ratio of energy output to the energy put into converting them; they can be grown on poorer soils not used for food production; they require little fertiliser or irrigation; using new technologies they will produce not only biofuel but also a range of products for making paints, resins, adhesives and bioplastics.  Pure Power will have nursery stock ready for planting this year and hopes for a rapid expansion of planting in subsequent years.

Continue reading “Coppiced willow farming here”

When Gray turns to blue/Flung a dummy

gray.jpg In a dramatic announcement today, Vincent R Gray, the retired coal researcher and diligent proof-reader of IPPC Working Group Reports (he’s inordinately proud of the fact that he submitted over 1,800 comments to the fourth report) has resigned from the Royal Society of New Zealand because of its recent statement on climate change. Given that Gray has been criticising the IPCC view of climate science for 18 years and is a vocal member of the NZ C”S”C, this is perhaps no surprise, but the statement he has issued as a riposte to the Royal Society is a minor classic of its genre. Vincent doesn’t so much spit the dummy as hurl it into low earth orbit, and uses pretty forthright language as he does so.

[Hat tip: Sam Vilain in a recent comment]

Continue reading “When Gray turns to blue/Flung a dummy”