Beyond the Brink

Got Beyond the Brink by Peter Andrews for Christmas.

Only done a quick skim and read the first two chapters.

One point I've already pick up and agree with is the amount of climate change that is human induced but not due to greenhouse gases. Deforestation, particularly where the amount of tree cover drops below 10% is having a large affect on the local and regional scale that few city people understand and many farmers underestimate.

I think a lot of the lose of rainfall in the Eastern coast and internal of Australia is due to over clearing at the farm and shire level. The most stable rainfall is inevitably east of areas that are protected for some reason or where the country was so 'poor' that agriculture never got established.


Gnoll110

Australia's move to draconian law

I'm in the process of reading Volumes I and II of Brad Lancaster's 'Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond'. Volume I is Guiding Principles and Volume II is Water-Harvesting Earthworks. The yet to be published Volume III will covers roof catchments and cistern systems.

There is a very timely comment in the Introduction to Volume I, I want to share. The last two pages of the Introduction, pages 20 and 21, is a FAQ. What follows is one of the questions and the first paragraph of Brad's response.

Are there rainwater-harvesting building codes.

Surface water laws vary around the country (Brad is based in Arizona), so it's wise to check in with local authorities. In my area folks can harvest all the water that falls directly on their site, but there are restriction on harvesting runoff within established waterways that pass through their site. Some arid countries have draconian laws prohibiting the harvesting of rainwater runoff generated on site. In such instances, harvest the rain before it becomes runoff.

Over the last 30 years, the laws in Australia have gone from reasonably fair to draconian. Up until about 1980 water was tied to land title, it management and use was integrated into the landholders management practices for each individual farm. Due to changes in technology (bigger pumped and earth moving gear), some law reform was needed in the 80s. The states governments used these reforms to not tweak, but to grabbed water and make it a tradeable profit centre for their budgets.


Gnoll110

Senator Wong: incompetent, uncaring or both

Watched '4 Corners' last week. Even though its been over 10 days since it screened, I still feel strongly enough to comment about it.

Basically it shows Senator Penny Wong (the Minister for Climate Change & Water?) in both an uncaring and incompetent light at the same time. That's a combination you don't often see together!

One of her statement basically summed up the feel of the story. In plan English, she effectively said, 'My job isn't to fix the Murray/Darling, it to buy water'. A telling comment. A typical pollies comment and it show a major and chronic source of political problems. The partial quiet fixed. Fix a problem to get by for now, but level a system with at least one fundamental flaw that will be lead to crisis somewhere in the future (hopefully more the 3 or 4 years in the future).


Gnoll110

Can Capitalism save the Rain forests?

Tonight, ABC’s Foreign Correspondent is showing a programs entitled 'Amazon Rainforest - Can Money Grow on Trees?'. Without see the program, I going to say yes.

Why? For me it’s a matter of first principles of economics and ecology. The very words themselves point to the way forward. Both are derived from the Greek ‘eco’ (oikos), meaning 'house'.

I will argue the economics is the ecology of human societies. Money is a token measure of energy and materiel. Ecology is a study of the measure and flows of energy and materiel in the wider biosphere. Classical economics is the study competition between individual and organisation. There is cooperation and other behaviors that are seen in ecology. Lots of strategies and tactics are displayed by organisms. Taking these and applying them to economics problems and situation should be the main source for developing viable global warning measures.

Gnoll110

DNC, Biden and The Oil Drum on Trains and Peak Oil

It Democratic Nation Convention time in the US at the moment. I'm going to pull a few thread together and point at some goodness that could follow.

The Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden is a well know rail champion. He could be a major factor in taking some major peak oil/global warming action in the US (if elected).

Last year I blog on what we should be doing in Queensland and Australia generally.

Last month, TheOilDrum a peak oil site, ran a great article about railway electrification in the US. Lots of debate and chatter persued, all good value :)

Here are wikipedia's notes on railway electrification (root page), and pages related to the UK and the US.

If Joe Biden does choose to pursue this and succeeds, it will likely be his greatest contribution to his country. It would be what he's remembered for, short of getting himself enpeached. So Joe, no late night expedition to the Republican Party Nation Headquarters!


Gnoll110

The Guerrilla Solar manifesto

Been reading Alternative Technology Association's (ATA) ReNew magazine. The current edition (#104, July-Sept 2008).

It has a great article entitle Guerrilla solar in the Aussie 'burbs. It's sub headed Installing grid-connect solar can be a frustrating process. Some people just give up and do it their own way, writes Avery 'Sonny' Daze and Jenny Rait.

It talks about putting a small system together. The dirty games that utilities play and getting a systems connected.

It ends this manifesto

The Guerrilla Solar manifesto

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all energy is freely and democratically provided by Nature, that utilities both public & private have no monopoly on the production and distribution of energy, that this century's monopolisation of energy by utilities threatens the health of our environment and the very life of our planet.
I. We, the Solar Guerrillas of this planet, therefore resolve to place energy made from sunshine, wind, and falling water on this planet's utility grids with or without permission from utilities or governments.
II. We resolve to share this energy with our neighbours without regard for financial compensation.
III. We further resolve that our renewable energy systems will be safe and will not harm utility workers, our neighbours, or our environment.
Signed: Solar Guerrillas of Planet Earth

What a great call to arms!


Gnoll110

Queensland floodwater and where it went

Back in January it rain in southern Queensland. Four days after this post it rain at home. The heaviest falls in a short period in over 30 years. 770 points (192.5mm) overnight followed by enough in storms & showers to get over 1000 points/10 inches (250mm) in four days. Can't believe I didn't post about this then!

Anyway, I got home for a week in May. Talked to my father about what happened to the water, between the grapevine & news/current affairs (ABC generally), we worked out it all went to two places.

A majority of it end up in irrigation (public & private) storages in the Western Division of NSW. Bleed out of the Darling River both legally and illegally.

What got past the mouth of the Darling at Wentworth disappeared by/at Lock 1. That happens to be the point where Adelaide draw its water.

Nothing got to the lower lakes, the crisis there continues! The first thing to do is to stop transferring water out of the basin. That mean Adelaide and Melbourne!


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Tale of Three Cities

Last week a bit of publicly funded propaganda arrived in my mail box.

The one thing struck me in the ‘Budget Highlights 2008-2009’ was that the ACT Labor government is fond of trees. Indeed is seems to be the only tool in their climate change toolbox.

Here are the climate change dot points by town area.

Belconnen:
Additional tree plantings – Lake Ginninderra.

Canberra Central:
$0.267 million for Tree Replacement Program – Inner South and Inner North.
$0.250 million for Additional Tree Plantings at Lake Burley Griffin.

Gungahlin:
Additional tree plantings at Gungahlin.

Tuggeranong:
Additional tree plantings at Lake Tuggeranong.

Woden, Weston Creek and Molonglo:
$10.6 million for One Million Trees Initiative – Canberra International Arboretum and Gardens.

I’ve always said that renewable energy programs are a far better investment, than the knee jerk ‘plant trees’ response, for building a sustainable climate future.

Given the twists and turns in the Tuggeranong Power Station project, maybe it’s time for another approach.

Canberra hosts the Australian Federal Parliament. Lets look at the city that hosts the mother parliament; London.

The last Lord Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, set in motion a plan to make the city far most sustainable. The new Lord Mayor has undertaken to continue this drive.

What was the first thing that London did, it poached the guy that had the most foresight and experience with this kind of infrastructure redevelopment. They made Allan Jones, the energy services manager for Woking, an offer he couldn’t refuse. Over the last 20 years, he has nudged and lead the development and integration of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems and other efficient decentralized developments into the infrastructure of the English city.

Stuff about Woking and London.

Woking is a city of 60,000, a good match for the basic units of Canberra’s development, the towns.

This work doesn’t come cheap. Anyone who says fixing climate change will cost a household $200 a years in extra costs is dreaming, deluded or a con man.


Gnoll110

Quarantine, the balls in your court.

There are plans to bring the dead human body into Australia, as part of World Youth Day 08.

The said body belongs to the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, an Italian Catholic activist, who died of polio at age 24, in 1925.

Have done searches at both Customs's & Quarantine's web sites and come up blank.

I want to know how is this cadaver being treated and handled. Is the cadaver being treated and sealed by Customs/Quarantine before is leaves for Australia. Where is it traveling to and how is it being held, while here.

I’m sure there is a camp that will simple say “It’s a blessed body, therefore there is no risk”. I’m afraid that not enough for me. God gave me a mind and I'm going to use it!

How can people in Australia’s farming, grazing, forestry and fisheries sectors, as well as the general public, be assured the nothing unwanted is being brought in during this visit?

Maybe we should cremate the cadaver. If it survives the flames, it’s blessed and they can bring it in. If not, then they can bring the ashes to World Youth Day instead.


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Cycle, it's all cycles!

We’ve all seen the Atmospherics CO2 graph for the last few decades. It’s an upward trending line with an annual fluctuation. The uptrend is largely the result of the burning of coal & petroleum over the last 250 years. The annual fluctuation is caused by the photosynthesis/respiration/decay cycle of vegetation, the bulk of which is in the northern hemisphere.

Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide

Ok, to stop the up trend, it pretty obvious what we need to do. Stop burn coal & petroleum! We need to shoehorn ourselves back into the annuals solar/geothermal energy budgets of the planet.

For some reason that’s beyond me, the knee jerk reaction seem to be to try to ‘freeze’ carbon out of the atmosphere using whatever mean is available. To shoehorn ourselves back into the annuals energy budgets of the planet we need to work with the carbom cycle, even accelerate it, not freeze within parts of it. This topic will be an assay in its own right, for the future. Stay tuned.


Gnoll110

1 billion less for the Murray/Darling?

I'm on Twitter, also as Gnoll110

Someone commented about the polish of Sen. Penny Wong, on the Lateline interview last night. I saw that and jotted down the figures and programs that the money was to be spent on. Here is my twitter updates.

Did you notice that Tony had to correct her on the total combined cost of all of the programs.

... and that she omitted stating the cost of one of the programs, thus you couldn't cross check the maths.

... I went back to the papers (the Age in March) to get the missing figure.

If you add them up, they come to $100 million more that the total figure Tony used. 'Rounding' error? 12.9 billion vs 13 billion.

Personally I'm a substance over style person.

If you count up what is specifically eartagged for the Murray/Darling, it comes to 9 Billion (1 b. less than the old 10 b.)

I'm not saying any of the extra money (1 b., the Victorian sweetener, or the new 2.9/3.0 b.) won't be spent in the Murray/Darling, just that the detail is missing. 1.5 billion is ear-tagged for desal, so that defiantly won't be spent in the basin.

Personal I'm of the option that water brought off farmers shouldn't be used outside the basin. If you've got a better use for the water, you should be setting up in the basin and using it here. If you don't, you're just transferring more wealth and economic activity to the big state capitals. Repeating the mistakes of the last 200 years.

Gnoll110

Carbon & its history

You didn't realise how basic peoples understanding of a well known problem can be at times.

Yes, not all carbon was created equal. History counts!

Here is part of a thread on the subject.

My initial post, part of a wider thread.

> One issue is how much GH gases you release, but more important is where the carbon (including embody energy) came from in the first place. Is a fire better that an electric light? Would the depend of if the electricity is solar or gas or oil or coal fired. Is the fire a wood fire or brickettes?
>
> I always ask, "where was that energy a year ago, 10 years ago, a hundred years and a thousand years ago?" Ultimately you're going to end up in one of four places. The sun, heat in the crust or below, the moon (tidal) or in a since mined crust deposit (I use this wording to cover exhaustible fossil fuels & radioactives).
>
> I'll leave you to work out witch 3 are exceptable and witch one isn't!

The initial response.

Hi there I'm still a newbie with lots to learn. So correct me if I am wrong you are saying condensed burning a 10 year old tree is more acceptable than condensed burning a 10 million year old tree and of the same ammount ?

I think the question was is the release greater at the power station than if every household was burning ?. There is simply no space on standard household blocks to have a huge array to produce their own solar energy to meet the same loads, that would also be the argument that appliances not just lights are just as inefficient as current solar technology :)

My reply, on why I think carbon is not all equal. History (source) counts.

The carbon in the tree is carbon that is in the carbon cycle. It moves through different parts of the biosphere over time. Moving between plants, animals, the atmosphere, the oceans and soils. Each of these five can be though of as a 'pool'. This carbon is constantly on the move. Part of the ongoing cycle of the biosphere and life. This carbon has fuelled human societies since we could rub two sticks together and this movement is generally fuelled by the sun.

Fossil carbon has been out of the above pools for ten if not hundreds of millions of years. When you burn fossil fuel you’re releasing 'new' carbon on the biosphere, and it usually ends up in the atmospheric or oceanic pools.

So when you burn carbon to make light (or movement or heat etc), it’s the history of that carbon that is important.

When it comes to removing carbon, it don't matter which carbon you remove.

How we farm, graze, forest and fish is important, but to a lesser degree. These processes determine how carbon is distributed between the five 'pools'. We need to move carbon to the plants, animals and the soils 'pools' from the atmospheric and oceanic 'pools'. The atmosphere and the oceans are so closely coupled in some ways they are just one 'pool'.

When I use the term solar, I'm referring to all sun powered systems, photovoltaic, thermal (dish & rheostat systems), biomass, wind and waves. Remember waves are driven by the wind. Wind in turn is driven by differential heating of the earth by the sun. You’re right, photovoltaic are still so poor on a system lifetime basis, that they are still effectively at the research & prototype stage. We got to start somewhere. Edison is said to have tested 10,000 configurations to get an appreciable one.

The reply about my thoughts

Thanks knoll. I never saw it that way, but oil has been referred to as

ancient sun energy or something like that. I would see it worse off
though if everyone started mass polluting from their homes don't you
think ? Thats why incinerators were banned, wasn't it. If incinerators

were banned that is a double standard for the industries then heh :)

Sorry i send this offlist so I don't bore the list with my ranting so
people don't get the wrong idea of me as i'm new :\

My second reply. Here I try to tease carbon out of other pollution issues. This case local ones.

Yep, oil has been referred to as ancient sun energy (coal too), the operative word is ancient. What this means is that the carbon is not in one of the biospheric carbon ‘pools’, but is in the geologic carbon ‘pool’.

There is normally very little movement between the biospheric carbon ‘pools’ and the geologic carbon ‘pool’. Some oil tars seeps to the surface here, some dead vegetation and animals sink to the bottom of a swamp, lake or sea and is buried there. The last 250 years ain’t normal.

The bans on incinerators, leaf burning etc are spot bans to stop local pollution hot spots. As with any activity, there are likely to be GH effects. There are two ways to look at leaf burning. You’re just releasing back to the air, carbon that was taken out last spring & summer. The other was is that you’re diverting carbon. You’re releasing carbon back to the air via near instant combustion instead of via slow decay, absorption into plants etc. You’re changing the distribution between the ‘pools’, at least in the short term.

I posted the comment, hoping they help people understand the cycle of life (particularly carbon) better.


Gnoll110

Rammed earth.

During the month I got hold of The Rammed Earth House by David Easton. Been a great read.

It shows the range of difference even in a single building method. It's got example for the US, Australia and other place. Also been reading able Chinese methods too. More on that later.

Gnolls 2020 Summit dream team

On Sunday the new PM Kevin Rudd, the Kruddster, announced plans for the 2020 summit on the weekend of the 19 & 20 April.

The summit will deal with 10 critical areas:

1. Future directions for the Australian economy – including education, skills, training, science and innovation as part of the nation’s productivity agenda
   
2. Economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities
   
3. Population, sustainability, climate change, and water
   
4. Future directions for rural industries and rural communities
   
5. A long-term national health strategy – including the challenges of preventative health, workforce planning and the ageing population
   
6. Strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion
   
7. Options for the future of indigenous Australia
   
8. Towards a creative Australia: the future of the arts, film and design
   
9. The future of Australian governance: renewed democracy, more open government (including the role of the media), the structure of the Federation and the rights and responsibilities of citizens
   
10. Australia’s future security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world.
    

The summits has the following objectives:

• To harness the best ideas across the nation
  
• To apply those ideas to the 10 core challenges that the Government has identified for Australia – to secure our long-term future through to 2020
  
• To provide a forum for free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined right or wrong answers
  
• For each of the Summit’s 10 areas to produce following the Summit options for consideration by government
  
• For the Government to produce a public response to these options papers by the end of 2008 with a view to shaping the nation’s long-term direction from 2009 and beyond.
  

Over the last day I've come up with the following names. Initially I was going to pull one or two names for each area. But I found many being included in two or three areas. I also had a few generalists too.

A few names that came to mind are either recently deceased or internationals who have returned home.

Anyway here is my list.

• Mike Cannon-Brookes (Co-founder and CEO of Atlassian)
  
• Stephen Collins (Government 2.0, social networking)
  
• Reverend Tim Costello (CEO of World Vision Australia)
  
• Harry Evans (Clerk of the Senate)
  
• Frank Fenner (Scientist)
  
• Ross Gittins (Political and economic journalist and author)
  
• David Holmgren (Permaculture co-originator)
  
• Father Bob Maguire (Co-founded Open Family)
  
• Joel Malcolm (Aquaponics originator)
  
• Warwick McKibbin (Economist, RBA board member)
  
• Laurel Papworth (Social Networks Strategist, Lecturer at University of Sydney)
  
• Mark Pesce (Inventor)
  
• Andrew Peters (Natural Sequence Farming originator)
  
• Cameron Reilly (CEO of The Podcast Network)
  
• Rory Robertson (Economist, Interest rate strategist at Macquarie Bank)
  

I'll be adding more manes as they come to mind.

Here are two places worth keeping an eye on.
2020Summit.org
bloggerati

I would love to go, but I'm too much of a generalist. Not outstanding in any one area.

Lets get this show on the road!


Gnoll110

Gnolls 2020 Summit dream team

On Sunday the new PM Kevin Rudd, the Kruddster, announced plans for the 2020 summit on the weekend of the 19 & 20 April.

The summit will deal with 10 critical areas:

1. Future directions for the Australian economy – including education, skills, training, science and innovation as part of the nation’s productivity agenda
   
2. Economic infrastructure, the digital economy and the future of our cities
   
3. Population, sustainability, climate change, and water
   
4. Future directions for rural industries and rural communities
   
5. A long-term national health strategy – including the challenges of preventative health, workforce planning and the ageing population
   
6. Strengthening communities, supporting families and social inclusion
   
7. Options for the future of indigenous Australia
   
8. Towards a creative Australia: the future of the arts, film and design
   
9. The future of Australian governance: renewed democracy, more open government (including the role of the media), the structure of the Federation and the rights and responsibilities of citizens
   
10. Australia’s future security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world.
    

The summits has the following objectives:

• To harness the best ideas across the nation
  
• To apply those ideas to the 10 core challenges that the Government has identified for Australia – to secure our long-term future through to 2020
  
• To provide a forum for free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined right or wrong answers
  
• For each of the Summit’s 10 areas to produce following the Summit options for consideration by government
  
• For the Government to produce a public response to these options papers by the end of 2008 with a view to shaping the nation’s long-term direction from 2009 and beyond.
  

Over the last day I've come up with the following names. Initially I was going to pull one or two names for each area. But I found many being included in two or three areas. I also had a few generalists too.

A few names that came to mind are either recently deceased or internationals who have returned home.

Anyway here is my list.

• Mike Cannon-Brookes (Co-founder and CEO of Atlassian)
  
• Reverend Tim Costello (CEO of World Vision Australia)
  
• Harry Evans (Clerk of the Senate)
  
• Frank Fenner (Scientist)
  
• Ross Gittins (Political and economic journalist and author)
  
• David Holmgren (Permaculture co-originator)
  
• Father Bob Maguire (Co-founded Open Family)
  
• Joel Malcolm (Aquaponics originator)
  
• Warwick McKibbin (Economist, RBA board member)
  
• Laurel Papworth (Social Networks Strategist, Lecturer at University of Sydney)
  
• Mark Pesce (Inventor)
  
• Andrew Peters (Natural Sequence Farming originator)
  
• Cameron Reilly (CEO of The Podcast Network)
  
• Rory Robertson (Economist, Interest rate strategist at Macquarie Bank)
  

I'll be adding more manes as they come to mind.

Here are two places worth keeping an eye on.
2020Summit.org
bloggerati

Lets get this show on the road!


Gnoll110

Queensland floodwater and where will it go?

Over the last month or so, there been good to flooding rainfall over the Queensland catchments of the Murray Darling Basin.

There has been flooding rains in the upper catchments of Condamine/Balonne and more recently in the catchments of the Warrego and Paroo Rivers.

It will be interesting to trace these waters once they get into the Darling. Just how much will make it to the Darling’s month near Wentworth and finally to the Murray’s mouth.

There was one ecologist on ABC Radio this morning, he thinks very little will make it to the Darling’s mouth. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. What is also important is have long it takes. Fast is bad, it shows how much the system has degraded. It use to take anything up to 12 months. I’m expecting 2 months!


Gnoll110