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.


Gnoll110

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

Farming is gardening

Who said farming isn’t gardening

Farming is a lifestyle. Take Christmas day. Father, brother-in-law and I spent about an hour pulling a new weed.

This one is called Despina(sp?) Pea. It’s a short thing, 3 to 4 feet. Well I’m not sure how tall it gets, isn’t that the aim of weeding. You don’t get to see how tall it gets or what colour its flower is.

First time I saw it was last summer, my bother and I pull one patch (unrelated to this years patches).

As an invader, where did it come from? We think its seed was in some hay, brought onto the place as drought feed, 12 to 24 months ago. Given its spread and amount, it must have only been in one load of hay.

It’s also been spread a bit from one of our stock feeding spots. We’ve been cleaning up some re-growth, before the election. This appears to have spread some seed too.

We’ll either get it all or we won’t. If we don’t, we’ll keep hand pulling the stuff until it’s to big a job. Then we’ll move onto other strategies. Hand pulling will put this of for years. That’s good economically and ecologically.


Gnoll110

New Governement

Was an election here last weekend.

Change of government, after a 'me too' election campaign. Both sides trying to look like to other in areas where it thinks it is weaker!

Three things happened this week:

At the start of the week, two states announced they plan to let their genetically modified (GM) release moratoriums lapse early next year. Other states are reconsidering. Two have said the are opposed to any releases. No comments from the fed Labor. Soon get to see if Monsanto etal has them in their pockets too.

The 'Agriculture' and 'Forestry and Fisheries' are to be combined under on minister.

Due to a poor performace of the shadow minister, 'environment, water & chimate change' are being split. Peter Garrett (of Midnight Oil's fame) keep environmanet.

The week that was.


Gnoll110

Global Warming: the biggest event of the year?

From a Global warming prospective, I think the biggest event of the year has just occurred.

What is it, you may ask. The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Why do I think this?

Basically, the two lynch pins on turning Global warning around is China & India. There are other important players, like Russia, US, Australia, Canada, Brazil etc. But China & India are special. They are both huge emerging economies and members of the ‘Big Five’ coal nations.

The worst didn’t happen. The worst is that the ‘economics development at any cost’ faction could have gain complete ascendancy. There are socially conscience (anti-poverty) and environmental conscience factions that still hold some power in terms of numbers & positions held.

Basically I think emission global, can only start to decrease once BOTH Chinese and Indian governments think the likelihood of civil unrest & revolt caused climate chance are more likely than civil unrest & revolt caused by economic instability & poverty. Everyone else’s decreases in emissions will just be eaten up by China & India until this happens!


Gnoll110

Permaculture: Lessons from the New England

On Sunday, 23 September 2007, ABC's Landline aired an report titled "Wool industry spreading tree message". The reporter was Pip Courtney.

The New England region of Australia has suffered some wear and tear over the last 150 or so years. This came to a head in the 1980s, with the death of large numbers of mature trees.

Research into the problem has shown that the cause of the problem was an environmental imbalance. Boosted pasture productivity lead to increased insect loads. Some of these species also used and eat tree foliage. Basically, these insect demands overwhelmed the surviving trees, killing them.

The show covered five operations from an in-detail survey of 10 leading landcare leaders from the New England.

The one the interested me the most was ‘Luna’. It’s using a cell grazing system. This system in the result of antidotal observation and research in the grazing impact of the migratory savanna herds of Africa. Basically, heavy graving for short period appeared to be a stable productive grazing pattern. The result is ‘cell grazing’.

Here is the relevant section of the transcript. There are also link to streaming video resources.

TIM WRIGHT, 'LANA', URALLA, NSW: We're sort of realising that it's important to look after the whole. You know, we have more to manage than just pastures and sheep or cattle. You know, there's everything we've got to start to think about.

PIP COURTNEY: The first thing he changed were the fence lines.

TIM WRIGHT: Well, we started in 1990 and we had about 35, 40 paddocks, which was probably a fair few paddocks for that year. And now, 17 years on, we have approximately 270 paddocks.

PIP COURTNEY: Each paddock is grazed lightly four times a year.

TIM WRIGHT: So, that works out roughly eight to 10 days of a year or 95 per cent of the year a paddock is rested, which might sound pretty amazing, but we've increased our carrying capacity, the cost of production has gone down, the soil is in much better shape.

Sadly, there were no figures for the kinds of productivity change that had been produced for this site, over the years.

Cell grazing looks very like tractor grazing of chickens and pigs in permaculture.


Gnoll110

technorati tags:
permaculture chicken+tractor cell+grazing new+england landline

Sustainable House Day

Sustainable House Day is on the 9th Sept, 2007. That’s this weekend.

House locations are on the site, grouped by state.

This Ainslie house look very interesting. The TV grab says it’s water independent and grid connected. It aims to be energy positive in the summer and have some energy drawdown in the winter.

In Canberra, the open houses are on Sunday. On Saturday, there will be open days at several schools and an office building.

Gong to go to a few, armed with a camera.


Gnoll110

Technorati tags:
global+warming peak+oil water energy carbon building+design permaculture global warming global warming

Permaculture: Doing things with feeling

Been reading the current edition of E. F. Schumacher’s 1973 classic “Small Is Beautiful”.

In chapter 3, “Resources for Industry”, I’ve just found the provoking paragraph.

It is fashionable today to assume that any figures about the future are better than none. To produce figures about the unknown, the current method is to make a guess about something or other – called an “assumption” – and to derive an estimate from it by subtle calculation. The estimate is the presented as the result of scientific reasoning, something far superior to mere guesswork. This is a pernicious practice which can only lead to the most colossal planning errors, because it offers a bogus answer where, in fact, an entrepreneurial judgement is required.

I think this is the beat argument I ever seen for doing things with/by feeling and being entrepreneurial.

It’s interesting to read a pre global warning environmental book. One of the core factors in the current debate just isn’t there. Yet the core logic and directing is as current today as it was then, during the first oil shock.

Well worth the read.


Gnoll110

schumacher small+is+beautiful entrepreneurial peak+oil carbon energy enviroment permaculture

Carbon: is Algae a solution?

Yesterday, there was a post on the treehugger site.

Its title is ‘Seambiotic: Algae That Clean Up and Put Out’.

The company has built a prototype algae farm consisting of eight shallow algae pools, filled with the same seawater used to cool the coal-burning power plant.

I think this is the core statement of the article. It’s a great concept. In deed, it’s very close to how the biosphere disposes of carbon, via the death of phytoplankton as the Oceanic conveyor plunges down to the abyssal plain in the North Atlantic.

But it not a solution to carbon from coal fired power stations. We are still burning fossil carbon and releasing it into the carbon cycle.

When running the ruler over any solution, my rule of thumb is ‘follow the carbon’!


Gnoll110

Technorati tags:
global+warming algae coal+fired carbon+cycle treehugger

Peak Oil: Wheat prices & media spin

This just can through my news aggregator from Energy Bulletin.

BBC News
Wheat prices have hit record highs on global commodity markets, bringing the threat of rising bread prices.

Bad weather in key grain growing areas such as Canada and parts of Europe has limited supplies as demand has risen, sparking fears of a supply shortfall.

Surging prices are also expected to have widespread fallout for consumers.

While it will mean higher bread prices, it could also trigger an increase in meat and dairy prices as farmers battle to pass on rising feed costs.

Global wheat stockpiles will slip to their lowest levels in 26 years as a result, official US figures predicted earlier this month.
(24 Aug 2007)

It’s spin. In money terms this may be true, and it’s headline grabbing. But is it really true. In terms of hours at medium wage rates, how long would it take to buy a tonne of wheat? How much gold would it take to buy a tonne? Any measure got to be better than fiat paper money!

There are all kinds of rules of thumb. Some measures can be personal, measured in relation to your own experience. I’ve heard of one farmer who uses house prices as a measure. He built a home (average 3 bedroom at the time) in the 60’s and he uses the amount of wheat he would have to grow to build an average 3 bedroom home as his measure. He thinks wheat is about a quarter of the price it was 45 years ago.


Gnoll110

Technorati tags:
global+warming peak+oil wheat media+spin

Trains and peak oil

A few weeks ago, at the start of the Difference of Opinion program titled 'Are We Running On Empty?', one of the panelist Professor Peter Newman commented about rural rail line closures.

Here is the whole transcript

PROFESSOR PETER NEWMAN:

…But we are still building suburbs as though cheap oil is going to be around for the next 50 years. We're still - we're about to close down the wheat lines, the rail lines that go out to our wheat-belt areas, as though trucking will be able to use fuel that's as cheap as it was in the last 50 years. These stupid things have got to stop. We have to face up to a future that is much more constrained. It's not going to run out, right, but it will be seriously more expensive and we're not all going to be able to have access to it. A lot of poorer people will really suffer.

My family have always tried to use rail first. It safer. Less people die in rail related accidents the road accidents. The big trucks used to carry wheat are dangerous and they damage the roads far more that cars.

These line closures are an ongoing process. At home they have been fighting a local closure since the Goss labor government.

Labor just don’t seem to understand that the last section of a rail line will generate the least money. That the freight carried will generate usage and money for all sections of line between there and its destination (usually Brisbane). The removal of a tributary means less flow at the mouth of a river.

So with peak oil and global warming, I think we need to go a step further. Once you decide to not close a line, you should be thinking of electofication. Current most country trains still use fossil fuels (diesel). We are still omitting new fossil carbon into the carbon cycle. With electricity, currently, you would still be powering trains with fossil fuels, either coal or petroleum gas. But, electricity is an energy transportation system, not an energy generation system. You can always convert the ultimate power sources over to alternative energy sources on an incremental basis.

An electrified rail system can ultimately be turned into a non fossil carbon emitting system!


Gnoll110

Technorati tags:
train rural+rail line+closure peak+oil alternative+energy difference+of+opinion are+we+running+on+empty peter+newman

Kevin07: is there a bullet out there?

Logging on check mail today, I noticed in a splash headline that Kevin Rudd has a new web site.

It’s called Kevin07. But what does it mean? Cult of personality?

Are we going the American style over substance route? Look like it to me.

So if we are going to follow the American Presidential style of campaigning in future. Will style over substance lead to a frustrated someone introducing another American political tradition, the Presidential Assassination? (I know, RFK was only his parties nomination at the time, for me that is effectively the same, the assassination was a political act)

Is there an Australian Lee Harvey Oswald or Sirhan Sirhan out there?


Gnoll110

Technorati tags:
election+2007 kevin+rudd labor alp presidential+assassination australia+assassination

Rammed Earth: Albury

More about the Melbourne trip (21&22 July).

Drove back from Melbourne on the Sunday afternoon.

Stopped in at Albury to check out the rammed earth building at a Thurgoona campus of the Charles Sturt University and a local church.

The C D Blake Lecture Theatre is pictured in Sticks Stones Mud Homes: Natural Living by Nigel Noyes. This is how I knew these buildings existed. A bit of googling with ‘Thurgoona’ and ‘rammed earth’ also brought the church to light.

The Lecture Theatre building also has an earth roof over the theatre end.

Arrived at the site only expecting the one rammed earth building. Was delighted to find that most of the other buildings on site where also rammed earth.

Do to lack of planning on my part; I had no replacement for the almost flat battery in my camera. So no rammed earth pics.


Gnoll110