Bruce

I'm in such a safe labor seat that the vote is a formality. So I'm going to use my vote to try and stop this hopeless but hard-done-by independent candidate ( a brickie no less) from losing his deposit. Last state election I voted for the Sustainable Australia lot and they got 1.4% of the vote. But they may get into the senate this time. If I were a betting man, I would bet a bottle of red on Labor winning. Shorten has run better than Morrison and surely that apocalyptic picture of the Mildura duststorm would influence some climate-change doubters.

Getting back to water, I reckon that denying upstream irrigators water so that the lower lakes in SA can lose it all in evaporation is awful. And yes its a political question... the greens act as if this is saving the planet somehow.

They are supposed to be working towards an energy rating, but I think the system is too corrupt to do it properly. Our shed-house at the farm has a better energy performance than most new houses, with both foil and thick insulation, with the joints taped. Concrete floor.If I had my time again, I would use double glazing too. This house would probably fail an energy rating while worse ones would pass. It wouldn't be too hard to do a low-voltage dc airconditioner and fridge like space says. I think though that he is over-estimating the market. Most people are too dumb to see the advantages. There were ( maybe still are ) govt contractors in Darwin who visit those who have trouble paying their power bills, to explain things like how leaving your aircond on all day while you are at work is an expensive thing to do.

Alice Springs just loves Pine Gap for the money it brings in. Some years ago, the town was in a funk because a new building in Washington was going to replace Pine Gap, using satellite to satellite relaying. Luckily for Alice Springs, the idea that satellite-killing missiles might render this a bad idea won the day and so Pine Gap is still there.

There is a movement dedicated to making things more repairable and longer-lasting. Personally, I get taken by surprise when I find that there are no parts for my relatively recent thing that just needs a bit of fixing. If we are going to save the planet, we need to do better than the throwaway society.

Yep Nev, last week I did a ferry flight to Gympie from Gawler and the country looked terrible and empty until you got to the Great Divide, where it changed to be green and crowded. There are millions in the greater Brisbane area. You are probably right about the poor economics of pumping water westwards over the Great Divide too, but I would much rather see my taxpayer dollars spent on such schemes, using solar-powered pumps of course, than on submarines and similar stuff.

OME, while I agree about turning those rivers around, I don't think that will be enough. Australia is so short of phosphorous ( to name just one thing ) that our present population is completely unsustainable. Of course, most people are completely unaware of this and if you pressed them, they would say that scientists will pluck it from the air one day. You could try , perhaps on some place like Kangaroo Island, to prove me wrong, good luck! And I haven't even mentioned climate change... I sure feel sorry for the remote aborigines who one existed sustainably here... they no longer do. But their pre-whitefeller standard of living gives us a clue about what is possible without imports. PS. The aborigines on Kangaroo Island died out thousands of years ago... the place is deficient in selenium, a fact which took whitefeller scientists many years to find out.

I agree Labor has damaged itself with its immigration policy. As with the greens, how can you possibly claim to care for the planet if you don't even begin to try to limit population? I thought Bob Brown was ok until he said that "people don't cause pollution". The only respectable lot to want to limit population is the Sustainable Australia party. Mind you, the need to limit population is only beginning to occur to some voters... most still think that "Advance Australia Fair" means taking in lots of immigrants and assuming that scientists will find some was of feeding them in the future. Actually, they don't get as far as assuming anything about anything.. it is all done with no thought at all.

Yep, we tend to think of the average income as what the average joe gets. But mathematically, if you have 10 people and 9 get nothing and the tenth gets a million, then the average income is $100,000.

I hope you are right Octave. If every nation on the planet used its current military expenditure for a few years, there would be ample resources to remove the excess carbon from the atmosphere and just maybe do something about the methane. Dick Smith says that only under 30's should be given a vote on climate change actions, and I reckon this is a good idea. And Space, if the gulf stream sinks, Europe will be in big strife for sure. If there is 6 degrees of global warming , any ice age will be short-lived.

There is an American professor who reckons Methusela's tipping point has already been passed. He says that 6 degrees of warming is already unavoidable and people will go extinct in ten years. He says it is too late to stop it and agrees that it is not fair on the kids. The mechanism is permafrost methane release. He says that this has happened more than once before in geological time. Gosh I hope he is wrong and I reckon NASA thinks he is wrong too. They put the methane release at a much lower contribution to heating.

For some years now, I have been looking for a climate change denier to take me up on the following bet: For every day COLDER than the long term average, I give $20 to him. For every day HOTTER than the long term average, he gives me $19. Yes, I am willing to take the risk of a hit, so sure am I that change is indeed occurring. We just need to agree on the place and the measuring setup. So, if there is no change, he will get $182.5 per year, since half the days will be colder and half hotter. Alas there turn out to be no deniers prepared to put their money up. They tend to say things like " the climate always changes for mysterious reasons ".

There are actually flat earth people out there who say that the round earth "theory" is a giant conspiracy. As for climate change, to say that the glaciers are not receding is in the same category. You can see they are receding dramatically with your own eyes, by comparing their lengths with what they were years ago. Sure, you can find the odd one which has grown, change of wind patterns will increase snowfall in the odd case. Planetary average temperature for a dry planet is quite easy to calculate, and it certainly increases as the albedo gives more absorption and less reflection.

While being open to the argument about the total cost of nuclear power, I reckon that if Australia had a few hundred nuclear bombs with delivery via drones, we could dispense with most of our armed services and save billions. It was always my understanding that the non-proliferation treaty meant that the nuclear nations all agreed not to attack signatory countries and further, agreed to punish any country that did attack us. This understanding was never based on studying the treaty itself, only from an intiution at what would have to be in such a treaty in order to persuade countries like Australia into signing it.

This is a serious question. For years, I thought that non-nuclear armed countries were guaranteed the protection of the others, but now I wonder if this is true...

There is NOT a pill for everything. I asked for some young pills and was told there was no such thing. So I asked for some smart pills... same answer.

There is a great activity sometimes called horizontal folk dancing....

Lithium Ferrous from Hobbyking cost me $370 per kWh ( One hundred for an 8.4 amp-hour at 13.2 volts ). If the zinc-bromine come out at 100 dollars per kWh and they are good for a thousand cycles then I may buy some. The battery capital cost would be 10cents per kWh and the panels etc would add another 30 cents per kWh ( I guess ) making 40 cents which is what I pay now. But at present on the grid, I use now and pay later, which is better that paying up front. Gosh the lead-acid manufacturers will go out of business. They want $150 to $200 for a 20 amp-hour 12 volt car battery. ( $625 to $833 per kWh ). Feel free to disagree with my figures.

I like the rear-facing gun... what a good idea for tailgaters huh.

That may be because with soccer, the wrong team sometimes wins. The goal is so small that there is a big amount of luck in who wins. For years, I thought that this was because of stupidity, but then found it was deliberate. The supporters of poor teams sometimes get a win.

I reckon military stuff is the worst waste and if we could abolish it we could maybe save the planet. Sport is small in comparison. A big challenge is what to do with the unemployed, their mental health requires some occupation and sport would be a part of the solution. Not that anybody seems to care ... the chimps at Monarto Zoo have attention given to their mental health, but nothing for the unemployed people.

Space, no lithium battery can be charged with a vehicle charger. You need a special charger. And Lithium Ferrous ( LiFe) batteries need a different charger from Lithium Polymer ( LiPo). Get this wrong and you will ruin the battery. Model planes usually use LiPo batteries. they have 3.7 volts per cell and they can catch fire, as mine did. LiFe batteries are supposed to be made with no flammable ingredients, and they have 3.2 volts per cell. If a LiFe battery were shorted out, I bet it would make lots of fumes ( as would a lead-acid) but not catch fire. However a LiPo will catch fire under some circumstances. My son hung a LiPo on a fence and shot one , with the result that it went off like a firework, spurting flames out of the bullet-hole. LiPo batteries can also catch fire when on charge. So the moral is, don't use LiPo batteries in your plane. There are lots of Lithium Ion batteries around now. Power tools use them and yet it was these batteries which caused an incident on an airliner when they started smoking under the instrument panel. But you don't hear of Bunnings shops burning down and they don't seem to take special precautions with them.

If I had my way, we would be spending much less on the US wars and much more being part of their space stuff. Apparently the US space budget is about equal to Australia's military budget.

Yes Old K, there is more vulnerability with electric pressure-pumps keeping the water going. In Horsham a few years ago, a grass fire burned down some houses. The people could have defended the houses with their garden hoses, but the water went off along with the electricity.

Space, are you being careful with the maximum charge voltage? An old-type charger will dry batteries out because they don't stop charging when the battery is full, so they electrolyse the water and it disappears.