The climate change debate continues.

[spacesailor]

Don't expect too much of Drying Earth. when the Heat gets too high, water will evaporate at a greater rate.

THEN !,

The Heavens will open once more, for that Biblical Forty Days and forty nights.

That world's largest Canyon will have another torrent of water gushing through it .

THEN we Aussies can Dam it for our own use without asking the West Australian government for a Kimberly Dam !. LoL

spacesailor

[Marty_d]

A bit of good news, for once.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-12/largest-battery-in-australia-to-be-built-at-nsw-coal-fired-plant/13050642

[Bruce Tuncks]

An interesting thing on the arctic ice just came up. It may be that the arctic will be nearly ice-free in summer as soon as 2035. Plankton are growing and oil search licenses are being let for new areas.

What do climate-change deniers say about this I wonder.

[nomadpete]

Plankton is good.

[pmccarthy]

2 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

An interesting thing on the arctic ice just came up. It may be that the arctic will be nearly ice-free in summer as soon as 2035. Plankton are growing and oil search licenses are being let for new areas.

What do climate-change deniers say about this I wonder.

Twenty years ago they told us the Arctic would be ice free by 2020. There is plenty of evidence for less ice than today in historical times.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Quite right pmc. There are fossils of crocodiles there apparently. At that time, the CO2 was about 4 times what it is now. Life must have retreated to the arctic. 

I find this to be compelling evidence that CO2 and climate are related.

The CO2 resulted from thousands of years of volcanic activity.

[nomadpete]

There is no doubt that CO2 and climate have varied wildly over geological time scales. And livability for humans would have done the same over those millennia. Just because a crocodile could live or die in the Arctic way back then doesn't mean that humans could have survived at lower latitudes where our cities and farms are now.

 

Humans weren't on the planet for those eons. So humans were not rresponsible. But no human was there to endure it.

 

But now that humans are here, all over the planet, we will feel the effects of changing climate regardless of the reasons behind the change. The indicators are that climate is changing rapidly, for the worse. The indicators are that human activity is partly the cause. The effects of our polluting are cumulative.

 

So, even if our global contribution is incremental, (which I don't believe), we must take action to stop adding our bit which is tipping the climate scales towards making human habitation very unpleasant or maybe impossible. The indicators show that this may happen in very short geological time.

 

Ignoring the risk posed by climate change and pollution in general, does not stand up to a simple Risk Management Assessment.

Edited January 16, 2021 by nomadpete

[gareth lacey]

No one has mentioned the elephant in the room regards climate change,too many humans, we are the ones creating the problem by not addressing that problem,no government will say it,no climate advocates will say it, time to look at that ,stop producing to many babies in all countries especially overcrowded cities, we produce to much garbage ,we use  to repair stuff now we throw it away and buy more useless stuff, the amount of recycling that is happening is will never help the world from polluting, we just keep getting TOO MANY HUMANS for the planet to survive ,(if) the planet is overheating when it gets too hot for our species to survive that will be the tipping point for humans to die in droves , forget pandemics, they will be minor inconveniances compared to food and water diminishing to the point where humans will die from starvation, there will be a select few who will survive and it wont be the middle class or lower classes. 

[old man emu]

This is an open area beside my house. It is a manmade depression whose function is to regulate the drainage of floodwater from thunderstorms.  The arrows indicate openings in the underground storm water drainage system that allows banked up water to come out of the drains into the prepression. When that is not happening, it is an open area for recreation.

 

What annoys me is that the Council has not taken the opportunity to plant shade trees across the depression in order to make a shady recreation reserve that can be used for the majority of the time. The half ring of trees around the play equipment are deciduous, and do create a small shaded area. The trees you can see along the street to the left are Plane trees which make great shade in the summer, but a damned mess in autumn. 

[onetrack]

Any trees are good, the mess created by plane trees dropping their leaves is more than balanced out by their shade in Summer and CO2 ingestion.

 

The local councils here are going bananas with tree planting. Everywhere there's a gap, it's now got a tree - particularly street verges. 

 

I guess someone has finally woken up to the wholesale loss of greenery by constant development of suburbs with their tiny blocks and wall-to-wall housing.

 

Contact your council about planting some trees there, they may be amenable to the suggestion - and they rarely initiate useful additions to amenities without prodding.

[nomadpete]

Gareth, I totally agree with you about the plague of humans, and I've previously ranted about the overpopulation problem. Unfortunately the 'right' to breed is more sacred than any religion.

In Queensland, up until about 1980 it was illegal to perform vasectomies. In recent times here is a slight awareness that there are people who admit that they have decided to not breed but the media treat them as being somehow not normal. Within our society, childless couples are viewed as either sadly defective or alternatively as un naturally selfish. I think Dick Smith was the last person to publicly raise the question of "To what number should we limit our Australian population?"

And he was ridiculed for suggesting that endless growth might cause a problem down the track.

Edited January 17, 2021 by nomadpete
speling problems

[Bruce Tuncks]

I agree too.  How "infinite growth" is taken as sensible is beyond me. Good on Dick Smith, say I.

He was also ridiculed for saying that " Australia needed an affordable air-safety system". ( The only logical alternative being an unaffordable system)

I find it depressing that somebody should be in trouble for speaking plain scientific sense.

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Bruce Tuncks

[Yenn]

I hadn't realised that I was committing an offence to have a vasectomy in the seventies. I was talked into it by a doctor who ran birth control clinics and he was murdered by the righ to life people. I forget his name but he was very well known in Qld.

Don't worry about the over population problem, help is at hand in the form of Covid 19. The USA is going to be a lot less populous in the not too far distant future.

[onetrack]

Yenn, there has never been any murder of a doctor carrying out abortions in Australia. America, Yes - Australia, No.

 

The only anti-abortionist who has committed murder in Australia, is Peter Knight - and he murdered a security guard at an abortion clinic.

 

Anti-abortionists are some of the most warped fundamentalists around, and should be treated the same as Islamic domestic terrorism advocates.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Knight_(murderer)

[nomadpete]

Back in circa 1980 (some time way back in the last century), I thought I was doing something radical and illegal by taking control of my reproductive risks. I found a doctor prepared to carry out this illegal procedure in Brisbane. After the deed was done, I went back to work the next day. I was stunned to discover that many of my colleagues had already had the snip! To them, it was well known that there was a flight to Gladstone on Fridays that was often filled with men going to visit a certain doctor who did vasectomies!

Edited January 17, 2021 by nomadpete

[nomadpete]

I was just pointing out that we are moving forward.

 

Ever so slowly.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Gosh that was news to me about vasectomies and Qld. What an amazing backwards place it was.

Are there any other places where it is illegal to this day?

 

[octave]

When I read the post referring to the legality of vasectomies I thought it sounded like bollocks but a quick google shows that it was illegal,  I am astounded.

 

History of the vasectomy In Australia  , sterilisation of either males or females was considered illegal and immoral until the 1970s. Through the agitation of Dr Ian Edwards, a Sydney doctor in the 1970s, Humanist Societies in each Australian state gave ethical clearance to the procedure, as did the Australian Medical Association. Through practice, the procedure came to be regarded as legal in all Australian states except Queensland. Vasectomy rapidly gained popularity; some 27,000 procedures were performed in 1974.

[old man emu]

Old time patriarchy! It's OK to make women alter their hormonal balance with unknown long-term consequences, but a quick snip of the epididymis? No way!

[spacesailor]

I,  Me !

vasectomy , SHOULD BE ON THE PBS,

NOT taking dads, smoke booze or gambling money.

BUT

It is for the mother,s benifit, Not to have more children the she Should bear,

I didn,t ask my wife ( after four daughters ), I booked myself in & got it over with.

Lucky me, to have that spare money.

spacesailor

 

[Marty_d]

3 hours ago, octave said:

When I read the post referring to the legality of vasectomies I thought it sounded like bollocks...

Haha! Good one.

[Yenn]

I had my vasectomy before it was available in Gladstone, done in Rocky where the Gladstone Dr was learning what to do. Mine was done by the Rocky dr  but I had to go and see the Gladstone Dr Robin Graham I think from memory.

I feel sorry for anyone who went to Dr Graham, if she was a vet I wouldn't take a dieing cat to her.

Can't think of the well known Brisbane Dr who I thought was murdered, if I remember I will look him up on the internet.

He ran an abortion advice clinic when i met him late 1970.

[Marty_d]

Good news for ACT residents - free rego for 2 years and $15,000 interest free loan would certainly get me interested in an electric car.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-21/act-electric-vehicles-free-rego-solar-panel-loans-in-budget/13077258

[spacesailor]

Then after that two year gift ! 

DUMP IT

Then get a big V8  Muscle car, to put some Fun back in your life. LoL

spacesailor

Edited January 21, 2021 by spacesailor
spelling

[onetrack]

Only public servants living in that Canberra bubble of huge salaries for pushing pens, would be able to afford the eye-watering prices the manufacturers want for electric cars.

And they, of all people, are the ones least likely to be in need of subsidies.

There wouldn't be too many "lower-socio-economic group" people in Canberra - who are the ones who would be best served with a subsidy, because they usually drive polluting, worn-out, "old bombs".

 

We've currently got a 2011 ASV50 Camry Atara for the general city and country runabout. It's a great little chariot, drives a treat, and light on fuel.

But I know the electric revolution is on its way - however, I think it will be quite a while before full electric vehicles can compete with IC powered cars.

The Toyota Hybrids are looking good at present, I think a Hybrid RAV4 might be next on the cards, when it's time to shunt off the Camry.

As it's only done 70,000kms at present, I think it will be 3 or 4 yrs before we start looking at trading up.