About me, Dave Clarke, writer of the Ramblings of a Bush Philosopher

On this page Why do I write these pages? My background My greatest concern A fortunate life Elysium Environment and me CO2 production calculation CO2 abatement calculation Buying green electricity Influences My affiliations Books Revegetation The end Index   Since about 1985 I've been writing letters to the editors of local, state, and Australian national newspapers. A good percentage of the letters have been printed, so I suppose that means that the editors considered the letters to be of interest to the public. Perhaps had they not I would never have written these Internet pages. My family and me I am the one with the grey beard One of my hobbies is photography There are a huge number of subjects about which I know very little. I write about those few subjects of which I have some knowledge. These pages serve me as a reference, I often look back at things I've written to fill in some detail I had forgotten, or check on where the information came from. They have helped me, by allowing me to put thoughts into writing, decide what I believe to be right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable; and decide on 'my view of the world'. The fact that I rarely find that something I wrote years earlier does not suit my current knowledge and beliefs is interesting; this could mean that I make few mistakes, or is it more likely that it means I am old and fixed in my ideas? The structure of hypertext reference pages is ideal for filing ideas under headings and linking them together, allowing ready information retreval, and having it all on computer (and the Internet) makes searching easy, so that I check that I'm not writing the same thing twice too often. Why do I write these pages? Apart from the desire to order my thinking, as mentioned above, I want to at least attempt to do my little bit to change the world. "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw "If you think you are too small to make a difference, you've never been in a room with a mosquito." Annita Roddick You'd have to say that the above quotes were simplistic, but they are also basically true; that being the case, I, as an unreasonable man, attempt to do my little bit to produce progress toward a saner, more ethical world (or perhaps at least to slow the decline toward insanity and self-destruction). It seems that the world is run by madmen (in January 2010, when the stresses that Mankind is placing on this planet should be obvious to all, the leaders of the two dominant political parties in Australia have both said that they believe Australia needs substantially more people, and quickly. Perhaps it is more than coincidence that these two men are deeply religious.) My writing talents are ordinary, my intelligence likewise, my public speaking abilities nil; but if, by these pages, I can influence half a dozen people to give up superstition or try a bit harder to move the world away from its present race to environmental disaster, or even just to examine the world from a more rational or less selfish point of view, all the writing might have been worth-while. I feel I must try anyway. My background I was born in the mid 1940s near Adelaide in South Australia. For eight years after leaving school at age 15 I worked on the family dairy farm. The life of a dairy farmer is hard and the hours are long – I gave it up and got a job with the Adelaide Metropolitan Fire Brigade. After realising that working as a fireman suited me no better than did dairy farming I lived and worked in the bush in the mineral exploration industry for a while, finding that a year in the Australian bush living under canvas can be a great learning experience as well as very enjoyable. In this period I also did a seven week stint studying geology at a summer school in the University of Tasmania and travelled overseas for eight months, returning from Europe by the overland rout via Yugoslavia (as it was then), Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. The last thirty years of my 'working' life was in the hydrogeology (groundwater) field. I do not have tertiary (university) qualifications, but have written two books in Elsevier's Developments in Groundwater Science series: "Microcomputer Programs for Groundwater Studies" and "Groundwater Discharge Tests: Simulation and Analysis" Since 'retiring' most of my time is taken up with gardening and looking after native trees on the family property, Elysium; taking care of the family vineyard and olive orchard, removing feral trees and planting natives on public lands, reading, writing to newspapers and politicians, and writing this and other Internet sites. My greatest concern I believe that our civilization is quite unsustainable and is heading toward a catastrophic collapse due to climate change or by one or a combination of those unsustainability problems listed by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse and repeated here (I have added more to Diamonds list here). Such a collapse would probably include terrible wars, mass migrations, famines, and losses to our culture; at worst I can imagine a fall back to barbarism. Of course it is not only humanity that will suffer due to the errors of humanity; climate change will cause the extinction of many species; not, I suspect, including humanity. If our civilisation does collapse, and we sink into barbarism, then climbing back to a civilized state could be very arduous, because all the easily mined fuels and mineral resources will have gone – they have been mined out by our society. On the other hand, if our civilisation does not collapse, climate change will result in one of the greatest mass extinctions in palaentological history.

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A fortunate life

Elysium

The environment and me

Our solar photovoltaic panels and solar water heater at Crystal Brook

A small car with occasional use of a trailer will produce less CO2 than a big car. This Mazda 121 has only a 1300mL engine, can comfortably tow a trailer with a 500kg load, and as of April 2011 has done 194 000km and is still going strong. Quality is more important than quantity!

Revegetation we have done on one of many Crystal Brook roadsides

Some of the native eucalypt trees that we have planted on our property, 'Elysium'.

At Elysium our hot water comes from this solar panel in the warmer half of the year and from the wood-fuelled heater in the background when the sun is not shining; no fossil fuels needed.

More of the eucalypts that we have planted at Elysium. Self-sown leucoxylon in the foreground, behind those are camaldulensis, cladocalyx, and globulus; in the background are Pinus radiata that were on the property before we bought it.

Wattle Point wind farm on Yorke Peninsula. Wind power is not 'the answer' to greenhouse/climate change, it is 'a small part of the answer'. I do what I can to support wind power.

My efforts to become more environmentally responsible

• Trees
  Trees take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
  • Trees on roadsides With help from family and friends, I have planted trees on all available roadsides within several kilometres of my home. (Photo at right)
  • Woodlot I am planting trees on the family property, ' Elysium'
  • Controlling feral plants I have killed most of the feral pepper trees along the creek at Bowman Park and some other areas around Crystal Brook to allow native trees to recover.
• Cellar I had a cellar built at Elysium in July 2006. This used a large amount of concrete which is not environmentally friendly, but the energy savings in the long term, due to there being no need to heat or cool the cellar, will outweigh the initial environmental cost.
• Transport
  There are a number of things that can be done to minimise ones greenhouse impact.
  • Minimise car use I try to only use a car when there is no reasonable alternative and walk or ride a bicycle when I can.
  • Use a small car rather than a big car Use a trailer when the car is not big enough. (Photo at right)
  • Use public transport When walking or cycling is impractical and when available. (There is very little public transport in my area.)
  • Avoid flying Not one of my strong points!
• Electricity
  • I try to be conscious of minimising our use of electricity all the time.
  • Solar water heater We have had a solar water heater on our house for about 30 years, and have more recently installed one at Elysium. They have not only saved lots of carbon dioxide, but have saved us a bucket of money. (Photos at right)
  • Solar photovoltaics We installed 1kW of panels at our home on 2008/02/06 (photo at right), another 1.5kW at Elsium on 2011/01/18, and paid for 5kW more to be installed on our daughter's house on 2011/01/25.
  • Green electricity We buy 100% green electricity.
• Heating/cooling
  • Wood fire heating We rarely use any other form of space heating.
  • Evaporative air conditioning We only use the more energy consuming heat-pump (reverse cycle) air conditioning at the rare times when it is hot and the humidity is too high for the evaporative air conditioning to work.
  • Use natural heating/cooling We try to minimise the need for home heating and cooling by using passive methods of temperature control, such as insulation and opening and closing windows at appropriate times. In winter we open the house at the warmest time of day; in summer we open the house in the coolest time of day.
• Rain water We catch most of the rain that falls on our roof. This saves a little water from the over-taxed Murray river.
• An effort to change the World A citizen's participation in democracy should not be limited to voting. I have heard advice that there is no use worrying yourself over things that you cannot change; this is good advice, but it should not stop you from trying to change those things that are very difficult to change. If you want something done, do it yourself. If you try you may fail, if you do not try you will certainly achieve nothing.
  • Lots of letters to newspapers
  • Lots of letters to politicians
  • I have stood for parliament twice
  • Maintaining this Internet site, which is largely devoted to environmental matters
• Refrigerator/freezer We replaced an old refrigerator and freezer with modern and more energy-efficient ones. Not only has this reduced our greenhouse footprint, but it will save us money in the long term.

Total energy consumption

My wife and I use a total of about 12 kWh/day electricity (three meters, figures for 2010); this is 100% green power so would equate to about 13 kWh/day at the generators (wind or hydro) allowing for transmission losses. (If we used fossil fuel generated power then the total energy in the fossil fuels burned to supply our 12 kWh/day would be about 53 kWh/day (12 × 1.1 / 0.25, allowing for transmission losses of 10% and conversion efficiency of 25%).

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CO2 production calculation

I strongly recommend this exercise to everyone. I learned a lot from doing it. (Most of the figures are at least to some extent estimates.)

2006
Activity		kg CO2
Holiday in Vietnam	Air travel	4600
	Internal travel	1000	Vietnam total 5600
Holiday in Western Australia	Air travel	840
	Car travel	720	WA total 1560
Use of cars	Toyota Corona	500
	Mazda 121	1800	Vehicles total 2300
Electricity consumption	At home	2900
	At Elysium	1100	Elec. consumption total 4000
Building concrete cellar	Cement	4500
	Steel	1000	Cellar total 5500
Miscellaneous	(Guess)	500
Gross total		19 460
Renewable electricity credits	Photovoltaic panels	-1825
	AGL green electricity	-3450	Elec. credit total -5275
Net total		14 185	=14.2 tonnes

This table shows how much impact holidays involving air travel have on one's greenhouse gas production. The holiday in Vietnam for two people, at 5600kg of CO2, is 29% of our gross greenhouse gas production for 2006!

Note on the cellar, above. We built a large cellar based on a buried concrete tank in 2006. Producing the cement and steel for the cellar released something like five and a half tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. My page on Wind power problems discusses the CO2 implications of cement manufacture a bit more and contains some references. This is a big, one-off, boost to our greenhouse gas production, but should cut our annual greenhouse production from now on by reducing the need for air conditioning. It will also provide a large cool storage space that will not require energy and therefore will not be responsible for producing CO2 for many years. There is more on this cellar in the Australian section of this site.

2007
Activity		kg CO2
Use of cars	Honda Jazz	1800
	Mazda 121	600	Vehicles total 2400
Electricity consumption	At home	2900
	At Elysium	1100	Elec. consumption total 4000
Miscellaneous	(Guess)	500
Gross total		6 900
Renewable electricity credits	Photovoltaic panels	-1800
	AGL green electricity	-3500	Elec. credit total -5300
Net total		1 600	=1.6 tonnes

Average annual CO2 production Who How much CO2 released (tonnes) Average global citizen 1 Average citizen if climate change is to be stopped 0.3 Average Australian household is directly responsible for 14 Per capita Australian CO2 including all sources, eg. mining, manufacturing, office buildings, commercial transport, etc. 27 My wife and I (each) 2006 7 My wife and I (each) 2007 0.8

I have read that the average global citizen is responsible for releasing one tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere each year (and that this must be reduced to 0.3 tonnes if climate change is to be limited to a acceptable level). At seven tonnes each in 2006 my wife and I, like most Westerners, are way ahead of the average, and we consider ourselves to be careful! The average Australian household is directly responsible for about 14 tonnes per year, but I believe that if each person's share of the CO2 from things, like manufacturing and mining, etc. was included, the total would be around 27 tonnes per Australian per year.

I have only considered the CO2 that my wife and I are more directly responsible for here.

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CO2 abatement calculation

Plantation	No. trees	Ave. mass	Annual % increase	kg CO2
Bore	150	100	40	5500
One Hectare	600	40	40	8800
Bog	100	60	40	2200
Dam paddock	150	5	200	1375
	25	300	40	2750
New paddock	300	1	250	690
Open Woodland	400	1	250	920
	80	300	40	8800
Totals	1805			31 035

Notes on the table

What I have learned out of this exercise

Influences

Books

Revegetation

Crystal Brook area

Trees along Binney Road, Crystal Brook

Bowman Park. Most of the lower trees on the left are feral pepper trees

Other roads planted were Frith Road, Darbon Terrace, (and the two apparently unnamed roads on the western side of town that run between Binney and Darbon), parts of Bowman Park Road, the main road to Adelaide (extension of Gadd Avenue), and the track that runs along the creek near the Motocross track.

In the first year I planted Australian native trees that were mainly endemic to Western Australia; after that I only planted species that were endemic to the local area.

Feral pepper trees

In August 2003 I started killing pepper trees along the Crystal Brook at Bowman Park. I kept the local council (Port Pirie Regional Council) fully informed of what I was doing. To say the least, Council has not been supportive, although they have agreed that the pepper trees should be removed. I have discussed this in my blog. I intend to continue this project until all the pepper trees along the creek in Bowman Park are dead.

When the pepper trees are gone the native red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) will be able to take their place. Many red gums along the Crystal Brook have suffered greatly from a lack of water in recent years. Killing the pepper trees will make many thousands of litres of groundwater available to the gum trees each year.

The method I have used to kill the pepper trees is drilling and injecting with Garlon. This is done by drilling 6mm diameter holes at least to the cambium layer at about 5cm spacing around the trunk of the tree and then immediately filling the holes with neat Garlon. The holes should slope downward and should be as close to the base of the tree as possible. I have been informed that glyphosate is just as effective as Garlon, but have not yet tested this.

Clare area

Getting ready to ringbark one of the larger of the aleppo pines in Spring Gully Conservation Park

In early 2005 I got permission from the Clare and Gilbert Valleys Council to begin removing feral trees and revegetating with natives along a length of the Clare to Blyth road. The section I am working on runs from the top of the hill overlooking Blyth (Lat. S33.84039, Long. E138.55978) about a kilometre down the hill (to Lat. S33.83981, Long. E138.54965).

Blyth Road east of this point is crowded with ferrel trees, mainly aleppo pines, but also olive trees and others; there is very little native roadside vegetation remaining between Scobie Road and the top of the hill. There is a lot of native vegetation remaining along the section that I'm working on, but there is also many ferrels: mainly aleppo pines, olives and briars.

As of April 2006 I have killed most of the aleppo pines. They are easy to kill. The smallest are easiest handled by pulling them out, larger ones can be cut off at ground level, and the biggest can be ring-barked.

Olive trees are much harder to kill. Again, the smallest ones can be pulled out, slightly larger ones can be dug out with a pick. Cutting larger trees and immediately swabbing the stump with glyphosate might kill them. I am intending to experiment with drilling an injecting (as used against pepper trees, above) in future.

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The end

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