Jottings: short comments on many subjects

End of gas: what happens when natural gas runs out?

2011/06/21

At the same time we are bringing in more sustainable energy supplies such as wind and solar; the availability of both of which are variable depending on the weather and the time of day and year. Again, gas-fired power stations are valuable to fill the gaps.

Natural gas might last longer than oil, but not by very many years, and this is especially so if we keep on increasing our consumption. What happens when the gas runs out? We can suppose that wind and solar power will make up a larger percentage of the power mix then than it does at present; so how will we fill the gaps cause by high power consumption or low generation?

Pumped-hydro-power is at least a partial answer. Arranging for electrical consumption to vary in response to availability is another partial answer, as discussed in my page on sustainable electricity. Society should be planning and preparing for this, but is not doing so; or at best, is doing so falteringly and slowly.

Noise from car exhausts

2011/04/18

Few people enjoy hearing noise; certainly noise that other people make. Traffic noise is a type that is wide spread and particularly unpleasant; especially for those many people who live or work close to busy roads.

Would it satisfy some of these people if they had an electronic system that monitored their car's operation and produced an imitation of a loud and powerful car, synchronised with their own engine's operation, within the car? It would certainly bring about an improvement in the quality of life of the rest of us.

Even better, these people could pipe their car's exhaust inside their cars! That way they could get a real blast of engine output, and they'd be doing the environment a big favour.

More seriously, it would seem to be fairly easy to abolish vehicles with unnecessarily loud exhausts by making it illegal for anyone to sell or install exhaust systems that are louder than those already on the vehicle, or are louder than necessary.

They've won!

2011/03/08

In what will perhaps turn out to be the greatest ever victory of ignorance over wise and informed action, there is too little action too late to limit global warming to the hoped for two degrees. The positive feed-backs will kick in; rather they are kicking in, and our children will live to see climate disaster; and the huge damage of ocean acidification.

Those who want to see action can, and should, continue to work toward limiting the damage, but unless something like peak oil or economic collape forces a big reduction in our emissions in the very near future the main war is lost.

We who pushed for strong and prompt action have the knowledge that we have fought the good fight for the future of the planet; those who wanted little or no action will be shown to be among the main destroyers of our present civilisation and bringing about one of the greatest extinctions of world geological history.

Sad.

Income and climate change

2010/12/06

• Holidays involve travel and transport is one of the main sources of greenhouse gasses.
• Consumer products all require the consumption of energy to produce and most of our energy comes from burning fossil fuels, resulting in the release of greenhouse gasses.
• When we buy something produced overseas we are paying for it to be transported a long distance – petroleum is burned to fuel the ship or plane. When we buy anything at all we are indirectly paying for all the transport that went into the production of that item, and so have a responsibility for the greenhouse gasses produced.
• If we trade-up to a bigger house then we are paying for the greater amount of embodied-energy in that bigger house; greenhouse gasses are released in the production and transport of the bricks, concrete, plastics, etc, used to build the bigger house.

Of course, the more greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere, the greater the climate change problem becomes.

So, as the world's people become more affluent, they can spend more and just about everything they spend their money on is likely to result in increased greenhouse gasses being released to the atmosphere.

Is there any point in arguing with climate change deniers?

2010/11/02

There are a few types of climate change deniers:

1. There are those who believe it isn't happening, or it's not caused by Man, but have never given the matter any serious thought.
2. There are those who are unable to weigh the scientific evidence, and choose, perhaps subconsciously, to listen to the side of the argument that makes them feel best ("We couldn't be doing this; it's too terrible").
3. There are those who committed to a stance a long time ago, and have not wanted to 'loose face' by admitting that they were wrong; while the evidence for climate change accumulated gradually.
4. And there are those who are corrupt. This group have their own reasons, usually financial, for arguing the lie; some work in, or close to, the mining or fossil fuel industries, others are receiving some sort of payment from elements within those industries.

There is perhaps a fifth group, who might be worth arguing with; those who are willing to listen to reason, but have been influenced by the popular press and 'shock jocks' rather than the scientific press.

Would you bother arguing with someone who insisted that the Earth was flat?

Complimentary medicine – or evidence-based medicine

2010/09/14

The division between complimentary and conventional medicines is not very helpful. The only division we should recognise is that between evidence-based medicine and quackery.

Several hundred years ago people were bled by practitioners of conventional medicine and it was believed that malaria was caught from 'bad air'; hence the name. Gradually, conventional medicine changed from being an art to a science – it still has a way to go; doctors, like the rest of us tend to develop beliefs that are not based on the available evidence; and they probably ignore some treatments, not because the evidence isn't there, but because they are unconventional.

Complimentary medicine has not gone through the evolution forced on Western medicine by the development of the medical sciences.

Of course some herbal remedies work; many of the now accepted remedies were once herbal; aspirin was originally extracted from willow bark, if I remember rightly. Other 'medicines' are being developed from the natural world all the time. There is some evidence that acupuncture helps to relieve some forms of pain; it and other complimentary medicines should be accepted within the limits of the evidence for their efficacy.

On the other hand, there is absolutely no evidence that naturopathy and many other 'therapies' are any better than placebos; but still, even placebos do help in many cases.

Science – only when convenient

2010/09/13

How did we learn about these things? Did we read about them all in The Bible? No, of course not, they were discovered by the use of science.

Why are so many people who believe in the Christian God willing to accept the science behind all these wonders, but not the equally valid science behind evolution? How do they justify to themselves the accepting of one and the rejecting of the other? If science works in chemistry, metallurgy, astronomy, electronics, telecommunications, space physics, medicine, etc. etc., how can they believe it falls down in anything to do with evolution?

They accept genetics when it gives them information about hereditary diseases or plant and animal breeding, but not its roll in evolution. They accept that geologists can find minerals, oil and gas, but believe that the geologists are wrong when they tell us that the world is billions of years old. They accept that anatomists understand the workings of the human body, but do not believe the same anatomists when they point out odd bits in our make-up that are left-overs from ancestral forms. They accept that embryologists can do in-vitro fertilisation, clone animals, diagnose many problems at very early stages of pregnancy; but think that they must be wrong when they talk about how the developing human embryo goes through developmentental stages that relate to earlier life-forms (for example, human embryos have gills at one stage, a tail at another).

A lot of very artificial and nonsensical selectivity, don't you think?

Ockham's Razor

2010/05/24

Put simply, the principle of Ockham's Razor is that if there is more than one explanation for something, then, all else being equal, the simplest explanation is the one to be preferred. It is very relevant to religion which adds an unnecessary layer to our understanding of the world. By Ockham's Razor we should prefer the necessary and sufficient scientific explanation over the superfluous religious explanation, which has to be 'tacked onto' the scientific.

Examples on these pages of where Ockham's Razor should be applied are in deciding upon the age of the earth, deciding upon the reality or otherwise of an immortal soul and whether there is a God.

What is it like to be a bat?

2010/03/08

I believe that I have 'felt' the existence of a wall in front of me, based on sounds reflected from that wall, in a totally dark room. I strongly suspect that a completely blind person would have developed this sense to a much higher degree than I have; but I don't know any completely blind people to ask.

Most of us at one time or another would have been in a room with very little furnishing and would have noticed how it is very 'echoey'. (A concrete cellar that I had build comes to my mind. Before furnishing, any sound bounced around the walls much more than after furnishing. The difference the sounds that one heard in the two situations was marked. Surely, with practice, a person could use such echoing sounds to detect nearby walls? Perhaps it would be possible to develop it further than that?

So, in answer to Dupré's question, 'What is it like to be a bat?', I'd reply that, at least in relation to echo-location, it would not be hugely different from being a person; but that bats have made enormous advances on our very limited echo-location sense.

Farming and cheap energy

2010/02/23

The low price of energy is unsustainable because petroleum is running out and because we are burning so much fossil fuel that we are damaging the atmosphere (climate change).

While energy and food are so cheap it is not worth-while for anyone with a little excess fruit, vegetables, or nuts to sell that excess. There is a glut of wine grapes; the wine grape vines could be grafted to sultanas that then could be sold for food, but the price of sultanas does not make this worth-while.

In Australia the asking price for a small land holding (say 5 to 30ha), other than near a city, is no more than that of building an average house; and modern houses are sold with such a small amount of land that producing a significant quantity of food from a home-garden is impossible. One must suppose that the low value of small-holdings is due to the fact that it is impossible to make a liveable income from them, yet many of them could produce most of the necessities for several families.

Energy prices will rise in the future, especially if we take climate change as seriously as it deserves; sustainable energy is more expensive than burning coal. Our farms will have to become more energy-efficient, with a better ratio between energy-in and energy-out. (According to some writers more energy goes into modern farming than comes out in the crops that the farms produce.)

Will this make it again worth-while to produce food on small land holdings (and back yards, for those houses that still have back yards), and will it substantially increase the prices of small-holdings relative to houses? Will the prices of houses without significant gardening land crash? Will the changes that are going to be forced upon us cause the end of the present global civilisation and its replacement with something quite different?

Renewable energy and coal

2010/01/08

Australian governments like to talk about all that they are doing to reduce Australia's reliance on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, yet not one of the governments in Australia – territory, state or federal – has ever built a major power transmission line to allow development of a sustainable energy resource, whether it be wind, solar, or geothermal. They have built major lines for mining (Olympic Dam for example) and for coal-fired power stations (Port Augusta for example).

If it had not happened that the high-capacity Port Augusta to Adelaide power lines pass through the Mid-North of South Australia, with its high quality wind resources, we would not have the Hallett, Clements Gap, Snowtown, and Waterloo wind farms. These wind farms generate well over half of SA's wind power and SA generates about half of Australia's wind power.

No further wind farm development can take place on Eyre or Yorke Peninsulas, where there is a very high quality wind resource, because of the lack of suitable power transmission lines. Perhaps either the state or federal governments will build a transmission line in to one of the proposed mines on the peninsulas, and then renewable energy can be fed into this?

Something wrong with society

2009/11/22

At present a typical wheat farmer in Australia might plant 1000ha and reap 1500 tonnes each year. 1500t of wheat would produce about 1200t of flour. There is perhaps 500gm of flour in a loaf of bread and a family of four might eat a bit more than a loaf of bread a day: say 500 per year, 250kg of flour. So the wheat farmer produces enough wheat to provide bread for 6000 families.

A dairy farmer might milk 300 cows, each yielding 15L of milk per day; 4500L. This could be converted into maybe 120kg of butter, 120kg of cheese, and 1500L left as milk; enough to provide perhaps 700 families with dairy produce.

A wool grower might run 5000 sheep, each yielding 3kg of wool, 15 000kg per year. Ten kilograms of wool is probably enough to clothe a family of four for a year, so the wool grower provides sufficient fibre to clothe 1500 families.

This is all very approximate (I'd be pleased to receive more accurate figures from a reader), and nobody lives on just bread and dairy produce or wears only wool, but the picture is pretty plain; modern farmers are producing far more than were their counterparts before the Industrial Revolution, that's why farmers now make up such a small proportion of the population. Are farmers any better off for this greatly increased productivity? I'd say they are, but certainly not in proportion to the increased productivity.

Surely there is something wrong with a society in which a farmer can produce enough grain to feed 6000 families, yet struggle to make a living? (Farmers have been leaving the land ever since the industrial revolution, the remaining ones get bigger because they take over the land left by those who have got out of farming.) It can be said that the farmer, and almost everyone else in modern society, has specialised; our lives are much more complex than they were, we expect and consume many more goods and services than our ancestors did.

I admit to having only vague feelings that this is somehow wrong, I cannot explain exactly why, but it certainly is unsustainable the way it is structured at present. One conspicuous problem with modern farming is that the farmers must consume huge amounts of energy, much of it from unsustainable fossil fuels, if they are to maintain their current levels of productivity.

Pickling olives

After the bitterness has gone, store the olives in capped jars in a 6% brine solution (60g of salt in each litre of water) with a little edible oil on top. I'd be interested in feedback, my email address is at the top of this page.

Bottles and energy

2009/09/12

Obviously, the melting and recasting of several thousand bottles required the use of a lot of fossil fuel; transport over the round trip of several hundred kilometres to the bottle factory would add to the total. The resultant release into the atmosphere of greenhouse carbon dioxide would be considerable.

I wonder how many bottles are smashed up and the glass recycled simply because wineries don't have bottle washing facilities? In the Clare Valley (one of Australia's most famous quality wine-growing regions), where this happened, there are several dozen small wineries. In the whole of Australia there are hundreds of wineries. I suspect that few, if any, are set up to wash, or even rinse, bottles. New wine bottle bought in large numbers cost around Aus$0.35 each.

Only substantial rises in the cost of energy will provide the incentive needed to stop such damaging and needless production of greenhouse gasses. A substantial price on carbon could bring about that substantial rise.

Several decades ago beer and milk bottles were routinely cleaned and reused. Then it became cheaper to use throw-away containers for milk and use-one and recycle bottles for beer. There is no good reason that glass bottles cannot be reused.

Some thoughts on jobs

2009/04/25

With the coming collapse of global civilisation perhaps there will be a return to many people working on the land producing their own food and fibre? With the end of oil, climate change and big rises in the cost of energy it is certain that many jobs will be lost. Farming will have to be done with much less energy. Will this result in more people going back to the land, and more self-sufficiency? Will it result in an increased sense of community and belonging in many who do not at present have those feelings?

Golden Age

2009/03/27

The present Golden Age – which you'd have to call the Great Golden Age – had its beginnings in the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century and spread first to Europe and more recently across much of the world. It was no coincidence that the rise in freedoms and science came as the power of the Church declined. The Dutch had a Golden Age within the Great Golden Age; it spanned the 17th century when science and art blossomed there more than elsewhere. Going in the oposite direction, the Church's prosocution of Galileo was followed by a hiatus in science and enlightenment in Italy for a hundred years or more.

There has never been so nearly universal freedom of speech, free thinking, development of science and philosophy, freedom from enforced religious conformity, freedom of movement and association, equal rights for all (especially including women), and open democratic government, as there has been in the last several hundred years.

Unfortunately, events in the past few decades have suggested that we may be facing a threat to that Golden Age of freedom. Wealth and power have progressively been concentrated more into the hands of a few and taken from the many. A number of Western Governments (those of the USA, Australia and the UK included) have passed laws limiting freedoms and traditional rights; generally they have used the threat of terrorism as an excuse for their actions. Some of the laws recently enacted come close to denying rights granted in the Magna Carta of 1215, and habeas corpus has been, to some extent, denied in the USA and Australia, and no doubt other countries. In Australia a person can be prosecuted without the right to know the source of the evidence against him.

The rise of an intolerant form of Islam has had two effects in relation to the Great Golden Age: it has constricted free thinking, the arts, education, and the rights of women in some Islamic nations, and it has forced further limitations on the freedom of speech in the rest of the world (it is impossible to publicly and openly criticise Mohammed, for example, without risking rioting, assassination and embassy burning).

There is a reaction against science where science is showing people truths they don't want to accept. The rise of creationism (and its close cousin intelligent design) in the USA and climate change skepticism are major examples. Ignorance and superstition seem to be rising.

Are we seeing the first of the declining years of The Great Golden Age?

In End of this Global Civilisation I have listed more than twenty ways in which our present society is unsustainable. In particular, climate change and the end of petroleum will impact the GGA; it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine exactly how this will happen, past events teach us that there will be surprises. (Who would have foreseen that a crisis in the sub-prime mortgage market in the USA would have sparked a global recession?)

Three types of people

2009/03/01

The first type (perhaps 50% of people) includes all those who think it is OK to dump their rubbish wherever is convenient to them. The second type (perhaps 45%) is the group who are responsible in how they dispose of their rubbish. The last 5% are those who not only do not dump rubbish irresponsibly, but also pick up other people's rubbish.

Prime Minister Howard gets Presidential Freedom Medal from GWB

2009/01/14

I am 63 years old and I believe I can confidently say that John Howard is the most unethical Australian prime minister in my life time. He, like Bush, was not interested in freedom; they were both interested in glorifying themselves and looking after their wealthy mates.

Eye glasses – good value?

2008/03/22

Which is the best value for money?

I have to say that #1 is multi-focus, so I can use them for reading, intermediate and long distance work; there is the work and time of the optometrist to consider, the time of whoever sets up the machinery to produce the lenses, and the no doubt considerable cost of that machinery. But as I recall I had to pay around $150 just for the frames, and a screw came out causing a lens to fall out within 3 months of receiving the glasses – fortunately I was able to retrieve the lens and get the glasses repaired. (Pair #3 seem to have a very good quality frame, which must have been manufactured and retailed for, what, $6.)

If a person does not really need prescription lenses, that is, he or she does not have significant astigmatism, paying fifty times as much as you need to pay, $500 against $10 (2x$3=$6 for two pairs of glasses and 2x$2=$4 for the cases), is difficult to justify.

And I can't help wondering, if off-the-shelf glasses can be manufactured for $3 a pair should prescription glasses cost $500? It would seem that either someone is making a lot of money or there are some pretty considerable inefficiencies in the system.

$40 prescription bifocal glasses in one hour

Is there a purpose for everything?

2008/02/11

This segment is pure speculation; yet I hope it is rational speculation.

What would be the point of it all if we can never reach out and make contact with that extra-terrestrial intelligence? Of course there doesn't have to be a point in it. If one does not believe in a grand plan – and who would there be to make a grand plan if there is no creator? – then why should there be any point in the 'design' of the Universe?

Our scientists have discovered that the Universe is susceptible to rational understanding. This is a wonderful thing. We can work out what makes a star that we can barely see in our biggest telescope produce the exact amount of heat and light that it does; why it produces just so much light of a particular wavelength, how much longer it is going to 'live', and how long ago it formed. We can use science and reasoning to see the 'beginning' and 'end' of the Universe. Biological sciences have shown us the marvellous variety of life on our planet, yet there is reason to think that that we have a huge distance to go in this direction; why is it that we cannot culture in our laboratories the great majority of the life forms that we see under our microscopes? Medical science has shown us how our bodies work, it is moving toward showing us how our minds work.

Yet there is apparently no purpose to it all? Counterintuitive, don't you think?

(Don't suggest to me that the answer is God. The wonders of the Universe have been uncovered by science. None of them, not a single one, was revealed first by 'divine revelation' in some 'holy book' like the Bible, the Koran or the Veda. Religion, God, and the immortal soul are all delusions; that has been thoroughly proven.)

One must conclude, as I did many years ago, that there is no purpose to it all. Still, one doesn't have to be entirely happy with that conclusion.

Australian Broadcasting Commission

2007/06/29

Various governments, especially including the Howard government, have tried to reduce the power of the ABC to give information to Australian citizens. They diminish themselves by doing so, fortunately they seem to have failed to stop the Australian Broadcasting Commission from giving us the truth.

Thanks Aunty!!

Dying languages

2007/06/23

I don't think I have ever heard anyone point out that the loss of minority languages directly implies that we are more and more tending to all speak the majority languages. The ultimate end of the process would be that everyone in the world would speak the same language. Surely this would be a wonderful thing! Consider how much less misunderstanding and distrust there would be between peoples if everyone spoke the same language.

Consider how many wars are fought between people who speak different languages. The great majority of wars are between people with different religions or different languages. People fight wars with people they recognise as 'other': other political persuasion, other priorities, other religion, other language. If we all spoke the same language that would be one important point of discrimination between groups that would no longer exist.

Language is an even more important point of difference than the others; not being able to communicate with your neighbours tends to make you mistrust them.

Of course if all but one languages were neglected much would be lost, but how much more would be gained?

Defence spending

2007/04/14

Do we need 100 new fighter planes? Who are we going to use them against? What nation is likely to want to invade Australia in the next 20 years? Or is it that the Government want them in case there is another country like Iraq that they might want to help the US invade?

Doesn't the term 'defence spending' in the way it is usually used, really mean 'offence spending'? Would Indonesia see us spending $20b on war planes as defensive or offensive? I suggest the latter; they would want to increase their 'defence' spending to try to maintain some sort of balance.

What could Australia do with $20b if it was spent on reducing our greenhouse impact, on education, on health, or on fixing our water problems? That's twice as much as PM Howard is talking about spending on fixing the problems of the Murray Darling. Howard is keen on talking about tax cuts; what about no new war planes and $1300 less tax for each tax payer?

Muslim dress code

2007/04/09

Non-Muslim Westerners, such as me, are inclined to think that the dress standard expected of Muslim women is excessively strict, sexist, demeaning, and quite unnecessary. Before we are too critical of Muslims we need to consider our own hang-ups about body covering.

A hundred years ago our culture did not allow people to swim in public except while covered in 'neck to knee' swim-suits. Perhaps you might be thinking, "Yes, but that was a hundred years ago, we don't have hang-ups about clothing any more. Our dress standards now are purely for rational reasons." Are they?

We still expect people, men and women, to cover those bits of their bodies that are distinctly male or female. Is this practical? Is it rational? Or is it just a custom? People at nude beaches seem to be able to behave perfectly normally with both sexes completely uncovered.

While one might argue with some consistency that Muslim dress codes are discriminatory against women, can we really argue that our dress codes are more rational than theirs, or just less extreme?

Coal and slavery

2007/03/28

There are similarities. Stopping the slave trade meant getting out of a highly profitable business, reducing the national income, for purely ethical reasons. Stopping, or at least greatly reducing, the burning of fossil fuels will cause financial pain to some big and profitable Australian industries for the sake of the global environment.

Two hundred years ago people were pointing out that if the British did not profit from the slave trade all that would happen would be that other nations would take up the slack and make all the profits. Today we have Prime Minister John Howard saying that if Australia stops mining coal or reduces its greenhouse gas production rates all that will be achieved is that our competitors will be advantaged. I'd bet that there were those in Britain who claimed that abolishing slavery would mean the loss of lots of jobs and that it was not in the national interest.

Two hundred years ago the British were able to put principal before profit, and aboloish slavery on their own, before the rest of the world. Could we in 21st century Australia put principal before profit and make large cuts to our greenhouse gas production before the rest of the world? Unfortunately I can't imagine either the Coalition or the Labor Party doing it.

Gun control

2007/02/23

But what reason do we have to believe that the Howard Government (and even more so, the George W. Bush USA administration) can be trusted to buy all the weapons that they want and need, and to use them responsibly? What could be a more irresponsible use of weapons than the Iraq war?

Can you imagine PM Howard or President Bush wanting to enact legislation to limit the power of Governments to own weapons? I can't – not without a lot of pushing from a very strong and highly organised lobby. Unfortunately such a lobby does not exist yet – one can hope that it might develop one day.

It is strange, isn't it, that our leaders can see that we are not to be trusted with dangerous toys, but they cannot see their own shortcomings? Just another proof that power corrupts; those in power do not want to do anything to limit their power.

Whom should we fear?

2007/02/16

In both Australia and the USA more people are killed crossing the road every year than were killed in the worst years of terrorist attack. How much effort do our governments make to reduce pedestrian deaths compared to the amount of time they spend telling us about how they are protecting us from the terrorist threat? Road deaths are far greater than pedestrian deaths, hugely greater than deaths from terrorism; how much work do our governments put into reducing the road toll? It would be interesting to know how many times Bush and Howard have mentioned the road toll compared to how many times they have referred to the terrorist threat in the last five years; and remember that Australia was not a target of terrorists until Howard involved our country in the US's wars.

If they chose, the governments of the bigger nations could cooperate to stop the production of, not only nuclear weapons, but also all weapons larger than rifles. They could set up a small international force with a few major weapons, answerable to the UN, to keep the peace between nations. Then they could ensure that the world's armies were gradually dismantled. They don't do this because the top nations (USA first among them) make obscene amounts of money from selling weapons. They would rather keep the money rolling in from arms trading than have a peaceful world.

Our governments are our worst enemies, far more of a risk to us than are the mysterious terrorists.

The new opium of the masses

2007/01/31

I suspect that when the young are not working, eating, sleeping or thinking about sport or sex most of them are killing monsters on computer screens. This, of course, gives corrupt politicians free reign to pursue their selfish ends.

Aquifers as tanks

2006/12/10

Farmers, orchardist, vignerons, etc. often obtain water from wells which tap into geological formations called aquifers. In the short term a well may yield a little water or it may yield a lot of water (in litres per second, gallons per hour, etc). An aquifer may contain a little water or a lot of water (in terms of litres per hectare etc.) In the short term an aquifer, to some extent irrespective of how much water it contains, may be able to deliver a lot of water to a well, or only a little (in litres per second). These properties of wells and aquifers are, to some extent, interdependent.

However, there is one very simple, but useful analogy. An aquifer can be thought of as like a tank; a container of water. A well connected to an aquifer is like a tap that can be used to take water from the tank. If you put a big tap into a small tank you will be able to drain the tank very quickly. This is like a high yielding well in an aquifer that stores little water. If you put a small tap into a big tank you will be able to run water out of the tap for a long time before draining the tank. This is like a low yielding well in a big aquifer.

Do not suppose that because a well has a high yield (lots of litres per second) there will be lots of water in the aquifer. Neither should you assume that a low yielding well is necessarily tapping into an aquifer with little water in it.

There is a little correspondence between the yield of a well and the amount of water available from and aquifer, but not much.

Some thoughts on the necessary resolution of photographs

2006/12/08

Using a microscope to look at a number of photos printed in several coloured magazines I saw that there were 6 printed dots of each colour in each linear mm. If the published print is actually 6dpmm, why does the original have to be 12dpmm?

This question is not trivial because it relates closely to how much one should feel obliged to spend on a camera. My camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels (MP). Photos that I take are effectively a rectangular matrix of coloured dots (picture elements, pixels) with 2592 dots along the long axis and 1944 dots along the short axis. (2592 x 1944 = 5 038 848, approximately 5 million, hence 5MP). If I print a photo at A4 size (297mm x 210mm) a simple calculation will show that there will be a resolution of 9dpmm. If I have a photo printed at A3 size (420mm x 297mm) there will be a resolution of 6dpmm. According to those who demand 12dpmm neither of these will be acceptably sharp. On the contrary, I find A3 sized enlargements of my photos to be quite acceptable.

Larger prints are usually viewed from greater distances. For example, when you look at a 15cm x 10cm (6 x 4 inch) print, you will probably hold it at about your normal reading distance, ie. around 400mm. By comparison most people will look at an A3 print from a distance of about 900mm. This suggests to me that the needed resolution for an A3 sized print is less than half that needed for 15cm x 10cm.

5MP enlarged to A2 (594mm x 420mm) would have a resolution of 4dpmm, quite acceptable from the likely viewing distance.

So, if you want to enlarge your photos to A3 should you buy a camera with around 5 or 6MP, or spend twice as much and buy a 10 or 12MP camera? I'd suggest that 5 or 6MP should be quite enough resolution for A3 or even A2 sized prints.

I should say, before finishing, that a camera's resolution in megapixels is not the whole story. The quality of the lens is just as important.

Civilisation

2006/10/04

Perhaps I can more easily say what it is not. War must be the antithesis of civilisation. War is being used by the USA as a way of progressing its causes. This is to the detriment of civilisation. Civilisation is to do with building and creating: creating works of art, legal systems, fair and just governments; encouraging the advancement of science; building societies, cities, libraries, museums, power stations, wind turbines; constructing water wells, roads, bridges... War is capable of destroying all that civilised humans build and create.

In the early twentieth century are we seeing the beginning of the decay of Western civilisation? Most of the great movers of the world seem not to be interested in building anything except their own wealth and power. The only great power in the world, the USA, seems interested only in increasing its empire by bombing and destruction.

Western civilisation will not be destroyed by the end of the petroleum age, or by climate change, but it might be destroyed by the wars that nations and societies start in order to hold onto the wealth and power that they see as endangered by these things.

Machiavellian politics

2006/06/26

This is exactly the method the two major Australian political parties are using today. Apart from the religious preconceptions of many members or Parliament and Government, all their efforts are aimed at either getting into power, or holding onto power when in Government. They don't generally care whether the methods they use are ethical, just whether they are likely to improve the party's political position. Similarly, they don't much mind whether their policies are going to be good for the people of Australia, but whether they are likely to lead to more votes at the next election (or more political donations that will help get votes for the next election).

This will continue so long as a large majority of voters always vote for one or the other of the main parties. If sufficient voters become disgusted with the Machiavellian politics of the major parties, vote for political candidates who are willing to stand up for what is right rather than just what is politically expedient, then it might change.

Thought on water

2006/03/26

I collect water from the roof of a shack. I only have space for storing about 800L of this rainwater. It does not take very many days of washing dishes, showering, washing hands, etc. to use up the 800L. On the other hand 10mm of rain is enough to completely refill the system. The local annual average rainfall is 600mm. Therefore this water supply works on a time cycle of a few weeks. I do not consume this water, I use it an release it back into my environment.

On the same property is a dam (more accurately, an earth tank) that I use mainly for a gardening supply. It fills most years. If it did not at least half fill in any year I would run out of dam water. So you could say that this has a time cycle of one year.

Also on the property is a well. The groundwater supply that is tapped by the well receives some recharge most years and a major recharge every ten or twenty years when there is an exceptionally wet period. If there was not the occasional major recharge year the groundwater in my area would become seriously depleted. This groundwater has a time cycle of a decade or two.

My point here? Water is not something that is used once and is gone (like fossil fuels); it is a renewable resource. The size of water resources vary greatly, even on one small property.

If I am careless with the water in my shack it makes no difference to any larger scale water resource – it only effects me. If I am careless in the use of my well water there would be some effect on my neighbours and everyone downstream of me, but there will be no less water in the world.

All water is recycled water; any time you drink a glass of water or beer, or a cup of tea, you can be sure that some of the water molecules in your drink have been through the bladder of Julius Caesar – and others through his anus.

There are different scales of water economy.

Kerry Packer

2006/02/17

Kerry Packer gets a big send-off at tax-payers' expense

Suppose Mr Packer had one thousandth of all the wealth in Australia. If another man, sometime in the future, gets one hundredth of all the wealth in Australia, would you say he is an even greater man than Mr Packer. What of someone who got one tenth, or even someone who got control of absolutely all the wealth in Australia? Would you say that this man was great, or just plain greedy?

I have trouble with measuring a man by the quantity of his wealth.

While there is a record of impulsive acts of charity from Mr Packer, he did not leave behind him any philanthropic foundations, such as that set up by the Myer family; no universities like that established by Alan Bond; no great public buildings like those in the Adelaide University funded by Elder and Bonython.

He made a lot of his money from a casino, hardly an ethical business. And he was infamous for the lengths that he was willing to go in order to avoid paying taxation. One of the main aims of taxation is, after all, to take money from the wealthy and provide assistance to the poor.

I suppose that Prime Minister John Howard giving Kerry Packer a state funeral could be called mateship in action. Mr Howard loves socialising with the very wealthy.

There is much more to be admired in the many anonymous people who volunteer their time and energy for the betterment of others than in all the greedy corporate bosses like Kerry Packer.

What has the Iraq war achieved?

2006/01/19

PM John Howard involved Australia in the invasion of Iraq, against the wishes of the Australian people, to destroy non-existent weapons of mass destruction. President GW Bush has always implied a link between Iraq and the war against terror, but we have never been shown any acceptable evidence for Iraqi involvement in international terrorism. More recently we have been lead to believe that the justification for the invasion was to depose Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqi people better lives. Yet, three yeas after the invasion, the Iraqi people have the lowest quality of life on the planet!

I suggest that PM Howard owes the Australian people an explanation of what good the invasion of Iraq has achieved. We know what the costs were: the lives of more than 30 000 people, most of them Iraqi civilians; cultural damages; a great increase in mistrust of, and hatred for, the West; and many millions of tax dollars that would have been much better spent on education, health and combating global warming.

While he was about it, PM Howard could explain why his government ignored a warning from the UN that The Australian Wheat Board was paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to the Hussein regime, just before the invasion. It is reasonable to assume that much of this money would have gone into buying weapons to use against the Coalition.

Iraq and Cronulla

2005/12/22

Nations have made laws and have established police departments to do away with justice by mob rule.

Was there much difference between the mob aggression in Cronulla and the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US-UK-Oz coalition? In both cases it was one group deciding to sort-out another on very slim grounds of justification, legal and ethical.

The only real difference I see is that in the former it was emotional, testosterone-related, ignorant aggression. In the latter it was unemotional, power-related, ignorant aggression.

The Iraq fiasco, which as I write seems to have achieved nothing good for anybody at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, surely shows the need for some sort of world government.

Ultimate in self-indulgence

2005/12/14

Consider the good that these tourists could do with the $100 000 that they are spending on a few minutes in space. That amount of money could change the lives of many people in some Third World country.

Perhaps more importantly, consider how much greenhouse gas is going to be dumped in the atmosphere, to the detriment of everyone and all life on Earth, by each of these space flights; all for a few minutes pleasure for one man.

Wood fuelled vehicles

2005/12/08

How do you run a car on firewood? A flammable gas can be produced from wood and fed straight into a car engine; it was done during the petrol shortages of World War 2 and has recently run at least one car around Australia. (See Woodfired.) This method has the disadvantage of requiring quite a bit of hardware that you must carry around with you, perhaps on a trailer, although if the process was optimised for a fuel such as wood pellets and made as compact as possible it might become a practicality.

An alternative is to produce a liquid fuel from the wood and then burn that in a car. The Fins are researching a process called fast pyrolysis to produce a substitute for diesel from wood. (See Fast pyrolysis). Another alternative is to produce alcohol from the wood and use that as the vehicle fuel.

South Australian trials have shown that five to six tonnes of firewood can be grown on each hectare of land in a 500mm rainfall area per year; much more can be grown with higher rainfall. Some arithmetic will show that there is not enough land in Australia to replace all our transport fuel with wood, but shouldn't our governments be funding research in this direction?

Is there a link between obesity and greenhouse?

2005/12/05

There is some linkage. Australians and USians use private cars more than the people of most other nations. This both produces large amounts of carbon dioxide and results in the people getting a minimal amount of exercise. If you use public transport you at least have to walk to the bus stop or the train station. Obviously, if you cycle or walk to work, or to do your shopping, or to escort the kids to school, you are going to get quite a bit of exercise; very few Australians and USians do these things. If you use your car to get around then you minimise your exercise and maximise your personal greenhouse gas production.

Are there other linkages?

Is PM Howard an ally of the terrorists?

2005/10/17

If the terrorists want to destroy our democracy and freedom, then they have an enthusiastic ally in PM Howard. The so-called anti-terrorist legislation that is already in place erodes the freedom of the press. It, and the proposed new legislation, weaken our democratic rights, limit our freedom of speech and assembly, and could be used by corrupt officials as a way of controlling political opposition.

And is the legislation needed? Far more Australians are killed and injured in vehicle crashes and work-place accidents than by terrorists; more people are killed crossing the road than by terrorists. Is handling the terrorism threat a convenient distraction from more important issues, like climate change?

Cost of fuel

2005/10/07

The media inform us that this is impacting on people's life styles; many are finding that they are having to cut back on some areas of their budgets in order to pay for the fuel that they "must have in order to get to work". This is rubbish! One need only observe for a few minutes on any major road in any main Australian city to see the terribly inefficient use being made of transport.

• Most cars, while having space for four or five people, contain only the driver on most trips;
• Most cars are bigger than needed;
• Few people ride bicycles as a way of getting to and from work;
• Few people walk as a way of getting to and from work;
• Public transport is available for many trips around Australian cities, but is little used by most people;

It is not only in the city that people waste energy. I have had a small farm for eleven years and have spent a great many hours in my paddocks on various jobs. In those eleven years I can hardly recall ever seeing my neighbours in their paddocks on foot. They, and I suspect most farmers, drive everywhere on and off their farms. This may be a necessity on large cereal farms, but on the small holdings in my area walking is quite a practical way of getting around. A survey of traffic I did from my place might also be of interest.

I wonder how high the fuel prices will have to go before people change their habits?

An open letter to Prime Minister John Howard

2005/09/29

I believe that generations to come will condemn you and your friend George W. Bush, as the worst Western political leaders of our age.

You profess to be an admirer of Robert Menzies. He would despise you for your lack of principles.

You have failed in your responsibility to look after the politically weak. Australia's poor have been ignored while you concentrated on helping the rich to become richer. The poor need the help of government, the wealthy have the power to help themselves.

You have changed Australia's recognition of the World Court specifically to deny our very poor and very small neighbour, East Timor, justice over the petroleum resources of the Timor Sea.

Against the wishes of the Australian people you involved Australia in the unjustified and immoral invasion of Iraq. In normal times there is nothing more serious that a political leader can do than involve his country in war.

You have made Australia a target for terrorism by joining in with the USA in its wars for global dominance. In response to the terrorist threat, that you created, you have introduced draconian laws that seriously infringe on the civil liberties of Australian citizens.

Worse than these, you have chosen to largely ignore the global threat of climate change. You have supported the short-term interests of the fossil fuel industries rather than moving Australia toward sustainable energy use. Australia and the world will suffer for decades, probably centuries, because of G. W. Bush's and your failure to act on global warming.

Yours faithfully, David Clarke.

Protecting the whale:
an easy environmental image for Australia?

2005/07/19

Any whale species that is endangered should be protected. But the minkie whale was not much hunted until recently, and several other species have greatly recovered in numbers following the excessive hunting of the last few centuries. It is true that the Japanese whalers' method of killing whales inflicts great pain and is slow and cruel, and many people might object to whaling on this ground. The Japanese claim that they are doing it for scientific purposes is, of course, laughable and a lie.

But I have little doubt that there are worse examples of animal cruelty that our government could be targeting if they were inclined, the Chinese practice of farming sun bears for their bile is one example. Is killing a whale for food any more unethical than killing a pig, if it could be done humanely?

I wonder what the Australian Government's motive is in taking up the fight to protect the whale? As one of the worst greenhouse polluters on the planet, and one of the greatest destroyers of native native vegetation and old-growth forests, what environmental credentials does Australia have? Leading the fight to protect the whales costs very little compared to cleaning up our carbon dioxide emissions. There are no Australian jobs to loose as there would be if we were to stop destroying our old-growth forests. Is leading the fight against the resumption of commercial whaling a cheap way of getting some environmental credibility as far as the Howard Government is concerned?

In the resumption of whaling as the Japanese would have it, there is at worst an arguable question about which species are threatened, the degree of that threat, and the animal cruelly point. In greenhouse the extinction of thousands of species and deaths of billions of people is threatened. I believe this is another case of red herring environmentalism.

Why did Australia become involved in the Iraq war?

2005/07/17

Going to war is arguably the most important decision that any government can make, and is certainly one of the most irreversible. In 2003 the Howard Government involved Australia in the Iraq war against the wishes of a large majority of the Australian people. At the time it was stated that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and that the country posed a threat to regional and world peace. (The USA has bombed more than twenty countries since WW2 and has far more WMDs than Iraq ever had, yet our Government does not consider the USA to be a threat to world peace.) There were also suggestions that Iraq was trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability (later shown to be false) and that Iraq had some connection with international terrorism (never substantiated). While the Hussein regime was undeniably barbaric, regime change was not put forward as a justification for the invasion until it was over and the reasons given as justifications were, one by one, being found to be false.

Reasons for not going to war, including the obvious one that war is always destructive of lives and property and should be avoided except as a last resort, include the fact that this war made Australia a target for radicle Islamic terrorists. In addition the war was not sanctioned by the United Nations.

The weakness of the Iraqi military was demonstrated in the Gulf War of 1990-91 and was again shown by the fact that military resistance ended only two weeks after the beginning of the 2003 invasion.

So Iraq did not have any WMDs, their military was not strong enough to pose a threat to anyone given the retaliation capability of the US or NATO, they were not developing nuclear weapons, and there has never been any convincing evidence linking Iraq to international terrorism. Why did Australia take part in an invasion that killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians?

There have been persistent suggestions that the war was all about US control over world oil reserves (Iraq has the second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia). Not surprisingly these suggestions have always been strongly denied by the US and Australian Governments.

My opinion is that the war was about oil and US control, not only over oil reserves, but also as a step toward total world domination. (The USA has stated that it aims to achieve "Full spectrum dominance" over all military forces in the world.) Australia, under the Howard Government, is effectively a puppet of the US.

The US will leave Iraq deeply in debt and largely in the hands of huge multinational corporations, most of which are dominated by US ownership.

I have covered this subject at greater length in my page on the Iraq war, but felt that it deserved a mention here because Australians still have not been given a satisfactory answer to why we were involved in the US war against Iraq.

Copper-Chrome-Arsenate treated wood

2005/07/01

What happens to the copper, chromium and arsenic in CCA treated fence posts as those posts weather? The posts don't last for ever, and copper, chromium and arsenic, being elements, are indestructible. Does some fraction of the toxins leach into the soil? Can they then be taken up by plants? If they are taken up by plants and animals eat the plants then those animals may well be poisoned.

Some toxins in combination can be more toxic than each is on its own – the 'combination is greater than the sum of the parts'. I doubt that this particular combination has been much researched.

What happens to the CCA when the posts burn in a bushfire?

When CCA treated wood is new, the fact that it is CCA treated is obvious because of the strong green colour. As CCA treated wood ages it bleaches and becomes less green and more grey. Is there a likelihood that people will unknowingly use old CCA wood as firewood?

Burning CCA treated wood must release some of the toxic heavy metals into the atmosphere. Some other fraction will remain in the ash; and will the ash be disposed of responsibly? (What is responsible disposal of CCA contaminated ash?)

While it might be difficult to know that bleached old timber is CCA treated by its appearance, once it begins to burn the bright green, copper, flame will be easy to spot; so long as people look for it and know what it means.

Sport, the opium of the masses

2005/06/28

While climates change, glaciers retreat, flooding and heat-waves become more common, Antarctic ice sheets break up, corral reefs are bleached, the sea level rises and species become extinct, the plebs don't care as long as they have their sport. While the Australian government engages our country in the illegal and immoral wars of the US empire builders, enacts laws that allow our anti-terrorist police to hold suspects without trial and to go around smashing hard-drives on journalists' computers, the Australian unthinking majority concern themselves about which football team is most likely to win the national premiership.

Probably most of them would express amazement and disgust at the way the German people during the 1930s allowed Hitler's Nazis to rise to power. Who was it who said that no-one learns anything from history?

Mind-numbing work

2005/06/26

Is repetitive factory work mind-numbing? I had a year of working in a foundry. The work was repetitive, although people were shifted around from job to job periodically, the longer one worked there the more jobs one learned. Still, the work was so simple that, once learned, it could be done without thought.

What other things do we put quite a bit of time into that do not require thought? Walking and driving come to mind. Commuting in public transport for some people. If I don't have any physical work to do I try to average at least 15 000 steps walking each day. What could be more repetative and require less thought than putting one foot in front of the other?

This must not be taken too far. There is ample evidence from research that intelligence is improved and/or maintained by regular challenge, while intelligence declines when people do not exercise their minds. I found an eight-hour day at the factory an opportunity to let my mind roam. I could just do the job and think about whatever I wanted to. I wonder if a job that requires thought, but repetitive thought, would actually be more mind-numbing than a no-thinking factory job?

Litigation paranoia

2005/06/23

The attitude of the Port Pirie Regional Council toward an initiative by an individual to remove a species of feral tree from a public park is an example of unreasonable fear of litigation. The Port Pirie Council probably does not have a more paranoid attitude than some others, although I will say that the Clare and Gilbert Valley's Council is more open to work by volunteers. The individual concerned is me.

I have been killing the feral trees (Peruvian pepper trees, Schinus molle) – by drilling 6mm holes around the base of their trunks and injecting herbicide (Garlon) – for something like 18 months. A council representative agreed that the trees should be removed from the park. He said that they do remove pepper trees on public land whenever they come across them and have the time. However, I was asked to stop my work. Council was concerned that:

• I was not qualified to do the work;
• I might poison myself or someone else;
• I might fall and break a leg.

This attitude is unreasonable for the following reasons:

• It is very unlikely that anyone would be harmed by my work because the herbicide I use has very low toxicity to animals, and it is inaccessible to everyone once injected into the tree trunks;
• If anyone was harmed by my work, the link between my work and Council is pretty tenuous;
• If I entered the park as a visitor, fell and broke my leg, I might well have just as much ground for litigation as if I was poisoning feral trees.

One of the very few?

2005/06/22

It will result in:

• Habitat change;
• An increase in the frequency of extreme weather events such as floods and hurricanes;
• Long-term rainfall decline in some areas, increase in others;
• Some areas will become unsuited for their fauna and flora;
• Spread of some diseases into areas where they have not previously been a problem;
• Extinction of many species;
• Possible changing of some of the major oceanic currents (if the Gulf Stream was to fail, as seems possible, much of northern Europe would become uninhabitable);
• Possible run-away greenhouse due to such things as release of the methane clathrate (hydrate) on the ocean floors;
• Sea level rise – which will lead to flooding of some very populous river deltas (eg. Nile, Mekong, Ganges) with resultant displacement and probable starvation of millions;
• Loss of productivity of farm land.

Do so many people care so little about such a colossal looming disaster?

Is this the age of apathy?