A local takeaway uses these wafer thin timber cutlery instead of plastic ones – very cool. Before I get yelled at some cultures have been using timber cutlery for ever and we love that too.
And the wooden spoon may be design perfection – thousands and thousands of years and people still prefer to cook using a stick over an open flame – fascinating.
We now and then still use a real grinding stone that is tens of thousands of years old and curved to perfection and also have a modern whiz bang marble mortar and pestle – fascinating.
Rather than depending on those quaint billboards that people adjust to the correct danger level daily, national governments providing an optional and privacy shielding emergency alert app to notify people of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, heatwaves, wildfires, or inept bureaucrats conducting weapons drills would be useful especially since extreme weather is predicted to increase due to the climate emergency over the next decade. Once in place infectious disease outbreak alerts (both human and agricultural) could easily be added when required to warn people they are entering a danger zone in a timely manner and to help to rapidly contain any outbreaks.
Although not pretending to be a charity organisation alphabet have this week announced a series of grants to assist developing nations with technology during outbreaks. That will save a lot of lives.
Unlike many other (social media) platforms alphabet are now not running ads on climate deniers content.
(irrelevant but am happily employed, in a committed relationship and leaving oz soon. Amongst other things around seventeen trillion dollars in tax payer funds funnelled by inept bureaucrats during a year is a lot (corrupt oz bureaucrats have this year diverted hundreds of millions of tax payer funds to bailout coal mines that banks correctly refuse to finance and globally a very small percentage of that seventeen trillion was towards projects that reduce greenhouse emissions and almost no medications delivered on schedule to others – astonishing))
We are remembering the words of a great politician Bob Hawke who said this in 1989
“We don’t inherit the planet, we borrow it not simply for ourselves but for our kids and their kids, the Greenhouse Effect or Global Warming cannot be dismissed as just another environmental problem but has the effect to change within a single lifetime how all nations and people live and work. Care for your planet as you would care for your children as their tomorrow depends on our actions today.”
Amongst many great human rights advances, Bob Hawke legislated to permanently protect Kakadu, Uluru, The Daintree and The Franklin River and we are forever in his debt.
(29 September 2021 – congratulations xo)
On top of the catastrophic negative impact to the environment, the coal industry kills more people directly and indirectly each year than any other. Renewable energy sources provide electricity to consumers as reliably and at lower cost that coal.
There is no justification for sending people to work in coal mines this century and assistance with retraining saves lives – renewables, technicians, drivers, gardening, farming, iron ore, aluminium.
Switching off coal use is effortless and instantly reduces global greenhouse emissions by around 40%. (28 September 2021 – leading economists have stated the figure is around 60% of global greenhouse emissions)
[18 September 2021 – “RBA (Australia) economists estimate the collapse in fossil fuel exports would take about 0.1 percentage points from (Australia’s) annual gross domestic product after accounting for positive opportunities in other sectors they anticipate will emerge. These include exports such as green hydrogen and green steel, as well as rising global demand for Australian critical and rare earth minerals”]
Carbon trading/offsets have been proven to be ineffective and mostly meaningless – real reduction in greenhouse emissions is the only effective method.
22 November 2021 – Reforestation is important underwater as well “As a general rule, kelp forests are much more productive than most terrestrial forests, in that they’re churning through carbon much more quickly.” Very cool. To assist kelp regrowth some brilliant people in America are reintroducing incredibly cute sea otters to munch on the urchins killing off the kelp with great results.
(source various)
[18 September 2021 – for heavens sake, an unfortunately constantly fibbing unintelligent bureaucrat just made another nonsensical unintelligent announcement – (mah pappy was a fibbing salesman – well my grandfather served in both wars, wore a black beret at the perfect tilt every day and at age ninety could recall the full latin botanical name of thousands of plants effortlessly and would have kicked both your pappys and your inept bureaucratic cowardly fibbing (***)) Um, cows are not the major polluters on the planet – when factor in loss of wild animals – the global herd size is around the same if not less. Scientifically factor in the impact a dinosaur fart must have had, too many animals is certainly not the culprit. Coal is the major producer of methane – not cows – coal. Corrupt coal-lobby twits trying to divert attention. Real scientific data has shown repeatedly that one large coal mine produces more methane than all of the cows in all of Australia and oz has more than one large coal mine. Switching off coal use will significantly reduce climate and environmental degradation and boost the yields for agriculture (and of course turning existing forrest into farmland or coal mines is bad practice and has a negative impact) A small number of people are employed in the coal industry, significantly more people are employed in sectors negatively impacted by coal use including agriculture, tourism and hospitality. Switching off coal use is urgently required to ensure life on the planet continues – it is incredibly serious, blatantly deceitful and nonsensical to suggest otherwise]
It’s not complicated – coal is the major producer of greenhouse gases – not cows – coal.
Electric buses, taxis and postie vans/scooters make sense – zero emissions, no noise pollution and low cost to operate (nexport has launched electric taxis in Sydney this year with assistance from great local councils) Apart from the awful noise, can actually see the soot on the outside of inner city buildings from diesel buses – awful that children are breathing that in.
2 February 2022 – Despite some bureaucrats public spiel and absurd photo ops (clearly that bureaucrat cannot drive at all) – mah pappy was a fibbing salesman bureaucrats postal service has apparently been buying lots and lots and lots of petrol delivery vans all (year). And meanwhile many corps in that country are happily converting to electric delivery vans.
Not the kind of shifty guy any person would want to see doing slow drive bys with those sunglasses on.
My grandfather never sold a used car in his life only new with full service warranty and his workshop was heritage listed for a reason.
3 March 2022 – This week the GOP has submitted “It’s Electric: Developing the Postal Service Fleet of the Future” for debate.
6 April 2022 – reportedly “A top House Democrat (in damage control mode) told senior U.S. Postal Service officials Tuesday that the agency “needs to go back to the drawing board” on an $11.3 billion plan to replace its ageing delivery vehicles with up to 148,000 gas-guzzling trucks” Yeeha! and kudos. (7 April 2022 – (and yet more bureaucratic attempted damage control that we didn’t watch) – could easily legislate to ensure 100% electric postal fleet concerningly creepy fibbing bureaucrat. It’s not complicated)
Fact check: After decades of steady decline in coal use the current bureaucratic administration has inexplicably increased destroying all life on earth coal use more rapidly than any other this century.
17 August 2021 – A Swedish company ships the first batch of steel made without using coal. Absolutely brilliant – Volvo intends to make cars using only green steel. Around 8% of global carbon emissions can be removed by transitioning to green steel.
(2 October 2021 – dear aljazeera that is amongst our favourite and most respected publications for decades – living plant derived biodiesel, synfuel, synthetic oils reduce greenhouse emissions by more than 85% compared to oil – start pumping water!) Plants to produce synthetic oils can be grown indoors (or in multi-storey skyscrapers/subterranean) to avoid extreme heat.
Real science ….
Putting more electric vehicles on the road increases electricity usage – researchers have found that unless the electricity used to power electric vehicles comes entirely from renewable sources the increase of emissions due to electricity consumption offsets more than half of the reduction in emissions by switching to electric vehicles.
Coal powered electricity is the major contributor to greenhouse emissions globally. Focusing on electric cars rather than immediately reducing coal powered electricity is a a bit of a let’s burn more coal! Let’s not burn more coal. Planet in danger. Really.
Plasma powered jet engines are a great idea.
P.S.
(August 2021 – Despite the worst efforts by current oz corrupt coal-lobby bureaucrats, a poll this month in oz shows that the majority of voters across all electorates say they would reconsider their vote at the next election to ensure immediate positive govt action to reduce green house emissions – analysts say they have never seen such high figures before. People care a lot about the planet and their children)
P.P.S.
Several scientific studies in South America have shown that fodder grown in the semi-shade of trees is more nutrient rich for cows and allows more head to be run per acre (the cows are healthier, produce more milk and reduces heat stress and herd loss during summer) Trees are planted around two metres apart and cycled for timber every few years providing significant additional income. And surprisingly, pastures dappled with shade require no fertiliser to produce higher quality pasture thus reducing costs, more cattle can be run per acre, the dappled shade also ensures pastures continue to thrive during scorching temperatures and low rainfall (drought resistant and fast growing Australian eucalypts are being used in some South American pastures) That is counter intuitive to my knowledge of pasture but it really works and could be an easy way for farmers to produce more income off drought stricken pastures (actually looked around some paddocks a few weeks ago to confirm – dappled shade there was green grass, paddocks were pretty brown)
Have personally long thought if can run an oil/gas pipeline for thousands of kilometres can figure out how to get water a few hundred kilometres inland. Water seems more useful. Desalination plants are effective – plenty of sea water about – too much rising sea water apparently – start pumping it inland!
Shade (cloth or trees), cow manure and water can grow vegetables in the middle of a desert. Really. Basic water pipelines would instantly and permanently alleviate all famine.
Instead of turning forests into farmland, turning deserts into abundant farmland and gardens makes much more sense.
(farmed fish either on land or offshore is an incredibly healthy, reliable and fast to market source of protein)
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