Speling Mistakes

Ha ha ha.
OK, I am guilty of quite a few typos, sorry, typographical errors. Pure laziness, on my part. I also write the way I speak, especially in casual mediums, like email, or this blog, so I am always making grammatical errors.

However, I just got my son's report card. There are quite a few spelling mistakes in the comment sections. What, they don't have spell chuck?

Come on guys, this is a formal document. I still have report cards from my primary school days, so this is a document that will be kept for long time. Not to mention, passed around Grandparents, and doting Aunties.

The New Prime Minister

There's quite a bit of blogging buzz about Australia's new prime minister.

OK, OK. I get it, she's a chick. Whoo-hoo.

Problem is, she wasn't elected by me. Did you vote for her?

I'm not convinced that Rudd was doing a great job. However, that should have been sorted out at the next election.
I feel that my democratic rights have been impinged.
A few elite politicians shouldnt be able to make massive decisions about our country's leadership.
That's what is so worrying about this.

Does anyone else feel this isn't democratic?

Does anyone else feel that it's not really fair for the Labor Caucus to suddenly try to replace our prime minister?

It's basically an impeachment.
Has he done anything wrong? Illegal?

How can a few people decide for the entire country, without a vote?

Can't they just wait until the election, to change the party's leader?

Julia Gillard wasn't voted for by me nor anyone else.

I protest.

It's an incredibly bad time for the nation to have leadership changes. The last thing Australia needs is political instability to add to economic instability.

If caucus votes Kevin Rudd out, can an election be forced by the opposition?

Brisbane house are over priced

How on earth can a real estate agent advertise a AU$500 000+ home as "perfect for first home buyers"?????? (one example but there are more)

The real estate industry is so out of kilter that these agents think half a million dollars is a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a 3 bedroom weatherboard house on a postcard patch of lawn. And somehow they think that people buying their first home can afford something like that.

Let's do some sums kiddies:

"Average" wages in australia in february 2010 are about $1 200 a week.

So average annual income is approx $62 400*

Now let's assume that we have a two parent family, with a couple of kids. One parent working fulltime and one working part time**, so we have $62 400, plus about half to two thirds, or about $36000, before tax.
So total income for the family is $98 400.
minus $17 000 for tax, $81000
Lets put these figures through a mortgage calculator:
The maximum this fictional couple can borrow is $467000.
If they can comply with all the terms and conditions and come up with the deposit, which for most loans is 10%.

So if my fictional average income couple have saved up 50 grand, they can buy what the industry considers an "entry level" property. And then pay $1000 a week, which is two thirds their combined income and hope to god interest rates don't go up, ever. I hope the kids don't eat much, or wear clothes, or go to school.

I'm not really convinced that average families are earning nearly $100 000 a year. I can't find a statistic for family incomes.

Btw There are plenty of nice properties out there for less than $500 000, my problem is with real estate agents who seem to think that First Home Buyers are looking for something in that price range.

I can remember my mother buying her first house for $42000 in th 80s. Her second house was less than $100 000 in the early 90s and sold for more than double that ten years later. That's just ridiculous! The same house, rose over 100% in ten years? Wages have not risen enough to compensate... House Prices are seriously over inflated and unaffordable.
I can remember the gossip when a friend built a house in the early 90s and spent around $450k. Everyone was positive they had over capitilised. I shudder to think what that property would be worth today. I shudder mainly because the house is not my taste, actually it's a hideous cliche of a McMansion. Not to mention a vast waste of resources.

Will house prices ever deflate back to their "real" worth?
Let's say house values rose at the same (ish) rate as everything else, between about 3% and 5% a year. A particular postwar 3 Bedroom house in Brisbane, purchased in 1990, was $100 000. 10 years later that house rising in value 5% a year should have cost about $162 000. instead it sold for $50 000 more than that. 20 years later it should cost around $265 000, yet houses in that area now sell for a median price of $557k. Let's say that house is worth a lot less than it's neighbours and give it a conservative value of $440k. (it was actually advertised for this amount in 2007, lol) By my reasoning, (most likely flawed/naive) this house is over valued by nearly $200 000.

This problem will most likely not go away. The GFC (which is not over despite media consensus, schmucks), will create rises in the real cost of living, wages will stagnate, inflation will rise and even if the real estate bubble bursts, the price of houses will remain unaffordable.



*imo this amount could be skewed by including mega earners in these calculations. For example, the highest 20% of earners earn 39.4% of all income and the middle 20% earn 17.4% of all income.
**if the second earner has a casual job, which is more likely, considering the 2 kids, then the bank will not regard the income as reliable, reducing the amount the family can borrow.

If you were a millionaire, what would be your charitable work?

i was mucking around on whohub, when i came across this question.

this was my answer:
I would buy school uniforms, shoes, school textbooks, musical instruments, computers and other learning related supplies, and pay for school camps and excursions for underprivileged children. These are the things that are hardest for kids to do without, they make them stand out as poor at school.
Teachers also misinterpret "forgetting" schoolbooks, or permission slips as laziness, when the child just doesn't want to admit that once again they can't do something, because their parents can't afford it.

I totally remember pretending to forget things, simply because i really hadn't bothered to ask my mum for it, it would just stress her out. Especially, if it was my fault and i had lost it, say my school jumper, or a text book, I would rather put up with the teacher being mad at me than my mum.

I also remember once filling out forms in the principals office which let you pay off your textbooks over time, rather than paying hundreds of dollars at the beginning of the year. When we got to the bit that asked for reasons for the extension, I said "Look we just don't have the money right now," the Principal wrote in the box, "Because I am poor." Actually, that hurts still 11 years later. AXXhole

So if i could i would make sure no kid ever feels embarrassed having to ask to borrow an eraser or a piece of paper, from a friend. Or pretend that they don't want to wear the correct uniform and are trouble makers, when the fact is they don't even own the right jumper or correct shoes. They won't get yelled at for handing in a bit of scribble on a scrap of paper, when the printer ran out of ink. And they wont have to wag wednesday afternoon sport because they havent got $3.50 for the sports money, again.

I signed up for post peak living free mini course.

there are a few courses on "Post Peak Living" but you have to pay, so i thought i'd sign up for the free newsletter first.

anyway, so far they have told me to get a 72 hour emergency kit ready.... already done that yawn...

and to start a transition initiative in my neighbourhood, quote "If a group doesn't yet exist in your area, talk to your neighbors and begin organizing."
hmmm easy as that is it?

they direct you to the transition book on amazon but not to any of the transition wikis etc online....

My own googling, i mean extensive research, has been more helpful than their nuggets of wisdom.

for Brisbane residents: http://www.transitionbrisbane.org

join the ning its like facebook/myspace for community organisations

the transition primer is here

One of the courses that I might have been interested in is about post oil jobs, but then i read the info.
This is their advice, my comments are in italics:

Skills Needed in a Post-Peak World

Here are some of the skills that will likely be needed:

• medical treatment and nursing (but we won't need dentists? Probably should brush up on herbal medicine and distilling alcohol as well, because without oil, pharmaceuticals will be few and far between. Think biting on a stick while the doc saws your leg off a la civil war. And for those who can't finish a ten year medical degree, check out Where there is no doctor/dentist/midwife etc for some basic info.)
  
• welding (uh huh, and the electricity to run the welder is coming from? Lets replace this with blacksmithing.)
  
• growing food (yep makes sense, however this should be broader food production in general, ie beekeeping, raising meat/hunting, foraging, learning about agriculture with no chemicals, permaculture etc.)
  
• plumbing (with what materials? pvc piping? I guess recycled/repurposed materials then, and when there are no parts anymore? I think running hot and cold water and indoor flush toilets could be out in a low tech post oil future. Learn how to safely build composting toilets.)
  
• carpentry and green building techniques (as long as its is traditional artisan woodworking without power saws or belt sanders or oil based varnishes and so on ad nauseum)
• sewing (with a treadle machine or hand sewing only.... and only with reused textiles, because last time i checked there werent many old fashioned looms around to produce cloth, just a few hobbyist textile artists. and there won't be any petro chemicals to fertilise cotton crops. and how exactly do you process flax to make linen again cos i forgot? Knitting might become more common, since needles are easily made from wood and some spinning wheels can be found in a few "country style" mcmansions gathering dust. Ready to shear a sheep with hand shears anyone?)
  
• converting cars to use electricity (this is about POST peak right? i'm sorry but there is NO CHEAP OIL OR GAS OR COAL... peak oil is peak fossil fuels in general so where is the electricity coming from???? solar or wind power right? and the oil based plastic parts to repair and maintain your alternative energy source and your electric car are coming from which factory?? delivered by which trucks?? How about you learn cobbling, as in making shoes from wood and leather by hand, or saddlery and horse husbandry and wagon making, because we will all be walking, and using horse power in a post fossil fuel world!)
  
• installing and repairing renewable energy systems (don't forget solar hot water) (groan, maybe in the short term, see what i have said before about repairs and maintenance, once oil, oil products, and things that are energy intensive to produce are firmly out of the affordability of the general public)
  
• installing rainwater catchment systems (using pvc again are we??)
  
• transporting goods without using fossil energy (rickshaw? horse and cart anyone? grin)
  
• installing residential and commercial backup energy systems (oh for petes sake, whatever)
  
• appliance repair (repair? and you will plug said appliance into...? knock, knock, like i said there is NO ELECTRICITY!!!!!!!!! )
  
• set up and run a food co-op (thats a nice warm and fuzzy one, just don't ask for mangoes in June, no broom broom juice means no airplanes)
  
• build and operate a community oven (baking is very energy intensive; not everyone will be able to afford to do it every day) (quite realistic, just make sure you build it right next to your sustainable coppiced woodlot, oh wait, you do have one of those right?)
  

Guess thats pretty bitchy...
I just get annoyed at people who go on about post peak oil, and then they tell you to do something like buy like kerosene lamps, as preparation. By the way, there will be no kerosene, because it is a byproduct of oil. There are people who think oil will just not be there one day, to fuel their cars, when in reality it will just become more and more expensive. This will in turn drive the cost of everything else up as well. Even completely organic fruit and veg need cold storage and transportation and then cooking, for example.

Some people won't even realise the reason why they can't get ahead in life, can't put food on the table every night, and can't keep their savings account from being eaten away, is not because they are inferior, or stupid or unlucky, its just that every ones standard of living is slipping down as oil becomes scarce and prices rise.

One day (soon) you might notice that you don't go to the movies as often as you once did, or you will put off buying a second car, because you can't afford it right now. You stop and think, and can't remember the last time you bought yourself a new handbag, or shoes. You might keep putting off trips to the hairdresser, "until next pay", and even though you used to get pedicures and waxes all the time when you were single, you haven't done that since the wedding. Or you can't afford new school shoes for the kids this term, and you'll just buff the old ones up and pray they don't have a growth spurt until "things" are less tight.
You might start finding that when you go shopping some things that used to be "needs" have turned into "wants" and less and less is making its way into the shopping trolley, but you still spend the same amount as you did 12 months ago, even three months ago.

Or if you are like me things are already like that :)

I hate to tell you, but you have probably bought your last car. Luxuries will just get even less affordable, and our definition of what we consider to be luxury (needs vs wants) will have to change. Things will not get "less tight", and things will not go back to normal, if normal means consuming more than your fair share of the planets resources.

Everything will slowly grind to a halt, industries will contract, jobs will evaporate, and people will have to shift their thinking, from consuming, and rushing, to just simply living and being.


Here is my list of jobs for the post oil economy (incomplete and in no particular order):

• Prostitution (just kidding, sort of)
• Market Gardener
• Bee Keeper
• Stock drover (no more road trains, remember)
  
• Butcher
• Baker
• Carcass renderer (where do you think soap, and glue will come from, when its not economic to make it from oil by products?)
• Tanner (as in leather, not solarium)
• Wagon maker
• Blacksmith
• Brewer/distiller
• Dentist
• Doctor
• Midwife
• Teacher
• Carpenter
• Potter
• Weaver
• Cooper (barrel maker, we'll need to replace plastic buckets, cardboard boxes and stainless steel drums with something.)
• Printer
• Musical instrument maker
• Seamstress/tailor
• Shearer
• Cobbler
• Broom maker
• Soap maker
  

Basically anything that is currently produced by energy intensive factories, or transported massive distances, will be reduced to the cottage industry level.
We could even see the rise of "piece work" the precursor to mass production. Especially for women in the cities, they will sew garments, at home with their own equipment, or make baskets, and or any other work where they can get paid by the item (no insurance, no unions, no super.)

If you feel like a beer, it won't be matter of jumping in the car and going to the bottle shop. You'll likely have to brew it yourself, but first you will have to plant a field of barley. If you want bacon and eggs for breakfast, you will have to butcher a hog, salt down and smoke the hams, collect eggs from your chook pen, chop wood for the fire and even before you do that you will have to grow feed for said chooks and hog. You see where I'm going with this?

Forget solar, hydrogen, hydroelectric and the rest. Think 1800s, preindustrialisation, "Little House on the Prairie", "My Brilliant Career". The only difference being the knowledge and scientific advances, for example, understanding germs, the need for sanitation, understanding nutrition and how to properly care for mothers and babies.

But this is countered by the knowledge we have lost since then, such as how to produce lye at home and make soap with no other chemicals. How to kill and butcher an animal. How to grow, and process textiles. How to accept mortality and live alongside death. How to work within nature without fighting and railing futilely against things you cannot control. But we will learn.

I did not know, did not think to ask and was never told

For about a year, when I was eighteen years old, I used the “oral contraceptive pill”. If I had been informed of the true function of the pill I would never, ever, have taken it.

Prior to then I had used condoms. However, I was convinced that only women who engaged in casual sex, with a number of partners, needed to use condoms. Condoms weren't respectable, the pill was. To use the pill was to be in an adult, committed relationship. It was a right of passage, a part of becoming a woman. I was told my feminist Grandmothers, Mothers and Aunts had fought bitterly for my right to have penetrative sex without the risk of fertilisation. My sexual partners, the media and even my women friends convinced me that having semen washed over my cervix was extremely pleasurable, and that having a thin synthetic coating between partners ruined intimacy and reduced pleasure.

My mother lived in fear of me “repeating her mistakes”, by which she means having children while young, and becoming dependent on men, either a husband, or the Government. She instilled into me that “only stupid girls get themselves pregnant”. Sensible, educated girls are in control of what goes into, and what comes out of, their vagina. I knew if I fell pregnant, before “having lived my life” (whatever that means), I would be an enormous disappointment.

I had internalised all of these views, some consciously, and some unconsciously. So believing I had made an educated choice, I asked my doctor for a prescription.

I never questioned that to receive this right I had to ask for permission. If control over fertility is the most basic of feminine rights, why is distribution recorded, controlled and regulated? If prevention of pregnancy is so basic a right, on par with education, health care, freedom from harm, and freedom of association, why is contraception not free? Someone, somewhere, is making money from millions of women ingesting steroidal hormones daily.

At the age of eighteen, I had trouble achieving orgasm from penetrative sex. I perceived this as a defect in my own physiology, or possibly psyche. Why then, when pleasure was possible, and actually more likely, without penetration, was I so intent on using the pill? Why did I need a method of contraception that was specifically designed to allow ejaculate to come in contact with my cervix? Why did I feel that the only “real” sex was penetration?

At eighteen, it had not occurred to me to question any of this.

For 12 months I took that tiny, innocent-looking, almost pretty tablet. For 12 months I experienced the absolute terror that I would forget to take it. For 12 months I had painful, humiliating abscesses and blind pimples on my face, which my doctor could not (would not?)attribute a source to. I regularly experienced “breakthrough bleeding” for periods of more than three weeks at time, as my body “adjusted” to the chemicals. Through 12 months of extreme cramping in my womb, of gaining weight, of developing anaemia, and of feeling foreign in my own body, I persevered. For this is what all women must go through, to experience the wonder of semen inside their bodies.

Finally, I fell pregnant. To my relief, the dreaded event I was enduring agonies to prevent had happened and I was allowed to unceremoniously, throw the pills in the f---ing bin.

One reason, in fact, my main reason, for using the pill was because I didn't want to have an abortion. I had decided that if my ovum did become fertilised, it would remain in my womb. My reasons for this are many and complicated, and I would never presume to force my choices on others.

However, my choice was removed from me. Every 28 days, or so, I had unwittingly, performed an abortion on myself. I did not know, did not think to ask, and was never told, the oral contraceptive pill is not actually contraception, but an abortifacient. Instead of preventing sperm reaching and fertilising my eggs, as I believed, it made my womb a hostile environment, so that embryos were prevented from attaching to the wall and were simply expelled.

I found this out, not from my doctor, not from a medical source, but from Germaine Greer’s The Whole Woman. When I found out, I already had a beautiful baby. I knew the exquisite agony and pleasure of motherhood. And I felt grief, absolute sorrow at the thought of those approximately twelve “almost, could have been” babies, flushed out of my womb, in my ignorance, by my own actions.

“All this suffering, all this mess, is the direct consequence of the insistence upon the accessibility of the cervix to the ejaculating penis. Whether you feel that the creation and wastage of so many embryos is an important issue or not, you must see that the cynical deception of millions of women by selling abortifacients as if they were contraceptives is incompatible with the respect due to women as human beings. [...] Fake contraceptive technology manipulates women in ways that we are coming to condemn when they are practised on members of other species. What women don’t know does hurt them. If we ask ourselves whether we would have any hope of imposing on men the duty to protect women’s fertility and their health, and avoid the abortions that occur in their uncounted millions every day, we will see in a blinding light how unfree women are.”

Greer, Germaine, (1999), the whole woman, Transworld Publishers Ltd, 1999, ISBN 0-385-60016-X, p

grey days

This is my response to Towards Sustainability she seems to be having a grey day, which happens to me all too often :) (I also have a lot of red days- where i'm angry and snappy all day, *sheepish grin*)

Working the jobs i do, I am privy to a lot of different people's lifestyles and I get frustrated when I see some of the things people do. Some of the things, I have been guilty of myself, so i try not to be judgemental, but the simple fact is there really is no excuse for not knowing better, anymore. Even mainstream media has newspaper articles and tv shows on simple, green living, so most people are aware of the issues...

Some of the things I have seen, (perpetrators shall remain nameless)...

• 4 (!) airconditioners on at once, with windows and doors open... the mind boggles.
• Televisions left on all night, with no one even sleeping in the room.
• Manicured, monoculture lawns, that are as productive and useful as a carpark, and use more resources; petrochemical fertilisers, precious drinking quality water, etc.
• Driving less than 1 kilometre round trip, just to pick up "dinner" through a drive thru.
• Dozens of cars waiting in a line for over half an hour, engines running, to pick up children from school.

Digression (rant alert):
This annoys me, a fair bit. It takes me 1 hour total, to catch the bus from 2 kilometres away, get son and other hangers on, and catch bus home again. Sometimes we walk home, because we enjoy the walk! Some days, I hate the walk, and the chunk it takes out of my day, I will admit. However, it has cost me $2 for the bus fare, the bus goes that way whether i'm on it or not, so I'm not adding to emissions and I get a bit of exercise.

Also I can:

• chat to my son, who isn't really a talker, (when we are walking, there's no chores/tv/homework to get in the way of chatter),
• collect flowers for my cockatiel to nibble,
• drop off letters at the post box,
• collect seeds and leaves from street trees for craft,
• chat on the phone without worrying about causing an accident,
• read a magazine/book at the bus stop, (guilt free 5 minutes of sitting down, oh yeah)
• listen to my mp3 player,
• or just "be" in silence (it's truly amazing how quiet the suburbs can be, especially between 8am and 6pm, when no one is home!).

Some, not all, of the people in the pick up line have thier reasons, like not wanting to disturb a sleeping baby, that's fine. Seriously, though people, if you can, - walk, or turn your darn car off!

Anyways, back on topic...
How to feel less frustrated/angry/depressed/worried about the world ending in a human wrought environmental disaster...

Truthfully, it's hard. It's enough to make you want to take up goat farming in woop woop.

The only thing you can control are your own actions, which is pretty sucky.

Wouldn't it be cool to be the government for a day, or a week?

To just blanket declare pesticides illegal, or to ration car use, or to give away water tanks and alternative energy systems?
We could make it compulsory for every school to be a permaculture site. How great to go to a school that is passive solar designed, shady, airy, non toxic and has chickens roaming around?
We could ban MDF, chip board and air fresheners... sigh.

(Actually, the first thing I would do, as President of the world, would be to ban the use of perfumes/body spray/cologne and cigarettes if you plan on using public transport... this is purely selfish, i find the cocktail of smells mixed with stale cigarette smoke makes me feel ill when i'm on the bus. Why do teenage girls think they can cover the fact they have been smoking with half a can of impulse?)

To combat the hopeless feeling, the "why do i bother being vegetarian and using bicarb soda to clean the bathroom, when next door is flushing scented bleach down the loo, and eating preservative laced factory farmed chicken nuggets" feeling, I remind myself that I am not alone.

There are people just discovering how to have less of an impact on the planet, and there are people who have been living frugal simple lives forever, before 'eco' was a buzz word, or before even hippies for that matter. And there are plenty of people who also feel that the world is going to hell in a plastic shopping bag.

You could bang your head on a brick wall, or you can slowly chisel at its foundations.
Simply by sharing fragrant bunches of fresh basil, and sunripened homegrown tomatoes with friends, I motivate them to grow their own herbs and some vegies. When a client needs plants, I use local organic nurseries and substitute productive/native plants for ornamentals and exotics. When I give a friend a handmade gift, they feel special, the extra effort on my part is worth more to them than if i spent more money. When I turn up to a friend's house with some fresh baked breadrolls, or a bowl of home made dip, they are blown away, it's much more impressive than a bottle of wine you bought on the way there.

Keep on imagining a better world, living as simply and as greenly (is that a word?) as you can and take your canvas bags to the super market.

Daytime curfew?

I had never, ever heard of this, until I happened to read a casual comment about daytime curfews in this article.

I didn't know what the author meant, so I googled it, (gotta love google).

A copy of the Curfew Law for Dallas can be read here, it starts on page 63. This is an American idea, I haven't heard of it being implemented in Australia, so far.

I am shocked. Basically, anyone under the age of 17, must be at school, home, work, or supervised by a parent/guardian, or they are breaking the law. This is constitutional?

This is ridiculous.

1. At 15, a person needs to be supervised by adults? They are starting to become adults. Part of growing up is developing a sense of identity, away from family. It's about becoming independent, about learning how to grow up, and that process will be severely stunted if they aren't allowed out of their parent's sight.

2. What trouble can you get into at 2pm on Thursday, that you can't get into at 2pm on Saturday?

3. What if you are late for school? Can you get arrested for walking down the street, at 9.30am?

4. How come it's ok to wag at home, but it's not ok to wag in a park?

5. If you and your boyfriend are at his place "watching Buffy reruns", during school hours, do they arrest you both, or just you, because he is at home and therefore technically not breaking the law?

Oh ha bloody ha!
Stupid climate change, stupid el nino/la nina!
10 years or so of drought, then we get a years supply of rain in 48 hours!
grumble mumble razzafrucka sassafrum (muttley style grumbling)

(photo by Karen Chapman, news.com.au)

NSCF went under, because Enoggera creek broke it's banks.
Roads were shut all over the place, and despite Anna Bligh saying all was well with buses etc, it took me an hour to get my son to school (from Lutwyche to Wilston, 2kms/1.25 miles). We ended up walking, after waiting for ages, then, as can be expected, the bus passed us just as we were almost there.
I didn't bother to try to get my assignment back from NSCF, yesterday. It was hard enough just getting 5 minutes up the road.

(northey st carpark, news.com.au)

Some people are complaining that all the roadworks and developments have fiddled with the drains and creeks. It is possible, especially around the Bowen Bridge Road area, and Toombul shopping centre, but the floods were all over SEQ and North NSW. Can't really blame Clem7 or the airport link, for floods in Beerburrum. Fun to try though :).

I'm not sure that building tunnels under flood prone creeks and rivers is really a sensible idea, Mr Newman, Ms Bligh. General consensus on climate change is that storms will increase in intensity, cyclones will become more frequent and will range further down the east coast of Australia.

[T]he intensity of the 1-in-20 year daily rainfall event is likely to increase [...] by up to 30% by 2040 in south-east Queensland [...] The frequency of severe

tropical cyclones (Categories 3, 4 and 5) on the east Australian coast increases 22% [...] from 2000 to 2050, with a 200 km southward shift in the cyclone genesis region, leading to greater exposure in south-east Queensland and north-east NSW. (IPCC 2007, Chapter 11, Australia and New Zealand, "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability")

If the last few days is an example of what happens when a low pressure system hits Brisbane, I'm not sure we'll stand up to an actual cyclone...

The environmentally responsible child

My son cares for the environment in a number of ways.
The first is by showering once a month at the most, to save on electricity, water and soap.
He also reduces the amount of washing up we have to do, by drinking out of the milk bottle and eating with his fingers.
He chooses to fertilise the garden, instead of flushing his nitrogen rich pee down the loo. When it comes to flushing the toilet, his motto is: "if its yellow its mellow, if its brown, let it sit there and stink!"
He also tends to wear his clothes to bed, saving loads of washing.

See, his mother may find it irritating, but he is just trying to do his bit for the planet.
grrrr

Living in an elevator

You know how you step onto an elevator, and immediately, every one shuffles back for you to fit, with out a word said and no eye contact made. Everyone faces the front, and the trip is in silence. Temporarily, your personal space bubble shrinks. You politely ignore the fact that the briefcase of the guy next to you is digging into your side. You breathe shallowly, feet together, elbows in, taking up as little space as possible.

I have a theory, that the same unspoken rules apply to modern life, with so many people, living in such close proximity.
Living in a block of units, with large blocks of units on two sides of our block, and another block across the road... We are living in an elevator.

(The purple arrow is pointing to my place)

When you live in an elevator, your personal space bubble is permanently shrunk. We pretend that we don't see each other. You ignore the fact that you can hear each other laugh, sneeze and cry. You pretend you can't hear anyone fighting, or making love, and pray that you are quiet enough, yourself. Curtains have to be closed, because it is too easy to see across into the neighbours place, and for them to see into yours. You feel self conscious hanging out the washing, taking out the rubbish, even checking the mail. You never say hi, or make eye contact, because of the unspoken elevator rules.

Life can be claustrophobic, and pretty lonely.

Day of Action Encircle Parliament

Tomorrow is the first sitting day of parliament. There will be a protest to let the Australian government know that we want more action on climate change. People from all over Australia wearing red and carrying red banners, as a symbol of the climate emergency, will join hands around parliament house, Canberra.

I will be there in spirit, wearing a red shirt.
I wish everyone the best of luck. I don't expect it will be covered by the mainstream news, but I will be checking out You tube.

Hey, Kevvo, 5%? Not good enough, Mate!

More info here

Soap Box Rant

This post by Jerry Coleby-Williams, showing the effects of the recent king tide in Brisbane, Australia, (my home town,) got me thinking about rising sea levels and global warming in general.

Jerry commented that even if we were at 0% carbon emissions today, sea levels would continue to rise, due to a kind of delayed reaction to the carbon already in the atmosphere.

People smarter than I am, (here and here) say a global temperature rise of at least 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) is inevitable, and that unless we do something right now, temperatures (and by inference sea levels) are likely to keep rising.

Mark Lynas in his book Six degrees: Our future on a hotter planet (Published 19 March 2007 by Fourth Estate, HarperCollins) gives a blow by blow account of the possible effects each degree of warming would have on the planet and on us. I recommend this book, although it has scared the pants off me! It is written so that the general public can make sense of the myriad scientific studies into climate change, with out their brains turning to mush.

We should reduce our personal emissions as much as it is in our power to do, right now, as well as lobby for stricter carbon emissions policies. Hello, Kevin? 5%, not good enough, mate.

People, like my family, who are looking at buying property, should consider future global warming impacts when deciding where to buy. We need to seriously consider that 2 degrees will happen in my lifetime and my grandchildren may face worse.

For example, sub tropical and tropical areas, (all of QLD) while experiencing long periods of drought, will experience periods of extreme storm activity. Cyclones may travel as far south as Sydney. The inland and southern parts of Australia will be subjected to increasing desertification. All coastal areas will be subjected to rising sea levels. See here and here for maps that show areas that may be inundated by rising sea levels.

That really doesn't leave much inhabitable land in Australia. I won't tell you where we have decided to buy, otherwise everyone will want to move there, driving land values out of our reach! ;)

Global warming may affect decisions on where to live in other ways, for example:

• Increased spread of diseases, like malaria, dengue fever, cholera and so on. A lot of diseases need certain conditions to survive, such as warmth, humidity, overcrowding and poor sanitation infrastructure.
• Food shortages. Global warming will change where crops can be grown, the amount of area available for growing crops, as well as the growing seasons, the types of crops able to be grown and the way important food crops are distributed.
• Water shortages. Increased severity and occurrences of drought will affect availability of water. Areas affected by floods and cyclones will experience problems with the quality of water, due to salinity, or compromised sanitation and sewerage systems.
• Civil unrest/Terrorism/War. Governments will not be able cope with a lot of the problems caused and/or exacerbated by global warming, this could lead to civil unrest, riots and even war. Social and economic problems will most likely increase worldwide, contributing to increased terrorist and criminal activity. Consider anecdotes about the behaviour of civilians and officials after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to realise what an increase in natural disasters could lead to, even in supposedly "developed" nations.

I am not trying to be excessively morbid here. I would just like to explain some of the reasons I feel that caring for the planet is so important.

In order to avoid these outcomes we need to reduce our impact on the planet as much as we possibly can:

• By reducing our personal dinosaur juice addiction,
  
• by not succumbing to excessive consumption, and
  
• by being as self reliant as possible. (By self reliance, I don't mean rely only on yourself, we will always need family, friends and community. I mean don't rely on the government/mega corporations/science to fix, or change anything. Rely on your own instincts, judgement and skills, don't be an environmental lemming.)

Ok, ok, I'll hop down off the soap box now. :)