environment

Some mothers do have 'em!

Submitted by naught101 on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 16:24

There's a pigeon nesting in the apple tree in my yard. The pigeon has already laid its eggs - two creamy pink ones. The apple tree hasn't dropped it's leaves yet - some are yellow, some are still green. It's the 7th of July - the middle of winter.

Granted, both species are introduced, and the apple is some bastardised cross-breed grafted Frankenstein, each graft of which seems to bud, fruit and drop leaves at different times (which makes it very difficult to know when to prune it). But the image is pretty bizarre.

Population and climate

Submitted by naught101 on Sat, 06/06/2009 - 14:40

This is in response to a discussion about population control and climate change on an e-list I'm on. In particular, it's in response to a line by a mate, Jono:

it's not the number of people that is important, but rather the power of the argument. Population control arguments need to be challenged wherever they occur, because they turn the climate movement into a war against human rights rather than for human rights.


Population control doesn't have to infringe human rights.

Politics

Submitted by naught101 on Tue, 06/02/2009 - 23:30

Terry Pratchett notes in one of his discworld books that politics is fundamentally about the running of the city. Politics - from Aristotle's ta politika "affairs of state,", from the Ancient Greek polis - the city state.

Solar power rebate

Submitted by naught101 on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 13:11

I don't usually like spruiking for the corporate media, but channel 7 is doing something good with their Sunrise solar panel petition. I don't make any comment on the rest of what channel 7 does - I usually avoid it like the plague.

But they're right, a means test on the solar rebate scheme is bloody stupid. There are lots of people out there who want solar panels, but for the rebate, you have to have the money upfront. Not many people on a median wage (~$25,000/annum) have thousands of dollars just lying around.

A Short History of Progress

Submitted by naught101 on Tue, 06/24/2008 - 18:08

I just read "A Short History of Progress", by Ronald Wright(1). Pretty gloomy, if you need any impetus to become either an activist, or completely depressed, this is it. Wright maps the rise an fall of numerous civilisations, and points out that our current technological and social trajectories are pretty similar really. The only real difference between us and the romans, outside of size of the supporting ecosystem, is that we've got evidence of collapse happening before.