environment

Dear Mr. Quinn

Submitted by naught101 on Mon, 03/24/2008 - 21:35

Daniel,

You argue that the major defining factor of population size is food limits. Australia (to give an example), currently has a birthrate less than 2 births per woman. We have an overall annual immigration, so our population is growing, but if we had no immigration, our population would be decreasing. Australia is a fairly affluent country: plenty of food, people are educated, well supported with social services, and generally feel secure. They don't need the added security of a large family (I don't claim that this is causal, but believe it may have some impact).

A fall from grace for one man, a step forward for the rest.

Submitted by naught101 on Sun, 11/25/2007 - 10:12

Howard is gone.

Not only have the libs lost the election, by an avalanche, but it's pretty certain that Howard has lost his seat as well. Fucking good riddance.

Not that Rudd will be much better. He's definitely got some things going for him over Howard, but his acceptance speech contained a few things that I'm definitely a bit uncomfortable about.

Embiggen this!

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 10:55

I've just started the Big List of Environmental issues - on Envirowiki. You should add to it. Hopefully, after a few decent edits, this page will list all the big issues, and after a few more related issues.

The reason that all the links are red is that those pages haven't been created yet. Click on the links to start editing!

Spark from Bookchin

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 08/16/2007 - 21:17

This is something I started that was going to be the first post on this blog, about 6 months ago. As you'll see though, I got lost, and I have never really made it back to it, having gotten lost in many other things in the intervening period. I thought I'd post it anyway. It might inspire me to come back and add stuff to it (doubtful), or, with a few comments, it might set off that train of thought, and inspire me to write some kind of conclusion. So go ahead, criticise, wonder, ramble, insult. See what happens.

– work in progress, 14th December, 2006 –
“In trying to find a low common denominator that would “mobilize” virtually everyone, the new “anti-nuke establishment” really educated no-one. It was Three-Mile Island that did much of the education, and often public understanding of the issue goes no further than problems of technology, rather than problems of society” - Murray Bookchin, “the Power to Create, the Power to Destroy”, 1979, p. 50, (in “Toward an Ecological Society”)

Bloody hell. Not much has changed has it? seems like, 27 years later, the environment movement is still struggling in two directions - firstly to get people active, often through short, punchy catch phrases and shocking images, and secondly to educate, which obviously require a longer attention span, and more in-depth analysis of the issues. It’s a pity that these two objectives sometimes seem almost mutually exclusive.

Clean Coal

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 22:57

Aint.

The term's been popping up a LOT lately, so I thought I'd give a few links to pages worth reading (there's not much point me re-doing it, it's already done so well)

Steve from Rising Tide Newcastle has written a clean coal fact sheet, with a lot of good stuff about carbon capture and storage.

We need value changes, not technofixes: the Aswan Dam as a metaphor for climate change.

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 03/15/2007 - 16:28

I had a very interesting lecture today, on thermodynamics, ecosystems, and human values relating to technology (lecture 4, Technology and Human Values, PHIL3910 at the University of Newcastle. I recommend it). It didn't give me a lot of information that I hadn't heard before, but Yin Gao's presentation definitely cemented a lot of that information in place for me.

One thing that did strike me, was Yin's case study: the Aswan Dam. I've heard of it before of course, but never paid a lot of attention. Almost as soon as she mentioned it, I saw the link with climate change. As she went on, the similarities blew me away. let me explain: