Limits to Density: Beginning

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 08/30/2007 - 22:33

I've spoken to a number of people about this topic, but I've never seen any definitive answers. So I'm going to try and find some of my own. For a student or architecture, permaculture, and ecology, it's important to understand just how much of an impact it's possible to sustain on this planet.

blast from the past

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 08/16/2007 - 21:52

just visited Deviant Art (a great art site, if you can get past all the shit anime), which I've been going to for long stints with large breaks for a few years (since mid 2001), and I noticed that my website was still listed as http://naught101.atspace.com/, which is pretty amazing, 'cause that site is probably 5 years old, and I haven't touched it for at least four and a half... I think..

It was my second site ever (first was http://naught101.cjb.net I think, an abandonware site).

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.

Greens pro-cops, anti-Green

Submitted by naught101 on Thu, 07/19/2007 - 22:55

We didn't hear much about it on the east coast, but the Greens just became the New Labour. No, they haven't sold out on Uranium yet, but they're on their way! One of WA Senator Rachel Siewert's staffer's went to a protest at Julie Bishop (Lib/Nat Minister for Science), and the protest got violent. That is, the cops whacked people with battons, and pepper sprayed them, and a protester threw a rock.

What the fuck is up with the media today? ABC in the corporate pocket?

Submitted by naught101 on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 18:27

Just listening to radio national news/current affairs, and this piece about the Geelong ford factory shutdown/worker layoffs and the newsreader says, roughly:

"The Factory's manager admitted today that the decision was a hard one, given the impact it would have on Geelong"

ONE word in that really gets me riled up. It's the word "admitted". Let's get something straight here. Companies don't admit messages like that.

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:

Rising sea levels: Brought to you by mining

Submitted by naught101 on Mon, 03/05/2007 - 09:55

it's true, this website told me so:
http://www.miningnsw.com.au

not that I didn't take part in making that website. but that's not the best bit. The best bit is that this website is actually a parody of a site set up by the NSW Minerals Council, as part of their "Life: brought to you by mining" re-education campaign (http://www.nswmining.com.au).