Posted by: pointofviewsa on: November 13, 2010
From AdelaideNow, today Nov 13
“FEDERAL Regional Minister Simon Crean has criticised the Murray-Darling Basin Authority for being “one dimensional” with the way it prepared its controversial plan to cut water allocations and save the basin.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has also attacked the MDBA for a lack of adequate modellng in its plan …..”
Having developed the infrastructure, the plantings and water distribution system for the Ramco Heights Irrigation area near Waikerie in the 60′s, the River has been a major part of my life.
It was not the “lack of adequate modeling” of the Basin Authority but the lack of proportion. The opposite to cutting 4000 gigs from the flow for any reason was to provide it or more by advocating the construction of the means to do so.
Strange, that a 60′s survey plan submitted to State Government to bring water from Argyle to Burke is ignored or the practical suggestions since then to channel water from Queensland as insurance to waterproof the nations food bowl are not even considered. Yet the reality is “drought and flooding rains”.
The means to offset the droughts have been pushed aside for an idiotic notion that by paying millions to buy water licenses during a drought from irrigators of food and putting them to the wall, the river would suddenly flow?
What a monumental waste of time and money this has been when an engineering survey for supply from the North could have been completed in less time at a fraction of the cost for a project no more difficult than the Snowy.
To view story and comments online go to: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/in-depth/crean-critical-of-basin-rescue-plan/story-e6frebju-1225952874011
Posted by: pointofviewsa on: November 6, 2010
It is a fact .Indeed a truism that climate changes. Why then is it suddenly Earth shattering information?
For as long as I can remember and I am over 80, it changes 4 times a year and that change has been going on for eons, since records were first found as carvings by the Neanderthals in their caves.
Nothing new about that. Each of these climate changes, to a greater or a lesser degree, is extremes of temperature, humidity or duration, and have been historically recorded. I suspect the 4000 year records of the Chinese who moved up when the tundra shed its ice along with the Vikings in Greenland and then moved south when it got a bit frozen, are the most reliable.
The climate theorists or the Greens Doomsday Cult are still pushing the convenient lie to support the political agenda for a tax because they do not have the morality to admit a mistake. What difference does the tax make to Australia while the relentless destruction of tropical forest that absorb the carbon continues and the huge industrials of China and India create it?
A Doomsday cultist has a “rising sea level due to climate change” threatening a coastal subdivision at Pt.Augusta. A high tide to threaten the subdivision has nothing whatsoever to do with climate change but to our moon and that has been known by the ancients long before a computer was invented or “computer modeling”,the bastard child that it gave birth to.
To view the subject story and comment online go to: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/good-and-the-bad-of-south-australian-development/story-e6frea83-1225945384614
Posted by: pointofviewsa on: November 6, 2010
Imagine Dear Reader, the money spent to rein in the human requirement of water from the Murray Basin to get some enviroflow to the Lower Lakes, a severe trauma for the population dependent on the River as shown by the reception at the meetings to explain. But not any practical action to waterproof the nation, only the political outcome.
After throwing $hundreds of millions buying up water licenses in the brainless notion that by doing so the river would flow with so many talkfests, the Lakes dried up anyway. These are the simple facts on record..
All of the high falutin $ values and notions they support will not be worth one cracker if there is no rain in the catchments and the river flows dry up,(1914-1921.) If the locks that provided the navigation pools had been removed because there is no more need for them, then the irrigation system for food would not exist in its present dimension.The Chaffey Bros would never have started what has become a $12 billion food bowl in the MDB from those pools between the locks.
During the present drought, I suggest that for 6 of the past 10 years the pools were not enough to sustain the irrigators and licenses were both cut and sold off for enviroflows that did not happen These are facts of record too.
Without letting all the water out of the locks the Lower Lakes dried up. So, we now have “the best available science” from modeling, the brainless bastard child that the computer gave birth to.
One would have every right to consider no practical solution arose from the MDB Authority to waterproofing the nation by pipe or canal from the seasonally flooded North, Argyle or Queensland. A project no more difficult than the Snowy. Failure to do so threatens the existence of so many families, and is so irresponsible as to be criminally liable.
Posted by: pointofviewsa on: November 6, 2010
The former Defence Force Chief. General Cosgrove, says that Climate Change has forced the issue for Nuclear Power and criticized the constant scrapping over the need to build them.(The Australian,Feb 4 2010) Well, Dear Reader, he is not alone.
Nuclear Power, from small reactors, a new trend.(Article from: Agence France-Presse Tokyo October 24, 2009 02:03pm)
MAJOR nuclear reactor manufacturers in Japan have begun developing small nuclear power systems for both developed and emerging countries, a report says Toshiba is developing an ultra-compact reactor with an output of about 10,000 kilowatts and has started procedures for approval in the US, the Nikkei business daily said.
The new reactor, the Toshiba 4S, is designed to minimise the need for monitoring and maintenance, with an automatic shutdown function to ensure safety in case of problems, the newspaper said.
Toshiba plans to market the reactor first in the US, while foreseeing demand from emerging countries in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in Africa, it said.
Mitsubishi has separately completed the concept design for a pressurised-water reactor with a power output of around 350,000 kilowatts, and Hitachi also aims to develop a boiling-water reactor with a capacity of 400,000-600,000 kilowatts for use in Southeast Asia and other countries, it said. World wide there are currently 427 in commission from several manufacturers
Demand for nuclear power stations has been growing around the world. A total of 151 were under construction or slated for construction in 27 countries as of the end of 2008, it said.
The Russians are to build 12 in India. Yet we are still stuffing around with the waste repository, processing the ore to fuel grade and the most important aspect for a cleaner future, leaving coal in the ground until a better use is found for it.
Posted by: pointofviewsa on: November 5, 2010
This State Labor Government has run the state into a debt so large that our grandchildren will be paying for it. The ruling junta will go to great spin to divert attention from the responsibility for the truth.
Barely 800,000 of the total population of 1.58 million provide the revenue by their personal and corporate effort, yet the Government has gambled and lost $2.9 billion of it from investments. Has Treasury become so flush with money that it can afford to ignore this huge loss? or paying the debts? or making no attempt to recover $184 million from over 500,000 unpaid fines – one third of the entire state population?
Is the rest of the State just the milch for this citycentric mentality?. Think about it, Dear Reader.The city is a constant liability. It provides no wealth for the community and drains the resources provided by the rest of the State.with little and nothing provided by Government in return. Is the pre election Holloway plan to increase city population by another half a million souls 30 year wizardry?. A plan that makes no mention of the infrastructure to support such an increase.
Almost as bad as the Treasurer pontificating that the $8 billion owed to the Public Service “would be on track by 2034″ – 25 year wizardry.
Posted by: pointofviewsa on: November 5, 2010
The UN has held another Green Summit in Nagoya, Japan to save the wild species—again. The planet’s temperatures have failed to increase for 12 years, and the public is losing interest in man-made global warming. So, back to the cuddly wild animals as the excuse for shutting down the modern world.
The UN’s problem is that we aren’t currently losing species, or very few. The current wildlife extinction rate is the lowest in 500 years—according to the UN Environmental Program’s own World Atlas of Biodiversity.
The old wooden-ship explorers have already spread Norway rats, cats, and weed seeds all over the world. The extinctions on the little islands have mostly happened already. The last flightless Dodo bird was roasted in 1681. Ancient primitive hunters have already wiped out the wooly mammoths and the cave bears.
Modern Global Warmers predicted “million lost species” haven’t been lost, or even endangered. Numerous studies have shown that, far from the birds and butterflies going extinct, they are expanding their ranges and adopting new food habits during the modest warming of the past century.
We’ve lost the Golden Toad of Costa Rica, which is sad. But the peer-reviewed studies don’t blame global warming. R.O. Lawton of the University of Alabama-Huntsville found that the clearing of the forests below the Golden Toad’s cloud-forest home had changed the hydrology of the forest.
A more recent study used stable isotopes from the cloud forest’s own trees to reconstruct a century of its dry-season moisture history. The greatest bio-stress comes during the El Nines. Anchukaitas and Evans found the extinction of the golden toad “coincided with an exceptionally dry interval caused by the 1986–87 El Nino event.” They specifically state: “There is no evidence of a trend associated with global warming.”
Worried about the polar bears? Recent studies show that the polar bear population has increased from around 5,000 to 25,000 since 1970. Basically, it’s the result of more responsible hunting. A new paper used paleoclimate records to model the Arctic’s ice history over the past 10,000 years. The authors conclude that during the much-warmer centuries of the early Holocene (6000–8000 years ago) the Arctic probably was completely ice-free in some periods. The polar bear, as a species, goes back about 200,000 years. How did it weather the Holocene Warming?
What about the cute little pika, the smallest member of the rabbit family, which likes high-altitude rock-piles and harvests grass for winter fodder? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently told us—to howls of rage from eco-activists—that “the best available scientific information indicates that pikas will be able to survive despite higher temperatures. Pikas will have enough suitable high-elevation habitat to prevent them from becoming threatened or endangered.”
Remember, too, one of the pikas’ favorite territories is the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. John Christy recently found “there has been no change in summer nighttime temperatures in the adjacent Sierra Nevada Mountains. Summer daytime temperatures in the six-county area have actually cooled slightly since 1910.”
Sources:
R.O. Lawton et. al., 2001, “Climatic Impact of Tropical Lowland Deforestation on Nearby Mountain Cloud Forests.” Science 294: 584-87.
Anchukaitis and Evans, “Tropical cloud forest climate variability and the demise of the Monteverde golden toad,” in press for Quaternary Science Reviews.
Jakobsson et al., “New insights on Arctic Quaternary climate variability from palaeo-records and numerical modeling,” in press for Quaternary Science Reviews.
Peter Dykstra, “Magic Number: A Sketchy ‘Fact’ About Polar Bears Keeps Going—and Going—and Going,” The Society of Environmental Journalists, Aug. 8, 2008.
“Fish and Wildlife Service Denies American Pikas Threatened Species Protection,” Earthjustice.com, Feb. 4, 2010.
John Christy, “Irrigation most likely to blame for Central California warming,” University of Alabama-Huntsville, http://www,uah.edu.
Posted by: pointofviewsa on: November 5, 2010
Greens MP Mark Parnell says there is no safe way to mine uranium with the insitu acid leach process and this method should be stopped.
Well, there is no safe way to process gold either with the cyanide heap leach process on the surface but typical of the Greens, Mark Parnell has no idea. Would he or the Greens advocate to ban gold mining because of the risk of cyanide residues?. Hardly, It is both
fatuous and without evidence and plainly not true that “most developed countries don’t allow it”
Any mining has an impact on the environment, whether it is
acceptable or not is generally conditional on the rules and to suggest that uranium mining be phased out as soon as possible lacks any understanding of World energy demands for the future in which Australia plays a major part.
Mr. Parnell might earn credit for a vision if he and the Greens were an
advocate for uranium processing to the fuel stage in Austrailia- it makes more sense than shipping the ore to be processed in Canada now that Russia is to build 12 new nuclear power plants in India.
Posted by: pointofviewsa on: June 9, 2010
Mr. Conlon, the South Australia Transport Minister starts to spin about speed being the magic measure of his vision to electrify part of the rail system during his next 4 years in office.
Well, forget the speed, the crossings, the timetables and over a hundred similar pedestrian comments on AdelaideNow website. The issue is Tonsley Park and the failure of a clear vision for the future to build the rolling stock and infrastructure for the tram and train rail transport system .
A chance has been clearly evident for the past 5 years to create designs both for specific carriage to use the same upgraded tracks.. Here was a chance to showcase our talents to the world wasted in the continuing theatre of political self interest.. The $50 million spent for the Clipsal property for “Tuscany Townhouses” sits idle waiting for PPP banksters.That sort of money may do more lasting benefit for the State spent at Tonsley after it had been acquired for the cost of 5 of those $6 million dollar secondhand trams that were imported.
This huge intact former Mitsubishi plant is home for an insignificant little TAFE in one of the front offices and its potential sits idle for the past 6 years, ignored in favour of political self interest. Together with the Engineering Faculties of the University, one of the best engineering campuses in the Nation could so easily be established in the process of re tooling the plant to manufacture and assemble the rolling stock and infrastructure for a modern high speed light rail tram and train system.
The need is for a bold plan to recover engineering skills that are now lost to China and India. China is building a $30 billion electrified countrywide rail system for Brazil. We could do that
