What is the vegan agenda?

I often wonder what it is that is the real Vegan Agenda. 

A quick look around shows that involves grandstanding, putting "their message" out there in a highly visible way (like this model chick in an Asian city)

(seeming to biggyback of another quasi religious organisation called PeTA) and aligning with "saving the earth".

Now I know that vegetarians have been around for most of recorded history, but Veganism is something new. Vegans go beyond vegetarian and will often make a fuss about even the merest amount of "pollutants" in foods, yet that same vegan can be observed eating non-vegan foods (if one is careful because its often in in seclusion).

Why is it so?

The answer in my view is that Vegans seek beyond all other things to be noticed, to be special, to be apart and to signal their virtue. Interestingly this is the exact realm of the narcissist.

Lets take a look at what a narcissist is first.

further that because Vegans have an agenda and look to a systematic belief system it also ticks many boxes of "Cult"

The question of "religious" style motivations is already examined by some papers on the psychology of Veganism. For instance this one which explores how people inclined towards a religion are indeed also inclined towards Vegan ideals.

Results show that religiosity exerts some effect on consumer environmental predisposition, and that, in turn, such predisposition determines vegan purchasing intentions. A split model is then proposed considering Christian and Buddhist consumers. Results of multigroup analysis show that religious influxes on consumer environmental predispositions might vary according to different religious faiths.

Someone who is religious is often more inclined towards "magical thinking" (and do recall that religion has been the #1 enemy of Science since Science really started).

Vegans will have you believe that their "teachings" are the only way towards the (holy) goal of a Sustainable World for humanity.  Yet that claim really does not bear examination; indeed closer examination will reveal that title belongs squarely with good old vegetarians (and especially if they make a few concessions to dairy and eggs). 

This study for instance 

found that the vegan diet would feed fewer people than two of the vegetarian and two of the four omnivorous diets studied.

So any moral high ground would only be apparent if you don't actually test the claims. 

Interestingly this is exactly in line with Malignant Narcissists who love control and hate facts.

but wait ... there's more

The Vegan agenda goes beyond just "sustainable" and well into control for controls sake. While turning a blind eye to the amount of animals killed in the harvesting of their soya bean crops (or even the entire eco-systems laid waste in clearing habitats to plant them); Vegans will decry medications for their excipients , refuse beers or wines because of miniscule components used in manufacture and even tell you what shoes to wear.

Whats even more amusing is that numerous health studies have shown that being Vegan (and probably vegetarian) is not universally good for health and involves many complex tricks to make sure you're not setting yourself up for a deficiency disease (link to a University Publication). An amusing anecdote is that a person I know was getting sick, so she consulted her Doctor. Blood tests were done and the Doctor suggested that the problem was her Iron content was low. He suggested a small serving of red meat weekly. ... NOPE ... not for the faithful. So he suggested a glass of Stout or Guinness (evidence for that), but again NOPE ... its not Vegan 

Sounds a bit like "its not Catholic" or "its not Halal" or some other non scientific impractical and often cruel religious view doesn't it.

Lastly Vegans (much like religions) seem to feel its OK to bring violence to bear because of "what's at steak" (oh, steak ... mmmm).

From that article:

• Animal activists who brought central Melbourne to a standstill recently have vowed to step up their campaign of civil disobedience and raids on abattoirs and farms.
• Activists say they will risk big fines and possible jail terms for privacy and trespass offences
• Chris Delforce, said animal rights activism was a natural extension of the growth of veganism, as people became more aware of the treatment of animals raised for food, fibre, entertainment and research.
• The extremists and the radicals that we've seen invading farms and businesses, it's unlikely they'll ever have reasonable conversations.

Extremists and radicals ... fits the picture.

It gets even more ridiculous...

...when you consider that quite a lot of Vegans don't want to make substantial changes to the food that they eat. so rather than just "don't eat it" they want to eschew eggs and have their mayonnaise ... talk about Marie Antoinette 

and manufacturers (who just want to sell stuff) place VEGAN in big letters (perhaps for the morons) on what is obviously a vegan product anyway.

What's even more ironic is that (aside from wanting to have their views but not make any changes) these products are often more expensive to make, release more CO₂ and other areas (study):

The vegan mayonnaise had a significantly (p < 0.05) lower impact across 4 categories, but a significantly higher impact across 8 categories out of 16, including climate change and resource-use-energy-carriers.

Laugh ... I nearly shat.

Long ago I wrote a whimsical piece about the Zombies of Moronity ... I see that Vegans are forming up as a group and taking that crown by force (along with say, QAnon).

The King is dead, long live the King. King Wang, King Wang, Wanking...

My position on Electric Cars

I did my masters research in Environmental Science, my focus was on sustainable development and I believe strongly in the viewpoints of Ecological Modernisation.

So that being said I have nothing against Electric Cars (EC) per se.

Modernisation should be undertaken in a stepwise manner which is consistent with Sustainable Development. I do not see evidence that the EC industry is sustainable, but it is quite happy to ride a wave of public sentiment which is essentially based on the idea that it is a panacea for climate change. It is not. Instead we see Government "picking a winner" (that'd be EC's) and pushing that agenda. This is a bad idea.

What I am against is what I see as the following list problems.

Why do it?

Well first there is the idea you're saving the planet with reduced CO₂ emissions, lets work an example.

In a recent test on the Mini SE (electric) it used about 32kWh to cover 190km. This is about 17kWh/100km which is pretty typical. However if you charged that in Queensland apparently that results in about 26kg of CO2 (according to this site  https://www.powershop.com.au/carbon-calculator/).  

Now if you drove the regular Mini (based on its claims) it will use 11 liters of fuel which is about 2.4kg of CO₂ per liter or 26.4kg of CO₂

"I just shit my pants" (laughing), because you just spent $10,000 dollars more to virtue signal on something that does not achieve the objectives you imagined it would. Does that make you a fool or a zealot?

Motivation of Governments should always be viewed with scepticism (see this older post), as should the motivations of industry. When I see things such as the following I find it hard to not be sceptical about the actual motivations.

Such things in the points as diesel cars, curiously touted by governments and backed by fuel price advantages previously, are now bad news; this in a matter of a few years. I understood that the incentives to get into a diesel car are now dwindling ... will that happen to ECs? Well yes, we already are seeing that in places that began adopting them.

While arguments are made for the reduction in "tail pipe" emissions from cars in cities the drive to replace hydrobarbon based conversion of energy into motion in the car to only storage of electricity in the car is not backed up by similar clear spending on generation sources and transmission sources of  electricity.

Its well understood that most generation is not without pollution (even CO₂) and the best studies have shown that its at best about 30% reduction of CO₂ depending where you live and how your electricity is generated. Yet we do not see a proliferation of ECs in the lower power demands, we instead see them in the higher power demand areas. Tesla leading the charge and BMW and others coming on board.

The prices are certainly not something the average person is going to afford, with them being priced in the order of over AU$100,000.

Top Down Driven:

Meaning that in the "top price tier" there isn't so much of a difference between the xDrive and the older X5 BMW, but for "people's cars" the bill is very high. This is not news to me, as my recent comparison of "like for like" EV vs regular (now called) ICE cars shows you pay more than double (nearly 3 times) down at the lower end for the same thing. 

There is no mention anywhere of how many kW hours per 100km these BMW's consume. Which is even something that the average person (the one expected to make decisions) barely understands. Even when it comes to liters per 100km in their car ICE car. 

For reference my eScooter consumes less than 2kWh per 100km and the most generous figures you can expect from an Electric Car is more than 10 times that, but that comes with the issues of recharging (soon).

Fairly clearly these Electric Cars are not aimed at the masses (even the Hyundai EV, for who on the low end can afford 3 times the price for a basic car), nor it seems aimed at doing anything more about reducing CO₂ than virtue signalling. Remember, electricity often depends on stuff which generates CO₂.

However it goes deeper in my view, because the central (yet to be solved) issue is the cars battery pack. Currently this is Lithium, which while itself abundant currently relies on elements which are certainly not, NOR is there a certain supply of it (places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and China being the world top two suppliers).  Lets side step the supply and ethical issues involved right there, but expect wars over this. Just like wars are over petroleum right now.

Its commonly touted that battery prices are falling (but ignored that the battery packs in cars are requiring more and more battery), with even reputable institutions putting out "public fluff" in blog posts selling the idea that  lithium batteries are getting cheaper.

I personally love the projection into the future ... suggesting it will continue falling, but their point of "look out, auto industry" is perhaps the storm that will drive prices UP not down.  Its quite certain that there is not enough battery being made (probably in any short time being able to be made) to supply the volume of batteries the ECs (which apparently we all need) will require. 

Fun Fact:

Did you know that while your laptop has maybe 3 lithium cells in it, my scooter 78 that a Tesla has over 7000? So if we consider the battery an essentially non recyclable component, and indeed a representing a scarce resource its important to make good use of it. We can make 100 eScooters per Tesla just on batteries alone ... so which would make more impact for reducing emissions? Tesla on the road or 100 more people in (say) London using an eScooter for last mile?

Yep. We are going to need a LOT of batteries. I read recently that a major Italian conglomerate is stepping into the ring:

which may sound encouraging but will this actually reduce prices or will a massive demand increase drive the price higher? 2Giga-Watt hour ... it seems a big number, but how many EC's is that? Assuming that an "average" EC needs a 50kWh battery that's about 40 Thousand cars. Currently the EU buys about 1 Million  cars a year ... so thats enough to give 4% of new car sales. Piffle innit.

Perhaps they are only in there because of government distortion of the market?

What do I mean? Well apparently Europe has now decided that even Hybrids are not sufficient to satisfy their regulatory requirements

which pretty much leaves EC's which means more battery sales and probably because of demand higher prices for the makers (who are already in a tight margins game).

What is Power

So, if we have an Electric Car we have to charge it right?

The power needed needed by EC's is best understood in Watt hours ... like if you run a bulb for an hour, or a car for an hour you need Watt hours. Most people (or so it seems) do not understand their power bill, so lets have a little look at mine:

So last month I used 168 kWh, if I'd had an EC and was charging it at home, and lets say it was one of the better EC's that uses 17kWh/100km and I did 20km per day (getting to and from work)  that's 100km or 17kWh per week (just to and from work) that's about 70kWh per month. That's a lot less than the average distance driven per week, which is much closer to 260km per week or about 176kWh per month, meaning double my draw from the grid.

Notice I didn't talk about the money ... just the draw from the grid.

So the grid will need to account for at least something like that in order to cope with the load.

Sure, we'll do it in stages, but you know ... somebody has to pay money for all the increased power generation, all the increased grid capacity and probably this will come in the form of increased power costs (so you'll pay more for your power). Also you'll probably have to pay something in the short term because power (measured in Watts) is underlied by two factors (sorry, again the general public is going to have difficulty with this because many failed science); Amps and Volts. Indeed its simple its exactly a multiplication. 

If you are going to pull 1000Watts (that's 1kW) from the grid then (assuming you have 240Volt power as Australia, Europe and the UK do; but America doesn't) you'll have to pull about 4 amps. For every 1Kw you want you'll need to add another 4 amps.

If your battery (like the BMW is 77kWh; go back up and check) and you want to charge it in 10 hours you'll need to pull 7.7kW from the grid for those 10 hours. This equates to about 30amps ... 

So?

Well the average house is wired to cope with pulling about 80 amps from the grid, so I hope you aren't using your AC or Electric Heater, Boiler or other electrical appliances because if you are you'll trip a fuse that's INTO your house and you'll be "off grid"

Clearly unless of course we get some magic solution we will be setting ourselves up for problems.

So back to Sustainable Development to me

1. none of this seems sustainable ecologically
2. it does not work economically for the masses
3. it is a lot of effort for a smaller return, perhaps even a negative return when all the adaptations are counted in.

Alternatives?

To me the Sustainable Development is to do the following

1. work at actually reducing your driving, get a bicycle or maybe an eBike, a  small motor-scooter (perhaps electric?) or an eScooter for those smaller trips (like getting to work). Myself I've cut my petrol consumption in half using the above.
2. use public transport as much as possible, perhaps get a folding bike or an eScooter for the "last mile" (*as eScooters are not legal yet in some places (yes, I'm looking at you UK) then perhaps agitate for that?)
3. try to think deeper and really grapple with the problems and the knock on effects

Friends of mine will know this is not my first post on Electric Vehicles, indeed I've had a few (see here, which will include this). Interestingly this whole thing really hasn't changed in the last ten years, as my first post on Electric Scooters was just over 10 years ago (think Vespa, not the stand up type you can take on the subway). In that post I clarified that it makes no economic sense and returns little benefit to the consumer. Nothing has changed, and all that has happend is we've clarified that without cheaper electricity that is not polluting there is little benefit to the environment then or now for EC's.

Indeed if batteries are wasted (like the 10 year old Nissan Leaf rotting up my street) then the advantages of an EC are quickly negative. I fear that in the hands of "the general public" (because right now its only enthusiasts) we'll see lots more "lost resources" with people stuffing up their EC's by misoperation and general neglect.

Its a path we need to consider carefully before rushing into. Ecological Modernisation isn't just about what technology Society uses, its about how Society thinks and operates ... this isn't just about consuming, about buying more (but Tesla and BMW would love you to think it does), it means you need to engage, you need to understand and you need to act!

because in reality we are fighting for our childrens lives (so make sure you understand the basics).

EV's as political agendas

In this post I'll argue that EV's as they are now, suite a narrow role and are best suited to the city dwelling elite or empowered who are upper middle class and can afford to spend amounts that the vast majority of the population can't. These folks can't grasp the ordinary lives, geographic and financial situations of what amounts to the majority of the populaion, and thus (out of sight out of mind) can't conceptualise the problems (because they don't have those problems). The political class is foremost in this.

So, a friend recently recirculated a post from a local politician (who are notorious for at least shallow and poorly thought out proposals and pork barreling around election times). Lets start with that shall we:

MP Twatt (not his real name) mentions:

Here in Queensland, we have the longest Electric Vehicle Super Highway in the world. Its free and its 100% renewable energy. 

Wow 100% renewable energy ... even if you charge at night ... and free charging. I'm sure that will stop as soon as there are any significant number. To the unthinking this map seems great and does appear to service the routes to majority of the major population centers for Queensland.

However the major population of Queensland resides in that south east corner, lets visualise this

So Brisbane, Gold Coast Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba represent nearly 70% of the population all in a small area at the South East Corner.

Then lets not stop our thinking at the border (an artifical boundary anyway) just south of the border is quite a lot of other important towns, and places where the population of Brisbane, Gold Coast and Toowoomba at least are far more likely to want to drive for a weekend. So lets take a look at that.

So when we just look at a map of the land with roads and towns terrains and coastlines (but no political boundaries) we see things differently to a politician.

For people not from this region (or even Australia) I've chosen a map type from Google which shows the magnitude of the cities (not least by urban sprawl visible, but) by the roads present within them. However Brisbane is the capital city, the Gold Coast a major dormitory city for Brisbane, not labelled is Ipswich which is a small jut out to the western side of Brisbane, and then Toowoomba a major regional center for distribution and part of the transport network north and south on the western side of the Great Dividing Range (can't forget mountain ranges right?).

So getting back to MP Pratts assertion, as much as this is a wonderful technical achievement and great for the companies involved I don't see that this is much more than a political scheme which spends money but for the benefit of who?

The key question of "where is the power coming from" is un-answered (I'll get to that soon), let alone "how long could it remain free power" if uptake increased?

Taking myself as an example of rural users, just this Friday I drove down to Brisbane from here (quite near to Warwick), the trip is 160Km (which will give you some scale on that map). I spent no longer than 2 hours at the longest location and without a massive amount of amps I'd have been unable to make a significant recharge on my EV (should I have had one) and by the time I'd returned home there was 344 Km from the trip and small detours in Brisbane. I don't think there is an EV on the market which could have done that trip. Perhaps the Kona with the biggest battery pack option would just "shave me in" but I suspect that I'd be stranded with a "dead battery" coming back up the range. Some data:

According to Hyundai officials, the base version with a 39.2 kWh battery pack delivers an all electric range of 186 miles (299 km). The version with a 64 kWh battery pack delivers an EPA rated range of 258 miles (415 km).

Then there is the fact that (when I got it home) the battery takes 64KWh which I'd estimate to be 70KWh at least drawn from my wall. This is about half my quarterly electricity bill , assuming I did this monthly my own power consumption would more than double. This I grant you is probably a little less than the cost of petrol but a substantial drain on the grid, which evidence suggests it can't cope with.

So I'd really have to have two cars (not an uncommon view for even city dwellingEV owers) one for "daily errands or commuting and one for trips ... so twice the taxes and insurances. Looks appealing doesn't it (for Government).

Looking again at the map of the region this would mean that folks in Brisbane would not be able to reach Stanthrope (major winery tourist area) Lismore (major regional center) or Byron Bay (major tourist area) with an EV unless they picked the more expensive one with the bigger battery

So, where is the electricty coming from? (oh the wall silly)

But with generation of power in Australia not being increased fast enough to meet general community and industry demand any significant increase in EV fleet will put a strain on generation as well as distribution ... which will cost money (and who will pay? Mostly people who don't have EV's).

Lets remember where that power comes from in Australia (and in reality most of the non nuclear world):

Generation capacity and output by fuel source

(source)

Note the importance of Capacity and Output ... before you start saying "ouh, Duh ... Solar is the answer" and try to do some reading and investigations on the actual reality of "Solar on Rooftop".

Out of Context

EV's are not a panacea (maybe in the future) but right now small EV's (like a Leaf or a Kona) are to my mind perfectly suited to High Density living in cities of greater than 500,000 population , where point of use pollution is far less controllable than than the power stations. I believe however that the places where EV's are most needed (Delhi comes to mind) would totally destroy their grid if (say) 20% of taxis went EV.

Its important to remember that the density of housing we have and the massive increase in how much power we use was not part of the projections of power planners 20 years ago. How here remembers the (Australian) media circus about attempting to upgrade our grid just 10 or so years ago and having the political opposition parties scream about the cost and accuse the encumbent government of "gold plating" the grid.

However even for residents of those high density, the majority of people don't  live in houses with dual car garages and thus don't have access to EV Super Charger charging ports. Most don't buy new cars ever thus rely on the hand me downs of the "privileged few" who seem to push these ideas as their own fantasy ideal solution to existing environmental problems.

In Short

EV's are not well suited for a rural or regional context or intra-city transport, while they are ideal for urban and city use, its only for those who can afford to feed and house them. Which gosh that's were most people live but not all of us are in that situation.

EV's are nothing new (interesting vignette) but for the same reasons of practicality will be unlikely to make the major inroads (a part of current Election Pork Barreling by at least Labor) without huge ancillary development and spending.

EV's to fulfill their design brief will need to undergo much evolution before they become anything more than magazine poster girls.

So, lets go back to reality and allow proper evolution of solutions rather than short attention span pushing the agenda for other people (oh, say Elon Musk).

The Cycles

It seems to me that so much that's nice fails to be preserved because growth expands outwards and the inner city areas are developed into behives for the swarms so that growth can be satisfied.

Myself I think there is space for a bit of mixture.

I first came to Joensuu (Finland) in 2006 and was very pleased to see a nice balance of medium density amid the historical large homes built back in the formation of the town. One such place I liked was this one:

Perched on a large block when the area (just 3 blocks from the center of town) was largely rural

it had a what must have been in its day a grand entrance

which ironically is about the size of the smallest of apartments in town now ...

This is the first time I've seen it empty, and the owners have allowed it to run down, which means to me that its not far off demolition. I suspect that in a not too distant future there will be someone who wishes that it was still there, and they would pay handsomely for a patch of real estate within walking distance to the University which had the character and class of this place.

Well ... I guess that's progress

One Man Sawmill

The other weekend I was up visiting a mate, and visited this amazing sawmill made by one guy from scrounged bits.

Simply stunning stuff.
Since words are just not enough (and I didn't video it) I'll leave you with this slide show

fantastic stuff.

All shot with my GF-1 and the 14mm + GWC-1 wide adapter (and boy did I need wide)

The Rat Race - when winning means loosing

Some years ago I lived in Tokyo.

Coming from Australia Tokyo seemed to exemplify "the rat race".

Higher density than I'd ever actually walked around in and perhaps more concrete and motorway and high-rise residential accommodation than I'd ever seen in my life.

Seems the logical way to go when everyone wants to be in the same place (or perhaps only want to make money and thus come there for that). Unlike other animals we choose to live in the places where we congregate for work.

Academics have discussed the benefits of cities for most of the latter part of the twentieth century, particularly from the standpoint of economics. It makes good economic sense to bundle everyone together. History it seems was filled with examples of ones (which curiously many of which were now being reclaimed by jungles or so far decayed we barely know they are actually there).

Well failure never seemed to stop people from doing things in the past.

So it was with interest that I noticed this article in the Guardian today. Apparently in Japan people are not interested in sex anymore.

Japan's under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren't even dating, and increasing numbers can't be bothered with sex.

and

A survey in 2011 found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of romantic relationship. Another study found that a third of people under 30 had never dated at all....
... 45% of women aged 16-24 "were not interested in or despised sexual contact"

I was struck by the same thing ten years ago when I was there. Everyone was dressing 'sexy' but they had nothing in their hearts. It was like going through the motions but not being interested.To me it somehow seemed a consequence of over crowding and the attendant social issues.

Some years earlier I came across an interesting research where a fellow set up mouse cities to see what would happen. I recently stumbled across a WWW site which reviewed his work, so it was fresh in my mind again.

The fellows name is John B. Calhoun  and information on his work can be found here. A really interesting website which sumarises it can be found here. Compelling stuff if you take the time to read it.

Essentially the made a metropolis for rats, providing shelter, food water and sanitation. What happened was that eventually the populations stopped growing. Some salient points from the CABINET summary page:

• Mice found themselves born into a world that was more crowded every day, and there were far more mice than meaningful social roles
• Normal social discourse within the mouse community broke down, and with it the ability of mice to form social bonds
• Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes on penthouse levels. Other males, a group Calhoun termed “the beautiful ones,” never sought sex and never fought—they just ate, slept, and groomed, wrapped in narcissistic introspection. 
• The failures and dropouts congregated in large groups in the middle of the enclosure, their listless withdrawal occasionally interrupted by spasms and waves of pointless violence 
• Elsewhere, cannibalism, pansexualism, and violence became endemic.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in his research was the finding that even after the populations dropped down again:

On day 560, a little more than eighteen months into the experiment, the population peaked at 2,200 mice and its growth ceased. A few mice survived past weaning until day six hundred, after which there were few pregnancies and no surviving young. As the population had ceased to regenerate itself, its path to extinction was clear. There would be no recovery, not even after numbers had dwindled back to those of the heady early days of the Universe. The mice had lost the capacity to rebuild their numbers—many of the mice that could still conceive, such as the “beautiful ones” and their secluded singleton female counterparts, had lost the social ability to do so.

Seems pretty close to the situation playing out in Japan to me ... perhaps parts of it even in other western big cities.

Planners have sought to solve the problems of cities for centuries, sanitation, power, water, hygene and more recently even greater social security via money. Money is something you can't live without in a city. Can't just draw water from your well, go shoot a rabbit for dinner or even grow any food. Heck if you live in an apartment you probably can't even do anything meaningful like repair and service your car / house / stuff.

Even less meaningful roles exist when you don't have a job (but can survive with social security). Another interesting quote:

No matter how sophisticated we considered ourselves to be, once the number of individuals capable of filling roles greatly exceeded the number of roles, only violence and disruption of social organization can follow. ... Individuals born under these circumstances will be so out of touch with reality as to be incapable even of alienation. Their most complex behaviors will become fragmented. Acquisition, creation and utilization of ideas appropriate for life in a post-industrial cultural-conceptual-technological society will have been blocked.

Japan is of course suffering from a problem that I think perhaps we'll see in other developing countries soon.

Personally never liked big cities to live in ... ok for work or a holiday, but I personally prefer the natural world.

addicted to cars

Cars are great tools, but we seem to have (in the last 30 years) wanted to just jump in our car and go where we want without thinking.

I started riding my bicycle to work back in about 1997 (about 17km each way) and found that not only was I getting healthier but I found much more money in my wallet at the end of each week!

However I'm in the minority in Australia ... and its a shrinking one too. Enough car drivers are just insane in their attitude in this area. Ask any cyclist and you'll hear stories of near death experiences.

Ask the average car driver who hates bicycles and you'll hear more simple whinges like "they touched my car" (leaving no marks) "they held me up" (for no more than 10 seconds till the next red light) or "roads are made for cars".

Essentially its just dribble to justify their irrational hate.

I'm glad to see the publication of these findings which indicate that:

Drivers were at fault in 87 per cent of incidents with cyclists and most did not realise they had behaved in a reckless or unsafe manner, according to the Monash University Accident Research Centre and The Amy Gillett Foundation.

Its interesting to read some of the methods and findings:

The three-year study into cyclist safety on the roads used mounted video camera footage, as well as helmet-mounted cameras worn by cyclists, to determine the main causes of road accidents between cyclists and motorists.

Fifty-four events were recorded; including two collisions, six near-collisions and 46 other incidents.

The helmet camera study found that of the 54 incidents recorded, more than 88 per cent of cyclists travelled in a safe and legal way.

Conversely, drivers changing lanes and turning left without indicating or looking were the cause of more than 70 per cent of the incidents, Amy Gillett Foundation chief executive officer Tracey Gaudry said.

“We believe there is a strong argument to introduce a road rule that prescribes a safe passing distance (at least one metre), as well as further educating drivers that they need to indicate at least five seconds before changing lanes,” she said.

After 2000 I started living overseas, in places like Japan, Korea, India and Finland. All these places have an active and functional cyclist population and car drivers who are tolerant of this.

These days I'm back in Australia I've been forced to give up or get injuries.

So, what do we do about it?

I'd love to suggest we force drivers to use bicycles, but we've really started to make our cities in such a way as to totally preclude bicycle transport. We now live too far from work and its almost impossible to use a combination of public transport and bicycle.

How can we go back? Well probably we can't ... so where should we go forward to?

Greater reliance on cars, greater traffic congestion (another tunnel anyone) and greater costs for transport ...

looks like we've painted ourselves into a corner doesn't it

nice bit of irony

a friend of mine brought this one to my attention..

bewdy
It regularly shits me off that we focus on stuff like CO2 and ignore the important issues like:

• land clearing
• pollution (like toxic stuff)
• exploiting less powerful countries

and instead all get caught up in something which would all just go away if we stopped propping up old cartels with funding and let the market modernise as it can.

snouts in the trough

I was reading the paper again this morning (why do I keep doing that?) and came across this pearl, about the ANZ happily taking Australian Federal Government Funding with one hand while happily signing off the sacking of 500 staff (probably many of them IT workers) to have their jobs outsourced to Bangalore India.

Some of the more salient points:


So not only will the jobs go, but also the data and data handling techniques too. Its 'comforting' to see that the call center jobs (those which are the least skilled and most frustrating for the workers) will stay in Australia.

With so little to sell and to enhance our economy we seem content to set ourselves up as being nothing more than the front desk and house maid service providers.

Lovely ... thanks ANZ ... now I know why my family has closed all its accounts with you.


Is it any wonder that for centuries caricatures of bankers and the banking industry have been represented by pigs in the satire response to social events.

I wonder when people will get tired of this.

goodbye koalas

I read in a recent article in the Australian that the Koala population in south east Queensland has declined some 40%. Politicians seem to be distressed by this. According to that article "It is believed there are less than 20,000 koalas now in the wild in southeast Queensland."

and that some recognition of this being related to urban development

"The State Government will also work with local governments to draft a new local law for development approvals to ensure dogs and koalas are kept apart, with suggestions including kennelling dogs at night, new fencing regulations and no dog provisions in new estates."

Some years ago (around 1995) back in South East Queensland people united against a road development in areas of Koala habitat and at the election ousted the government supporting it.

Its lovely to see such concern for the environment (although it seems likely that some motivation may have come from opportunistic politics).

But soon after that the area seems to have been heavily developed by urban sprawl (perhaps more habitat destroying and threatening than the roads).

Ironically the Koalas would probably be alive today if the road had gone through.

No one seems to want to alter the nature of urban development, despite general agreement that its both costly and increasingly difficult to provide infrastructure to these sprawling urban areas.
So while roads are not allowed to threaten the Koala population that relentless urban development is. So areas just around where I live which were once like this:



are bull dozed over and turned into this:




There are certainly other models of development than this, which if we are to live in the area and not destroy the very reasons we find it beautiful need to be explored.

This will require planning and community involvement. I hope that this can happen so that we don't have to say good bye to both the Koalas and the natural beauty of the region.

Please go visit the Koala Foundation and give Deborah Tabart a hand!

economic fallout

I'm no Economist but,

it seems that consumer confidence (aka willingness to spend more than you earn) is down in the wake of the financial crisis. It seems also that this is in turn hurting the economy (the lack of spending that is).

So, what would have happened if all the people advocating "sustainable development" (people like me) had been listened to? I mean if people did things like:

• rode their bicycle to work instead of using the car for 4km
• their kids rode their bicycles to school (instead of being dropped off in v8 and v6 fuel using cars non-town cars like Commodores, Falcons, Pajeros, Range Rovers ...)
• people didn't buy the latest in fad fashions for no reason
  
• we bought products which were built to last (like my grandmothers singer sewing machine) rather than buying another GMC power drill for $15 because the last one burnt out too
• we made our cars truly repairable (rather than $50,000 items which depreciate to $3000 items in a few years and we then don't see the logic in replacing a spare part for $700 {which in all honesty is probably worth $15} so we ditch the car)
• we followed our grand parents advices and didn't get into debt, invested our savings and bought wisely

I'm guessing that the "recovery" would probably take even longer.

Well if you did like the above you'll be in a good position to take advantage of the current crisis and pick up some bargains in stock market "fire sales" of quality but presently undervalued stocks (banks come to mind).

I think that if we had all followed this way then most of the "economic" growth which has bubbled and burst would not have happened, and that we'd be moving along comfortably but with out making anywhere near as much mess as we presently are.

So perhaps we'd have avoided this boom / bust cycle in the first place?

Sure, we might not have all the fancy stuff we have now, but just how crucial are your latest Telemark skis and Garmont boots to your happiness anyway? I'm still using 6 year old computing to write this essay and (since its not running the latest hottest bloat ware) its working fine thank you very much. {faster in fact than my friends newest thing with Vista holding it back}. I still use a film camera as well as a compact digital camera (which cost nearly $1000 when it was new in 2001).

Why? Well because I already had a 35mm camera (which still makes quite good images thank you very much) and I bought the compact to make my "snapshots" an easier thing and because I often email or need to send images quickly. In all honesty my 2001 5MPixel Coolpix camera is still way overkill for email and WWW needs and ultimately needs to be rescaled (like who wants to see just the corner of the image?). If I take "nice shots" which I want to print (like below) I'll still use film.




Perhaps the $1000 seems high but perhaps that's its real value when its not being "supported" by a rapid-turn-over consumer pays for on-the-fly research with subscribing to a new model every year one? Besides, how much would it cost (even now with DSLR cameras being dirt cheap compared to their real prices) to move my film outfit to comparable digital? Many more thousands.

but as has been said many times ... if history repeats itself so often what does this say about humanity's ability to learn? We're pretty stupid if you ask me.

it comes from the tap...

Water

we all just think it comes from the tap, especially if you come from a town or a city.

A few years ago I'd say that you've probably either never given it a second thought, but in Australia at least it has become a hot topic (especially with the introduction of water restrictions). What, with media attentions, news paper articles, talkback discussions it seems that almost noone can have dinner with friends these days without the discussion turning to water issues (such as a rainwater tank).

If I may quote the first paragraph of that wikipedia page just up there, it says:

Water restrictions are currently in place in many regions and cities of Australia in response to chronic shortages resulting from drought. Depending upon the location, these can include restrictions on watering lawns, using sprinkler systems, washing vehicles, hosing in paved areas and refilling swimming pools, among others. Increasing population and evidence of drying climates, coupled with corresponding reductions in the supply of drinking water, have led various state governments to consider alternative water sources to supplement existing sources, and to implement "water inspectors" who can issue penalties to those who waste water.

well, that's what it said when I accessed it on Tuesday, 8 July 2008.

I've marked in red the points which pique my attention.

Drought: while everyone "knows" that we're in the grip of the worst drought known to mankind, the fashionable topic of Climate Change seems to be the first donkey to get the tail pinned to. Certainly there has been some depression in rains, but is it fair to lump it all at the feet of Climate Change? For example, here is the rainfall data for the Queensland coastal town of Southport from 1882 to 2006 (this is now part of the Gold Coast City). If you can see any remarkable trends towards less rain in there I'll be interested to hear where you think they are and why.



Btw, the period called the worst drought is from 2002 to 2006, this is when the water restrictions came into force.

Interestingly the term "drought" can be defined as things like "a protracted period of deficient precipitation" (makes sence to me) or "acute water shortage". This last definition is interesting, because if (say) population increases (but climate doesn't change) then with more people drinking the water there'll be less water.

So is this drought acute water shortage, rather than anything caused by climate? Lets see if the population has got anything to do with this ...


This graph is the change in population from 1961 till 2001 (and its grown a further 15% between 2001 and 2007).

Looking at the growth of population from 50 to 500 thousand between the 60's and now. Clearly all other things being equal (like how much water each person uses) we must be drawing at least 10 times more water now than then.

If then we say that drought is "acute water shortage" well, its no wonder to me that with 10 times more people wanting water that there is some kind of water shortage.

Rather than looking at this as being any significant change in the amount of water that the environment provides, lets look at it from the perspective of dividing a bucket of water among increasingly larger population.

If we think that the bucket was big enough for 200 thousand (there were less than 100 thousand when the system was designed), lets see how it goes as we successively divide this across more people. The chart below does just that:

Looking at the amount of water available to us (through our dam which puts that water into our taps) it would seem that (based on the calculated and measured ability of the dam to provide water to us and not become empty) the population in the area at around 2001 finally grew to exactly the limit of water availability.

No environmental drought here, just water shortage from too many people consuming water. So it seems that it is over consumption of the resources, not the commonly stated reasons of "not enough rain" being the most significant aspect here. As can be seen that we're not getting a statistically lower amount of rain than shown as normal in the above historical chart, but we are increasing the population significantly.

So it seems like its population increase rather than anything caused by climate change. That's a pity ... that means we can't blame the environment for our woes and we have to take responsibility for it ourselves. Wouldn't that be a change!

So, are we at some sort of limit?

Maybe ... The idea that there may be some limits to growth has been around since the black stump was a tree. It was perhaps popularized by Thomas Malthus who generally believed in growth of populations as over using the resources available and being the cause for famine. This limits to growth idea has not gone away, despite the many criticisms of it.

Some put forward that technology can come to the rescue (hasn't it always) and provide us with more water by such methods as membrane filtration to recycle water and provide desalination methods. While this is certainly a source of additional water it comes with an energy cost (and energy costs money too).

I thought I'd look into the additional energy costs if we follow this path, which I've called a Business As Usual use of water. The solid red line shows the increase of energy need created by sourcing our additional water with desalination methods. To provide some sort of contrast or comparison, I thought I'd add another where magically we just had more rain fall into our dams (marked with the red dotted line).

Now since the population of the Gold Coast is slated to rise by about 3 times in the next 50 years I plotted this energy requirement change over time with the expanding populations.

As you can see quite quiclky the energy needs are higher by using the technology to "make more water" available. By the end of 50 years the end points of the red lines are quite far apart, as population increases this becomes rather an enormous power demand. But what is that blue line in there?? Well, I'll come back to that in a moment...

Is this suggesting that Malthus was right? There are limits?? Well it depends, people used to prove that it was impossible for humans to fly, impossible for us to travel at faster than 35 miles per hour and impossible to escape earths orbit.

A problem is created by the way you look at something.

If we were to use canons to fire us into space then the maths proving that man could not escape earths gravity are indeed correct. Luckily for the astronauts they didn't follow that school of thought, and used rockets instead of canons.

So if we change the way we think things then perhaps what seems to be a limit is in fact not one at all. Ecological Modernisation is a school of thought which suggests that we can solve our equation through a combination of moving further into technology use and balancing supply and demand along ecological lines.

Now, lets go back to my chart and that blue line again. If we were to change our water use methods to reduce how much we drain from the tap, say by reusing water (eg using shower water to flush out toilets, or say the rinse part of our clothes washing), we can in fact reduce the amount of water we need to use without needing to change anything much.

Using a view point called Urban Metabolism to consider the city's water needs (like considering your own metabolic needs) its possible to consider the city as like a plant. This has roots in the ground drawing water (the pipes transporting water from the dam to our homes) and leaves where water is used and ultimately lost back into the environment. Some plants are more efficient with their water than others (like Cactus) and can do very well when there is plenty of water and cope when there is less. The blue line represents the energy needs of the metabolically efficient city. By consuming less from the environment and using it more efficiently not only is the city within the environmental limits, but the cost is also reduced!

So, if we were to plan our directions towards reducing consumption from the supply (without changing our need for water) then we can effectively cope with the lager population. If we do things like this, then Malthusian limits to growth are non existent.

But are we doing that?

Well, it doesn't look like it. Instead the South East Queensland government is mandating the construction of expensive desalination and water recycling plants. This in turn will mandate the construction of more and more power generation plants (to cope with the added power needs) as well as in all probability result in more generation of green house gases, making worse any climate change effects which are perhaps attributed to our use of energy.