by frog
General debate, 29 November, 2009
Published: November 29, 2009
Comment via Facebook
38 Comments
Hide comments with a score of
or less
Hide comments with a score of or less
Leave a Reply
Please use 
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I’ve only just found out about Global Zero (http://www.globalzero.org/) who think that risks of proliferation make it reasonable to aim to have no nuclear weapons.
It’s interesting how the world sometimes catches up with our ideas
Like or Dislike:
1 
1 (0)
fact of the day:..
it takes 200 litres of water..
to make one glass of milk..
(plus the pollution..plus the pain/suffering..)
whoar..!
eh..?
so much environmental damage…
from just one glass of milk..
umm!!..d’yathink ‘greens’..should really support/enable..
such a high degree of pollution..?
just so they can drink some calf-food..?
(calf food that they have torn from the mouths of calves..
..that are sent to be slaughtered..
..so people/greens(?) can eat them..?
whoar..!..(talk about green-karma..!..eh..?..
sorta puts/sets up that special shopping bag you take to the supermarket..
to buy that calf-food..
as a new benchmark..
(in what most kindly could be described as)..irony..?)
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike:
1 
2 (-1)
Phil – you can grow your own soy beans, didya know?
From those you can make non-cow ‘milk’.
*(bean, corn, carrot etc. seeds winging their way northwards even now)
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Today in the South – gorgeously warm, sunny and filled with promise.
Best day ever for planting red currants and transplanting Blue Hopi corn.
Tino pai te ra nei!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
wicked/cheers..!
i’m gonna use the back yard..
‘cos i have fallen in love with the micro-environment of my front yard…
i really dig the yellow of those big/yellow daisy-things..
they close up shop at night..and re-open in the mornings..!
how cool is that..!
it is a sea of white/green and yellow..
and to my right..is a waist-high ‘stand of grass..with big heads on it..like wheat..)
and the wind..!
when the wind blows..the whole yard/micro-climate ‘moves’..
in all different directions..at the same time..
(and it ‘rustles’/whispers..)
i mean..it’s not quite the wheat-plains of kansas..
but you get my drift..
(meanwhile..my neighbors lawns with the number-one-cut/severely proscribed borders…
are silent/immobile..)
so..i haven’t been able to bring myself to cut it all down…
(and am surprised..at my growing attachment to the subtleties/nuances/beauties of the whole exercise..)
and feel i should alert others to this ‘green-solution’..
..that gives so much..
set yr lawns free..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike:
1 
2 (-1)
Phil! You’ve discovered the beauty of going with the grain!
Front Lawn – good music, great political statement (perhaps your best yet!)
Here’s something else you might like to do to enhance your pleasure (your legal grass-high!), shrooms! Innoculate your lawn with soil from wherever you’ve seen them growing and perhaps, perhaps they’ll set up shop on your front … prairie. Puffballs taste great (eat ‘em while they’re fresh and white). Then there’s the insects. That Clitnit fellow on Fartblog sure hates Greens, but his website has brilliant photos of the kinds of insects that will be amongst your grasses and ‘wild’ flowers. Go have a close look and be amazed! I’ll post some supplementary seeds to enhance your viewing pleasure.
I’m feeling a little bit proud of you Phil!
Like or Dislike:
2 
0 (+2)
Phil – thats a beautifully evocative piece of prose.
A positive and delicious visual symphony. Well written.
Like or Dislike:
1 
1 (0)
aww..!..shucks..!..chrs..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike:
1 
2 (-1)
The seeds are highly aromatic with a myrrh-like scent
Christmas smells!
(coming your way)
Like or Dislike:
1 
0 (+1)
Smyrnium olusatrum
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Climate change data dumped. And we are supposed to believe them.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Sorry to disturb the bucolic scene
http://www.scotsman.com/latestnews/Warming-will-39wipe-out-billions39.5867379.jp
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
If CRU gather data from weather stations around the world which they did not themselves operate, I would expect that those operators are likely to have kept the raw data.
Trevor.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Twenty year old data that HAD been verified by GISS, NOAA and the Russians at the time it was collected, and that had never been asked for subsequently, was not maintained.
This has already been discussed. Repeatedly. The reasons it happened and was allowed to happen are repeated here again:
I had to do it myself so I have first hand understanding of the issues involved. In the 1980s we used big honking tape drives to store multiple megabytes of data. Yeah, Megabytes. A ten Meg disk was the size of a microwave oven and if you kicked it you’d break your foot. The tape machines were the size of a refrigerator.
The data was stored on Control-Data and IBM water-cooled mainframes. A decade later, if it was not re-read and stored in a new format, the tapes would deteriorate with bit migrations across layers and would become unreadable. The machines of THAT decade had different CPUs, different endian characteristics, different tape handling mechanisms, different OS’s … to retrieve and restore a dataset up at Edwards AFB where I worked in the early 90′s took 4 people half a year. We had to write the code to read the tapes, Validate the results. Reading some of the tapes a dozen or more times to get a clean read from them… and the error-correction bits and algorithms saw heavy use. Write the code to store the data in a new format compatible with the machines we now had. Rewrite code to preprocess and condense the data for use by the scientists.
We restored 2 sets of the 30 some odd available in the archives because those still had a potential need associated with them and the associated projects had a budget. The rest were left to rot in the storage room. The same situation pertained at NASA JPL, where massive amounts of “raw” data collected in the 80′s is no longer accessible, and budgets for science were being cut in real terms.
I’d be astonished if the originating MET services in general did any better. Some of the data might be available from them. The processed products were the only ones asked for, for 20 years. I can imagine the Sys-Admin of the day asking the scientists if all this stuff was needed. Probably a good room full to overflowing with old tapes and decks…
Should it have been retained? Yes. However, any implication that it was deliberately discarded to hide something is pure moonshine. All that is necessary is a bit of inattention. Entropy takes over The data deletes itself.
Can you read a document off an 8″ floppy or a deck of IBM punch cards? Can your local university? You have to do work to fight the effects of entropy, it costs money. I can imagine asking ANY government for the money to do this necessary work and the likely response, as I am sure you can imagine it.
Finally, the exercise is relatively pointless given that the validation of the intermediate product was done by 4 separate organizations and that the results recorded closely matched the independent data collected by GISS.
This leads to the speculation that the question was asked to embarrass rather than to inform, because the data SHOULD have been put on a retention program and the money appropriated (by congress or parliament) to keep it readable.
However, the failure in no way indicates that it was intentionally deleted to hide something or any problem with the data, or that AGW is in any way not happening. That would be quite remarkable indeed, melting half the Arctic Ice by deleting some data in an archive somewhere in England indicates some truly unforeseen scientific discoveries await us.
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
melting half the Arctic Ice by deleting some data in an archive somewhere in England indicates some truly unforeseen scientific discoveries await us.
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Greenfly
That was a straight line…
Your line was….
“In the brains of the denialists”
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
A good resource, the crock of the week.
The liars in the denialsphere have kept up the drumbeat, but it IS fairly easy to find their lies. No need to look at someones private mail and make stuff up. They publish it without even considering what the truth is.
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/11/ccw_-_all_wet_on_sea_level.php
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
The birth of the climate is cooling crock.
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009/11/ccw_-_birth_of_a_climate_crock.php
What part of this bullsh!t is going to be denounced by the denialsphere.
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/top-10-recent-developments-on-factory-farming-and-vegetarianism/
Like or Dislike:
1 
3 (-2)
What do you think about a small holding Phil with a house cow and a few chooks? I would find it difficult to eat without eggs and cheese and I think a lot of the protein vegans eat is imported – issues of food miles and using other peoples land that they probably need to grow food for themselves. Being a self sufficient vegan could prove very difficult.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0 (+1)
matty,
Can you imagine if all the 4 billion odd city dwellers in the world were to “invaded” the country side and tried to live sustainably as individuals “off the land”?
Would not be enough arable land!!
So while some can live the “good life”, for the fast majority they need intense farming practises to provide food for the table.
I cant imagine the Greens would want all of us city dwellers to take on 2 acre lifestyle blocks and really, really make a mess of the countryside.
Like or Dislike:
1 
0 (+1)
Gerrit – why would ’2 acre lifestyle blocks’ make a mess of the countryside? Why wouldn’t there be ‘enough arable land’?
I believe the ‘fast ‘ majority don’t need the ‘intensive farming practices’ you say they do.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Matty – I don’t think it would be difficult to grow what you need for a vegan diet on a small holding, so long as you have the right plants and are able to forage nearby (seaweeds etc.) You might need to buy in a very small amount, but that’s not an unreasonable thing to do.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Greenfly,
6 billion people all on 2 acre blocks = 120 billion acres, not including roads, public aminities, etc.
Total arable land available 683,787,540 acres (hope my maths is correct). Source
http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/food-and-soil.php
So while you and I may enjoy the self contained 2 acres, the rest of the worlds population will not. At best we would all have 1 acre IF we took up all native forests, wetlands, etc.
Take into consideration each block being self contained for water and effluent. Unless you would have municipal service providers. These would take up acrerage plus need corridors for supply and discharge, as would roads.
Always reminds me of those self contained houses people build. On large acres of land with uninterepted sun access that city dwellers can never be assured off.
Dont get me wrong, I like the idea, just questioning the feasability.
Me, I would give away my 2 acres and settle for a coastal trading scow.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Gerrit – the coastal trading scow is one of the options that my boys and I are exploring now – perhaps our paths will cross. We’re thinking ‘sail’ and have our yacht sorted and sitting high and dry for a touch-up.
Globally, you are doubtless correct, but I was thinking NZ. We’ve a great deal of land and with intelligent designing many of the problems you describe could be overcome – especially where water and humanure are involved. The maths doesn’t stack up, but it never will, no matter what scheme is proposed. I want to see more people out on small properties, managing them cleverly and productively.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Gerrit
Just remember that in a post-apocalyptic world you are going to be working without GPS for a long time, and the coastline will have moved.
Might have to bring back Loran-C
respectfully
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Trading scows wont be an option until we run out of oil. You will never compete with trucking/rail.
Flat bottom and sail yes. If you are ever in Picton, have a cup of tea on the old scow moored permanently in the marina.
Fantastic histroy of trading in the Cook Straight, Wellington and the Sounds.
Cant remember the scows name but she served the US marines during the war up in the pacific.
Simply amazing where they took the scow.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
That would give us a sustainable population of 300 million? I think that that is unrealistically low. We are better at managing our resources than that. I believe that the planet can manage as many as 2 billion. Which isn’t a good look really, given our current population but we don’t actually have to LIVE on the arable land, do we? Even though some of the best farmland in the US is buried under the suburbs of NY.
I remember digging in my backyard on LI. It was topsoil. It was about a meter and a half of topsoil. Black, Rich… gorgeous stuff. Not that I appreciated it at the time but I remember that really well (was burying my first dog).
respectfully
BJ
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
BJ,
If my forefathers could navigate to Iceland, Greenland, raid the British Isles and navigate the Russian rivers to the Black Sea, I wont need GPS, I’ll just follow my primal instincts.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Gerrit – I used to (for a while) travel through the Sounds (D’Urville Island to Havelock and there abouts) in one of the Perano brother’s massively powerful whalechasers – all noise and speed, fired up with ether (the chaser, not me).
Coastal trading doesn’t have to be done in competition with rail – it can be a lifestyle decision. I’ll be trading seeds.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
There’s an interesting article in todays NZHerald suggesting that although organic farming is environmentally desirable it could not produce the required quantity of food needed to sustain us all.
Which brings me back to one of my main concerns regarding AGW and the ETS, which is that population control must come before everything else.
What is the point of making huge changes to our lifestyle and taxes (and giving up eating meat) in a vain bid to offset emissions in countries whose populations keep on expanding.
Maybe Phils right – tax the heck out of meateaters but let the vegetarians off the hook.
6 billion is too many. Maybe the best form of population control would be to give each family one of your 2 acre blocks greenfly, and then ban trucks, coastal scows and any form of trading. Those who have such large families that they can’t live off two acres will go hungry.
We can’t just keep pinning our hopes on intensive agriculture.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
I agree with your final sentence greengeek, but take the rest of your statements with a grain of salt.
The Herald has it almost almost entirely wrong, but there is a grain of truth in there. Organic farming, as they perceive it, isn’t the be-all and end-all and requires tweaking. The tweaking part is the most interesting thing that is happening at farming at this point in time.
As to banning trade – just try it and find out how resiliant people, and ‘black markets’ are!
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
One of my favourite reads is Eric Newby’s “The Last Grain Race”, an account of his time aboard the Moshulu, a 3-masted barque owned by the Ericsson line, based in the Aland Islands between Sweden and Finland. As a young man, just before the second world war, Newby joined the ship in Ireland and sailed to Australia to be loaded with grain before returning to Europe. Sail was the most efficient means of taking the grain to Europe, and the first ship home commanded the best prices (hence the race). Many New Zealanders will be familiar with the Pamir, another ship in the Ericsson stable, sadly sunk, but her sister ship, the Passat is still accessible as a museum ship in northern Germany. Back to the future, eh?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
greengeek
Great theory, wont work in practise. Humans are cooperative beings (in the most part) and it would not be long before neighbours stated sharing across the fence. Trading would start (my pot of jam for your cabbage) and before long we would have a new community and from there a new civilisation.
The other problem you have is enforcement of the bans you talk about. I would give my 2 acres to someone with enough wood on theirs to build a boat and there nothing anyone could do to stop me taking the produce from one community to another.
In fact the way the world is going it may not be to far into the future that we will be doing this.
While I would concentrate on trade, there would be others concentrating on conquest. As you would only be able to defend your 2 acres with assistance from the community, standing armies would be formed to protect the land holdings.
And before you know it one community would be treatening another with nuclear weapons (well in the year 4000 maybe.)
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Growing and trading a drug of some kind would ensure your survival in a time such as the one you describe Gerrit. Food is bulky, perishable stuff.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Where did Enviroschools go?
Pita Sharples took it! (kind of..)
http://pundit.co.nz/content/māra-kai-māori-kai
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)
Bio security ?
http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/node/8542
Gee!
Like or Dislike:
1 
0 (+1)
Ulysses Club president ‘Peter’ someone – on the button with comments about the need for everybody wise-up about the scope of National’s ACC con.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0 (0)