Holy dooley, imagine being able to “perceive” pure 8Hz sound? No mention how many dB but “very pure low frequency signals” means no pesky background noise. Was the room help at constant pressure or were they actually perceiving atmospheric or HVAC pressure fluctuations? And did they all live happily ever after or suffer death by usual fossil fuel and other pollution causes? Only worth a look to check how many comment rants.
>more> TheOz
1) End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2) End hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition, promote sustainable agriculture
3) Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages
4) Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5) Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6) Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy
8) Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all
9) Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation
10) Reduce inequality within and among countries
11) Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12) Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13) Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (taking note of agreements made by the UNFCCC forum)
14) Conserve and sustainably use ocean/sea marine resources for sustainable development 15) Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss
16) Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17) Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development
According to data that member countries presented to United Nations, Cuba was the only nation in the world in 2006 that met the World Wide Fund for Nature‘s definition of sustainable development, with an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita, 1.5, and a Human Development Index of over 0.8, 0.855.[76][77
THERE’S nowhere that Cadel Evans feels less safe on his bike than in Australia….abused by motorists and is bemused by just how much aggro exists on the roads…”I’ve cycled every continent, other than Antarctica, and it’s incredible. Drivers in America and Australia just have attitudes. I don’t necessarily say attitudes towards cyclists, but towards other road users …people just don’t realise the danger they’re causing other people.”..worst offenders…very young and very old drivers. He despairs that cyclists have to contend with people throwing bottles and driving dangerously close to them…His worst nightmare is a car towing a trailer wider than the vehicle. “They’re shocking. I’ve nearly had my leg torn off so many times because of that, and people are just completely unaware of it.”
>more> SMH
Waters in EAC travel southward along east coast of Australia, with most of it splitting from the coast near Sydney, heading for New Zealand. A small part of the current, known as the EAC Extension, works its way southward past Victoria and Tasmania…A typical signature in this region are the large eddies, around 200 kilometres across and hundreds of metres deep. Some of the warm water is trapped here along with marine life.
This year a larger proportion of the EAC was sent southward instead of breaking away to the east. Winter ocean temperatures off Bass Strait were around 19C, an increase of 4C. This impacted local fishing, beach conditions and the weather…The southward extent of EAC is controlled by collective behaviour of winds between Australia and South America. Over 50-year period these winds changed their pattern due to a strengthening of a climate system known as the Southern Annular Mode…The changes to this mode have been attributed to a combination of ozone depletion and increasing atmospheric CO2.
>more> TheConversation
Until recently, you might be forgiven for thinking that the oceans were a trivial component of Earth’s climate system, and that the consequences of change were minimal. After all, only 5% of papers published on climate change involve ocean systems. The IPCC, which evaluates peer-reviewed scientific literature, did not devote a regional chapter to the ocean until its most recent major report…As we progress down the road to Paris…Analysis of world’s “carbon budget” (see here and here suggests we can emit about another 500-800 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) of carbon dioxide before we push global temperatures beyond 2C above the pre-industrial average. This gives us about 20 years before net global emissions have to fall to zero – a tall order indeed…Yet here’s a sobering calculation: imagine if rest of world falls into line with the US and Chinese climate targets. How much of the world’s budget would we burn?..answer would be world emitted 1,400 gigatonnes of CO2, or 175-280% of our remaining budget, dragging average global warming to 3C and beyond (see the orange line on the graph below). This would be disastrous for us and our children, and many of the benefits of our oceans (coral reefs, fisheries, coastal living) would be transformed beyond recognition.
An emerging champion against the Koch brothers is Debbie Dooley, a 56-year-old founding member of the Tea Party movement…Dooley has always been political, she says. But after the economic collapse and the Wall Street bail out she abandoned the Republican Party and was one of the first 22 people to host a Tea Party rally…Dooley says her fight for renewable energy sits neatly in her conservative Tea Party philosophy…She’s opposed to government interference and big business monopolies. She believes in the right of people to generate and sell their own power, which the utility companies are trying to prevent by charging solar owners increasing fees to use the grid…She instinctively believes in a decentralised power grid, which she says would be less vulnerable to terrorist attack…Asked if she believes in climate change and she won’t even address the question.
>more> TheAge
Origin’s LNG project worries as Sinopec said unable to take gas…”Serious doubts have arisen over the ability of the biggest customer for Origin Energy’s $24.7 billion liquefied natural gas project in Queensland to take delivery of the gas…Production from APLNG… to commence next quarter. Some 7.6 million tonnes a year of the 8.6 million tonnes a year capacity is due to be shipped to China, with Kansai Electric taking the rest.” How crazy is this, such an enormous project, 85% dependent on just one large Chinese client? And electricity demand is up in Queensland, suspicions that case is huge demand for LNG plant.
>more> TheAge
What may not be appreciated by many people is that Australia’s policy settings aren’t really aiming to ensure emissions in the year 2020 are 5 per cent below those prevailing in 2000. Instead they’re focused on an international treaty target of keeping our cumulative emissions across the period of 2013 to 2020 just 0.5 per cent below 2000 levels on average, plus a 129 million tonne emission credit from beating our 2008-2012 Kyoto target… target to match USA may well be utterly inconsistent with politicians’ statements that they want to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees. However, to have any chance in hell of hitting such a target we actually need increase the level of ambition of emission reduction policies immediately, not just after 2020.>more> ClimateSpectator
“The German coalition government has said they will mothball 2700 megawatts of pollution intensive brown coal power plants by 2020. This would be equivalent to shutting down Victoria’s largest coal power generator Loy Yang A, alongside an additional smaller coal generator.” But they may be paid, to warm up if needed, when weather forecast might show shortfall in renewable energy. Sounds like our leaders should have done this, except it would be too expensive to reimburse Hazelwood, profit being too high, because they extract “our” coal at no cost! How level a playing field is that?
>more> ClimateSpectator
For many of us, having been sucked into the fairy tale of cars being freedom machines, cool expressions of individuality, blah, blah…when you hear about prospects of township sped limits being reduced to permanent 40km/h, you react with anger. Here’s convincing analysis about major improvements, for vehicles as well as pedestrians, in urban centres slowed down to 30km/h.
>audio.mp3> ABC_RN, full transcript – Drive Slowly and Prosper
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