Australia stock-taking

 

Gumbayngirr country, today called Coffs Harbour. Where the original inhabitants were pushed into fringe camps. A detailed account of this time can be found here.

Expansion seems to be hard wired to the European project, or even 'man'. Grabbing the neighbour's stuff, walking into other people's places and behaving like 'vandals'. The new 'living space' is always gotten by military aggression. The world is a playground to extract and enlarge the pursuit of more and more. A planet becomes tabula rasa to subdue and treat as a quarry in the metabolism (pdf) of rapidly multiplying flag-waving chest-pounding nationalists in a post-nationalist world. The 'blank slate' to project the pathologically insatiable hunger for more is actually a bio-diverse array of life and culture which is eradicated to convert all into a machinery of fossil fuels, stuff, meat and profit. "Nothing but bush" thinks the Australian mindset and bulldozes bio-diversity and replaces it with a dull and impoverished mono-culture. Land, water, ocean and air degradation follows. The unique Australian flora and fauna is replaced with poodles, ponies, meat, and pink weeds.

Pandanus

The project of 'civilisation' comes to a grinding halt as it becomes obvious that the 'stuff' is running out, the bills are piling up for the heritage damage and pollution. The planet itself has been brought to the tipping point of becoming uninhabitable ( for life as we know it).  A culture of mean stewardship and dysfunctional oikos management is a bankrupt 'lifestyle'. As we drive our only home against the wall with eyes wide open, we are already eying the next habitable planets for evasion and expansion.

So much could have been learnt from the way of life of indigenous peoples, living in small populations and valuing human culture and law...


More viewings:
I am Aboriginal, film by John Pilger
Australia Day,  Ken Oathcarn, Rap News Video
"Nothing but bush" cartoon


More readings:
Aboriginal history of the Coffs Harbour region, PDF
Australia Day is a time for mourning, not celebration, Guardian,  260115
Henry Reynolds: If We Are To Re-Think Australia Day, Where Should We Begin, New Matilda, 220115
Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Tradition, Truth & Tomorrow, The Monthly


Audio:
Padraic Gibson / Paddy Gibson, 1788: War for Eora Country - Genocide and resistance in early colonial Sydney


There could be 50 C days in Sydney and Melbourne... Guardian / CSIRO


Images
via Old Camp at Coffs Creek, Tony Hart 

2014 Earth's warmest year on record - but we are air conditioned

"The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880." The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA

Coal powered air conditioners rattle through suburbia, shops and malls. All doors are wide open to invite possible customers in. People and pets are advised to stay indoors in the land of the great outdoors.  Livestock are precooked on treeless paddocks. Wildlife will have to manage somehow. The media disseminates images of beaches with jolly beach bodies cooling down before racing back to their ac suv to carry them to the next cool location.

Houses seem to be built for another geographical region, but not Australia.  After 100s of years they have not come to terms with the climate, let alone unhinged catastrophic climate change.

" ..You see the same housing design from Hobart to Emerald to even Darwin, and that's madness... Australia's houses are poorly adapted to extremes of temperature. Houses with little shade, green space or surrounding trees, and with dark roofs and low ceilings, mean that the only way to cool them is to turn on the air-conditioning", Dr Hanna, Ecomagazine

Whatever the seemingly temporary dwelling is, just bang a legionnaires disease dripping air conditioner on it and 'she'll be right'. Should there be a blackout it is always handy to blame possum for dark malls and melting businesses where nothing goes without electronic gadgets.

Stay cool Bellingen

"Historically in Australia, more people die from heatwaves than they do from any other type of natural disaster," Professor Steffen

Leaving the habitable planet option behind, out of control fires rage over the country. While the climate is "getting out of control", Australia chooses to stick its head into the hot beach sand and tolerate the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.

 "About 10 per cent of fires are lit by children." Dr Janet Stanley, Monash University, abc

Images:
'Stay cool' Bellingen CBD, where local motorists turn the park into a car park
Blackout, eu

Heatwaves, blackouts and infrastructure breakdown, CSIRO
Hot and bothered: our health under climate change, ECOS
Urban areas see more heat waves, environmental research web


More readings on the 'life style' of bankruptcy
Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945

Climate wars

As an update on climate reading, here is some very informative climate listening.

The book:
Climate Wars, by Gwynne Dyer reads:

"From one of the world’s great geopolitical analysts, a terrifying glimpse of the none-too-distant future, when climate change will force the world’s powers into a desperate struggle for advantage and even survival.

Dwindling resources. Massive population shifts. Natural disasters. Spreading epidemics. Drought. Rising sea levels. Plummeting agricultural yields. Crashing economies. Political extremism. These are some of the expected consequences of runaway climate change in the decades ahead, and any of them could tip the world towards conflict. Prescient, unflinching, and based on exhaustive research and interviews, Climate Wars promises to be one of the most important books of the coming years."

Listen to part 1 (2, 3) by Gwynne Dyer

Image:
Boat of Environmental migrants/ climate refugees fleeing the effects of catastrophic climate change and environmental degradation.

Update:
Failure to address global warming could lead to war, F. Hollande at G20, reuters 161114

Climate reading

Hansen J, Kharecha P, Sato M, Masson-Delmotte V, Ackerman F, et al. (2013) Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature. PLoS ONE 8(12): e81648. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081648


Abolishing the Climate Change Authority is a Really Stupid Idea, Senator Scott-Ludlam, WA Greens Speech, video and transcript, 101213

Heatwaves: Hotter, Longer, More Often. Report finds hot weather in Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra has already reached levels predicted for 2030. Climate Council

Be Prepared: Climate Change and the Australian Bushfire Threat, Climate Council, Bushfire report

State of the Climate - 2014, CSIRO report (update) 

War and Peace in Time of Ecological Conflicts, Professor Bruno Latour, Feb 21, 2014 lecture, audio: soundcloud, YouTube, (update)

Coal, dredging and more greenhouse gas emissions in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. abc environment, also in the Guardian

Update: (31032014)
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014 report (by chapters)

Guardian: Climate change report: 'No pause in global warming, the worst is yet to come' – live:
"No-one is safe/ "Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change." - IPCC chairman, Dr Rajendra K Pachauri.
The atmosphere can no longer be used as an open sewer..."

World Bank: Without Action, The Planet Will See 4°C Warming by time teenagers today are in 80's 25112014

Images:
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Black Sea
Leonardo da Vinci, Water and Storm, 1514

See also
Climate wars, Gwynne Dyer, audio

Severe storms on mid north coast unusually consistent

"The Weather Bureau says consistency of recent severe storms on mid north coast is 'unusual'

The Bureau of Meteorology said it is unusual to have so many severe storms on the mid north coast at this time of year....Afternoon thunderstorms have struck parts of the coast every day for the past week....Many parts of the region have already exceeded their average monthly rainfall for November....Forecaster Michael Logan said storms at this time of year are to be expected but not quite as many...."But to have every afternoon for a week back to back to back without a break is pretty rare."...The Dorrigo Plateau was covered in a blanket of white after a severe hailstorm yesterday afternoon."  abc 191113

Sawtell Hail Storm 161113
Hail storm in Bellingen 131113

Bellingen

This iconic dwelling in Bellingen could stand for our only habitable home that is being vandalised by the addiction to burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

Hail storm in Bellingen

A severe storm brought a lot of hail to Bellingen at 5.30 pm. The land at the feet of Dorrigo Mountains was hit with approx. 2-3 cm hailstones and carpets of graupel.

One could imagine the typhoon arms of 315 km/h Typhoon Haiyan reaching over to the Pacific and articulating its rage here.

Yesterday Sawtell, Toormina and Boambee East were hammered by hailstones the size of golf balls.

Updates:
Climate change makes super typhoons worse, says UN meteorological agency, abc 141113 
Super storm wreaks havoc in Guangxi, Hainan, xinhuanet 131113
Annual losses from disasters quadruples as World Bank links typhoon to climate change 191113 
Typhoon Fuels Call for Global Warming Compensation Funds, Bloomberg 191113
World Bank Says Natural Disasters Cost $3.8 Trillion Since 1980 Bloomberg 191113
Hornsby was hit by a tornado, Bureau of Meteorology confirms 191113 
People around the world are feeling the "wrath of a warming planet",U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 201113

Graupel and Eucalyptus leaves

Hailstones and teaspoon