Make Bellingen a carpark! More roads, wider roads and more parking

Bellingen car park, Creek Ln,  still with trees. Google image 03.2023

Sprawling suburbia is deprived of public forms of transport. Private fossil fuel mobility is encouraged and choosen. The town runs on petrol, plonk, meat and timber. Motorists' expectation is carpet to carpet mobility to not get their R.M.Williams muddy. In between there is a lot of AC idling and cruising to find a big enough parking spot. Monstrous SUVs speed though town to fight for parking. Tree roots are crushed by the weight of 2,000 kilograms of vehicles. The oversized tanks park right across the access route to the toilets as well.
With the growth of the obese-sized vehicles grows the hunger for more and wider roads. It is insatiable. Above all parking, getting stuff or dumping the kids or dogs is the most important issue in town.

Roads are congested and aggressive, frustrated motorists harass non motorised living entities and smaller, slower vehicles. The jam-packed CBD roads are rich in ambient particulate matter pollution. The Al fresco crowds seem to suffer from anosmia and look the other way when large bull haulers and timber trucks fly through the narrow main street. 

There are already many free car parking opportunities to store private vehicles in public spaces. But now there is a brand new car park smashed into the landscape. Residents seem blissfully unaware that in the middle of a climate emergency many native mature trees magically disappeared and the soil surface was sealed. One just smeared asphalt over the 'dirt'. A very large area of impervious surfaces has been constructed after months of heavy fossil fuel equipment made a racket next to the adjoining park and creek. The new treeless hardscape will not provide any shading canopy and there will be no extra cost of blowing nasty leaves from the car park.

New car park adjoining creek and park, Bellingen

This diy urban heat island will increase temperatures, leading to heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Deprived of shade (which previously existed) in a concrete, tar and asphalt environment it will directly influence the health and welfare of residents and wildlife. Rain and runoff will run over the hot surfaces, drain into the creek and increase the water temperature there. Biodiversity will exit, despite the beautification of three lomandras.

Leafy affluent neighborhoods are shady and have resilient mental health. Bare degraded surfaces go with deprived neighborhoods. They do harm to all people and other animals.

Car park beautification, 03.2023

Car centric culture demands more of the same: 'Fix the roads' (lobby), free parking everywhere and no speed checks OK! It is desperately hanging on to dinosaurian ways. 

Elsewhere in the civilised world they are phasing out private fossil combustion mobility in urban centers. They are creating equitable public spaces that are safe for all participants. Enforced speed reductions are now widespread. Shady footpath (What's that?) and cyclepath infrastructure joins sustainable public transport. Bicycle parking racks encourage pollution free mobility. Road trauma in the form of 'the daily death toll', maiming and roadkill could even be eliminated as well.

It is not called ’ man-made climate change' for nothing.

 

Community Climate Action Plan
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/Community/Sustainable-Living/Community-Climate-Action-Plan
"We are now in a critical decade for urgent action with the window to keeping global warming to below 1.5°C and to averting devastating climate impacts rapidly closing."

Bellingen Shire Climate Emergency Program, 2020 – 2030
https://www.bellingen.nsw.gov.au/files/sharedassets/public/files/environment/adopted-corporate-carbon-plan-final.pdf

“Are we building harder, hotter cities?
https://pce.parliament.nz/publications/are-we-building-harder-hotter-cities-the-vital-importance-of-urban-green-spaces/ 

Update:  Residents elsewhere swap parking spaces for extra trees "We are really starting to see trees become essential elements of streets”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-25/trees-replace-parking-spaces-hobart-street/102135698

Make Bellingen a carpark! Pt. 2 

Noise Pollution and Vibration in the Bellingen Shire

On the 15th May the Royal Australian Air Force will fly jets day and night until 10.30 pm over the Bellingen Shire. (source)

The morning chorus of rural Bellingen usually consists of chainsaws. During the day the cacophony is enriched by mowers, slashers, lawn trimmers, sweepers, mulchers, chippers, shredders, bulldozers and other fossil fuel powered equipment. Cars speed on unpaved roads, cavalcades of mining and logging trucks thunder through the shire and the scenic little village. Hovering (pesticide spray) helicopters and sightseeing planes ensure that the sky is also abuzz with noise pollution. On weekends gangs of trail bikes rev up. At night the odd out of control ad hoc party distributes its industrial sound waves over the valley. The barking and yapping packs of dogs will be ignored here, as the focus is on machines powered with fossil fuel.

As a special annual event, the Bellingen shire (and Nambucca, Bellingen, Coffs Harbour and Clarence Valley council areas) puts itself on the map by hosting car races. " 200 kilometres of NSW forest roads will be used for a three-day car race." (source)  The fossil fuel burning spectacle is generating a lot of noise and dust. During that time, "the public is being denied access to various state owned forests." (source) Local endemic wildlife better not be near the many roads fragmenting their habitat.

Back to the aerial machines: “Up to 18 aircraft may be involved in these exercises, of which the major part will be conducted further off the coast, however northern NSW residents may notice aircraft activity this week." The aircraft will be the "F/A-18F Super Hornets from RAAF Base Amberley, near Brisbane and F/A-18 Hornet aircraft from RAAF Base Williamtown, near Newcastle." (source)

Ron Brent, Australia's Aircraft Noise Ombudsman, mentioned that the F/A-18s  "when used at full power... are among the noisiest planes we've seen here in Australia". (source)

In other places, aircraft noise has caused 'friction with surrounding residents'. One resident 'recorded jet noises as loud as 100 decibels at home.' "According to the RAAF, at Ludmilla Primary School the average maximum noise of an F/A-18 Hornet taking off from the RAAF Base Darwin is 92.6dB." (source)

A resident reported her experiences: "The whole house literally shakes...It's impossible to conduct conversations. You can't hear the radio...You feel the sound waves hitting your body...The worst part is not being able to predict when the noise will come...You don't know when it's coming. It's Chinese water torture...Then you start to hear it coming and your whole body tenses.." (source)

Celebrating Fossil Fuel Culture on Forest Roads
Staging Car Races in Nine State Forests of NSW

Images
Graffiti in the public sphere

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

Staging Car Races in Nine State Forests of NSW

200 kilometres of NSW forest roads will be used for a three-day car race on 11-14 September. The public is being denied access to various state owned forests.

Nine State Forests are effectively privatised:
Bagawa,
Lower Bucca,
Nana Creek,
Newry,
Orara East,
Pine Creek,
Tarkeeth,
Tuckers Nob and
Wedding Bells State Forests.

The racing cars will shoot at high speed through 'dirt roadways'. The "roads are lined by trees close to the edge in many places... they will travel through dense rainforest." These forests are the habitat for a rich biodiversity. Flora, fauna and fungi mingle in this refuge. To stage a high speed fossil fuel orgy amongst this diverse habitat and 'boost' greenhouse gases will leave all living beings with an inhospitable home. Australia is well known for working hard on making its unique species rapidly extinct.

The roaring noise pollution can be heard over kilometres, the dust generation is a hazard. Housing adjoining the State Forest are already challenged by ongoing logging pollution and breaking mining trucks. As well as the acoustic pollution on the land, the air space is filled with hovering air craft noise. The house-shaking sounds of the helicopter/s ( in the age of uavs ) over 'lifestyle' properties make any creature want to flee the area. To add such a combustion event probably will flood the market with 4sale signs and dissuade visitors that might 'boost the local economy' in the long run in a sustainable way.

Youth on (unregistered) trailbikes and bombs already doing wheelies in forests and residential areas take it as a go ahead. Such mass spectacles demonstrates to them, that it is ok to speed.

The price is too high to be 'put on the map' in such a way.


See also
Celebrating Fossil Fuel Culture on Forest Roads, 2013
Noise Pollution and Vibration in the Bellingen Shire, 2015


Images
Australian fauna, Brockhaus encyclopedia
Large frogmouth, (Batrachostomus auritus), Brehm's Life of Animals

Coffs Harbour: A place for whales and birds?

Coffs Harbour has been put on the map for watching whales and birds. Between June and November migrating humpback whales can be watched. The Solitary Islands Marine Park provides a refuge for them and many other marine species.

Also in August thousands of wedge-tailed shearwaters travel thousands of kilometres each year to return to the same burrows on Muttonbird Island Nature Reserve. It is the only easily-accessible place in NSW where the migratory wedge-tailed shearwaters nest.

Just when these migratory species dwell in the region, fossil fuel enthusiasts and the associated industries stage a 1000-horsepower speed boats race in the privatised 'natural amphitheatre' of Coffs Harbour. Rockets 'get airborne' and therefore are not supposed to shred any marine mammals. Sea creatures will simply get replaced by 'high horsepower marine monsters'. Local businesses are waving shopping bags and put up dysfunctional 'fairy lights' in trees to 'draw the crowds' to a run-of-the-mill town.

In a 100 % automobile dependent society with few footpaths and hardly any bike paths petrol runs in the veins of the population. Daily and recreational racing kill the dullness of a marginal existence. 'Boys with toys' are good consumers. They race the atmosphere-polluting machines on the Pacific Ocean and in the scenic hinterland of Coffs Harbour.

Having just thrown billions at the Pacific Highway one could have at least used this purpose-built road which is hacking its way through numerous wildlife habitats as a human-made race course 'amphitheatre'. Just privatise the space and let the benefiting industries pay for the usage. At the moment billboards along the highway appeal to motorists to reduce speed while the next billboards advertise car racing.

Staging such polluting and noisy events discourages visitors to come to the area for its natural aspects. Locals are deprived of a livable place and might move on or avoid shops sponsoring combustion festivals. It is the rapid conversion of a 'special place' to a non-place.

But in the country one just tolerates things ...

See also
Celebrating Fossil Fuel Culture on Forest Roads

Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals

Hazard reduction burning kills

Particle matter pollution (PM2.5 & PM10) from 'unavoidable' burning is killing and hospitalising people every year. All beings that breathe are affected but those who are vulnerable, such as children, the elderly and sick people are more affected. Not only do they kill people who are already not in perfect adult health but they also cause illnesses including coughs, asthma and other lung conditions. They may also trigger heart attacks.

"Particles smaller than 10 micrometres (µm) in diameter (PM10) are consistently associated with increased mortality and hospital admissions for people with both heart and lung disease."

"Because of their smaller size, these particles can be inhaled more deeply into the lungs where the irritation can cause coughs, asthma and other lung conditions. Some are small enough to pass into the bloodstream through the finest blood vessels of the lungs where they can trigger heart attacks in people with existing lung or heart conditions and impact more severely on children and the elderly."
Harmful ozone causing further respiratory damage is also promoted by burning. "Hazard reduction burns are potentially significant sources of ozone precursors".

"Emissions from human activities are sufficient to cause regular exceedances of the AAQ NEPM standards."

When compared, it would appear that hazard reduction burning is more dangerous to human life than bushfires are, but that bushfires are more hazardous to property. Especially heap fires which are not 'unavoidable' could immediately be stopped to protect the air quality in rural areas. But perhaps hazard reduction burning might also be minimised to save lives with property as collateral.


Source:
http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/soe/soe2012/chapter2/chp_2.1.htm#2.1.9

More on the rendering of large parts of the earth uninhabitable:
Many fires in New South Wales, Australia, NASA's Aqua satellite, July 11

Hazard reduction in Bongil Bongil National Park.

Local residents welcome new vegetation clearing laws with open arms.

Scientists show a drier Australia is primarily caused by greenhouse gases, thinning in ozone layer

Rainfall decline in south-west Australia linked to climate change 


Updates:
Mark Z. Jacobson. Effects of biomass burning on climate, accounting for heat and moisture fluxes, black and brown carbon, and cloud absorption effects. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/2014JD021861

Sydneysiders choking on the air they breathe, SMH 082014

Hazard Reduction burns rescheduled due to health warnings about smoke, rfs. NSW, 0814

Increased air pollution from bushfires is among the rising threats facing NSW residents as global warming makes blazes more likely, according to a new report by the Climate Council. SMH 1014

Smoke from agricultural land-clearing fires linked to tornado intensity, 022015

P. E. Saide, S. N. Spak, R. B. Pierce, J. A. Otkin, T. K. Schaack, A. K. Heidinger, A. M. da Silva, M. Kacenelenbogen, J. Redemann, G. R. Carmichael. Central American biomass burning smoke can increase tornado severity in the U.S. Geophysical Research Letters, 2015; DOI: 10.1002/2014GL062826

"There is nothing left of an emu-wren after a fire, not even a pile of ash" inappropriate fires  abc

Fire hazard reduction strategy in Tasmania targets private land for first time. Asthma sufferers have been warned to expect more smoke."You may be killed by flame, but you can just as easily be killed by smoke and you're just as dead," Mr Dow-Sainter said. abc 23.03.2015

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

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

The Armed Man - Thoughts on War

The Concert:
Karl Jenkins: The Armed Man (‘Mass for Peace’) The anti-war piece was performed by the North Coast Performing Arts Orchestra and Choir for the UN International Day of Peace. The event took place in the Bellingen Soldiers' Memorial hall.

Thoughts on War:
Intense warfare is the evolutionary driver of large complex populations. Primate and ant societies pursue war to defend their turf or invade others for resources. Settler culture and rapid reproduction leads to an overflow of the 'petri dish'. The early enthusiasm for endless growth and expansion brought about a way of life of  'Go forth, multiply, fill the Earth, subdue and vandalise the Garden'. The logic of expansionism led man to the "The brutal destruction of 'creation'." H. Blumenberg

The uncanny hubris
of 'creation's crowning glory' promising to achieve paradise on Earth now might have as an outcome the creation of hell on a once habitable planet. (Anthropocene, CO2)

'The pride of creation' usurped the place of the many Earth gods, which they later rationalised into monotheism before upstaging 'the only one'. Heads of hierarchical societies grounded their existence with recourse to God - the sovereign's ownership of the land.

Techné
Controlled fire use by early humans and tool manufacturing enabled a civilisation of ever-refined means of destruction. Warfare conducted throughout human history has refined the means of killing and formed society.
The perpetual peace of “citizens of the Earth” (Erdbürger) had no chance against the perpetual war of defending the home soil from the other, or the land grab 'over there'. The state of war of all against all' in a 'free market' and the invisible fist of the market place became the new state of nature.

Sovereignty declares a 'state of exception' (G.Agamben) with a tendency to generalize of the exceptional state. This is a powerful strategy for legalised lawlessness,  suspension of the juridical order. Undeclared wars rage and no one can any longer say "we didn't know".

Framing of War
War is "framed" in the media so as to prevent us from recognising the people who are to be killed as living fully "grievable" lives, like ours. "Collateral damage" is not part of the war game.

Spectacles of Blood
"Roman gladiatorial shows were not put on for the purposes of indulging violence, bloodlust and cruelty, even if they may seem that way today. Instead, they were put on for several important purposes including social control and education". Today's media frames the robot wars 'over there'. Decisions are outsourced to machines. The masses consume the spectacle at a safe distance on screens. The spectacle, a social relation between people that is mediated by images is a self-fulfilling control mechanism for society.
 
A society modelled on war.
The 'war model' of the modern city and of human catastrophic society is elaborated in Virilio's  'dromology'.  "The expansive project of modernity has reached its limit in the light speed colonization of terrestrial time and space by technology and media"

A permanent war economy merged with Disaster Capitalism (Naomi Klein) further accelerates and exacerbates the catastrophic nature of modernity. Disasters (economic, political, military or natural) are good for profits - they reboot the system.  "Creative destruction, interventions and economic reconstruction mobilise resources for some. Margins are the largest outside the system of civil society. All is frontier with the loot going to the 'highest bidder'. There is no longer a safe place - anywhere!

Discipline techniques
Disciplinary or managerial techniques are initiated and developed into a technology for the control of individuals. (Michel Foucault) "'Discipline' may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is a 'physics' or an 'anatomy' of power, a technology." Psycho-orthopedics and pharmaceuticals also aid in the pathology of normality.

Ordinary people engage in "the banality of evil." (Hannah Arendt). Genocides continue and we are running amok causing "the earth’s sixth mass extinction event, through such anthropogenic impacts as habitat loss and modification, the spread of invasive species and climate change" Is omnicide the goal? Modernity as a system of efficiency, beyond ethics, mobilises all in the war against nature.

The driverless and shipwrecked ship of fools cruises (kyvernó̱:  steers, navigates) into the anthropocene, with no goal other than cruising the ocean of 'business as usual': more growth on an infinite planet, holding tight to the rudder of pathological denial. 

Armed man is a tautology inhabiting the machinery of war.


Texts:
Agamben, Giorgio,  State of Exception. Translated by Kevin Attell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, excerpt, Video, European Graduate School. 2003, starts at 2.29 min.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus:, 1980/ Nomadology: The War Machine (New York: Semiotext(e), 19
Subtopia, A field guide to military urbanism
Aeschylus, The Persians 

Images:
1.  Blake, William Blake, The Ghost of a Flea, 1819–1820  
2.  Arcimboldo, Giuseppe, Fire 1566
3.  Goya, Francisco, The Disasters of War  (Désastres de la Guerra), 1815–1820
4.  Bosch, Hieronymus, detail of Haywain Triptych, 1516

Creating an inhospitable ecosystem on Earth

We have maneuvered our hospitable planet into turbulent and chaotic property changes. In the anthropocene we have profoundly modified the Earth’s landscape. Human activities are creating an inhospitable ecosystem for human biomes and the biosphere at large.

The diy catastrophic climate breakdown is due to the addiction to burning fossil fuels. We are racing into a 4 degrees Celsius scenario, although it is known that fossil fuels need to stay unburned to meet climate target of 2°C. Some engage in pathological denial and are willfully blind to it resuming business-as-usual. For some it's enough to have a “change of government and climate change just disappears!”

There will be a legacy from the ones that “dig it up, ship it out and let it burn” - an out of control array of fire 'incidents', droughts, record intense heatwaves, floods, an 11-cyclone season, sea level rise and a dead, acid ocean.

Climate disruption will have severe implications for Australia's already challenged biodiversity conservation and protected areas. "Rates of extinction of species are likely to increase as the global average temperature rises by just 1.0 or 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and likely to accelerate sharply as temperature rises beyond 2 degrees Celsius."

Land degradation as usual continues with clearing, logging and slash and burn. The fossil-fuel-powered culture of sprawl, mining, plantations and pastoralism munches its way through all Australian biomes.

Fear of mega fire storms
There is a tendency to reclassify all bush/ native vegetation as fuel that needs incinerating with so that it cannot burn in the future. Backburning often leads to out-of-control blazes. Hazard reductions take place in nature refuges around cities and ever growing settlements in bushfire-prone areas. Arsonists and thoughtless cigarette tossers do their bit.

It is soothing to know ...

That Australia's 25,000 plant species have found a safe habitat in perpetuity in the freezer.

That Australian wildlife threatened by climate change will be relocated.

That "a refusal to implement the Kyoto Protocol or do something about CO2...calls for a new approach to deal with people displaced by climate change." Both overseas and local climate refugees.

That there is a "fires near me" app.

Images:
Public transport station

Updates:
The refusal to make the link between the fires and climate change will condemn more people to the inferno The Guardian
Heed the warnings on the new climate reality, The Guradian 

Waterfall Way - Lining the Pacific Highway with Crumbled Mountain

Speedy motorist society requires lining the roads with stuff. Mountains disappear and the Pacific Highway gets 'upgraded' with gravel. Bellingen Shire Council has just consented to expand a quarry at Dorrigo. Dorrigo is 731 metres above sea level. All mining trucks will wind their way down steep Waterfall Way. It is also New South Wales' best and Australia's third most beautiful tourist drive. And it is steep and narrow!  "Approval was for 100 trucks and adding an extra 200 trucks each week - many of them with dog trailers... Another concern is any potential instability of the mountain side due to heavy rains that may turn into a landslide under the weight of substantially increased larger truck movements. "

This would mean increased truck movements up and down Waterfall Way and through residential streets. Bellingen is structured like a drive-through town, with logging and smelly cattle trucks already roaring through the village. Car fumes and vehicle noise already prevent one from lingering or shopping.

Traffic is not just noisy and deadly but also has an impact on (residential) property values. "It is estimated that traffic involving trucks can decrease property value 150 times faster than strictly car traffic"

Sources:
Bellingen Council backflips 6-1 on controversial quarry bid

The development application includes increasing truck activity to 400-movements a week, to and from the quarry along Waterfall Way.

EPA stops gravel extraction from Corindi 

Updates:
200 extra laden truck movements through Bellingen. Meeting to discuss heavy traffic impact on Waterfall Way to the Pacific Highway. Bellingen Courier 101113

Waterfall Way Rd. Over the past five years there have been 81 accidents: resulting in one fatality and 133 injuries... It’s believed that approximately 20,000 tonnes per month will be carted down the mountain by 600 loaded trucks...This means that a total of 120 trips per day, or if curtailed to a five day week, 140 truck and dog vehicle movements per day. Bellingen Courier 062014 


400 Bellinger River turtles have been found dead or dying, see especially 2.6.2015 update on petrol contamination from vehicles to build more Roads to Ruin,

Retreat

A long weekend in a retreat (60-something kms from Bellingen). Multiple huts in a rural landscape.

On arrival multiple fossil fuel powered machinery made the landscape 'tidy'. The disturbing and excessive noise and dust pollution hogged the attention.

On opening the door to the premises, one was hit by an intense cloud of synthetic fragrances that was cooking on a power point. All textiles were drenched in these potentially hazardous synthetic chemicals. Curtains and furniture seemed to be dipped in fire foam and flame retardants. The bedsheets smelled perfumed. The kitchen cupboard had, as in most Aussie kitchens, the well-used spray can of pesticide handy. The water, without a filter, tasted foul and metallic.

The closeness of the  neighbouring huts tried to emulate a feeling of a tight-knit sub-urbia back home. Families wanting a "getting away from it all" feeling ended up in the confinement of 'family cabins'. "Loudness-as-an-inalienable-right “(Wallace, David Foster) of families one might add. Large unplanned families with the full package of pets and all the baggage. Parents intensely interacting with their wearables. Many mouths scream. The child that cannot use language cries and screams.

The dads of instant culture pour petrol, meths or other accelerants on the meat altar. The incinerated meat stands in the form of cows not far off. They are usually pre-cooked in the shelter-less Australian sun.

The toy pets bark and squeal from the abuse of being mistaken for a horse. Agitated the free range dog chases the only Australian native fauna in sight, a brush turkey. For short minutes distraction culture goes sensation seeking and then they sprawl and sprawl.

The use of the veranda is impossible and the hut smells toxic. The entire night the resident rooster claims his territory over the visiting Koel and the array of family dogs bark and yap and yap and yap.

Next idyllic morning the neighbouring fence is being drenched with toxins trailing in a large dust drift. The posts are meters away from the line of huts. Copious amounts of herbicide/pesticide is being doused, the diesel of the tractor fills the 'shelter' up with thick clouds of diesel fumes.

We retreat to a coastal eatery.  A deafening aural ambiance from families being fed. In the food preparation area a white, plastic auto mist box disperses pesticides totally unmanned round-the-clock! At short intervals poison is being released on to 'bugs', staff and customers. Enthusiasts of old car wrecks generously share the fumes of their old timers which fill the entire cafe.

People just seem to tolerate the ubiquity of pesticides and noise pollution

We disappeared through the sanitised, chemicalised agricultural acres which stretch for mile upon mile. Australian flora and fauna has been eradicated or only fragments are left as retreats.

Images: 
Cicada, domesticated silkmoth, Bombyx mori and a diversity of flies, Alfred Brehm,  Brehm's Life of Animals

Even ‘environmentally protective’ levels of pesticide devastate insect biodiversity. 
 Common insecticide used in homes associated with delayed mental development of young children

Update
Pyrethroid insecticides exposure increasing in homes and people, 07022014

Celebrating Fossil Fuel Culture on Forest Roads

The International Automobile Federation is showcasing car culture on forest roads in the Coffs Coast region. The spectacle of conspicuous consumption of fossil fuel will attract 10,000 motor enthusiasts arriving with their vehicles to enjoy the "quiet country roads and an endless network of forest trails, lush green hinterland roads, creeks and rainforest drives." They will encounter "a variety of beautiful bush settings and will find tranquil spots in the towns of Nana Glen, Glenreagh, Lowanna, Bellingen, Valla, Raleigh and Bowraville and Argents Hill." There will be the breath-taking landscapes of the Newry State Forest, Tuckers Nob State Forest and the Wedding Bells State Forest


The Mid North Coast of NSW, still has various protected refuges for Australian fauna and flora. The rich biodiversity of life is able to coexist in more or less fragmented habitats. Sprawl and the arteries of automobile dependency etch their way through 'the bush'". Logging, mining and speeding cars already encroach on the environment.

Residents living in little towns, rural dwellings or bush blocks seem to be used to the roar and dust of speeding vehicles and the local wildlife smeared across the roads. The noise pollution generated by racing cars might hardly outdo the daily chainsaws/slashers/mowers/whippersnippers/trail bikes etc.

One just tolerates things in the country...

Once the bushfire smoke from three hundred and fifty escaped hazard reductions has dissipated motorised business as usual can continue.

Traffic-Related Air Pollution, Particulate Matter, and Autism
Exposure to traffic-related air pollution, nitrogen dioxide, PM2.5, and PM10 during pregnancy and during the first year of life was associated with autism. Further epidemiological and toxicological examinations of likely biological pathways will help determine whether these associations are causal.

See also
Staging Car Races in Nine State Forests of NSW, 2014 

Noise Pollution and Vibration in the Bellingen Shire, 2015 

Update
One child dies and two other children injured in Rally Championship spectacle, the guardian 10.05.2015