Friday, September 24, 2010
Hanrahan - "We'll all be rooned"
J O'Brien's Poem - Hanrahan - see more information on the poet at Australian Dictionary of Biography
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Shaky Times
I have been rather busy these last few weeks - planning holidays, working followed by more work and occasionally getting out into the garden to try and bring order into post winter chaos.
The extra wet spring has been welcomed though now both my lawn and garden are totally saturated and the water tanks completely overflowing through most of the last few months. We have the main set of tanks hooked up to one toilet but were unable to do more owing to house slab constraints.
The Christchurch earthquake caused a bit of a stir with the geologist in the family bringing out his "Geology of NZ" book given to him by a great aunty. There is a great website visualisation of the quake and >700 aftershocks suffered by the people of Canterbury since the quake - check it out at http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/.
I've been in NZ when a 5.5 quake hit and it was quite an experience. Trying to put your clothes on while the earth shakes is difficult (the quake hit at night like this recent one) and scary. Christchurch residents described the sound as like a train going through their living room.
Like other quakes and extreme rain events in New Zealand questions will be asked regarding building standards and development of unsuitable land. Some of the worst hit housing was on estuarine silt land which liquefied once all shook up.
But the earthquake is probably the only >7 Richter scale earthquake not to result in loss of life, which is an enormous achievement. New Zealanders can be proud of their building standards as well as their quick response to the crisis. If the same quake hit here in Melbourne, more than 4 million people would be homeless and I would suspect a very large death toll. Newcastle, NSW, is a warning that the earth does sometimes throw up the odd quake.
The extra wet spring has been welcomed though now both my lawn and garden are totally saturated and the water tanks completely overflowing through most of the last few months. We have the main set of tanks hooked up to one toilet but were unable to do more owing to house slab constraints.
The Christchurch earthquake caused a bit of a stir with the geologist in the family bringing out his "Geology of NZ" book given to him by a great aunty. There is a great website visualisation of the quake and >700 aftershocks suffered by the people of Canterbury since the quake - check it out at http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/.
I've been in NZ when a 5.5 quake hit and it was quite an experience. Trying to put your clothes on while the earth shakes is difficult (the quake hit at night like this recent one) and scary. Christchurch residents described the sound as like a train going through their living room.
Like other quakes and extreme rain events in New Zealand questions will be asked regarding building standards and development of unsuitable land. Some of the worst hit housing was on estuarine silt land which liquefied once all shook up.
But the earthquake is probably the only >7 Richter scale earthquake not to result in loss of life, which is an enormous achievement. New Zealanders can be proud of their building standards as well as their quick response to the crisis. If the same quake hit here in Melbourne, more than 4 million people would be homeless and I would suspect a very large death toll. Newcastle, NSW, is a warning that the earth does sometimes throw up the odd quake.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
SBS Insight: Climate Skeptics Program
It was good to see Insight last night on SBS. Stephen Schneider faced a vocal group of climate change skeptics and discussed with them the reasons for the scientific evidence for global warming. Much of the debate exposed a number of issues including the small scientific knowledge of much of the audience.
An example of this included the pH scale and acidification of seawater with dissolved CO2. Wikipedia has a couple of fine entries on these topics - and I quote:
"Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[1] Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104, a change of −0.075 on the logarithmic pH scale which corresponds to an increase of 18.9% in H+ (acid) concentration.[2][3] By the first decade of the 21st century however, the net change in ocean pH levels relative pre-industrial level was about -0.11, representing an increase of some 30% in "acidity" (ion concentration) in the world's oceans."
My geologist son then whipped out his calculator ( far more complex than the basic ones I used at school) and proceeded to verify this figure using the appropriate logarithmic calculation, and came to a very similar conclusion using the numbers on the show.
A general lack of scientific knowledge in the community is understandable. Having 2 practicing scientists at home now makes me very wary of how my discussions are framed. I know (even with my own science degree) how much I've forgotten over the years and how much more experimentation and evidence has been gathered. Hence the need to get good and detailed evidence when framing these debates, not belief.
Watch the program at : http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/302#watchonline
An example of this included the pH scale and acidification of seawater with dissolved CO2. Wikipedia has a couple of fine entries on these topics - and I quote:
"Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[1] Between 1751 and 1994 surface ocean pH is estimated to have decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104, a change of −0.075 on the logarithmic pH scale which corresponds to an increase of 18.9% in H+ (acid) concentration.[2][3] By the first decade of the 21st century however, the net change in ocean pH levels relative pre-industrial level was about -0.11, representing an increase of some 30% in "acidity" (ion concentration) in the world's oceans."
My geologist son then whipped out his calculator ( far more complex than the basic ones I used at school) and proceeded to verify this figure using the appropriate logarithmic calculation, and came to a very similar conclusion using the numbers on the show.
A general lack of scientific knowledge in the community is understandable. Having 2 practicing scientists at home now makes me very wary of how my discussions are framed. I know (even with my own science degree) how much I've forgotten over the years and how much more experimentation and evidence has been gathered. Hence the need to get good and detailed evidence when framing these debates, not belief.
Watch the program at : http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/index/id/302#watchonline
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