Hurricane Sandy

Melbourne radio and TV news today are thankfully focusing on the impending landing of Hurricane Sandy off the East Coast of the US, a most welcome change from the Obama/Mitt Romney race. Tweets and text messages to the ABC Local radio presenters about Dennis Quaid, burning books and libraries (AKA "The Day after tomorrow" disaster movie) have been enlivening the reporting.
I heard that the Public Libraries are closed in New York and perhaps other cities nearby (meagpolis as it was called by one US commentator), so at least all the US Law Books are safe.
The Day After Tomorrow is favourite watching in our house, despite its many flaws - nothing like a heroic dad and resilient youngsters triumphing over man-made & nature's adversity!
I came across an article earlier this year regarding the increasing frequency of extreme events and links to Climate Change - "Explaining Extreme Events of 2011 from a Climate Perspective" by Peterson, Stott & Herring. This article clearly explains that not all extreme events can be linked to climate change but some are.
Hopefully the current Hurricane Sandy doesn't cause extreme harm to people and property unlike Hurricane Katrina. Or the scientist & meterologists involved don't get jailed like the Italian Earthquake Scientists unless it can be shown they were negligent.
So good luck everyone and I hope you don't have to experience the dislocation and destruction of your homes and lives like the Pakistani flood victims, Haiti earthquake survivors and Bangladeshi peasants when their delta floods regularly. The US is in enough debt as it is.

Catalyst: Information Overload - ABC TV Science

Catalyst: Information Overload - ABC TV Science
All this information technology is making us shallow thinkers. Great show Catalyst.
But wait, I need to check something on my iPad.
Be back soon.

Rainfall & Barrier Reef - Our Great Southern Land

Two reports caught my eye recently.
The first - Decline of the Great Barrier Reef - "The 27–year decline of coral cover on the
Great Barrier Reef and its causes" in http://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Full-PNAS-paper-for-publication.pdf . This outlines the factors leading to the decline in corals in our major tourist attraction.

The second, 3 October 2012 publication of  "Rainfall reductions over Southern Hemisphere semi-arid regions: the role of subtropical dry zone expansion"  by Wenju Cai, Tim Cowan & Marcus Thatcher in Scientific Reports 2, Article number 702.

Our dam water storage capacity is now 80% (up from 20% a couple of years ago) following a couple of years of above average rain. So I wonder how many people, farmers included will give this last study more than a cursory look. This illustrates the difference between how the general public and scientists do their thinking. A good scientist has their biases and weakness as anyone, but they do have access to equipment that enables quantitative research and do not necessarily reject data that doesn't fit their hypotheses or seems counter intuitive.
So in spite of the last few good, wet years they postulate the Australian sub-tropic zone is moving southwards and that the rain used by farmers to grow winter wheat may be less reliable.

Meanwhile ABC TV screened a visually stunning series "Great Southern Land" where presenter Professor Stephen Simpson toured the country using unique data visualisations and a variety of kite like flying machines! These visualisations give a great view of the flow of information, data, transport and products into our cities. The complexity, interconnectedness and volumes are astounding and we are only a little country. If you haven't seen this series I would highly recommend it!

No wonder we are having such effects on the Barrier Reef and climate. Do we have a hope of changing this to something that will allow us to live here as long as the Aboriginal people's?

Slavery &"Power from the People"

I received the "Power from the People: Summary Report July 2012" the other day following the announcement of the reduction of Feed-In-Tariffs (FiT's)to the wholesale price of 8-10c.
It makes interesting reading particularly when you compare the Choice Magazine article on Payback times for purchased Solar PV systems (27 Sep 2011).
As a personal Choice Magazine subscriber and a librarian I have hoped that Choice will revisit this article regularly to see what changes over time.
I would particularly like to see this soon, factoring in more recent cuts to PV system costs,  the reduction in the various incentives (REC's, STA's) and the cut-back of FiT's, and the increase in electricity prices from the Carbon Tax. (By the way an interesting article in The Financial Review (Sat 29 Sept 2012) on the various increases over each state of Australia)
This highlights one of the pitfalls of government intervention - always changing the rules as the money goes out of the budget. Of course, one of the reasons for government intervention is to encourage innovation, which reminds me of the recent Science Show.
As Lord John Kreb's (on Radio National's Science Show 15 September 2012) said: " Yes, one argument would be this is not the time to introduce more regulations when the economy is in a poor state, business is saying we need deregulation to grow faster to get back on our feet. The counter view is that regulation can drive innovation."
and " this reminds me of what happened when legislation came forward for the abolition of slavery. Business said, 'But we need slaves, if you abolish slavery you'll hamstring British industry, you'll destroy our competitiveness.' What happened was when slavery was abolished, innovation kicked in and jobs that were done by human hands in slavery were done by machines."

So various governments and business beware - innovate and look after your people, encourage appropriate payback times for small investors and they will look after their businesses.