Easter Domesticity

I hope you have all had a lovely peaceful Easter like my family has. We have eaten too much and relaxed with books and videos. Plus exercised the body with beach and local walks.

Ducks on the local pond.

All four of the family got together for a dinner of Roast Lamb and vegies, with fresh fruit and custard for dessert. Plus the occasional chocolate Easter Egg.

I managed to persuade the 'boys' to clean their bedroom! The washing machine has worked hard!

Libraries open on Easter Sunday, it being a religious holiday, not a Public Holiday so my Sunday work was quiet and productive. Hopefully the resulting chaos on the Tuesday after Easter will not be as much as previous years as Victorian School children will be going back to school.

Easter Tuesday is the busiest day of the Library year, with this stuffy,"out-of-date", slated for 'Domesday' profession doing thousands of loans & returns, hundreds of queries and many more IT troubleshooting. Lots of eBook queries and other parts of the 'Learning Commons'.
As many of the members of the public seem desperate to use our facilities, I think the book and libraries will continue for quite a few more years. The recent Pew Study of American Libraries also predicts this, as Libraries remake themselves for the 21st Century. Australian studies (ALIA) also confirm that we will be useful for years to come.

So lets relax and enjoy a brief respite before tomorrow and in the next couple of weeks the Federal and State Budgets reveal how much we may be living beyond our means. Or at least the Liberal Party's version of it.
Happy Easter everyone.

I'll leave you with a photo of the new Christhcurch Cardboard Cathedral service yesterday. Thanks and love to my family.

Christchurch Cardboard Cathedral NZ 2014

Tipping Points

As the scientists talk about the damage being done to various ecosystems with Climate Change, others talk about Tipping Points. Points where there is a flip from one semi-stable state to a more extreme, less stable state.
Tipping points and feedback loops are things all ecologists are taught,

I wonder how human society fares with these tipping points.

Cobweb: A Web of Life

Tipping Point in Ecology

• Warming polar regions means less ice.
• Warming means sequestered organic matter rots to produce Methane
• Methane emissions rise leading to increasing greenhouse effect.
• More ice melts and the cycle keeps accelerating.

Tipping Point in Society

• The Ukrainian people revolt against a pro-Russian president.
• Russia invades Crimea " to safeguard the Russian people in Crimea"
• Russia increases the cost of supplying Ukraine with gas
• Russia threatens the Ukrainian people with withholding energy supplies unless they get paid.
• Russia then ???
• Invades Ukraine perhaps??

The world is getting to be a very scary place for many more people.
What next in this accelerating race of Tipping Points??
Is it America not being rich enough to defy the Russians or else America upping the ante with Russia and China?
We are all in danger of this. Complex societies come to an end at some stage.
See why the US Military are so afraid of Global Warming.
Watch and see what happens with the Federal Budget and see why you should be concerned too!

Fossil Fuel Divestment

Recently I read that the Federal Government is trying to restrict the ability of Australians to protest through secondary boycotts. This action is aimed particularly at conservation organisations that organize action against environmentally unfriendly products and services.
The equivalent protest in the financial environment is even more interesting. I wonder whether the Australian Federal Government will legislate against divestment in Fossil Fuel Industries.

Divestment of Fossil Fuel Companies by Universities is already underway according to this article by Ben Caldecott for the ABC.
"Divestment campaigns typically evolve over three waves. The first wave begins with a core group of investors divesting from the target industry. Previous divestment campaigns have tended to originate in the United States and in the first phase focus on US-based investors and international multilateral institutions. The amounts divested in the first phase tend to be very small but create wide public awareness about the issues."

He then goes on to explain the divestment campaign has started in the US and has built "global momentum by targeting other universities with large endowments such as the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK and the Group of Eight universities in Australia."

"In the third wave, the divestment campaign can go global and begins to target very large pension funds and market norms"

Hopefully once this campaign get past the first phase we can see serious divestment by superannuation and pension funds globally. I have always made sure my direct share investments are not in the mining & coal industries but have not yet moved entirely into sustainable investing, something I should have done a long time ago. The problem of course, for a small sucker like me, is that my return on investment is linked to how well I'll be able to live in retirement.

Surviving Summer: The Temperatures were higher than these Melbourne forecasts

The various wild swings in the legislation affecting renewable industries means investing in these means a smaller than normal chance of succeeding and getting returns. 
The current attack on all forms of renewable investing in Australia shows what forces are arrayed against new emerging and possibly extremely competitive industries.

Our current 'Captains of Industry' are not interested in level playing fields.

So hopefully the rest of the world will manage this Divestment quickly and effectively, moving capital into Green Technologies.

IPCC Report and the Average Joe

As I waited in the supermarket today I asked the friendly shop assistant how business had been. To my surprise, given I was buying food essentials, she replied that business is slow.
People are finding life expensive and have cut down on essentials such as food.
She also mentioned the cost of electricity and water being so high.

To turn the conversation to a more positive note I mentioned that I had invested in Solar Power and was receiving some money off my electricity bill and money back from the company. This started a productive exchange about how useful and expensive this process was. To my surprise the lady following me also mentioned she had been investigating solar power and her friend already received a substantial reduction in her electricity bills because of their investment in Solar.

This supermarket is in a low socio-economic area of Melbourne. One of the "Righteous "complaints about the current Solar schemes and other RET investments is that they are causing poor people to suffer.
We shall see how much the upcoming budget will continue that process.

Poor people are by definition poor. They have very little disposable income. It is short-sighted not to be concerned, but equally short-sighted not to change important essentials such as food, petrol, electricity, gas if that is needed and to help the poor manage that adjustment.

In all this debate about the Carbon Tax, how many people have forgotten the money paid back to individuals to allow them to bear the higher electricity costs? The tax free threshold has been raised for the poorest as well as the rest of us.

The IPCC Report released yesterday 31 March 2014 -

Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

 makes it clear why these taxes are necessary.

The Australian

This research has indicated life will be much worse if we don't act effectively.
While a Carbon Tax is not the whole solution, its an important first step.
Ask Clive Palmer how much Queensland Nickel has paid into this years budget and how much more he can afford to pay, considering the money he's reportedly pouring into election campaigns in WA.
Who can afford that?
The lady in the supermarket from the poorer end of town, or a mining magnate?