Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for March 2011

A Land of Drought or Flooding Rains

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EASTER Sunday in 1915 the community of Murrabit in the Central Murray Valley gathered for a picnic at a farm called Riversdale.   It had been so dry that the Murray River had run dry. 

 A photograph was taken of the buggies in the dry river bed. 

Today, March 9, 2011, I visited Riversdale and took a photograph of the Murray in flood.  

The third photograph shows me looking across to the exact spot where the buggies were parked in 1915. Water now extends for another 5 miles beyond the far river bank into the red gum forests.

The Base Load Misconception (Part 1): A Note from Tony

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FOR a long time now, the term Base Load Power has been misinterpreted, and used incorrectly.    Those who support the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Greenhouse Gas Warming Theory have taken the term out of context to describe those large coal fired power plants that in their minds are the largest offenders. They use the word as Baseload, one word, and then attach it to those power plants as a descriptor, Baseload Power Plants, usually also adding the term ‘coal fired’.   However, the term is not a one word adjective.  It is two words and describes most effectively the actual physical electrical power that is being consumed.

[Read more…] about The Base Load Misconception (Part 1): A Note from Tony

What to Listen to, Read, and Action This Week

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 1. The truth about water planning in the Murray Darling Basin:
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/water-issues/axe-murraydarling-plan-and-start-again-us-expert-20110304-1bi62.html

2.  Marian Wilkinson reports on the tough political decisions ahead in the fight over the biggest water reform in Australian history. “Backlash in the Basin” goes to air Monday 7 March, 8.30pm on ABC 1. It is replayed on Tuesday 8th March at 11.35 pm.  http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/

3.  Protests in each city are being organised against the Carbon Tax on Wednesday March 23. 
For more information:

Stop Gillard’s carbon tax page  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_113660108709587#!/pages/Stop-Gillards-Carbon-Tax/197122506973202

 Revolt against the carbon tax page http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_113660108709587

 Petition against the carbon tax page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Gillards-Carbon-Tax/197122506973202?sk=app_4949752878

4.  And later this week I will be posting more on electricity generation from Tony.

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Consider this an open thread.  Let other readers of this blog know what you are watching, listening to, and reading, this week by way of a comment.

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This blog is about community, and access to information.  Information that is not politically correct or even fashionable…  But hopefully well considered.

It Never Rains

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“POETRY, said Auden, makes nothing happen. Usually it doesn’t, but sometimes a poem gets quoted in a national argument because everybody knows it, or at least part of it, and for the occasion a few lines of familiar poetry suddenly seem the best way of summing up a viewpoint…

“Before the floods, proponents of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) view had argued that there would never be enough rain again, because of Climate Change. When it became clear that there might be more than enough rain, the view was adapted: the floods, too, were the result of Climate Change. In other words, they were something unprecedented. Those opposing this view — those who believed that in Australia nothing could be less unprecedented than a flood unless it was a drought — took to quoting Dorothea Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’… 

Read more from Clive James here http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/3743/full

[Via Neville]

Effects of Gravity on the IR Quantum/Waves Frequency: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle

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WE analyse the effect of gravity on the frequency of incident solar quantum/waves upon the surface, and on the quantum/waves emitted by the surface and the atmosphere.    This analysis shows that the IR quantum/waves emitted from the surface towards the atmosphere and the isotropic IR quantum/waves radiated by atmosphere lose energy by the effect of gravity, enough as to contradict a supposed “greenhouse effect” in the atmosphere by exaggerated thermal properties of the “greenhouse gases”.

[Read more…] about Effects of Gravity on the IR Quantum/Waves Frequency: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle

Pondering the Carbon Tax

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Last week the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced that carbon emissions would be taxed from July 1, 2012. 

The Prime Minister explained that by making products that generate carbon emissions more expensive, people will use less of them and this will be a good thing for Australia.

For example, if the carbon tax increases the average Australian family’s electricity bill by $500 and the electricity bill of an average small business by $2,000, families and businesses will use less electricity and this will be a good thing for Australia.

At the same time the Prime Minister announced the tax, she explained that families would be compensated for any increase in electricity charges.   But how will families be compensated?  The Prime Minister must be careful that families are not compensated in a way that would result in them using more electricity.

Indeed, wouldn’t it make more sense if the Prime Minister didn’t compensate anyone for the tax?

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http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/climate-change-framework-announced