“This is our intense desire” Tonight we attended the private viewing of new carbon works by Richard Devereux. At first sight the wo…
“This is our intense desire” Tonight we attended the private viewing of new carbon works by Richard Devereux. At first sight the works seemed strange, and within minutes we were in love with them! The majority were large circles which either resembled microbes or atoms under a microscope, and others looked like grey planets balanced in space. Close up they were mezmerising, with swirling shapes, dots and carbon dust. The works were created using a process of applying carbon to paper via the use of a flame. The artist was deep in conversation with people he seemed to know already, and we are not rude enough to interupt, so unfortunatly my artist husband did not get the chance to discuss techniques. Enjoyed the wine, and the art though, a good night!
I’m sitting here in the comfort of a beautiful home built in the Vermont Hills, surrounded by nature and beauty. The fact that many of t…
I’m sitting here in the comfort of a beautiful home built in the Vermont Hills, surrounded by nature and beauty. The fact that many of the trees round here pre-date the white man barely enters my mind. Nor does the knowledge that plenty of the trees around here and neighbouring states, particularly toward the coast, are under 100 years old and stand on ground where once mighty trees stood. They were felled by the white man 200 years ago and that barely registers either. Perhaps it should though. By virtue of you being able to read my Notes I know that you are using electricity generated, primarily from non-renewable sources or through nuclear processes. I’m a westerner, I’ve enjoyed all the trappings and benefits that being a westerner brings, I have a car, I have a home with electric light, I often eat food that has been transported 1000’s of miles for my benefit, often having been grown by people living simple and, by our measures, uncomfortable lives. I flew to the US by Boeing 777, my carbon footprint is truly massive and will never be erased. So I can’t write this as an eco-warrior, as a man with a clear conscience. Up here in the hills you need a 4×4 to get around. We’re in a Jeep Cherokee, one of the few 4×4’s that as a self-confessed petrol head and lover of engineering I do actually like. Other considerations aside I’m more of a sporty 2 seater or luxurious swift saloon kind of guy. Up here in the hills a 4×4 is essential. I look around the American highways and see enormous behemoths, 4×4 pickups with 4 seat cabs weighing two tonnes or more consuming gasoline at a prodigious rate. The US tax regime and fuel driven economy means that currently they pay $2 plus a little a gallon – back home we pay, for the sake of argument, £1 a litre. If my conversions are right and without using a calculator, that’s some say £4.50 a gallon in the UK compared to £1.00 here. Just like the Chelsea Tractors back home there are plenty of guys in New York and Boston that drag around town, dropping Billy-Jo and Dwight off at school in the mornings. Soccer Mom’s rushing around consuming gas likes there’s no tomorrow. Substitute Porsche Cayenne, BMW X4 and Toyota Landcruisers for the American equivalents. Barely ever seeing mud and snow really these vehicles are the ultimate expression of consumerism gone crazy and disregard for the world’s limited resources, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. There’s even some vehicles tooling around London now which don’t have to pay congestion charges because they are dual powered – a massive technical innovation which is somehow justifying their presence on the road, driven by the rich to avoid taxation – look at the manuals and you’ll see they’re just so much window dressing allowing those massive Western egos to be massaged. Your cheap flight to the South of France, your quick trip to Dublin or Amsterdam. My flight to Vermont. The annual pilgrimage to Ibiza or Florida and Disney Land. Well, it really needs to be wake up time for everybody. Last year I holidayed in the South of France, I can’t claim this to be fact, but I heard it from a French man so it must be true. As a family we visited the Roman Amphitheatre at Nimes, a classic structure and one of the best preserved in the world, it has stood for some 2000 years I guess. I was told that last year this architectural masterpiece, for the first in it’s history, flooded, it happened twice in one summer. When we drive into Brattleboro we pass through Newfane and en-route drive by a ski-lodge, a large wooden building with a ski lift next to it. It looked a little run down, I guessed it needed a little TLC and a spruce up. Oh no I’m assured, that place hasn’t been used for years, the snow never gets this far down the hill anymore. I’m pretty sure that Vermont hasn’t sunk 500 feet in the last ten years, so it must’ve been the snow line that’s receded and like my hair it doesn’t seem to be rushing back. Our planet’s only small and like a giant plague mankind is changing the landscape and consuming all around. Take a Petri dish and apply the gel a scientist would use to culture a bacterial growth, place a couple of varieties of bacteria on the gel, close the lid, leave it in a warm place, come back in a few weeks and see what’s left. Over time the little groups of bacteria will multiply and make their way across and about the gel, the bacteria will consume the goodness in the gel and as their little colonies swell they will start to consume each other, ultimately one bacteria will probably flourish, the others will disappear as they are consumed or simply die away as they can’t compete. After a while only one species of bacteria will remain, perhaps a little subspecies will appear here and there. Ultimately you’ll go back to that dish and open it up to find it empty, some detritus bereft of life and nourishment will litter the base of the dish, with no means of escape and no resources left all the bacteria are gone, all the nutrients disappeared converted into inert and valueless molecules, fit for nothing but the bin and not worthy of your microscope. I sit as rich westerner in the comfort of my own home, enjoying my i-pod and i-phone in my i-centric society. Meanwhile across the earth in the massive human economies of the Far East and Asia there are countries teeming with millions of people, striving for the same. Pumping out goods to be consumed cheaply by rich westerners, these massive nations filled with little people like you and me, all hoping that one day they can afford the MP3 players they’re making and the t-shirts and trainers we are wearing, and why shouldn’t they. Who am I to deny them the comforts I so enjoy and why should they not strive toward the comfort I have. They will and of course they must. There’s a little less room for us all but we all deserve a bit of it. It all comes at a cost and the waste we and they produce is leading to massive change the like of which the Earth has not seen before. There was big news recently that the largest breakaway of ice within mankind’s history has taken place. I saw that Al Gore’s film has been slated for having 9 errors. I’ve watched documentaries where scientists claim that the movement of CO2, it’s release and reabsorption has all happened before. A basic knowledge of the Earth’s history shows that in the past it has moved between being a very cold place and a very warm place. The sea and areas beneath it releasing and absorbing CO2 on a massive scale. This is all natural and we are not making a difference. Well, it’s never happened as quickly as we see it happening now, there has never been the level of particulate pollution in the sky as there is now, it’s not all about the Ozone layer you know, we’ve created so much “dust” (for want of a better scientific term) that arguably if we now reduce our CO2 production we may cook or freeze ourselves anyway just because the very air itself is so laden with matter that it already shades the earth. I fear that I’ll be leaving behind a planet charged with difficulty and strife for the next generation and maybe only a few more beyond that, before we are all clamouring for the last bits of land, the last few resources, the last cool place to rest, the last dry place to build our homes. What difference does one person make, well none at all, but if we can all do our little bit, then at least we might be able to leave when it’s our turn to knowing we’ve tried and if we all do it, it might make a difference and at least leave a little bit for our fellow man and importantly leave something for our children and theirs and theirs beyond. So I’ll fly home, but maybe next spring I won’t come back here, but I’ll take a train to the Scottish Highlands instead. I don’t buy water in a plastic bottle that’s been poured from a tap in France or Spain and travelled a thousand miles for me to pour over my head. I don’t buy Granny Smiths grown in the States and flown to me in perfect condition, packaged in polystyrene and cling film. My quick Italian beauty is up for sale, partly because she is Italian and prone to mood swings, but mostly because although I love her, there’s more efficient ways for me to travel. I’m looking for work which will allow me to travel either only small distances or at least make the long journey by mass transportation and more efficient systems. I cook less warmed foods, my DVD player does not have a standby option, if I’m not in the room, then I turn the light off, I use less water (if it’s yellow, let mellow – if it’s brown, flush it down), I shower daily, but use the bath only on special occasions ;). My friend here told me of an Indian saying that grew up in the early days of the white man’s invasion of this paradise; The Indian stays warm, sat around a small fire / The white man stays warm, collecting wood for his large fire Peace and love Gary / xxx first published on Facebook, 12th October 2007
Hi Guys! Just listed my new Cityscape Collection for 2008. Browse and enjoy! Its your chance to get your hands on some of my lates…
Hi Guys! Just listed my new Cityscape Collection for 2008. Browse and enjoy! Its your chance to get your hands on some of my latest works! Matt
Hello everyone !! Have set up home in the shaky Isles after a long relationship with Aussie. Just going through the tedious unpacking …
Hello everyone !! Have set up home in the shaky Isles after a long relationship with Aussie. Just going through the tedious unpacking stage whilst juggling “wow we can crawl’! twins. Having to change servers and a billion personal details I’ve decided moving is not very fun and I don’t want to play. :) Anyway just saying hello and that I haven’t fallen off the planet Dave ‘Art, who’s got time for art ??!!!
Battersea Power Station is clearly the finest structure in London, forget Apsley House, you want imposing might, you can’t go further tha…
Battersea Power Station is clearly the finest structure in London, forget Apsley House, you want imposing might, you can’t go further than Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s magnificent Art Deco monolith of brick. / So he had a stab at the telephone box, and Bankside (or the Tate Modern) is alright, but those four chimney’s rising from clutter of terraces and railway sidings strike an imposing figure over the city skyline. And it’s not surprising, it’s the largest brick building in Europe. / From Pink Floyd to Children of Men, via The Beatles and The Dark Knight, it is scorched into our modern cultural psyche, the Bank of England burnt tens of thousands of pounds in the furnaces there when they thought the Bosch were about to conquer us during WW2. Meanwhile the RAF were using the plumes of smoke to guide them home. Screaming Lord Sutch wanted to cover it in wool and make it look like a dead sheep, John Broome tried to turn it into a theme park. Now they want to turn it into a naff collection of faux pot plants and cafes, with a riverside walkway way, exterior designed to within an inch of it’s life. They’ll probably fail. But I don’t care, it meant that it was opened for two days for the public to get inside and have a wander, and this just hasn’t happened very often. (PVZ would have wet himself) On a different note, but while I have your attention, the next day I attended the Lovebox Weekender, and aside from Goldfrapp having these totally ace guys dressed up like colourful carpets pinging it all over the stage, Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips came out in a massive plastic ball and went walking and crawling all over the crowd, oh, and yeah, their show was amazing too
No Smoking Hot Spot / David Evans | July 18, 2008 I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenh…
No Smoking Hot Spot / David Evans | July 18, 2008 I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector. FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I’ve been following the global warming debate closely for years. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects. The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet. But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts: / 1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again. / When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report), alarmists objected that maybe the readings of the radiosonde thermometers might not be accurate and maybe the hot spot was there but had gone undetected. Yet hundreds of radiosondes have given the same answer, so statistically it is not possible that they missed the hot spot. Recently the alarmists have suggested we ignore the radiosonde thermometers, but instead take the radiosonde wind measurements, apply a theory about wind shear, and run the results through their computers to estimate the temperatures. They then say that the results show that we cannot rule out the presence of a hot spot. If you believe that you’d believe anything. 2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. / None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that / carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no / observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global / warming. 3. The satellites that measure the world’s temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, / and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). / Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the “urban heat island” effect: urban areas / encroaching on thermometer stations warm the micro-climate around the thermometer, due to / vegetation changes, concrete, cars, houses. Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, / but it only goes back to 1979. NASA reports only land-based data, and reports a modest warming / trend and recent cooling. The other three global temperature records use a mix of satellite and land / measurements, or satellite only, and they all show no warming since 2001 and a recent cooling. 4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the / temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric / carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect. / None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would / dispute their relevance. / The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and / presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. / In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this / dishonest and widely questioned the politician’s assertion. / Until now the global warming debate has merely been an academic matter of little interest. Now / that it matters, we should debate the causes of global warming. / So far that debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, / and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon / emissions. / In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated / with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn’t noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not / proved. / If there really was any evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming, don’t you think we / would have heard all about it ad nauseam by now? / The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual / evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming. Evidence consists of observations made by / someone at some time that supports the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. Computer / models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory. / What is going to happen over the next decade as global temperatures continue not to rise? The / Labor Government is about to deliberately wreck the economy in order to reduce carbon emissions. / If the reasons later turn out to be bogus, the electorate is not going to re-elect a Labor government / for a long time. When it comes to light that the carbon scare was known to be bogus in 2008, the / ALP is going to be regarded as criminally negligent or ideologically stupid for not having seen / through it. And if the Liberals support the general thrust of their actions, they will be seen likewise. / The onus should be on those who want to change things to provide evidence for why the changes / are necessary. The Australian public is eventually going to have to be told the evidence anyway, so / it might as well be told before wrecking the economy. / Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.
ONE Step at a time is all it takes for a Journey.
ONE Step at a time is all it takes for a Journey.
Sunism currently believes that life began as organic carbon atom chemistry. It is scientifically sound to belief in both that life came t…
Sunism currently believes that life began as organic carbon atom chemistry. It is scientifically sound to belief in both that life came to Earth as organic matter from asteroids and that lightning activated carbon compounds which are organic chemicals. Scientific experiments in America in the 50s proofed that lightning passing through a chemical soup created amino acids, which are organic chemicals and the building blocks of protein. / Watch the video series Cosmos by Carl Sagan.
Hello everyone! I am pleased to announce that our blog is now live. www.urbansurvivalists.com Stan and I will be posting new …
Hello everyone! I am pleased to announce that our blog is now live. www.urbansurvivalists.com Stan and I will be posting new entries every week about projects that you can do in your home. The projects are geared toward becoming sustainable in an urban environment. So if you are interested in helping to save the planet, then this is the blog for you! feel free to add comments, join discussions, and give us ideas! Thanks for all your support, and hope you are all doing well!
Many many thanks to the c…
Many many thanks to the customer who has just bought a “How To Burn A DVD using Microwave” T-Shirt on Redbubble. Thankyou for your purchase and visit to my portfolio! Obviously too much time on my hands …and a sense of curiosity. I don’t think the DVD will be playable ..thankfully the microwave is still usable! Artistic influence – the sale of “Burn Baby Burn” Fridge Magnet on Zazzle ….10.12.09. (see my journal)
Today is a global day of action during which millions of people will be phoning their leaders either to congratulate them on supporting a…
Today is a global day of action during which millions of people will be phoning their leaders either to congratulate them on supporting a safe climate future or demanding they step up to the plate if they don’t. Australia is one of the countries who are obstructing a fair climate deal at Copenhagen. / Join the global action and make a phonecall to Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong’s office today to tell them their performance at Copenhagen isn’t good enough! Phone numbers - / Prime Minister Kevin Rudd / (+61) (0)2 6277 7111 / (0)2 6277 7700 / Climate Change Minister Penny Wong / (+61) (0)2 6277 7111 / (+61) 1800 057 590 Suggested message follows - / “I represent one of the hundreds of millions of people worldwide watching and waiting for the Copenhagen agreement to truly be in line with what scientists demand. “Hundreds of countries and millions of average citizens have spoken up in support of reaching 350 ppm; now I’m asking you to take this very seriously as you approach the final days at Copenhagen. We are counting on you.” “Please communicate this to our environment minister and head of state. Thank you.” http://action.350.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=6778 Huzzah! Facebook event is here. / http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=211348297020&index=1
“How To Burn A DVD using …
How To Burn A DVD using Microwave is featured in Shapes & Patterns 17.12.09. Obviously too much time on my hands …and a sense of curiosity. I don’t think the DVD will be playable ..thankfully the microwave is still usable! Artistic influence – the sale of “Burn Baby Burn” Fridge Magnet on Zazzle ….10.12.09. (see my journal) FEATURES DECEMBER 2009 /
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