[permaculture-oceania] population challenges - Adelaide as one big community garden?

[jedd]

On Thursday 08 June 2006 19:34, brookman wrote:
 ] I'll dig out Lovelock's interview with Tony Jones......in which he says that 
 ] we'll have to use all the uranium to try to reduce emissions but implies 
 ] that we are all set (anyway) to go over the temperature 'tipping point' 
 ] which marks the beginning of a series of feedback processes that will be 

 That's the impression I get, from most of the research so far.  That
 we're not there yet, but there's virtually no way to avoid reaching
 that tipping point.  The near monthly discovery of yet another
 positive feedback loop isn't particularly reassuring, either.

 Was the Tony Jones interview audio or AV?  I think there's a
 potential for setting up a bittorrent site for permies to share a
 lot of these multimedia files.

 Reflecting further on the Lovelock interview, he did seem to use the
 'they' word a lot, and not just when referring to his countrymen.
 Kind of gave the impression that he set himself apart, either because
 he's exempt, or because he doesn't think he (or Britain) can make any
 significant impact on the problem one way or another, or because
 he thinks he's old enough now to not have to make any changes to
 his own lifestyle.  A little bit strange, given his large audience and
 his ability to influence same.

 The SA 'let's all go home to bed and work on this problem' plan to
 solve their under-population .. seems delightfully misguided.  Good
 luck with talking some sense into the key government officers (though
 remember -- those guys didn't get where they are by listening to
 logic and reason and then acting sensibly).

 Finally, as a vaguely related aside -- David Attenborough's latest
 series (Planet Earth) is definitely worth a watch, and definitely
 worth hunting down your friend with the biggest TV to watch it on.
 Not sure if it's already been on locally, or when it'll be shown, but
 the opening sequence for the Caves ep is truly astounding.

 A couple of weeks ago in the UK they screened an addendum to the
 series, a two-parter called 'Are we changing ~' and 'Can we save ~',
 in which he looks back at the changes he's seen since he did Life On
 Earth, the evidence for global climate change, the impacts visible so
 far in certain parts of the world, and so on.  Compelling watching.

 Anyhoo, in it they talk about the 0.6C change in global temperature
 over the last century, and how it might not seem like much, but it's
 worth being worried about for two reasons.  First, there's no reason
 to believe that it'll stop rising.  Second, and augmenting the first,
 is that there's always been a big see-sawing of temperatures over
 the years, and within the last 300,000 years (don't quote me on any
 of these figures - they're from memory only) there was a period where
 the earth was 4 degrees warmer than it is now, and one where it was
 2 degrees cooler than it is now.  I may have those round the wrong
 way.  No matter.  In the warmer scenario, and they have a very nice
 graphic to demonstrate this, New York is under 4 metres of water.
 In the cooler scenario, there's a 2km tall glacier encroaching upon
 Manhattan.

 It continues to amaze me that the majority of people think that it'll
 be business as usual for the next few generations.  I'm hopeful that
 the recent spate of TV shows that talk about this topic, and the meta-
 topic of how we've been misled (Panorama in the UK (think a slightly
 less biased version of Four Corners) just ran a 'this is how Bush
 deceived the nation about climate change' doco) might kickstart the
 massive groundswell we're hoping to see.

 Jedd.