An inspiring project at Bondi Beach will take existing poluting carbon out of Earth’s atmosphere.

Food waste will be turned into compost to grow soil on a farm.

The why, the hope and the trust that the project embodies is in this article I’ve written, Hope comes to Bondi Beach.

Enjoy,

Michael

The video shows the 75 minute collapse in 4.41 minutes.

Ice in chunks as high as 90 or more storied buildings and the size of Manhatten Island (87 square kilometres) rises three to four hundred metres high as the ice smashes and collapses.

It took the glacier 100 years to break up and become 8 miles (~ 20 k) smaller – from 1902 to 2001.

Then, from 2000 to 2010 it broke up 9 miles (>  22 k).

That’s a bigger rate of decay in ten years than the previous 100 years.

There’s a film about it, Chasing Ice.

Watching it is one way to get some stillness into yourself – and a mix of awe and other feelings,

M

In their report, “Too late for 2 degrees?“, PwC accounts for the carbon humans have put into the atmosphere each year for the last century.

PwC measures the amount of carbon put into Earth’s atmosphere.

The tumultuous weather we’re getting is due to a .74 degree increase in average temperatures these last 100 years.

Words fail me now; noone knows what tumult lies ahead with average increases of 2 degrees. What we’ve got now is barely digestible for the mind and spirit.

I suppose words will fail all of us when the temperature is 2 degrees hotter on average; the ‘extreme’ hot days then will be weeks-long days of 40 to 50 degrees one after the other.  We know bees die around 40 degrees.  I suppose coal mining directors will, too, and it will be jolly hot in the mines then, too – too hot to be in them, I suppose – even if your truck or digging machine has air con.  Air con doesn’t work so well over 40 degrees, day after day.

It’s rare for me to write about this stuff as I can’t find the words for it.  But the work of the PwC deserves this note.

What can be said is this; our governments are failing us, every day and night.

What might be asked is; when will we who want to turf out our governments, and want to look after our lovely Earth be joined by those who presently vastly outnumber us and couldn’t care less?

M

M

Warrnambool Council asked me to speak about sustainable living at their Sustainable Living Festival held on Saturday 14 January.

It was a lot of fun, seeing these places and meeting so many interesting folks.  Saw a great community garden at Warrnambool; info here:

warrnamboolcg.wordpress.com…

Friday morning I flew from Sydney to Avalon airport near Geelong, about 1 hour 20 if you don’t count the time Jetstar took to actually get us there.  Then by hire car down the Great South Road for five hours ’til I got to Warrnambool.  Lots of walking around the place there but also some short five minute car trips.  Then Sunday, back in the hire car to Melbourne to meet some folks about some new projects. Then later Sunday afternoon, on the train back to Sydney to arrive here this morning.  Over 1600 kilometres in three days.

I couldn’t have been to all these places in three days without burning a lot of oil.

Oil allows us to get around and do things like nothing else does – not gas, not, electricity, not diesel . . .

It was a lot of fun.  Thanks oil.

To offset my pollution I asked the Council to pay $100 to a farmer who grows soil, or carbon, as part of his farming.  By growing soil over the next year he’ll take carbon pollution out of the air.  But if I’d bought, say, trees to ‘offset’ my pollution then as the trees take up to 50 to 70 years to take carbon out of Earth’s air that would have been a waste of my money; we don’t have that much time.  The Council pay the $100 straight to this farmer to whom I make all my carbon farming payments: Michael and Louisa Kiely’s farm near Mudgee, info here:

www.carboncoalition.com…

So thanks to Michael and Louisa for helping me get around, too; they’re providing ‘the good oil’.

And thanks to Warrnambool Council for it’s initiative and for having a go.

And so it goes,

M

Read this:

“Michael Bloomberg will donate $50 million to the Sierra Club’s campaign to get rid of coal-fired power plants. Called Beyond Coal it has helped block the construction of 153 new coal-fired power plants. Bloomberg’s donation will allow the Sierra Club to expand their staff on the anti-coal campaign from 100 to almost 200 full-time workers.They will be spread across 46 states and focus on grassroots organizing, lawsuits and social media. Most politicians don’t donate money to the Sierra club to fight coal. Many in fact, accept campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry – both Democrats and Republicans. The current White House expanded coal production greatly in Wyoming. A report on the top coal supporters in Congress was just released. If you haven’t the ‘Beyond Coal’ campaign website, go here to see how coal damages the public health.

Coal plants are the number one source of mercury pollution in the United States, which can cause brain damage and diminish learning in children. There are about 491 active coal power plants in the U.S. releasing over 78,000 pounds of mercury each year into the air. Not only does the mercury harm human health, it contaminates rivers, streams, ponds and lakes.

Read more:

www.care2.com…“

A man with guts, a spine, intellect and passion – and a mayor of a city, New York.

May many more such mayors be with us,

M

www.smh.com…

Speaking of gardening and food, there’s lots of rain forecast for the next few weeks so it’s a good time to be planting, mulching and composting,

Michael

“• The fracking fluid is a secret proprietary cocktail formula amounting to 5 percent of the liquid injected into the earth. It’s composed of: sand; a jelling agent to suspend the sand because water is not “thick” enough; biocides to kill bacteria that thrive in jelling agent; “breakers” to thin out jell-thickened water after fracking to get the fluid out of the way of released gas and improve “flowback;” fluid-loss additives to decrease “leak-off” of fracking fluid into rock; anti-corrosives to protect metal in wells; and friction reducers to promote high pressures and high flow rates. Of the 5.5 million gallons of fluid injected into each well, 27,500 gallons is the chemical cocktail.

• Mr. McClendon said on 60 Minutes that it couldn’t possibly harm the public’s water supply because they were drilling so far below the 1000-foot-deep maximum of most water wells. He left out the fact that they have to drill through those drinking water layers to get down to the shale gas, and pump the fracking fluid through it, and then get the gas up through it. He also left out the fact that the concrete casings of drill holes sometimes crack and leak at any depth.

• The fracking fluid cannot be re-used. You have to mix new cocktail fluid for each injection.

• “Flowback” fluid inevitably comes back up with the gas, sometimes spilling over the ground. In any case, the stuff that does come back up is stored on the surface in lagoons. Often it contains heavy metals, salts, and radioactive material from drilling through strata of radon-bearing granite and other layers. Liners of flowback fluid lagoons have been known to fail.

• Gas well failures in Pennsylvania, where production was ramped up quickest in recent years, have ended up polluting well water to the degree that residents can no longer use their wells.

• Little is known about the migration of fracking fluids underground.”

kunstler.com…

And there’s a new documentary about fracking doing the rounds of town halls, community groups and places where mining is underway or proposed, called, Gaslands, directed by Josh Fox.

May the fracking not be with you,

Michael

• Every type roasts at a different rate because of a different  density
• When a bean reaches its individual temperature it cracks, like popcorn pops
• This first ‘crack’ is caused by the physical expansion of the bean as water and carbon dioxide split and carbon dioxide is released (ah, it’s everywhere this stuff!).  This first crack opens the central divide of the bean and loosens the very light papery sheath that encloses it and which becomes a waste chaff that’s beaut for compost – fluffy, light, easy to carry and high in carbon; we use it every week in our compost bins here
• After this first crack the coffee may be made and drunk
• If the bean is heated further the flavour is heightened as the sugars inside the bean caramelize and the bean cracks a second time
• The second crack is the roasting goal of commercial roasters who roast for espresso coffee and the more evenly the heat is applied to the whole bean the more flavoursom the coffee
• Home roasters may be a hot pan in which you stir the beans as fast as possible; a popcorn popper; or a combination of a gas jet like that used to strip paint and a bread maker go well together;

For more information: Coffee Snobs  – www.coffeesnobs.com….au ,  coffeegeek.com…  , home-barrista.com…  ,   café-grendel.blogspot.com

www.newyorker.com…

Excellent writing about a key moment in US and Earth’s history.

Enjoy,

M