Ippoippo

… but a grumpy old man with some sensible points!

Fantastic old, rambling after dinner speech. Some things worth thinking about. This was by John Seymour.

“BBC: Island hopes for a windy bounty.”

It is among one of the most remote corners of Britain. It is also one of the most unspoilt landscapes this country has to offer.
But right in the centre of Westray Island, in the Orkney Islands, stands a 67m wind turbine that dominates the surrounding countryside.
It is exactly the kind of alternative energy project which would seem certain to attract bitter opposition in many of our rural communities.
But here there has been not a single planning objection to the turbine.
David Stephenson is a retired Englishman who has chosen a new life on this Scottish Island. He is a prime mover in the community trust which built the turbine.
“There were no objections,” he says. “That’s not because everybody on Westray likes wind turbines. We know that some don’t but they think that if there is an opportunity for a turbine on Westray, then let it be owned by the community with all the benefits from it being invested back into the community.”
And that’s exactly what is happening. It was the community itself which raised the £1.5m to pay for the turbine, through a combination of bank loans and grants.
That means that, perhaps uniquely, the project is wholly owned by the community and will eventually raise a projected £200,000 a year in annual income.

Blimey.
Take a look at this link to Northern Ireland’s National School Curriculum. It’s apparently new for this year, and for Key Stage 3 (don’t ask me what age group that is, I never had ‘Key Stage’ when I was in school’).

Hmmm, some teachers may have a shock about what they are expected to teach, and indeed may be shocked to ‘learn’ it themselves.
Yep… it seems that Northern Ireland’s education system has gone ‘Peak Oil’ (or at the very least, ‘Energy Security’) Aware. Excellent!

Dodging Doomsday
Science Unit
What if the lights go out?
Today, our everyday life relies heavily on electricity, yet we take it for granted. In this unit pupils will examine their use of electricity, understand where it comes from and discover how it can be generated using sustainable energy sources.

Dodging Doomsday
Technology and Design Unit
What If The Oil Runs Out?
In this unit, pupils will explore the need for sustainable energy choices especially in the area of transport. Pupils are given a problem to solve in terms of a design brief. Their design project will be one positive step towards an improved environment.

… I think? At last, the flowers are starting to come through and its a warm-ish sunny day (though yesterday was nice and wet). So I’m procrastinating here writing this blog post rather than getting out and building the big greenhouse ready for this years crops.

So anyway, time for a brain dump of all the various things I’ve been reading over the last month or so.

Green Power, FITs, Climate Change

There is much talk here at the moment about Climate Change, a lot of resistance brewing in the press (especially Daily Mail, Daily Express etc), controversy etc etc. There were two recent posts in the Guardian paper that did catch my attention though. First up was Monbiot (good old ‘Moonbat’, someone I just can’t work out sometimes), with his thoughts on how Science is failing to persuade people about the need the change.

… The public is no longer in awe of scientists. Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more.”

Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company – and precious few journalists – with a science degree, yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world. But the problem is compounded by complexity. Arthur C Clarke remarked that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. He might have added that any sufficiently advanced expertise is indistinguishable from gobbledegook. Scientific specialisation is now so extreme that even people studying neighbouring subjects within the same discipline can no longer understand each other. The detail of modern science is incomprehensible to almost everyone, which means that we have to take what scientists say on trust. Yet science tells us to trust nothing, to believe only what can be demonstrated. This contradiction is fatal to public confidence.

I found that last bit fascinating. I like to think I have a relatively scientific brain. Whilst I suspect, based on evidence seen to date is that ‘we’ are affecting the environment, my own internal scepticism kicks in when various agencies put out reports saying ‘The End of the World is nigh, blah blah blah’.

Of course, Charlie Brooker had is own thoughts on things
Whilst being somewhat tongue-in-cheek and humorous, it’s pretty hard not to disagree with him (well, maybe we should disagree with his proposed LSD based solution!).

Take joggers. They weren’t born with a pre-programmed desire to jog. No. One day they decided they’d like to get fit, and chose to sacrifice their immediate comfort in favour of delayed gratification: they got off the sofa and jogged themselves slim. Every jogger is essentially a clairvoyant. They’ve transcended the shackles of contemporary subsistence and risen above the likes of you and me, to witness a vision of the future so captivating it blocks out the pain of the present, so enticing, they’re literally compelled to run towards it. Not only that, they’ve been organised enough to buy proper trainers and shorts and everything, the smug bastards. No wonder everyone else wants to hit them.
…
Joggers are a minority, but then exercisers generally are a minority. Even though we’re repeatedly told that regular exercise combats heart disease and cancer and blah blah nag nag nag, more than 60% of the population couldn’t be arsed trying, because it makes their legs ache. They’re not necessarily lazy, but suffering from an inability to perceive the future as a solid and tangible thing, unlike those far-sighted seers in running shoes and sweat pants. Perhaps joggers have a few additional Tralfamadorian synapses; only by experimenting on their brains can we be sure. Meanwhile, the rest of us remain stubbornly wedged into narrow individual pockets of time, moaning that we need to lose a few pounds while sobbing into our chips.
…
And we do the same with the environment: we fail to take painful measures in the present that could ease our existence in the future, because we think they’re too arduous – unless you’re a spluttering contrarian, in which case you think the whole climate change thing is a load of trumped-up phooey anyway, and that all scientists are shifty, self-serving exaggerators, apart from the brave handful who agree with you. Hey, I’m no scientist. I’m not an engineer either, but if I asked 100 engineers whether it was safe to cross a bridge, and 99 said no, I’d probably try to find another way over the ravine rather than loudly siding with the underdog and arguing about what constitutes a consensus while trundling across in my Hummer.

Still, it’s easy to picture a collapsing bridge. Picturing a collapsing environment is trickier. Hollywood has tried its best, but all I learned from sitting through The Day After Tomorrow is that, contrary to my previous expectations, the end of the world might be boring. What we need, if we’re really going to work in unison to overcome climate change is a mix of Tralfamadorian perspective and joggers’ resolve: to let visions of the future dictate our present, rather than the other way round.

So: we need to loosen mankind’s dogged grip on a linear interpretation of time if we’re going to save the planet. But how?

Anyway, the other thing that seems to be developing here is the localised power generation. The UK Government has introduced its plans for FITs (Feed in Tariffs). This announcement led to a hell of a lot of discussion on the topic.

Eco-bling and retrofitting won’t meet emissions targets, warn engineers
Is solar power a bright investment?
Government grants create turbine debacle
Whilst I like the idea of some of is, it seems badly thought out. Why aren’t the government putting more money into insulation, and things like Solar Thermal Water heating. That is better matched to the UK environment. Whilst wind is not exactly feasible for urban areas, money should spent on setting up bigger communal wind turbines (for a village say), as large wind turbines are more efficient. People in the village would then get a proportional cut of the FIT?! Only then, would we want to consider funding then for Solar PV as a top up to the larger infrastructure projects. Small scale, home Solar PV would have it’s uses powering the pumps etc for Solar Thermal water heaters (lower power requirements), and potentially powering some 12V lighting in the home.

Gotta love over-reacting conservative (US)Americans

Thanks to JapanProbe, found this little story…

Garrrgggghhhh, banging head on desk!
There were many, many mitigating factors to the Pacific theatre of war. Only once it started, did both regimes (US and Japanese) then use elements of racism/ignorance(cultural and religious) to stoke up public support for fighting the enemy. It was a tool to dehumanise the enemy on both side. I think this is what Tom Hanks was saying.
Fox News seems to be completely misinterpreting it (on purpose?!?!) and thinking that Tom Hanks thinks racism was the reason for WW2. FFS!!