Although I had worried from my trip to Braeside described in an earlier post from a couple of weeks ago, the last three days have been traumatic beyond my belief.
The fact that I had carried my bike up a creek whose cleanliness I always doubted was a worry to me from the time I found the exit to Boundary Road. I was worried that the mechanisms had dirt but cleaned only the panniers (which were so dirty I had to clean them fully twice for improvement) and rode the bike as it was for some time. However, after a while noise in the rear wheel became so bad as to worry me severely, so that a week ago, thinking it was merely loss of lubricant, I decided to lubricate it to see if the noise would go. From the time I sprayed the oil, I knew something was wrong, but I never suspected just how bad. On Sunday, I decided I would take the bike to BSC Bikes to see what was wrong. I thought it would be a minor repair, but at first I found it would have to be new ball bearings on the pedal which would cost ninety dollars, then an oil change in the rear gear system for sixty dollars.
When I came in on Wednesday with clean panniers, I was expecting a finished bike but suffered one of the rudest shocks of my life. I was told that the rear gear system had rusted beyond repair, and on my request I was shown how badly it was damaged. I was amazed to still see the water in the gear train three weeks afterwards! I was told that there was an option of an eight-speed replacement wheel could be installed because the original seven-speed one was out of stock for four hundred and thirty dollars. I hesitated about accepting because the braking mechanism worried me: it involved pushing back to brake rather than the handle brake on my previous bikes. Consequently, I spoke to my mother about and looked for a new bicycle, though I live in fear I will make a similar mistake again and ruin bicycle after bicycle.
Two days spent - at least in the afternoons - in bike stores have clouded the problem even more. Even a little experience with a back-pedalling brake did not allieviate my fears at a time when I am desperate to have a bike at a cheap cost. It is a pity that I cannot either test it thoroughly to be sure it can work on my present bike, and a bike shop further south down Brunswick Street was really stern that there is no way I could make the necessary test at any store, and that a rental so I could have a bike whilst waiting the three months BSC Bikes had said a replacement gear train would take is virtually impossible. Moreover, I have no wish to live three months without a bike although I could save thousands of dollars compared to a new bike, which is almost certain to develop the same problems. The trouble is that Australia has such poor service that one often does not know when the item will come, whereas I imagine in Eurasia and the Americas this “three-month” wait would be so fast the replacement geartrain would have come to me today if it had been ordered on Wednesday!
Although I have found a few possible bikes at the upper end of my price limit, I am still worried about spending the money and realise decent service would eliminate the need. More than that, proper warranty I have always dreamed would ensure immediate replacement even when - as in this case - the damage is one hundred percent my own fault for never servicing the bike. Still, maybe even routine service would be in the long term far cheaper than the “shoestring” maintenance policy I have stuck to over the past two years! On the other hand, I always imagine superlative quality would ensure that this damage could be withstood with perfect ease, as well as that Australia’s apolitical, ultraconservative populace ensures shoddy quality is the order of every day.
Friday, 11 October 2013
Monday, 7 October 2013
Two fallacious plans
Over the past week, I found a plan that set about what is required to “halve” global greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, comparing a number of scenarios for various regions of the globe. Today, I found another, more critical plan that aimed to achieve the same goal regarding the aversion of global warming.
Of the two, the first is greatly more detailed and easier to commend because it focuses on a wider range of nations than the second, which only discusses China, India, the United States and Russia. However, the reality is that those nations are an extremely limited threat compared to Australia, for reasons I will tabulate below:
The table above should demonstrate very clearly the problems with a focus on China, Russia, India and the United States.
Firstly, their supply of land relative to population is small (Russia) to tiny (China), which creates incentives for efficiency in land use. Efficiency in land use via high-density development encourages low emissions, as when road space becomes expensive public transport becomes more viable economically.
Secondly, this limited supply of land allows a free market to effectively conserve resources, since most land in China, Russia, India and the United States is too steep or too icy for farming or housing. This creates a natural system of conservation reserves without government interference. It is potentially superior to government-based systems, since governments may have a short-term focus on extracting resources from wildlife areas (e.g. timber, animal products) that a private owner would not.
Thirdly, the very high fertility of their soils and oceans means environmental destruction is repairable, because soil replenishment is continuous and vegetation grows relatively rapidly.
In Australia, by comparison, the last soil replenishment was 300 million years ago, so that when Australia’s fragile soil structure is altered by cropping it cannot replace itself. Australia’s vegetation also grows slowly on soils with negligible concentrations of P and chalcophile nutrients. Nonetheless, the uniquely abundant land supply in Australia encourages exactly those land uses causing soil loss. Even with low yields, Australia’s supply of land is such that mechanised farmers can make profits unattainable with more dense populations. As input level increases, the ratio of Unenriched to Enriched World yield increases, multiplying the latter’s economic disadvantage. The next step in a free market – not taken for political reasons – would be for the Enriched World to wholly abandon agriculture and have farmland converted to housing. This would logically further expand “non-renewable” farmland in Australia and Africa, with unproven but probably severe consequences because of the inherent unsuitability of their soils for exotic crops.
For both economic and political reasons, there is no incentive in Australia for energy-efficiency. Rather, the incentive is to find the lowest-cost living possible. This tends to be exceedingly backward in energy-efficient practices. Examples are frequent use of 4x4s, expansion of coal-fired power, and extremely poor housing insulation leading to very high use of energy-guzzling air conditioners.
Lastly, of course is fertility and population growth. Whereas Russia, China and India are affected by lowest-low fertility, Australia has near-replacement fertility and Liberal policies are likely to increase it, especially if they “take the plunge” with welfare cuts that in the Enriched World would have them overthrown by revolution.
For all these reasons, along with the results of September’s election, focusing only on the four “major” emitters undoubtedly constitutes a “do-nothing” policy. Australia must be a central part of every greenhouse negotiation and singled out for its extremely high per capita emissions before any hope of progress exists.
Of the two, the first is greatly more detailed and easier to commend because it focuses on a wider range of nations than the second, which only discusses China, India, the United States and Russia. However, the reality is that those nations are an extremely limited threat compared to Australia, for reasons I will tabulate below:
| Country | Area of non-cryospheric land under 11˚ slope |
Population | Density | CO2 emissions per capita | Median virgin soil available P | Median coastal animal plankton density |
Species richness (vascular plants) | Species endemism (plants and vertebrates) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 700,000 km2 | 1,200,000,000 | 1,714 | 7,200 kg | 0.015% | 1,000 mgm-3 | 31,000 | 25% |
| India | 2,200,000 km2 | 1,050,000,000 | 477.5 | 1,610 kg | 0.0075% | 750 mgm-3 | 20,000 | 30% |
| USA | 2,000,000 km2 | 300,000,000 | 150.0 | 14,000 kg | 0.0075% | 500 mgm-3 | 18,000 | 10% |
| Russia | 2,000,000 km2 | 131,000,000 | 65.5 | 9,000 kg | 0.01% | 750 mgm-3 | 10,000 | under 5% |
| Australia | 7,400,000 km2 | 22,000,000 | 2.9 | 28,000 kg | 0.0003% | 75 mgm-3 | 15,000 | 80% |
| Note: All values are approximate but should give reason to propose radically different requisite ecological standards for Australia | ||||||||
Firstly, their supply of land relative to population is small (Russia) to tiny (China), which creates incentives for efficiency in land use. Efficiency in land use via high-density development encourages low emissions, as when road space becomes expensive public transport becomes more viable economically.
Secondly, this limited supply of land allows a free market to effectively conserve resources, since most land in China, Russia, India and the United States is too steep or too icy for farming or housing. This creates a natural system of conservation reserves without government interference. It is potentially superior to government-based systems, since governments may have a short-term focus on extracting resources from wildlife areas (e.g. timber, animal products) that a private owner would not.
Thirdly, the very high fertility of their soils and oceans means environmental destruction is repairable, because soil replenishment is continuous and vegetation grows relatively rapidly.
In Australia, by comparison, the last soil replenishment was 300 million years ago, so that when Australia’s fragile soil structure is altered by cropping it cannot replace itself. Australia’s vegetation also grows slowly on soils with negligible concentrations of P and chalcophile nutrients. Nonetheless, the uniquely abundant land supply in Australia encourages exactly those land uses causing soil loss. Even with low yields, Australia’s supply of land is such that mechanised farmers can make profits unattainable with more dense populations. As input level increases, the ratio of Unenriched to Enriched World yield increases, multiplying the latter’s economic disadvantage. The next step in a free market – not taken for political reasons – would be for the Enriched World to wholly abandon agriculture and have farmland converted to housing. This would logically further expand “non-renewable” farmland in Australia and Africa, with unproven but probably severe consequences because of the inherent unsuitability of their soils for exotic crops.
For both economic and political reasons, there is no incentive in Australia for energy-efficiency. Rather, the incentive is to find the lowest-cost living possible. This tends to be exceedingly backward in energy-efficient practices. Examples are frequent use of 4x4s, expansion of coal-fired power, and extremely poor housing insulation leading to very high use of energy-guzzling air conditioners.
Lastly, of course is fertility and population growth. Whereas Russia, China and India are affected by lowest-low fertility, Australia has near-replacement fertility and Liberal policies are likely to increase it, especially if they “take the plunge” with welfare cuts that in the Enriched World would have them overthrown by revolution.
For all these reasons, along with the results of September’s election, focusing only on the four “major” emitters undoubtedly constitutes a “do-nothing” policy. Australia must be a central part of every greenhouse negotiation and singled out for its extremely high per capita emissions before any hope of progress exists.
The new criminals of the Tropical World
Today, despairing news that rhinoceroses will be extinct by 2022 (in eight years) if current poaching rates continue is saddening but revealing.
The article reveals how the demand for rhinoceros horn is coming from a small group of nations in tropical and subtropical Asia which are regarded as newly industrialising: Vietnam, Thailand, China and Taiwan. In all these nations, rhinoceros poachers maintain very strong connections with governments and as these nations become richer, rhinoceros horn has become a symbol of the “nouvelle riche”who are growing in number even with below-replacement fertility. Its symbolic status is probably be increased by the fact that Thailand and more recently Vietnam once had rhinoceros populations of their own, so that previous generations could have used rhinoceros parts before African horn was ever shipped to Asia.
The business skill of East Asians means that the number of rich could grow very rapidly in the future. Whether or not there is a poor underclass there is the likelihood the rest of East Asia's populace will envy them enough to wish for it themselves rather than understand the fragility of African ecosystems. Notably, the megafauna of East Africa serve to raise the rainfall at which soil fertility peaks from 800 millimetres (32 inches) up to 1200 millimetres (47 inches). If rhinoceroses go extinct this extinction could affect the potential numbers of other species.
In a sense, the problem with rhinoceros poaching is similar to the lenience with which the Enriched World treats Australia's and South Africa's greenhouse gas emissions, inasmuch as solving both problems is dependent on a change of ways from politicians in the rest of the world.
Compared to its greenhouse gas emissions, however, wildlife poaching in the Unenriched World is easier to stop because its source is completely external: there is essentially no local demand for rhinoceros products in South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana or Namibia. Thus, if we isolate those nations buying rhinoceros horn, there is some hope that the problem could be stopped. However, as with the Unenriched World's ecological record, what to do to make rhino horn importers change their ways is another question: it could so easily create more problems.
The article reveals how the demand for rhinoceros horn is coming from a small group of nations in tropical and subtropical Asia which are regarded as newly industrialising: Vietnam, Thailand, China and Taiwan. In all these nations, rhinoceros poachers maintain very strong connections with governments and as these nations become richer, rhinoceros horn has become a symbol of the “nouvelle riche”who are growing in number even with below-replacement fertility. Its symbolic status is probably be increased by the fact that Thailand and more recently Vietnam once had rhinoceros populations of their own, so that previous generations could have used rhinoceros parts before African horn was ever shipped to Asia.
The business skill of East Asians means that the number of rich could grow very rapidly in the future. Whether or not there is a poor underclass there is the likelihood the rest of East Asia's populace will envy them enough to wish for it themselves rather than understand the fragility of African ecosystems. Notably, the megafauna of East Africa serve to raise the rainfall at which soil fertility peaks from 800 millimetres (32 inches) up to 1200 millimetres (47 inches). If rhinoceroses go extinct this extinction could affect the potential numbers of other species.
In a sense, the problem with rhinoceros poaching is similar to the lenience with which the Enriched World treats Australia's and South Africa's greenhouse gas emissions, inasmuch as solving both problems is dependent on a change of ways from politicians in the rest of the world.
Compared to its greenhouse gas emissions, however, wildlife poaching in the Unenriched World is easier to stop because its source is completely external: there is essentially no local demand for rhinoceros products in South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana or Namibia. Thus, if we isolate those nations buying rhinoceros horn, there is some hope that the problem could be stopped. However, as with the Unenriched World's ecological record, what to do to make rhino horn importers change their ways is another question: it could so easily create more problems.
Friday, 20 September 2013
The cheap and nasty land revisited
Today, after finally making contact with Name a Game (they have finally developed a noting system when nobody has time to answer) I told my mother I would be visiting because I was expecting a valuable game between Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs from mid-1998, that had not been mastered from VHS.
I had slight trouble preparing my visit to Braeside because the panniers on my recently repaired bicycle had to be washed as I found them terribly dirty when I picked the bicycle up on Wednesday. I took my backpack, but soon realised that I had left my mobile phone at home - though I felt it too late to come back and get it.
The train trip to Mordialloc was uneventful, but when I walked into Name a Game I found that in fact Charitian and Blake had simply got a new machine and the DVDs were not ready. More than that, the February-ordered 2000 games (Adelaide versus Sydney and West Coast versus St. Kilda) were still not ready and Blake (who has replaced Elaine Martin as Christian’s assistant) said that the mastering firm in South Melbourne still had not finished with them. In fact, I am very worried the master tapes are damaged and that I will have to ask Christian to talk to the AFL. I still found two replacement matches that I very much wanted, and am glad to “clean up” the order.
It was a warm sunny day when, after some typical talk about Australia’s dreadful ecological record and its global consequences, I aimed to cycle south to the Frankston line. However, when I tried to cut across the grassland south of Braeside, I found that there was no way across a creek and I was told by a friendly man in a 4 wheel drive that I would have to get wet.
Still, I was determined to find a way south to the Frankston line that would be less dangerous that the route to Mordialloc that is closest but has many wide road crossings that I fear my life for. It shows just how unacceptable Australia’s public transport is that there is no local pressure for better public transport than just a few peak hour buses. Local people fear loss of privacy if they were forced to use even a superlatively good public transport system in a way the more intellectual and more politicised populations in inner Melbourne and all of the Enriched World cannot. The previous time I tried this I had no trouble crossing to the Franskton line, but this time I did not find the right path and I was suspicious from the start since the route was so rough. The trouble was I had no idea what the correct route across the marshland actually was: even Google Maps does not provide many clues since the route I strongly recall as narrower than a “parkway”.
When I pushed on, I saw the main road leading south very clearly and hoped I would be out, but found that in fact it was completely fenced. On one previous trip to Braeside, I had walked up a drainage route, so I though I might be able to get out vial the cemented creek the flows upstream from Wells Road across Boundary Road. Alas, the creek was fenced in all directions and I felt it was too late to go back after I had gone through several deep and sandy patches with only one sign (a loose gate) of any exit. I did not risk the loose gate because I had no certainty as to whether I would be able to life myself, my backpack and my bike over it, so it was following the creek still further into more industrial and rural areas.
Travelling up the creek made me realise just how rural Australia really is: people think of us as an urbanised country but the population densities of our cities are in fact much lower than many super-fertile rural areas in Asia, Europe and the Andes. It is also true that suburban people often work in light industry or small businesses as families and children are not the liability they are in the huge factories of the Enriched and Tropical Worlds.
After a while, I wondered if I would have to retrace my steps all the way back to Mordialloc in very warm weather - the creek did cool me though I was worried there was sewage in it that might poison my injured toe with the wound! I still was eager to see where the creek went and thus kept on going till I saw a few people working in an industrial plant above me. I politely asked them for help, and they said they did not have the key to unlock the gate, but that if I kept on going there was - as I could faintly see - a way out. I then slipped but thankfully was OK, and managed to get myself and my bicycle up sharp and steep rocks onto an area of grassland that was oddly familiar to me as I had cycled down Lower Dandenong Road past Moorabbin Airport before.
Even here, having had a lucky escape because I could very easily have fallen and broken my skull or neck with no means of contacting my mother (I left my mobile at home since I moved everything into the backpack) I still did not know the way out onto the road. I did see some of the small native birds (probably a white-browed scrubwren, Sericonis frontalis) that land clearing has so badly affected in recent times, as I examined the fence. Eventually, I spotted an exit onto what I thought wrong was Springvale Road when in fact it was Boundary Road (the main road off which Name a Game is located). To actually get me, my backpack, and my bicycle out was still a difficult task even when I saw somebody had flattened a part of the fence adjacent to Boundary Road. It involved quite a bit of lifting of my bicycle to get it out, along with considerable dodging around intact parts of the fence.
Once I had got back on the road, I decided to head for the Dandenong Line, and followed the 812 bus route as it turned north. Here, however, I lost my sense of direction, for I though I had passed Springvale Road and not Boundary Road, so I presumed that by following the 812 bus route I was heading towards Noble Park or Yarraman stations. At this time, I made a reverse charge call - having no mobile phone - to my mother, who was relieved to know how responsible I was and that I was all right despite a few bruises on my hands and arms.
I told my mother I would be home for dinner at 18:00 (it was 15:00 when I called), and I continued northeast thinking I would soon be at the Dandenong railway line. However, when I got to the next main road I could tell from the presence of the 811 bus route that I was not close to the Dandenong line. The 811 bus route goes down Heatherton Road far from the railway line around Noble Park and Yarraman, so something clearly was wrong.
Being very hungry after so much walking and cycling, I looked for a snack and found myself eating a fish and chips in weather that looked deteriorating though it remained warm enough to leave my jacket off. After I decided to keep going northwards I found I was not on Chandler Road as I had imagined but on Tootal Road further west (see the map at left)! This meant I was quite a way away from the railway line, but I knew I had no choice but to keep on looking at how unsustainable wastage of money on roads for sixty years had given the world’s most fragile country the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Still, the bus map - revised since I used to collect all the bus timetables in Melbourne - showed a clear route to Westall Station on main roads, which was not too difficult even though I had to walk my bike on roadside grass for part of the way.
The rest of the trip, down Tootal and Westall Roads, was slow but easily navigated, and by the time Westall Station was reached the weather was becoming bad. I called my mother again telling her of my mistake (which began when I checked the bus route but not the road name in the assumption the bus route could tell me where I was) as she was relieved.
The trips to the city, to Rushall and the cycle home were uneventful apart from nearly losing my USB when I got out at Rushall Station, by which time the weather was cool and getting wetter as I approached home: at one point in St. George’s Road South the rain was a torrent but it oddly stopped when I came home to finish an interesting adventure with some notable bird sightings, but one I do not want to relive because of the danger to my life and to my status as a potential trespasser.
One thing that might be noted is that none of the books or DVDs in my backpack were actually damaged, which is a minor miracle when one considers how often I was in foot-deep creek water and that I slipped twice, which gave my left arm a minor injury.
I had slight trouble preparing my visit to Braeside because the panniers on my recently repaired bicycle had to be washed as I found them terribly dirty when I picked the bicycle up on Wednesday. I took my backpack, but soon realised that I had left my mobile phone at home - though I felt it too late to come back and get it.
The train trip to Mordialloc was uneventful, but when I walked into Name a Game I found that in fact Charitian and Blake had simply got a new machine and the DVDs were not ready. More than that, the February-ordered 2000 games (Adelaide versus Sydney and West Coast versus St. Kilda) were still not ready and Blake (who has replaced Elaine Martin as Christian’s assistant) said that the mastering firm in South Melbourne still had not finished with them. In fact, I am very worried the master tapes are damaged and that I will have to ask Christian to talk to the AFL. I still found two replacement matches that I very much wanted, and am glad to “clean up” the order.
It was a warm sunny day when, after some typical talk about Australia’s dreadful ecological record and its global consequences, I aimed to cycle south to the Frankston line. However, when I tried to cut across the grassland south of Braeside, I found that there was no way across a creek and I was told by a friendly man in a 4 wheel drive that I would have to get wet.
Still, I was determined to find a way south to the Frankston line that would be less dangerous that the route to Mordialloc that is closest but has many wide road crossings that I fear my life for. It shows just how unacceptable Australia’s public transport is that there is no local pressure for better public transport than just a few peak hour buses. Local people fear loss of privacy if they were forced to use even a superlatively good public transport system in a way the more intellectual and more politicised populations in inner Melbourne and all of the Enriched World cannot. The previous time I tried this I had no trouble crossing to the Franskton line, but this time I did not find the right path and I was suspicious from the start since the route was so rough. The trouble was I had no idea what the correct route across the marshland actually was: even Google Maps does not provide many clues since the route I strongly recall as narrower than a “parkway”.
When I pushed on, I saw the main road leading south very clearly and hoped I would be out, but found that in fact it was completely fenced. On one previous trip to Braeside, I had walked up a drainage route, so I though I might be able to get out vial the cemented creek the flows upstream from Wells Road across Boundary Road. Alas, the creek was fenced in all directions and I felt it was too late to go back after I had gone through several deep and sandy patches with only one sign (a loose gate) of any exit. I did not risk the loose gate because I had no certainty as to whether I would be able to life myself, my backpack and my bike over it, so it was following the creek still further into more industrial and rural areas.
Travelling up the creek made me realise just how rural Australia really is: people think of us as an urbanised country but the population densities of our cities are in fact much lower than many super-fertile rural areas in Asia, Europe and the Andes. It is also true that suburban people often work in light industry or small businesses as families and children are not the liability they are in the huge factories of the Enriched and Tropical Worlds.
After a while, I wondered if I would have to retrace my steps all the way back to Mordialloc in very warm weather - the creek did cool me though I was worried there was sewage in it that might poison my injured toe with the wound! I still was eager to see where the creek went and thus kept on going till I saw a few people working in an industrial plant above me. I politely asked them for help, and they said they did not have the key to unlock the gate, but that if I kept on going there was - as I could faintly see - a way out. I then slipped but thankfully was OK, and managed to get myself and my bicycle up sharp and steep rocks onto an area of grassland that was oddly familiar to me as I had cycled down Lower Dandenong Road past Moorabbin Airport before.
 |
| This is a white-browed scrubwren, Sericornis frontalis, which I presumably saw along the creek near Lower Dandenong Road. |
 |
| Note how the 812 bus route turns twice from Cheltenham Road as it goes towards Dandenong. I made a bad error following the first turning. |
I told my mother I would be home for dinner at 18:00 (it was 15:00 when I called), and I continued northeast thinking I would soon be at the Dandenong railway line. However, when I got to the next main road I could tell from the presence of the 811 bus route that I was not close to the Dandenong line. The 811 bus route goes down Heatherton Road far from the railway line around Noble Park and Yarraman, so something clearly was wrong.
Being very hungry after so much walking and cycling, I looked for a snack and found myself eating a fish and chips in weather that looked deteriorating though it remained warm enough to leave my jacket off. After I decided to keep going northwards I found I was not on Chandler Road as I had imagined but on Tootal Road further west (see the map at left)! This meant I was quite a way away from the railway line, but I knew I had no choice but to keep on looking at how unsustainable wastage of money on roads for sixty years had given the world’s most fragile country the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Still, the bus map - revised since I used to collect all the bus timetables in Melbourne - showed a clear route to Westall Station on main roads, which was not too difficult even though I had to walk my bike on roadside grass for part of the way.
The rest of the trip, down Tootal and Westall Roads, was slow but easily navigated, and by the time Westall Station was reached the weather was becoming bad. I called my mother again telling her of my mistake (which began when I checked the bus route but not the road name in the assumption the bus route could tell me where I was) as she was relieved.
The trips to the city, to Rushall and the cycle home were uneventful apart from nearly losing my USB when I got out at Rushall Station, by which time the weather was cool and getting wetter as I approached home: at one point in St. George’s Road South the rain was a torrent but it oddly stopped when I came home to finish an interesting adventure with some notable bird sightings, but one I do not want to relive because of the danger to my life and to my status as a potential trespasser.
One thing that might be noted is that none of the books or DVDs in my backpack were actually damaged, which is a minor miracle when one considers how often I was in foot-deep creek water and that I slipped twice, which gave my left arm a minor injury.
Saturday, 7 September 2013
Why a moratorium on road spending is needed: train crashes due to rotting timber
At the very time when a government that says it will only fund roads and not public transport is being elected, I found a piece of news that makes already decisive calls for damnation of six decades of freeway-based transport policies even more decisive.
This week’s Time magazine has shown that a train crash on Perth’s Joondalup line last Tuesday was due to an infestation of millipedes, which caused the train to slip. Whilst this August has been considering global warming’s disastrous effect on Perth’s climate relatively wet (the wettest for nine years) it is as shown below still not nearly so wet as the Augusts of 1900, 1903, 1909, 1913, 1915, 1920, 1939, 1942, 1945, 1955 or 1963.
There is no doubt that wet weather in the 1960s and 1974 would have created much more climatically favourable conditions for millipedes than exist today. Millipedes lack a waterproof skin and depend on moist conditions to survive, so there must be other reasons why they are thriving now (though 2013 is the first year since 2008 when any month in Perth’s historic rainy season has been above the virgin mean rainfall).
The culprit, as with so many quality problems on Australia’s railways, has to be money wasted on freeway building. It is bad for railways’ quality because wasting money on roads diverts passengers - the source of revenue — away from essential maintenance of railways, not to mention the limited supply of public money.
Railways, contrary to popular perception and governmental philosophy, are a vital resource for Australia. The extreme age and low fertility of the continent’s soils requires an exceptionally low-energy lifestyle that needs for sustainability to be based on rail transport to the exclusion of road or air, although the latter two are much more politically viable. Rail transport is also exceptionally suited to Australia’s flat terrain.
For this reason, Australia’s needs to place a moratorium on new roads until all operational railways are repaired fully. Poor quality of railways in other parts of Australia has been well-documented and even a temporary moratorium on road wastage (which would be as unacceptable to those who pull the strings as the uncompromising permanent moratorium I have long advocated) would be a great help if the money saved Australia’s valuable railways from becoming totally decrepit.
This week’s Time magazine has shown that a train crash on Perth’s Joondalup line last Tuesday was due to an infestation of millipedes, which caused the train to slip. Whilst this August has been considering global warming’s disastrous effect on Perth’s climate relatively wet (the wettest for nine years) it is as shown below still not nearly so wet as the Augusts of 1900, 1903, 1909, 1913, 1915, 1920, 1939, 1942, 1945, 1955 or 1963.
 |
| A selection of August rainfall total maps for Australia, illustrating how dry August 2013 was in southwestern Australia vis-à-vis the wettest Augusts before anthropogenic global warming took control of the climate. |
The culprit, as with so many quality problems on Australia’s railways, has to be money wasted on freeway building. It is bad for railways’ quality because wasting money on roads diverts passengers - the source of revenue — away from essential maintenance of railways, not to mention the limited supply of public money.
Railways, contrary to popular perception and governmental philosophy, are a vital resource for Australia. The extreme age and low fertility of the continent’s soils requires an exceptionally low-energy lifestyle that needs for sustainability to be based on rail transport to the exclusion of road or air, although the latter two are much more politically viable. Rail transport is also exceptionally suited to Australia’s flat terrain.
For this reason, Australia’s needs to place a moratorium on new roads until all operational railways are repaired fully. Poor quality of railways in other parts of Australia has been well-documented and even a temporary moratorium on road wastage (which would be as unacceptable to those who pull the strings as the uncompromising permanent moratorium I have long advocated) would be a great help if the money saved Australia’s valuable railways from becoming totally decrepit.
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