Category: Columns
Geoff has written for publications as diverse as PC User and The Northern Star His weekly columns have been a source of humour and inspiration for tens of thousands of readers and his mailbox is always full.
Here you can find his more recent contributions.
admin /8 September, 2009
The results of yesterday’s poll by the Northern Star into the conversion of the Winsome Hotel into a crisis accommodation centre may indicate that most people welcome crisis accommodation, or it may simply indicate that most people want crisis accommodation to be provided somewhere else and that North Lismore is somewhere else to more people than it is home to.
That is part of the slippery nature of polls, even those that do not carry the disclaimer, “This is not a scientific poll.” Of course, many polls that carry no such disclaimer are not as open and honest as is this erstwhile journal. They simply ask questions which press people’s hot buttons and skew the results toward the desired answer. That partly explains the saying about lies, lies and damned statistics.
admin /8 September, 2009
Here, last month, I used the mathematical tool of first principles to clarify the issues around coastal retreat. It seems I threw fuel on the fire. Byron United’s James Lancaster on Radio National last Friday night tied himself in knots trying to explain why he is against man-made structures such as the rock wall at Continue Reading →
admin /4 July, 2009
The ugly spectacle of $600,000 in
ratepayer’s scarce funds disappearing into lawyers pockets over the
right to throw rocks into Byron Bay deserves serious comment. I
generally refrain from diving into water already muddied by a
thousand slippery bodies before me but this issue is central to
surviving the hard times ahead so I am compelled to rake over the
entrails one more time.
admin /25 June, 2009
Event organisers, resort owners and corporations regularly tout their green credentials with phrases like “we enthusiastically recycle cardboard, glass and plastic.” Google it and giggle. The image of happy, shiny workers in freshly laundered khaki sorting piles of rubbish into brightly coloured bins, fails to convince me that these companies will lead us to a sustainable future.
By definition, a sustainable human activity can be carried out by nine billion people for ever. Keeping chooks is sustainable, they eat our scraps, provide us with eggs and fertilise our gardens while they are at it. They happily live whereever we live. Farming salmon by feeding it fish caught off the South American coast then crushed, dried and dragged across the world, is not. It relies on a never ending supply of feed fish and cheap transport fuel.
admin /7 June, 2009
Homelessness across the Northern Rivers has been a recurring topic in this column. The combination of limited economic activity and rapidly growing population means upward pressure on house prices and downward pressure on wages. It’s a lovely part of the world to live in, if you have a job or other source of income.
admin /17 May, 2009
Stuart Braid is an active commentator and researcher on sustainable energy. He has taken the time to go through the claims made by Business Energy Reports in their article of May 15.
My own opinion on all of this is very simple. Fuel production from algae has major limitations but it is still far superior to any other prospect that people want to put on the table (especially ethanol from fermentation or gas reforming ) but it would help to no end if the spin doctors and con-artists would stop trying to hype the subject up for the purpose of fleecing the suckers of their money.
You can learn about it ( and a whole lot more ) free of charge at http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/algal_biodiesel
One of the ones in this list is entitled “The Man Who Wrote the Book on Algal Biodiesel”. The page also contains a large number of links for anyone who is interested in reading a “critical” evaluation of the concept of fuel from algae.
Firstly : I’m a big fan of algae for fuel production, but a number
of the claims in the summary of this document cannot be taken at
face value.
