Managing director of Ebono Institute and major sponsor of The Generator, Geoff Ebbs, is running against Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith at the next Federal election. By the expression on their faces in this candid shot it looks like a pretty dull campaign. Read on
Posted by Georgina Woods1170sc on July 29, 2014 · Flag
CSG uses vast amounts of water to extract gas from the coal seam
Road trip to Queensland gasfields reveals the shocking scale and impact of the CSG industry, and steels NSW residents to prevent a similar gasfield invasion.
A group of 20 NSW residents living near the proposed Santos Narrabri Gas Project in northwest NSW have returned home in a state of shock after a tour of coal seam gas developments in Queensland.
The group took a flight over extensive gasfields south of Chinchilla, spent six hours driving through Santos’ ‘Fairview’ gasfields northeast of Roma and have returned determined to prevent a similar invasion in northwest NSW.
“We met many QLD locals genuinely traumatised by the impacts of the coal seam gas industry,” said Dr Hugh Barrett of Narrabri.
“The massive scale of the coal seam gas developments in QLD is shocking.
“The gas drillers start in a State Forest, then consume surrounding country and communities with wells, compressor stations, pipelines, roads, huge dams, treatment plants and workers’ camps. The noise, the smells and the 24 hour operations all became very real to us.
“We now realise coal seam gas fields would have enormous and disturbing ramifications for Narrabri. Starting in the Pilliga forest is only the thin edge of the wedge, providing a foothold before invading surrounding farmland with gasfield infrustucture,” he said.
Wee Waa farmer Victoria Hamilton said, “We heard many examples of farmers being misled by gas companies. The farmers felt that once they allowed the gas companies in, they had effectively signed away control of their everyday lives.
“Now, having personally witnessed established and expanding coal seam gas fields, we who travelled to the QLD gasfields are all more convinced and determined to prevent a similar invasion in the Narrabri region,” she said.
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, and editor of NaturalNews, reports that NASA has sounded a red alert over a solar flare that nearly wiped out human civilization two summers ago.
The news you are about to read should be front page news everywhere. There is arguably nothing more important to humanity’s survival than the alarming facts presented in this report from NASA, yet most of the world pretends this event never happened in 2012, and they falsely assume it won’t happen again.
They are wrong. According to shocking new research published by NASA, each decade there is roughly a 12% chance of a near-wipeout of humanity’s high-tech civilization. In fact, one such event nearly wiped out technology across the planet during the summer of 2012.
“A powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) tore through Earth orbit on July 23, 2012,” reports NASA.gov. (1)
“If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.” NASA goes on to report: Analysts believe that a direct hit by an extreme CME such as the one that missed Earth in July 2012 could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket.
Most people wouldn’t even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.
Almost everything on Earth with a circuit board would be fried.
NASA’s description of the consequences of an “extreme CME” (Coronal Mass Ejection) just barely begins to paint the real picture of what such an event would cause.
Here’s a more detailed picture of what we would really see unfold:
• Nearly all circuit boards containing microelectronics would be fried, causing across-the-board failures of nearly all communications including cell phone towers, internet systems, radios, computers and mobile devices. And yes, your mobile devices will be long gone, too.
• Nearly all forms of motorized transportation relying on complex integrated circuit boards would be rendered unusable. Some late model automobiles and airplanes might be immune to these effects, but most newer cars, airplanes and ocean vessels would be rendered inoperable. There are some very valuable discussions on this topic at www.SurvivalBlog.com
• Nearly all transportation and delivery of food, water and fuel would immediately cease. • The power grid would go down and stay down. Nearly all systems dependent on power would cease to function. This includes your TV, meaning you won’t be able to turn on CNN to tell you what just happened. Shockingly, people will have to think for themselves.
• Cities around the world would almost immediately fall into total panic and chaos as food, water, fuel and electricity are all cut off. This would set off a wave of desperation, violence, starvation and infectious disease.
• All forms of electronic commerce would cease to function, including EBT cards, ATMs, credit cards and most banking operations. Commerce would effectively grind to a halt.
• As all this is happening, hundreds of nuclear power plants across North America would run out of backup diesel fuel for their generators, causing cooling pump failures and leading to a cascading series of nuclear meltdowns equivalent to hundreds of Fukushima disasters. This might render much of the continent uninhabitable by humans for centuries, if not millennia.
• Interestingly, some of the things that would still work just fine after all this would be: – Low-tech or “no tech” devices such as old diesel engines and farm implements – Wood-burning stoves – Garden seeds – Firearms – Gold and silver – Horse and plow
Essentially, life would be thrust back into the 19th century. The Amish would be King, in other words.
19th-century technology cannot support 7 billion people
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that 19th-century technology cannot support the world’s current population of 7 billion people.
The world population in the year 1850 hovered at just over one billion people. (2)
The world’s current population of over 7 billion people is only made possible by food production and transportation systems which depend heavily on complex electronics. Even the modern tractors that produce food are dependent on electronics and GPS systems. The fuel they burn and the parts they consume must be created and then delivered from thousands of miles away. Food refrigeration, storage, manufacturing and retailing all depends on a complex infrastructure built on integrated circuits.
NASA says there is a 12% chance every decade that this entire infrastructure will be wiped out in an instant. “How many others of this scale have just happened to miss Earth and our space detection systems?” asks Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado. “This is a pressing question that needs answers. “We need to be prepared.” (1)
But we are not prepared
Consider, for a moment, the enormity of this threat to human civilization. Each year there is over a 1% chance of a MCE event which would destroy the power grid, fry most electronics across the planet, and plunge human civilization into the 19th century in terms of technology.
“Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high,” stated Pete Riley of Predictive Science Inc., who published a February, 2014 paper in Space Weather. (1)
“But the statistics appear to be correct… It is a sobering figure.”
The odds of human civilization being plunged back into a pre-technology era are not in dispute. Every day that goes by is another roll of the dice, and a direct hit on the planet by a massive CME is mathematically inevitable. On a larger time scale, in fact, large solar flares might be viewed as a kind of “galactic rebooting” of inhabited planets, humbling civilizations back into the pre-electronics era and causing a massive die-off of the unprepared.
Almost no one is prepared for the reality of “direct hit” solar flares
Today on planet Earth, almost no one is prepared for this. Everybody is too focused on their own problems or ambitions to think about the risk of solar flares. After all, there are political ambitions to pursue, corporate stocks to trade and shiny new cars (or hand bags) to be acquired. There are wars to be fought, housing developments to be constructed and water wells to be drilled.
Everyone is so focused on their own narrow goals or ambitions that almost nobody looks skyward at the sun and says, “That object is repeatedly sending out large bursts of energy that could blast us back into the Agrarian Age.”
And so nothing gets done to protect the national power grid from such events, even though such protections could be installed for only about $2 billion in the U.S. Nothing gets done to shift away from nuclear power facilities or protect their backup generators from solar flares or EMP weapons, and so nuclear power plants remain ticking time bombs capable of unleashing a nuclear apocalypse.
Modern humans have forgotten how to live without electronics
Not surprisingly, humanity is blindly marching into a future of its own demise. By relying so heavily on computerized systems for the production and delivery of electricity, food, water, fuel and supplies, human civilization has placed itself in a non-survivable scenario.
Even if a large percentage of the population wanted to survive following a global electronics wipeout, most people have no real-world skills anymore. They don’t know how to farm, how to ranch animals, how to grow a garden or how to live off the land.
All the skills of the Information Age become instantly useless once a massive solar flare wipes out the electronics. How many people are left who can navigate a street map without using GPS? How many people know how to start a fire in a wood burning stove? How many people purchase books in hard copy format anymore? (Trust me when I say all those survival books you bought on Amazon Kindle won’t be much good after a solar flare wipeout.)
Humans are not wired to process long-term risks
To understand this even better, step back and take an honest look at your own behavior. After reading this article and realizing it’s 100% true and based on a real announcement from NASA, what will you do about it?
Over 99 percent of the people who read this article will do nothing different. They will go back to their lives in the city, working their jobs, paying their rent, and perhaps saying to themselves, “Wow, solar flare. That’s interesting.”
It doesn’t sink in because humans are not wired to process long-term risks. Humans are wired to run from tigers and evade imminent physical danger, but they have almost no innate cognitive ability to understand large systemic risks. That’s why people don’t understand the reality of the coming global debt collapse. They don’t grasp the coming global water collapse. They are unable to recognize the inherent fragility of a highly specialized society with few redundancies.
The ability to ignore these very large systemic risks is sometimes called a “normalcy bias.” That terms refers to the irrational belief that things will stay the way they are because they’ve always been that way. If tap water always comes out of the tap, day after day, year after year, the human mind will automatically assume water automagically will comes out of that same tap forever.
When the solar flare hits, few will know what happened Nearly all humans alive today falsely assume that human civilization is robust and redundant. They do not understand how their food, water, air conditioning, economic activities and personal safety are all heavily dependent on complex electronic devices which will not survive a sufficiently large solar flare. As a result, few people will understand what’s really happening when the CME strikes.
Suddenly, nearly all electronic devices will simultaneously cease to function. The world will fall silent, and within minutes the panic will begin. Thrust back into the 19th century, the world will likely see a loss of billions of lives.
Under-developed agricultural nations like Papua New Guinea will experience the highest survival rates, and rural families will vastly out-live urban dwellers across every nation. Those people who can grow their own food, defend their property against looters and safeguard their health with natural remedies will vastly out-live those who can’t.
This scenario is precisely what nearly unfolded in the summer of 2012. And there is no question that it will happen to our civilization sooner or later.
With a 12% chance of a direct hit every decade, it’s likely to be “sooner” rather than “later.”
Morris Miselowski promotes himself as a business futurist.
Business futurist and all round stirrer, Morris Miselowski this week called for the country to switch to a 3 day weekend advocating it will enhance our health, well-being, family, society and economy.
It is based on having more time to relax and unwind, it speaks to the ability to be more efficient and focused on your 4 days of work and the possibility of hiring others to work on the other days.
Leading business futurist, Morris Miselowski has explored this notion in detail and concludes that in the next few years the notion of a weekend, a standard 5 day week and 9-5 jobs would all become obsolete as we move into a world that worked on a project and task basis.
He believes getting things done as, where and when they need to be done will be the norm, rather than trying to shoehorn it into an industrial revolution constructed work week.
He also believes the ability to work where and when you want, will allow families to choose together time that suits them all, to be able to come together for important events and school activities and to re-frame family back into the centre of activity, rather than something else that has to be juggled in a busy week.
Residents of Brisbane gathered to support Palestine
Last week’s rally to demonstrate Brisbane’s solidarity towards the people of Gaza, ignited a spark of emotions, affirmations and a wave of protests which spread like wildfire all over the country.
This week, the fire blazed high with simultaneous protests in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney.
Today’s demonstrations started with a walking tour around Queens street, organized by Mr. Phil Monsour, a singer, songwriter and an advocate for Gaza, to identify and boycott the stores that stock Sodastream products.
Sodastream, is an Israel based company which operates a major factory in an illegal settlement in occupied Palestine and manufactures environmentally sustainable alternatives to bottled soda drinks.
Earlier this month, the factory came under public scrutiny for dismissing 60 Palestinian workers on July 2nd, following an argument about the supply of insufficient food for the breaking of the Ramadan fast, since the employees were not permitted to bring their own food to work.
“ I have three words for the people gathered here today, boycott, divestment and sanctions,” Mr. Mansour said.
“ Through this act of boycotting sodastream, we have three objectives we wish to achieve. End the international support for Israeli occupation and apartheid. Equal rights for all and the right for all the refugees to return back to their homeland,” he added.
“ There is virtually no support from our parliament and the many organizations that are supposed to be beside us today. We need to shift the solidarity in this country into a political power. Therefore I call upon all the students, religious communities and trade unions to join hands and join us in this movement.”
The boycott of Israeli goods is a part of an international movement known as the ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’, initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian organizations, which gained momentum internationally with the bombardment of Gaza.
Mrs. Isobella Jairus, a mother of two from the Gold Coast, was not aware of the intensity of the Gaza crisis until the shelling of a UN-run school in Gaza three days back.
“I was devastated by the horrific atrocity committed by the Israeli army. Until then I was not sure which side I was on, but after those little children and women were murdered in the shelling, I did my own research and found out that this is an asymmetrical war. The Israeli army targeted a UN run school and that shocked me, because people are not safe even under the protection of the United Nations. I realized that this is not a religious war but a freedom struggle of an oppressed people fighting to reclaim their land,” Mrs. Jairus said.
“I stand for a free Gaza,” she concluded.
Members of the crowd in the rally for Palestine
After the walking tour, more than a thousand people gathered at the King George Square to demonstrate their solidarity towards the people of Gaza.
After acknowledging the elders of the land, Ms. Rebecca Barrigos quoted the words of Abu Yazan, a young political activist from Gaza, “ The Israeli cabinet is planning to meet up to negotiate ceasefire, but this time the victory is ours, take that fact and give up, Israel.”
Mr. Sameer Elegate, a Palestinian activist and a recent resident of Gaza whose relatives were victims of the war, was the second speaker.
“ I am from Palestine, my family is from Gaza . I called my sister two hours ago and she said that she and her family were safe, but she also said that they were afraid and they were just waiting . At this moment I don’t know if they are safe, that is the situation in Gaza,” Mr. Elegate said.
“ When I told her about our rally today, she said that she has a message for Brisbane. She said – I am a mother, I am a sister, I am a human being. I have every right to live like all of you in Australia, but I’m proud to remain in Palestine, I don’t want to leave Palestine because this is my home and I will hold onto it until I die,” he reiterated.
“She thanks all of you gathered here today to show your support, but she also said – please don’t stop, please support us until the end.
“ This is no longer a Palestinian issue, this is a human rights issue. We want to see non Palestinians from all over the world, people from different religions, color, culture and political alliance, we must all stand together in support for Palestine.
“ To make your actions matter you can do one thing. Boycott Israel, don’t buy any product made in Israel, don’t buy any product with a barcode starting with 729.
“They say that the Hamas is hiding behind the backs of the civilians to fight this war, yet after bombing hospitals, homes and schools repeatedly, the only dead bodies left behind are of women and little children. Please don’t fall for this deception anymore.”
Speakers Mr. Boe Spearim and Mr. Calum Clayton Dixon, representing the Brisbane aboriginal sovereign embassy affirmed their support for the movement by sharing the fact that even though the Aboriginal community and the Palestinian community were two different civilizations with separate cultural values, they share the same struggle for freedom from oppression.
“We say white Australia has a black history. Similarly Israel will always have a Palestinian history,” Mr. Spearim said.
On behalf of the Queensland teacher’s union, Mr. Kevin Bates, the president, voiced his support for a free Gaza and an end to the oppression.
On the other hand two other speakers, Mr. Jake Schoermer representing the QLD Greens and Dr. Imran Ali from the QLD Shia Council, were shuffled off the stage after they offended the crowd during their speech.
The microphone was snatched from Mr. Schoermer’s grasp while the crowd heckled him, and a protestor even pelted a shoe at the Greens spokesperson after he denounced Hamas for ‘war crimes’. Meanwhile a policeman had to interfere in order to prevent Dr. Ali from provoking the mass any further.
After the commencement of the speeches, the protestors marched around Queens street chanting and demonstrating their solidarity for the people of Gaza.
Following publication of its report on the Rally for public parks in June, Westender approached Brisbane City Council seeking details of planned parks in the West End and South Brisbane on the basis of total hectares, and hectares per resident.
In a response received late last week Council advised Westender that it is, “delivering new open space for West End as part of the Neighbourhood Plan. Council has commenced the resumption process for 68 Vulture Street, West End and this will go before Council this Tuesday [July, 29] for consideration”.
Council also provided a memo sent by the Lord Mayor to Gabba Ward Councillor Helen Abrahams in June, saying that this response details Council’s commitment to delivering open space in West End. The requested details, quantifying publically accessible parkland in the West End and South Brisbane against the City Plan’s Land Provision Standard, were not provided.
When asked to comment, Cr Abrahams told Westender that:
Memo: Lord Mayor to Cr Abrahams, p1Memo: Mayor to Cr Abrahams, p2
“The data to support more parks for West End and South Brisbane just keeps growing. West End residents do not have a local park with the standard of 400 m from where they live. Also, they do not have the area of park that is specified in the City Plan 2014.”
Cr Abrahams added that, ‘”The Priority Infrastructure Plan specifies the amount of park for local informal use as 1.12ha per 1000 people. This KPI means 38.5 hectare of park yet there is only 15 ha. The proposed new park brings the total to 17 ha. The Lord Mayor’s response to letters from residents is to refuse to comment on the deficiency of parkland in West End. The Lord Mayor’s response fails to acknowledge he has removed proposed park in the City Plan 2014.”
“The Lord Mayor may think that if he does not comment, this issue will disappear but he is wrong. It is just not possible to squeeze 37,500 residents into West End and South Brisbane without more parks. They will demand parks and now is the time to keep to the commitment to provide the seven parks promised as part of the South Brisbane Riverside Neighbourhood Plan”
“The Lord Mayor’s legacy will be dormitory suburbs without space, greenery or quality of life” Cr Abrahams said.
West End Community Association (WECA) President, Dr Erin Evans told Westender that, “three
years after the Neighbourhood Plan was approved Council has failed to zone all seven of the new public open spaces identified. Until these are zoned for, they remain unidentified and uncertain for the community. The current response from the Lord Mayor’s office does not address the issue or provide assurances of commitment.”
Plaza diagram city plan
“The Lord Mayor can zone all seven parks with the stroke of a pen and the community calls on him to make good on this requirement to zone the parks and provide greenspace for the community. WECA has consulted widely with the community through discussions and surveys and provision of parks is one of the most important issues to all residents in the area”, Dr Evans added.
“The Lord Mayor needs to listen to the community rather than focusing on the wishes of developers,” Dr Evans said.
A WECA sponsored petition to Brisbane City Council demanding the provision of parks in West End has attracted over 500 signatures and will be presented to the Lord Mayor by Cr Abrahams on July, 29.
A subcommittee of the WECA meets regularly to respond to West End parks issues and it is currently finalising strategies for future action.
Dr Evans said that residents who wish to contribute their skills and ideas to this process are welcome and can contact WECA via its website at www.weca.org.au or via its Facebook Page.
I received a text message from a prospective client the other day— it’s how its done these days my daughter tells me — needing an electrician. It read, “we need an electrician, how much do you charge?” There was no enquiry about my experience, licensing or insurance just the bald question on price.
As a tradesman who actually cares about his clients, the quality of his work, fully licenced and insured, and insists on using quality Australian approved products; it was a disheartening text message.
For crying out loud, you want a stranger to come in and work on the most expensive investment you own based on price?!
Perhaps we should ask doctors and surgeons to offer a discount and see where that leads. Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t shop around for good prices, but not at the expense of quality and safety. Especially when dealing with electricity.
For too long we have been manipulated to accept mediocrity as the norm. We get angry when we purchase a ridiculously cheap product from a ‘Mega Store’, only to find when home, a part is missing, its already broken or it lasts for only two weeks. Did we actually want quality but didn’t want to pay for it? In our hearts I think we know it’s rubbish, but we buy it because it’s cheap. Unfortunately it wasn’t really all that cheap in the end, hey?
I used to own an electrical repair company. We were service agents for many products that you all know. These companies are good at producing shiny appliances that break during their warranty periods. These crafty manufacturers were using warranty agents to rectify the problems with their crappy appliances, doing R&D on the fly for them and not covering costs. We gave them all the flick and told them why.
Don’t get me started on built in obsolescence. Did you know that electrical tool motors have an hourly life rating? So if you buy a cheap drill or a pressure water cleaner it can have a life as little as a few hours. Some water cleaners can only run for 8-10 minutes before needing a rest or you’ll burn it out. Cool huh? You will be back in a month or two to buy another piece of junk for your garbage bin.
As a tradesman, I know that the only way to make a job cheaper is to cut the quality of the products or workmanship.
Look at LED lighting as an example. Cheap versions of these products are flooding the internet, market stalls and retailers and they are often under-performing, unapproved and even dangerous. I recently received a trade publication warning us that these products can block TV signals, disrupt mobile phones and Wi Fi signals, disrupt central locking systems on motor vehicles and present a fire risk through dodgy electronics.
Quality folks is the key. Ask questions before you jump in and buy a product or service on price alone. So be aware and take care. Don’t let quality die.
