Beatriz’s War, astonishing first film from East Timor will be screened at BEMAC on Friday 15th August, followed by a special Q&A with co-producer Lurdes Pires
This fim was made guerrilla style by the men and women who fought in the armed resistance and the clandestine movement during the small country’s twenty-four year long war with Indonesia.
The film is the story of one woman’s passion for independence and justice, both for her nation and for her soul. Beatriz’s husband Tomas is arrested after the Timorese resistance attacks Indonesian troops in the village of Kraras. In retribution for the attack, the Indonesians massacre the entire male population of Kraras. Tomas disappears during the massacre but his body is not found. Beatriz then takes command of the ‘village of widows’ and holds on desperately to the hope that her husband is alive.
WHEN: 7pm Friday 15 August
WHERE:BEMAC, 102 Main Street, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane
The rare Longman’s Beaked Whale, whose skull is on display.
To celebrate the unveiling of Queensland Museum’s latest display, 4000 Species, museum curators are bringing out the A-Z of species cataloguing the wonderful and diverse range of species they have played a role in discovering over the Museum’s 152 year history.
From the skull of a rare Longman’s Beaked Whale to a beautiful, yet endangered species of butterfly and small but nasty carnivorous snail, these and many other species will be showcased, some for the first time on Wednesday, 6 August.
The 4000 Species display is an interactive exhibition that takes visitors on a journey from discovery to naming.
Through the touchscreen you can explore more than 4000 species of tropical and sub-tropical life and learn how they were named and by whom.
Dr Robert Raven, Senior Curator (Arachnida) & Head of Terrestrial Environments said people enjoy finding names for things, whether it’s a house, boat, pet or product and natural scientists were no different.
“We have great fun making names of species and families such as animal groups,” he said.
“The names may be simply based on some part of the anatomy, after a place, another animal on which they live or even after people.
“Even so, there are formal rules in place on how the names must be formed, if the species is named after a male, an ‘I’ is added to the end, while females have an “AE” added.
“And like many others, the Queensland Museum Network scientists and associates have often struggled with the naming process.”
Included within the species featured are 10 dinosaurs, 50 mammals, 89 birds, 370 crustaceans and more than 1100 spiders.
And of the list that now exceeds 4000, Dr Raven has named over 370.
Dr Raven said if a species is named after a person, it is often considered a great honour, even for President Bush who has a Slime Mould Beetle named in his honour.
“Sometimes the honour is given simply because the person gave us the animal or collected it, they may have made wonderful contributions to the museum and its research or sometimes the scientist just wants to express their appreciation for an artist,” he said.
4000 Species is now open on Level Two Queensland Museum Southbank.
The Queensland Museum and Sciencentre open daily from 9:30am to 5pm except Good Friday, Anzac Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. southbank.qm.qld.gov.au
Lock the Gate Alliance national president, Drew Hutton, will be the subject of next Monday’s (August 4) Australian Story program on the ABC.
The Lock the Gate campaign was launched on 22 November, 2010 when farmers from south-east Queensland gathered in Brisbane around a farm gate, vowing to take a stand to protect their farms and communities from inappropriate mining.
The Lock the Gate Alliance now includes more than 200 grassroots groups and more than 32,000 supporters comprising farmers, landholders, conservationists and Traditional Owners.
The group transcends political divides and is unprecedented in the history of Australian social movements. Mr Hutton has paid a heavy personal toll during the many years he has devoted to environmental and community activism.
He describes himself as “an ordinary Australian” but he has achieved extraordinary things, including galvinising traditional right and left in the battle against invasive mining.
“My story is of an ordinary Australian who loves his country, doesn’t want to see it ripped up for short term gain for a few and is prepared to stand up to those bullies who want to force us into that future. Fortunately I am not alone in this,” Mr Hutton said.
“I and all those at Lock the Gate are worried about the impact of mining on our food lands, our access to clean water, our regional communities and our sense of a fair go.” Also appearing on the program will be former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, outspoken radio presenter, Alan Jones and environmentalist Dr Bob Brown.
Short history of Lock the Gate
The Lock the Gate Alliance was formed in 2010 with Drew Hutton becoming its president in early 2011, following meetings of landholders, organisations and communities concerned about the ongoing and rapid expansion of coal and coal seam gas development.
It was at a meeting at Warra on Queensland’s Darling Downs that a local farmer coined the name “Lock the Gate”. (Drew had suggested ‘Shut the Gate’ originally.)
So began the campaign calling on all landholders to refuse to negotiate access to coal seam gas companies and refuse to negotiate sale of their properties to coal companies.
Campaigning officially began on 22 November, 2010 when farmers from south-east Queensland gathered in Brisbane around a farm gate, vowing to take a stand to protect their farms and communities from inappropriate mining.
Representatives from more than 40 groups from across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia met in the Hunter Valley of NSW to discuss the challenges. One of the main concerns was the role of government in the expansion of the coal and coal seam gas industries and the lack of consideration of the will of local residents and communities in the approvals process.
Four years on, under the national leadership of beef farmer Phil Laird, Lock the Gate continues to grow with around 200 member groups and more than 32,000 rural and urban supporters from all over Australia.
One of its main aims is to educate and empower all Australians to demand sustainable solutions to food, clean water and energy production. Drew Hutton is now the group’s National President.
Local office supply company Howard Williams has just taken shipment of a new range of safety work wear that includes a range of fire retardant, light weight cotton clothing for use in the food industry. Other stand out products include stock printed vests with popular names such as visitor, staff, traffic controller and first aid. Howard Williams’ Greg Heath told Westender that clients can order gear printed with their own wording.
“We are always looking for new and innovative ways to improve our range as requirements for business supplies have changed,” he said.
The diversification into safety wear has been driven by customer demand, according to Heath, with health and safety regulations paying much more attention to how workers are protected.
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.”
