These is my log of professional, political and sometimes personal thoughts and observations. I am Bettina Walter, a Senior Information Architect (IA), Interaction Designer and Usability Professional.
I am co-owner of PunkLogic.
I’ve just donated a few bucks to get this advertisment shown on TV at the Boxing Day cricket match.
Get up!:
Even as he was announcing woefully inadequate climate targets on Monday, Prime Minister Rudd was setting aside over $130 million for an ‘information campaign’ to sell us his sparse climate package. Doesn’t it remind you of the kind of climate policy John Howard would have announced?
Thousands of GetUp members are donating to air this ad during the Boxing Day Cricket Test, to an audience of millions.
We are being taken for a ride. This has to change.
PS: Enrique Peñalosa is speaking in Brisbane on the 7th of February. The event is booked out. If you are attending or know of any reports, pictures or notes from it afterwards – please drop me line. Thanks.
KEEN – Big Bob and Joe Natoli show down
This was a good night (sorry not such a good photo) at Noosa Gallery – a meeting of Noosa’s Knowledge Entrepreneurs to pick the brains of the mayoral candidates for the post-amalgamation Noosa-Maroochydore-Caloundra Super Shire.
Coinciding with this I came across Enrique Peñalosa – former mayor of Bogota, Columbia.
Google is going to invest tens of millions in renewable energy. The aim of yesterday’s announced RE<C is to produce a Gigawatt of renewable energy cheaper than coal.
Establish the total amount of greenhouse gases that we can allow to be emitted without causing the earth’s average temperature to rise more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the point beyond which climate change could become extremely dangerous.
Divide that total by the world’s population, thus calculating what each person’s share of the total is.
Allocate to each country a greenhouse gas emissions quota equal to the country’s population, multiplied by the per person share.
Finally, allow countries that need a higher quota to buy it from those that emit less than their quota.
Having an after school cup of tea with Hillary yesterday she told me about an article she read saying the polar ice caps are supposed to be gone, finished, kaputt by 2020.
So having bought a new house I wondered if we’ll still be dry.
I found this nifty google maps app showing projected sea level rise incrementally on google maps.
Seems we’ll be dry, but awfully crowded.
…”But one idea in Heat that will gain momentum is that of ‘love miles’, analogous to the ‘food miles’ that are already part of the language. These are the miles we travel to be with far-flung friends and family, so feeding the aviation industry which is the world’s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gases. Monbiot offers no solutions: “long-distance travel, high speed and the curtailment of climate change are not compatible. If you fly, you destroy other people’s lives.” Now where are you off to this summer?”…
Oliver Tickle, Resurgence
oh-oh!
I hope Andrew Tweedie doesn’t mind my copy and paste. I just loved his questions:
” Since Solar radiation at Saharaian latitudes delivers 300% more energy /heat than in the UK and, according to the German Fed Gov report (see link via http://www.trec-uk.org.uk) only 10% is lost in transmission using HVDC. (60% is now wasted at power stations in the UK!)
A) why is no funding invested in a super HVDC renewable grid that would overcome fluctuations in output as well as enable export of our own “of peak ” renewables” and the importation of CSP generated electricity through more than one transmission line enabling a better “mix” & security of supply?
B ) why is the subsidy per £1 of solar thermal REPLACEMENT electricity only 10% while Nuke power Wind or PV panels 40%? (yet ouput cost per £ is 10x better!)
C) Since peak oil will have a massive impact on the global economy and oil consumption has resulted in global warming why is there no V.A.T on aviation fuel whose funds could be transfered to public transport?
Clearly it works 