Constipation over WASTE DISPOSAL

 

 Towards Appropriate technology not NIMBY imperatives 

Humans are habitual creatures. The bureaus and parliaments of this world arrive Monday morning to make more rules to try and control the people .
Its  mad and it means poor people feel helpless to help themselves. The planning system only works now if you have money ! 
These rules caused us to send our wastes far away on ships to China. We are mad 
A lot more can be done to recycle and use waste locally and BY  encouraging rural people to do more 

eg Temporary homes for the poor .

The Government IS ALL Talk   on reducing red tape .

Feds should put pressure on states and shire and EPA to simplify HUMAN WASTE DISPOSAL - write up some general specs for both septic and sullage --and make it easier using temporary storage and cartage and other measures using local wetlands and public soil reserves.
Currently local shires can make the process very complex and costly.
These are homes and basic facilities people NEED. Clearly only big blocks would work but there are plenty of them . 
The risk of onsite pollution can be dealt with over a wide area of Australia by professional soil type, annual  rainfall   ( low risk low rainfall), climate and design specs like area of land , proximity to water courses .
STATE s should be MADE to contribute to this instead of making the USER pay up EVERY TIME . Get the Shire to do the work they were paid to do-- not palm it off like they do now . Sound inhouse advice is VERY COST EFFECTIVE -- they just haven't got any at the moment . 

And make them stick to the one month APPROVAL process time WRITTEN in their legislation. 
Shire staff don't decide anything these days, even when they have got 20 reports to help them. (I am exaggerating - slightly ) 

 

Waste ( incl  and esp wastewater)  is the biggest bit of constipation in the planning system !! and it need not be if  more thought was given to setting conditions on use and disposal on bigger blocks in drier areas especially  .
Why cart everything away  --to a central mound ? When with the opposition come up with measures to recycle ONSITE ?   Barnaby Joyce Peter Dutton  Lyle Shelton Senator Matthew Canavan  

When will the FEDs CONVENE  to  review REDTAPE and CONSTIPATION in local government esp ?  Before it becomes THEIR problem again!!!

 

Understanding food production and how to make it work for everyone

 

Clearly, I am not going to answer all your questions here and now, but this post was inspired by yet another inadequate attempt to solve the problem of supply and demand in Agriculture . 
Fortunately for all those who have read this far , the centuries old study of economics and now ecology has brought forth some fruits to help us , at least partially resolve this in practice.
I will hopefully follow up with logical frameworks for action,  links and responses . 
Again, let me say, I am not going to say why Marxism is still providing a very immature response to this world wide problem but neither ( just yet ) am I going to say why Capitalist economies are far too comfortable with their own careless exploitation of the earth and its people . No political imperatives are adequate and their faulty elements need careful probing to be exposed. 

The thing is, economics can provide us with workable answers if we are willing to all get on the same train together with nature. Clearly the above-named divisions remain a handicap. 

As YOU  are NOW here , stay with me. 
Fairness is not a nature thing,  but it is in my mind the human thing and it is more than a mere aim but an inspiration worth fighting for.
Please ask questions. 

This was my original post to an inadequate statement about solving a problem at the supply and demand intersection this week in Australia.   

IF we taught our children properly about economics we would very CLEARLY run a fairer system than we do -- and that's saying something because Marxists ( and farmers and polys etc ) and many inadequately studied agents for change have been meddling in " how to fix things " for centuries now. While being patient and making better choices can help, deeper eco wisdom is the more reliable and rewarding place to put our heads.

All of us here on line know such wisdom is still not common wisdom ----yet!

Understanding the complexities of ecology as it applies to food production will not stop people exploiting each other, BUT if the best ways to improve the system was known and more widely adopted, the profit margin exploiters ( the easily rich) would not be able to exploit producers and purchasers the way they currently do ---economics and its twin sister ecology , would be better managed. And its not rocket science.

Our children need to know these things and be inspired to work at the wonderfully productive resilient rewarding and interesting coalface of nature . http://designwithnature.blogspot.com

Monopolizing forces and how to resist them

A very cursory and incomplete look at Australia, A prefix is used where man has restricted biodiversity by his actions . B is where nature restricts biodiversity by its actions.  

 A1. Broadacre ploughing  
Some wild country is needed to encourage biodiversity in any land system because we don't really know what we are killing when we spray big patches with roundup, simazine or cultivate the broadacre for one plant.

Patchiness, I would suggest, is a good aim for Country whether it involves  private use of farmland or reserve. There are many reasons for this but one of the main reasons is the dominance of fire and the way fire clearing restricts resultant growth - monopolizing by colonizing and determining the resultant regeneration phases. 

Most of the lower half of this photo was originally covered in shrub and forest , The top half , like most of Australia was Savannah type grassland supporting occasional trees. Soils and soil drainage play an important part in the type of original vegetation. 
  



OK its complex 
Say we leave the whole country to nature, Which land systems have been the most vulnerable to monopolizing by man's activity?  Is it Savannah  or Forest cause we don't interfere here in Australia much with Tropical. 
Our foothill forests are like those in other parts of the world- controlled by trees who discourage competition but are decimated by fire,/ lets get real though much of the world is not naturally covered by forests but by grass and heathlands. The focus of the following is on annual plants and our heavy working with them in grasslands , hinterlands and shrublands in those areas. 

So is our clearing of land by nature all bad ?    cf A clearing by man B clearing by fire 
Fire and Light control in a forest greatly limit the potential for biodiversity.   Provided we don't clear great swathes of bush , the increased area of open soil around such forest and cleared patches clearly adds to the potential for both annual and perennial plants to seed or survive ( when not over grazed) and birds and insects to flourish. Aboriginal settlements observed this pattern of land use. 

Even low intensity grazing seems to encourage orchids and monocot grasses like themeda  Too complex a subject for now .

MAJOR IMPACTS  ( just a listing of some ) 
B Acidification of soils . 
B The podzolization  of soils 
B The concreting of soils 
A The increased recycling ability of a fertilized  soil   Ca, P < K and trace elements 


This article is unfinished   but if you would like to ask a question please do 


POSITIVE IMPACTS of man's interference in nature . As most of you know my theme is not to deny that much of mans impact on nature has been damaging. In the face of nature's sensitive processes man has been an ignorant and arrogant brute.
Our problem first. We have no consensus amongst us  In mid 2023 there is no consensus amongst conservationists about the priorities for the future because the issue are complex and political with some people overstating the degradation risks and others overstating the resilience realities- we still know so little . 
My job is ,as always, to call for more research positions for young people to study these things properly. Tell me where it is happening ! 

 The key issue for nature at least is ---In what land systems is irreversible degradation of seed and life sources likely to be still happening.
Reducing man's ignorance and arrogance is on the critical joint ticket.  The unhelpful response of labelling much with a misanthropy brush is not IMO helpful  - important stories for another time. 

A  New types of homes 

1. Corrugated iron 
Our blue tongues have always said thankyou, but increasingly there are others. Corrugated iron can play a crucial and complex role in pioneering and protecting growth after fire. 
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/humble-iron-sheets-a-lifesaver-for-endangered-dunnarts

2. Neighborhood gardens 

Many of our large native animals have been grateful for the patchwork of forest and grass which allows for grassland for food and forest for shelter . Birds and insects the same . 

3. More diverse forests and more diverse grasslands  by Patchwork clearing  . The digestion of grass in the savannah is a prominent force for encouraging growth and stability . As Australia is actually  Savannah , the extending of the grassland and its boundaries with forest has many benefits for biodiversity.   
4 More diverse forests and more diverse grasslands  by leaving Individual trees and plantations . A treeless plain is truly a monopolized landscape.  Clearly we should question if we create more of them . 

Fences the good the bad and the ugly 

MORE COMPLEX QUESTIONS   
Can we , or should we ever return to the past where recycling of scarce nutrients , shorter lifecycles , impeded drainage and fire limited the life to a tighter reign and a much tougher set of species and physical constraints. Let; increase the areas of reserves by studying the need in various land systems. 

Do we really want to restrict all life in Victoria to the limits of leaching ,poor soil drainage  and the ascendancy of ants ( above photo of the healthy tree being eaten and used by ants for home ) 

We still have large areas of untouched reserves in Victoria  See the maps of Victoria before and after  settlement  .
For some reason the map below  doesn't show the large area of native vegetation on the NW border - even now . 

 

UTOPIA

What a wonderful thing it can be when some observer puts the truth before us ; as our very own Rob Sitch has done in his latest report on the state of our UTOPIA .




It can be good to see the mess we are in; the bad news is sometimes needed before any good news can be proclaimed and therefore  properly framed. Most of us have had more than enough of the  shallow claim and counterclaim of blame when the issue is the cutting edge competency of all claims. 

The frightening but funny thing is that his report cuts deep enough to cut us all deeply. 
 
this moment in history reminds me of the time I corresponded with Antony Jay at some length over what happens when you report  what happens close to the seat of power in Britain in the 80's.
The jester is safe  while the emperor thinks its not him that is the target of the joke . 
 The Hackers of this world may watch "Yes Minister ",  but do they really understand what misguided moves they are constantly making;  We discussed the serious risk  of curtains 4 the Jester if the Emperor realized his recurring error !
  
Not that any of us plebs welcome the truth; the truth that we are often too busy pretending to "solve the worlds problems "to see how our inadequate efforts are costing the household. 

My prayer is that UTOPIA cuts deeply enough to force a change in how we do things .
--  to better plan and provide a process for better planning for our children   

The perception needs to change about what works .  We need to give the power of making good decisions about the environment back to ONLY those heads who have properly and constantly studied it well. At least 2 people though - participant and observer. 

Let all Academia and their sycophantic audience be warned . As one of the best academics ( Whitehead and Ellul) tried to warn us of this current disease in the  last century http://misplacedconcreteness.blogspot.com 

What we have is a new form of the old  disease of thinking we know things, when we don't  . Our age worships half truths. slogans and simplicities  Whiteheads phrase " mere description" describes the phenomenon  well = slogans 

What we who study ,and can apply the science, are doing is working with living systems ( human and the earth in design )and making them work together . 
We need the elasticity of approach that enables us to advise on safe push pull approaches that  respect  the complex push pull forces than operate in ecosystems of all kinds ;the forces that create resilience. 
Why our approach works is because it respects  and works within the miracle of cooperation, the challenges of competition , death and ageing  and is not determined by the dead weight of museum like specimens of nature  and the domination , deterministic rulings and legislation that polys use to try and control things .
The dumbing down systems we see in Sitch's  sketches show many know nothing about risk , real life decision making  but , like our politics , they  run on a changing diet of totally unaccountable speculation.  The people involved make speculation but  don't make decisions ; let alone decisions  that work - sustainable ones . The weeks work goes from one frozen process to another ( What a great analogy that fridge fascination makes ) 

We must insist ( Melbourne was the most livable city once)  that planning works ;  That the things we throw out on the street can be recycled to be even better  than they were . that decisions for you and the neighbourhood can be made , first up and first place,  that use design with nature ( a risk place ) and therefore  work . 

Its only by minimizing the use of the law that we can stave off more unproductive rounds of ignorance power speculation and fear when real risk is involved and is quite normal a consideration in The Provinces (watch George Washington 84 ) where we work. 

The wider public must , while enjoying the drama, recognize the danger of everybody in the audience ( cities parliament and TV ) putting their little bit of knowledge and speculation in--- Too many Voices in no proper order is just NOISE ,.

It's because of noise and good intention (and  great ignorance and inexperience ) that we have courts often ignoring and "gazumping" the voice of those who know enough to make sound risk management decisions .
It's because the attempt to plan is made inside the house and boardroom and not out in the paddock that it doesn't work . Go with Sitch and ditch  most of the paperwork and the nimbyism and learn how to avoid being overloaded by crap  ! ( clearly they have no idea in either party on how to do that) 

Our society must ditch some of the processes that allow people who don't know enough and can't bring themselves to make decisions now survive and even thrive  . Make people make decisions and avoid hiding in the paperwork , diversionary speculation and non integration of issues . 

I am not going to tell all here because politicians are smart enough to name things,   but stupid enough to stuff the right process up if they are not led well --to not follow through and MAKE the answers work . It will be misplaced concrete all over again .. 

Make the job easy
Give the task of sound decision making back to experienced on ground risk management persons and they will make sound decisions where precision in decision will reign ( not fear and wild speculation) and the whole truth can bring rest  ---Earth Doctors 

The current drama maybe fun to watch, but its deeply exhausting .  If our governments keep wasting money in courts of casual speculation , people in the real world will stop taking risks and go elsewhere to work , think and create good jobs for children . Gambling prevents good investment for the future , especially if governments gamble with our money and their own half baked ignorance and arrogance. 

I write this because it's our children's future  we are threatening , By not showing enough care with the  integration of science , practice and faith ( not sentimentality ) , our surgery will bleed the patient to death  and our cushions will only support the already weak .
 Sound work in science and planning is the future .Help us make it happen .   

The real limits of the mind are often only seen when humans are threatened

Battery power is overated,, but you can't say so 

I am a baby boomer, and most of us still like to think things can only get better ;
After all, we have been the richest and most well off generation in history. 
We know this, if we are honest , because we know our grandchildren are not likely to be.
There are many causes,  but our guilt ( we have not done enough to create good work for all our children ) is blinding us to the costly cul de sacs ahead ; and the real reasons for our lack of real resilience . 

Our blindness doesn't stop our children worshiping the same God - the god of automatic progress. They call us dinosaurs,  but they throw things out old things too easily too! 
No longer do we look to God,  but we look to what NEW things are on sale .   Batteries will now save us?   Technology won't help us  if we don't stick at the study of circuits and connections and do that properly. We will think we can charge our cars on the way to everywhere.    

It's 9th November 2022 and Westerners are deeply threatened by things we do but which will have to change.( This means many are not thinking straight and are very vulnerable to quick fixers, which now include our very own broadcasting service. Media services have as much talk of new solutions (nice )as they do of NEWS ( not always nice)

PRECISION IN DECISION 
I put the current quick fix targets pushed by the ABC down to lack of experience and complete lack of precision; Precision is something you have to have if you are going to DO something and not NOT just talk about things. Technique or new Technology
Example :While the new ideas in Landline are appealing to many, wise producers know many of their ideas are NOT solutions and one would be unwise to buy in to most of them. 
Hypocritically,  the ABC does not employ scientist's with experience and YET arrogantly wants to be taken seriously . Ask me and I will give you many examples.

Batteries have their place but , let me tell you, they are not going to mow the extensive grass in our backyards . It will be obvious next year when sales of fuel mowers increases. 
There is nothing prophetic about getting the story half rightor assumming the light shines out of new products . 
If I give half baked advice to farmers they can easily go broke .
The ABC are guilty of shoddy workmanship --They do what salesmen do, and only sell the name. 

BACK TO BATTERIES and their place 
You see I am not against ion technology ( part of my work is to study ions and low voltage activity) just against thinking its the answer to energy ( it will not be ) or sound resource use .How do i know ?  
Keep using you battery powered lawnmower,  if you must  but please don't think its going to cut it when it comes to sequestration , power saving and the heavy lifting that is required to keep our economies alive .   
Study the situation on earth properly and you will see there are many alternatives to the growing cost of fossil fuels . Please resist the panic merchants who almost seem to retain power by their precautionary parenting pedantry on OUR ? behalf .
Many politicians of our day are happy to let us feel overly threatened , just like in the past . There is one leader who suggests " don't worry "  when you hear those sorts of reporters . This bloke  didn't advocate carelessness but rather close engagement. 

On 8th November ABCTV told us  ( by a veritable host of salesmen , students and UN upstarts ) that if we didn't do things in a certain way, we would be left behind and the world would go to hell. ABC insist we listen to their selection of solutions even though they have , like our leaders, no idea.
 Until their  desk collection includes people with experience they will insist on setting agendas rather than keeping all kinds of opinions ( to all sorts of unknowns) open to the public.  

I was deeply offended ( not for myself because I know the physics and the sustainable basis for a productive change) but for the now common  fanatical madness of putting ones hope in ONE Man-made solution that simply cannot do the job of substitution;    

Batteries  .

Plants can make alkanes ( much denser fuel that batteries will ever have ) more efficiently than any of the complex systems we have invented.  we must accept limits .
And this battery fixation comes because the ABC have an unreal and unreasonable faith that science will quite soon come up with 'better " when down to earth  practicing scientists know  sound science takes time , scarcity creates massive cost and no ion miracles are on the horizon ,  Their idealistic and unrealistic faith is going to cost us the earth". 
And as for paying ourselves to have cheaper gas -   another mere puff of wind!

It makes no sense to cut off carbon chain supply just because many people abuse it,  yet that's the ONLY thing these blind saviors are really offering in practice . Its cutting off our noses to spite our faces.

Because the wannabes don't really understand the issues, they offer only one and only solution each week . Because they exploit the guilt and fear of men(  in the same position as them and with the same guilt and fear about their actions ), their method relies on slight of hand , denial of scientific and realistic  limitations and uses misanthropy and fear to drive the fanatical mood amongst men . 
We will see how long the low watt throng around the meagrest of machines will last . 

Read more about other interesting and diverse ways to cut grass carbon chains than with your teeth and a blade ( eg using chemistry )

I have decided to leave this section for now as the media and society are in mad mood and can be expected to name a solution ( such as one identified here ) but not follow through on its FAIR implementation. 

As a result few westerners are thinking straight and deep leaving us ALL very vulnerable to quick fix solutions ---- like the over-promotion of battery use 

Because the threats (using up fossil fuels . excessive leverage of unsustainable investments incl energy industry, poor cost benefit of battery power and solar, ) operate in complex ways, most people are surprised to see gas prices go through the roof ; yet it was plainly going to happen.  
It's an alkane, but like so much envisioning of solutions it hasn't been see n to be one in all the simple demonizing of CHO's like coal . Such blindness is common and not easily resolved because any real solutions to our dependence on alkanes requires us to stop demonizing them ----- and start regulating their use and production.  we would rather keep pretending the future is in a new technology ( savior) 

All the good things that dams can do Series 3 of 3

 There is such a lot to say here but until our Parliaments holds a  proper inquiry into the disease of nibbyism , naysaying , consultation abuse and nit picking that now stiffles planning,  many of my words will be wasted . 
I am against careless demonising of earth excavations  , have stopped dams and planned and prosecuted new ones . I  would be the first to say water storages must be properly planned . 
Until Parliament realise that they have stuffed up the professional role of independent and widely consulting  public service advice on planning for the environment,  our great country of Australia will forever be ruled by the  noisy ,ignorant , incompetent and  predictable cynism from the Greens , Nimbys and half baked do-nothing,  fear everything nature worshipers.

Ask some questions. List some dams and we will compare notes . we can confess errors but the focus here is to honor the good decsions and encourage more of that . start thecelebration  here  and list your favourites .

Saving our roads - Soil Embankments series 2 of 3

The recent prolonged rain over many parts of eastern Australia have reminded many road users of the challenge of maintaining roads when water seeps into the foundation.



Sure,  I would be first to say every Council should be building roads with 100mm minus crusher run as it's  normally much more sustainable than using cheaper and smaller imported foundation materials. It's also true but many of our rural councils cannot afford to make the very best foundations,  having to use local soils like we all do. It's true that some rural and remote Shires( esp in NSW and QLD ) have shocking soils for road building and require much higher costs in imported materials, fabrics treatments and design.  

What Shires and agencies can do, which many have not been doing in recent decades ,  is remove grass and soil off road verges that are not steep enough to drain easily. 

Once the verges are steep enough, regular mowing , grading or other measures need to be used to prevent this growth and the predictable weakness that will develop in our road edges,

Excessive erosion  ( which I am not advocating) and runoff water quality impact from this more regular road formation grading can be resisted by better choice of verge materials and  proper table drain structures ; These are investments that pay off in less erosion,  lower maintenance and  much higher safety for road users, long term 

Dams aren't all bad First 1 of 3 posts

 We have all been ignorant and arrogant children. But having our parliament  run by those who have only ever learnt to recognize the faults of their parents are destined to repeat them .... and worse.
Having our public broadcaster (ABC) panic instead of reporting those in the know is evidence of a serious dumbing down and dominance of a  now fanatical ( losing their power ) media. 

Yes,   dams need to have bypasses that allow fish to breed upstream, and more : We are agreed on that point . Beyond that you have to think about lots more than fish and the complex business of living well and designing well in a dry place called the Savannah .
Yes,  many dams are still poorly planned ( and some quick fiz polys are as mad as ever in advocating them )but , PLEASE don't  be stupid enough to deny our grandchildren the opportunity to  plan for better dams .
Dams, for example can and do  improve water quality, prevent salinization and make flood and irrigation and proper soil management control possible .
Before you dismiss me find out how many independantly minded publicly sprited professional people still work in planning the environment. an eg 
If children never grow up or don't ever come to confession about their own ignorance,arrogance and projection of guilt onto others,  they will not learn and become tyrants in their own households ( should they be lucky enough to still be in one ) 
Take the Green ( notice i ama green )preoccupation with stopping dams .
As a soil water planner, I have worked to stop many dams,  but it's a form of modern simple minded madness to say that they are all bad.
Its a form of madness because bad as we have been in not planning them well, we can do better , We can inspire our children to help work with nature, not give into nature , all the time. You do it when you think or show some self restraint . 
All some easy being Green ever do is box up the complex into one one mad immoral box they label bad . Such shortening of a vision is childish and against all the rhetoric of science because science is about the how , not about the box label - the what .
Our deep thinking forefathers would have us focus on how we can possibly do something about the many real threats and risks in the real world . They would be aghast that many are so easily  frightened .  especially when its the fear generated by mere  inexperience and ignorance of nature -- all the difficulties we normally face in merely living are risk related and educating and training yourself in managing them is important for you and society to grow .The government and us will go broke if we let them continue to try and parent us. 

Dr Daniel Andrews will go into history as Helicoper Dan , He and his team are  the sort of suspect housemasters who thinks it's safer to put us all into prison than let us make choices. His huge incompetent committee of worry warriors will also go into history as the biggest and most mistaken group of play parents ever to rule Victoria .

Any way back to the subject of the day .

Our very wet land and huge  risk of flood damage . 


As is always appropriate in ecology - the concern below applies to one area - not everywhere .PDC  I will talk later about road embankments  and why they have failed so badly in Australia in 2022 later.


The Otways is the biggest landslide area in Australia due to highly weathered rocks and extensive marine sediments:  the greatest risk period being in our uniquely high rainfall month of October . One of the most common practical dangers of landslides is on dam and embankment walls.


Any earthen embankment over 2.5 metres in height and with a freeboard ( distance between water level and wall top ) less than a metre is at risk of wall failure. ( We saw an example this type of failure near Stroude only yesterday )


Dam outlets in large dams often need to be lowered because of grass mats growing in the outlet and subsidence in the wall itself. 

Adequate freeboard must be maintained with upper and lower bypasses to ensure the possibility of easy repair after floods . Proper engineering computations are required to ensure sound design .