I do have something to say about the sustainability of the Olympics but first, some other points of note.
They were an impressively organised games. However, with 1.3 billion people to chose from, and the ability to threaten people into doing as they are told, we never expected anything less than what we got.
With $20 billion lavished on the games they will probably be the most expensive games ever, for the foreseeable future, with inflation taken into account. Of course, the London 2012 games will not match the Beijing Olympics. Every penny spent on an Olympics in a "democratic" nation has to be justified.
Essentially, China was spending our western dollars, pounds and euros on their games. China has built a huge sovereign wealth fund from the rubbish we buy from Chinese factories. In the west, we print money rather than make it and hope that sometime in the future our descendants will find a way of paying back the debt. Fat chance of that ever happening.
The 2008 Olympics represented the last epic Olympics. We won't see anything like that again. In future, it will be the athletes themselves that will make any games epic, and quite rightly so. Even a future China won't be able to host a games like that when the IOC gets round to offering the games to Shanghai or whichever other Chinese city starts bidding for 2016 onwards.
Have the Olympics changed China? I doubt it. Pre-games promises were reneged upon. There were protest parks but nobody was allowed into them. Visiting pro-Tibetan demonstrators from outside China were detained and released only after the closing ceremony. Liu Xiang's injury was kept secret to stop the Chinese population from losing interest in the games.
No, it is business as usual. China needs to hoover up the world's resources to feed 1.3 billion people who saw a modern China depicted during the games and want to live the lifestyle that wealthy Chinese business persons and entertainers live.
Of course, there is no way that the 1.3 billion of China will be able to live like the average European, least of all North American. The Beijing games represented the high water mark of sustainability. A final blow-out. Okay China, we see you. Be a little more wise with the next $20 billion.
We all have to be careful now. The London 2012 Olympics will cost only $9 billion. There will be no government bail out. There is not enough oil in the North Sea to splurge on showing off. There are few UK factories pumping out the right kind of consumer junk to provide enough corporation tax.
China came top of the medals table. The biggest team with the biggest budget. That in itself is a message of doom. Where are the table topping USSR and East Germany now? Style over substance. Communist countries always bankrupt themselves trying to prove they are right and others are wrong.
Apologies to my parents
Apparently, sorting your recyclables is as hard as completing a Sudoku puzzle. No wonder I see my parents putting tetra packs in with newspapers, plastic wrappers in with plastic milk bottles and tablet blister packs in with tin cans.
For my parents, things are either plastic, metal or paper and if something does not fit into one of those three categories then it goes into whichever pile comes closest to resembling whatever they wish to throw away.
I know that a tetra pack contains aluminium and can't be recycled like cardboard but for parents who grew in the days of glass bottles and waxed paper wrappers things are a lot more complicated.
Daily Telegraph - Recycling is as hard as completing Sudoku
For my parents, things are either plastic, metal or paper and if something does not fit into one of those three categories then it goes into whichever pile comes closest to resembling whatever they wish to throw away.
I know that a tetra pack contains aluminium and can't be recycled like cardboard but for parents who grew in the days of glass bottles and waxed paper wrappers things are a lot more complicated.
Daily Telegraph - Recycling is as hard as completing Sudoku
Prince Charles is right, you know
Often lampooned in the media, Prince Charles was heard on television attacking the genetic modification of crops. The prince was not just talking against GM food but about the whole system of food production; air miles, eating food out of season and redirecting food crops to fuel producers.
Prince Charles's estate has long produced organic foods and the prince himself is often made fun of as a tree hugger. However, the prince is correct in all that he says, and that the nation should concentrate upon food security instead of producing the most food per hectare regardless of the environmental and health cost.
Also in the news, is a report that the seas around the UK are being starved of oxygen. Feeding ourselves will be all the harder, if our coasts are barren. The world as a whole has seen a doubling of these dead zones every decade since the 1960s.
Another report tells us of a beetle from China that can destroy our trees. This beetle is the latest in a long line of invasive species that have been transplanted across the globe. We have already seen plagues of rabbits and cane toads in Australia, and the ecological disasters caused by this, as there are no natural predators to keep invasive species in check. A globalised economy brings with it the globalisation of pests and disease.
The amount of damage we humans are doing to our habitat is surely storing up a huge disaster for ourselves.
Guardian - Royal but essentially right
Daily Telegraph - Ocean dead zones free of oxygen double every decade
Daily Telegraph - Destructive Chinese beetle arrives in UK
Prince Charles's estate has long produced organic foods and the prince himself is often made fun of as a tree hugger. However, the prince is correct in all that he says, and that the nation should concentrate upon food security instead of producing the most food per hectare regardless of the environmental and health cost.
Also in the news, is a report that the seas around the UK are being starved of oxygen. Feeding ourselves will be all the harder, if our coasts are barren. The world as a whole has seen a doubling of these dead zones every decade since the 1960s.
Another report tells us of a beetle from China that can destroy our trees. This beetle is the latest in a long line of invasive species that have been transplanted across the globe. We have already seen plagues of rabbits and cane toads in Australia, and the ecological disasters caused by this, as there are no natural predators to keep invasive species in check. A globalised economy brings with it the globalisation of pests and disease.
The amount of damage we humans are doing to our habitat is surely storing up a huge disaster for ourselves.
Guardian - Royal but essentially right
Daily Telegraph - Ocean dead zones free of oxygen double every decade
Daily Telegraph - Destructive Chinese beetle arrives in UK
Do you waste energy when you eat?
Most people in developed countries do not stop to think about how their food got to their table. It is a sad fact that most food we eat has had more energy used in its production than we get out of eating it.
The average active male adult should eat about 2500 calories per day and 2000 for a woman. However, most of the food we eat has had ten calories lavished upon it for every one calorie we consume. That is to say, the average male will have eaten food that used 25,000 calories in its production.
Imagine our hunter gatherer ancestors using ten times the energy given to them by trapping animals and gathering wild fruit and vegetables. They would have died of starvation on day one.
In the last hundred years we have had the aid of oil and gas to build machines to do the work of horses, produce fertilisers and pesticides and to transport food across the globe. In so doing we have wasted energy and grown our population to an unsustainable level.
Oil and gas supplies are in decline. Solar, wind and nuclear energy cannot make fertilisers to replenish our depleted soils. Nothing does all that oil dies and so now find ourselves on the edge of a precipice.
Mankind has always depended on ever increasing amounts of energy. Every new technological innovation requires yet more energy. Only now we find ourselves struggling to find more energy. Even wind turbines need oil to build them, transport them to their place of use and to lubricate them during their lifetime. Building solar cells is energy intensive. Nuclear power stations cost more to decommission than the money received from selling the electricity they generate.
In physics we use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to analyse energy cycles. For example, we can debunk any advertisement promising to run your car on water simply by connecting your car's battery to electrodes in a water container. And yet we don't think about the energy imbalance of our wasteful lifestyles.
Mankind's success is its downfall. The more successful we become the more successful we need to be to sustain ourselves. A starving Ethiopian family with 10 children is not such a drain on the Earth's resources as a western family with 10 children. And the meek shall inherit the Earth, after the rest of us have ravaged it.
BBC - Feeling the heat of food security
The average active male adult should eat about 2500 calories per day and 2000 for a woman. However, most of the food we eat has had ten calories lavished upon it for every one calorie we consume. That is to say, the average male will have eaten food that used 25,000 calories in its production.
Imagine our hunter gatherer ancestors using ten times the energy given to them by trapping animals and gathering wild fruit and vegetables. They would have died of starvation on day one.
In the last hundred years we have had the aid of oil and gas to build machines to do the work of horses, produce fertilisers and pesticides and to transport food across the globe. In so doing we have wasted energy and grown our population to an unsustainable level.
Oil and gas supplies are in decline. Solar, wind and nuclear energy cannot make fertilisers to replenish our depleted soils. Nothing does all that oil dies and so now find ourselves on the edge of a precipice.
Mankind has always depended on ever increasing amounts of energy. Every new technological innovation requires yet more energy. Only now we find ourselves struggling to find more energy. Even wind turbines need oil to build them, transport them to their place of use and to lubricate them during their lifetime. Building solar cells is energy intensive. Nuclear power stations cost more to decommission than the money received from selling the electricity they generate.
In physics we use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to analyse energy cycles. For example, we can debunk any advertisement promising to run your car on water simply by connecting your car's battery to electrodes in a water container. And yet we don't think about the energy imbalance of our wasteful lifestyles.
Mankind's success is its downfall. The more successful we become the more successful we need to be to sustain ourselves. A starving Ethiopian family with 10 children is not such a drain on the Earth's resources as a western family with 10 children. And the meek shall inherit the Earth, after the rest of us have ravaged it.
BBC - Feeling the heat of food security
Fewer air flights being taken
Last month I voiced my opposition to a third runway at Heathrow airport. Not for any tree hugging reasons but simply because I surmised their would be fewer flights. Well, that is precisely what has happened with 60 million fewer seats to fly for the rest of this year.
Higher oil prices, leading to more expensive aviation fuel, has lead to an increase in the price of air tickets. The increase in oil prices knocks on to the price of almost everything in our oil dependent world, thus people have less money to spend on flights.
Now, if we can do away with subsidised state airlines and aviation fuel then the true price of aviation will hopefully put an end to (tree hugging time) this wasted resource. Airlines have their place but only on long hauls and not for short hops that can be taken by electric trains.
Guardian - Airline industry axes 60m seats
Higher oil prices, leading to more expensive aviation fuel, has lead to an increase in the price of air tickets. The increase in oil prices knocks on to the price of almost everything in our oil dependent world, thus people have less money to spend on flights.
Now, if we can do away with subsidised state airlines and aviation fuel then the true price of aviation will hopefully put an end to (tree hugging time) this wasted resource. Airlines have their place but only on long hauls and not for short hops that can be taken by electric trains.
Guardian - Airline industry axes 60m seats
Idiots on both sides of the fence
I have previously reported the building of a new 'clean coal' power plant at Kingsnorth in Kent. At present, protesters and police are fighting pitched battles near the future construction site.
Here we can see two extremes. On the one hand we see protesters against the burning of coal, no matter what is done to make the process clean. Personally, I believe that if we have coal then we should get on and use it. There are gasification technologies to scrub the worst pollutants out of coal burning. I use gasification when burning wood, as can be seen on my other website, Wood Gas.
If we don't burn the coal then you can be sure a few hundred dirty Chinese power stations will. I would prefer the coal was burnt here where we have the technology to burn the coal cleanly. Also, burning our coal here will ensure that our population and industry benefits from our coal reserves. The protesters want all of our electricity generated by renewable sources with no coal, oil or nuclear power stations. Sorry, but that just isn't possible.
On the other side of the divide we have the police who, day by day, appear more to be protecting the desires of the business and political élite than ordinary people like you and me. As usual, the police use anti-terror legislation to break up demonstrations by people who are obviously not Muslim.
How convenient that radical Islam should present our leaders with excuses to prevent us from protesting. Why weren't these laws enacted during the troubles in Ireland or any number of other conflicts prior to the 1970s? During weak minded moments you could imagine a conspiracy. A concocted Muslim outrage allows a government to get the people on the side of new terror laws. Only for those laws to be used against the people.
The reason is probably that our leaders know what is ahead. We are already seeing food and fuel crises. Our leaders are probably fearful of the future. On the one hand they support big business without reservation. After all, our politicians are in it for the money so they need big business as much as big business needs greedy politicians. If big business wants a cheap coal powered power station to make more money for the government then coal it is.
On the other hand, the government needs to hedge against failure. If we are past the peak of oil production and can't find a replacement for all that oil does then life is going to get tough for all of us.
Creating new laws under the guise of anti-terror legislation gives the government the ability to crack down on us when the shops are empty and the fuel pumps run dry. As I have mentioned previously, the country has thousands upon thousands of CCTV cameras and yet only 3% of crime is detected with them.
With anti-terror laws that prevent you from going to sensitive areas, CCTV cameras keeping an eye on you everywhere else and laws preventing you from demonstrating effectively, life is not as free as some like to think. We complain that the Olympics went to China but Chinese people are not free. How free were we to try and stop the parading of the Olympic torch through our so-called democratic country?
It's okay for those who just want to sit in front of the television and eat processed food all day long. However, the future might have intermittent power supply when the wind stops blowing and after we sank everything into wind turbines. Maybe the world population will be too great to feed or we prefer to put all our food into our car's engine instead. Then the pizza eating telly addicts will be out on the streets protesting. Only it will be too late by then.
BBC - Police and eco-protesters clash
Guardian - Dirty tactics to defend a dirty industry
E.ON UK - Kingsnorth
Here we can see two extremes. On the one hand we see protesters against the burning of coal, no matter what is done to make the process clean. Personally, I believe that if we have coal then we should get on and use it. There are gasification technologies to scrub the worst pollutants out of coal burning. I use gasification when burning wood, as can be seen on my other website, Wood Gas.
If we don't burn the coal then you can be sure a few hundred dirty Chinese power stations will. I would prefer the coal was burnt here where we have the technology to burn the coal cleanly. Also, burning our coal here will ensure that our population and industry benefits from our coal reserves. The protesters want all of our electricity generated by renewable sources with no coal, oil or nuclear power stations. Sorry, but that just isn't possible.
On the other side of the divide we have the police who, day by day, appear more to be protecting the desires of the business and political élite than ordinary people like you and me. As usual, the police use anti-terror legislation to break up demonstrations by people who are obviously not Muslim.
How convenient that radical Islam should present our leaders with excuses to prevent us from protesting. Why weren't these laws enacted during the troubles in Ireland or any number of other conflicts prior to the 1970s? During weak minded moments you could imagine a conspiracy. A concocted Muslim outrage allows a government to get the people on the side of new terror laws. Only for those laws to be used against the people.
The reason is probably that our leaders know what is ahead. We are already seeing food and fuel crises. Our leaders are probably fearful of the future. On the one hand they support big business without reservation. After all, our politicians are in it for the money so they need big business as much as big business needs greedy politicians. If big business wants a cheap coal powered power station to make more money for the government then coal it is.
On the other hand, the government needs to hedge against failure. If we are past the peak of oil production and can't find a replacement for all that oil does then life is going to get tough for all of us.
Creating new laws under the guise of anti-terror legislation gives the government the ability to crack down on us when the shops are empty and the fuel pumps run dry. As I have mentioned previously, the country has thousands upon thousands of CCTV cameras and yet only 3% of crime is detected with them.
With anti-terror laws that prevent you from going to sensitive areas, CCTV cameras keeping an eye on you everywhere else and laws preventing you from demonstrating effectively, life is not as free as some like to think. We complain that the Olympics went to China but Chinese people are not free. How free were we to try and stop the parading of the Olympic torch through our so-called democratic country?
It's okay for those who just want to sit in front of the television and eat processed food all day long. However, the future might have intermittent power supply when the wind stops blowing and after we sank everything into wind turbines. Maybe the world population will be too great to feed or we prefer to put all our food into our car's engine instead. Then the pizza eating telly addicts will be out on the streets protesting. Only it will be too late by then.
BBC - Police and eco-protesters clash
Guardian - Dirty tactics to defend a dirty industry
E.ON UK - Kingsnorth
Thank you all for 100,000 page views
Today marks a new milestone for this blog, 100,000 page views. Not hits but actual pages viewed. A page may yield 10 hits, one for the html and nine images upon it but a page view means a person has taken the time to read a page on my blog.
I thank you all for reading my posts and contributing with your valuable comments.
I thank you all for reading my posts and contributing with your valuable comments.
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