Parra's big flood coming at last?

Here in Sydney we're in the middle of what could turn out to be the biggest rain event in a century. It's been raining heavily for a few days, and it's forecast to continue for at least another two. Several hundred millimetres will have been dumped. Some suburbs in the west are being evacuated.

 

My special interest is in Parramatta, and the amazing Loyalty Rd flood retention dam. I discovered it by accident a few years ago on a bushwalk. I wondered what this huge construction was doing there, straddling the tiny Darling Mills Creek.

It turned out that Darling Mills Creek, and also Toongabbie Creek , where there's a similar edifice, are not always that tiny. They are the main upper tributaries of the Parramatta River, and after big rain events they get to decide whether Parramatta, with all its new skyscrapers and alleged cultural attractions, get to be swept away downstream into Sydney Harbour or not.

It was a party atmosphere today at the Loyalty Rd retention dam! Every family and its dog (yes) turned up. And I thought I was the only one who knew about the thing. Click on the video above.

And still it hasn't overflowed. The water hasn't even got above the top of the bushwalkers' tunnel. That's when the dam starts to really earn its keep. It's never yet been required to. But I'll keep watching. One day it really will stop Parramatta ending up at Manly. Watch this space. I'll do another check on Tuesday if necessary.

 

Meanwhile, downstream in Parramatta, I checked out the site of the state government's proposed relocated Powerhouse Museum. One of the objections to the move was that the new site would be frequently underwater. Well, guess what? It's underwater today once again!

 

 

 

Any ideas, Gladys?

 

 

A Castle Hill coffee morning and the "I don't hold a hose" Prime Minister

 

What's going on here then? We were in the Castle Mall shopping centre for our Sunday morning coffee, and there was an excited crowd outside the Medical Centre. Inside was an even more excited bunch of politicians, senior health executives, and the nation's media. It was the launch (pre-launch actually) of the country's COVID-19 vaccination programme.

 

When PM Scotty-from-Marketing went on holiday in Hawaii during the bushfire crises a year ago, he used the excuse of "I don't hold a hose!" Now that there's some good news re the COVID crisis, he's definitely wanting to be in on the action. I feel an election coming on.

Here's a Reuters video. Watch for the bit where our first vaccinee inadvertently(?) gives a disrespectful gesture to them all!

Click here: YouTube/Sky News video

It's a gas! - climate activists out & about again

Today was another day of action for climate activists around the country. The schoolkids initiated it, but oldies were welcome to turn up or to organise their own events.

COVID restrictions meant there were to be no mass rallies. Lots of smaller gatherings of up to 20 were encouraged, complete with masks, sanitiser, and contact-tracing registration. 

The primary focus was the federal government's big push for a 'gas-led COVID recovery'. The fossils in charge have moved on from their previously favourite fossil fuel, coal, and now want a massive expansion of fossil gas extraction. I'm sure it's just coincidence that the panel they chose to advise them on economic recovery was heavily stacked with gas industry people! 

I used to think that gas was probably appropriate as a transition fuel along the road to 100%  renewables. You can turn it on and off quickly, and when you burn methane, it produces less greenhouse pollution than oil or coal. Trouble is, it turns out that you don't burn all of it. It's gradually come to light that fugitive emissions in extraction and handling total several percent, and unburnt methane is such a powerful greenhouse gas that it's then actually WORSE than the other fossils.

Hornsby Shire Climate Action did their bit this morning, with a spirited showing outside local federal member Julian Leeser's office. There was plenty of support from the passing motorists (and truck drivers too) on busy Pennant Hills Road, but the good Mr Leeser declined our invitation to come out and address us.

Photo courtesy Hornsby Shire Climate Action

Fuelling our climate crisis: criminal media moguls and moronic politicians

Here's what Australia's so-called national newspaper had to say yesterday on its front page about the bushfires literally burning up the country: Nothing!

Here it is, alongside a selection of international papers:

Photo courtesy of the Guardian Australia. I heartily recommend the Guardian article:
Odd one out

Take a look too at the rather fine reports about the PM's unbelievable incompetence in dealing with the fire emergency, and intransigence regarding climate change mitigation or even acknowledgement usually:
'Climate lunatics' article
'Politics has to change' article
'PR nous deserted him' article

We voted this government in again last May. They're largely uninformed, incompetent fools. They have little knowledge of, or interest in, reality or managing it. They're highly skilled only in managing perceptions. They're the government we deserve. Except it wasn't just a matter of us the voters making our choices. Those choices were 'informed' by media moguls like the one who controls most of the Australian print media. His newspapers have for years now featured daily rants about the non-existence of human-induced climate change and the evils of clean energy. Our commercial radio stations are full of horrendous 'shock jocks' spouting all the same stuff. It's surely been a criminal level of misinformation.

Voting Tony out - a visit to Ground Zero

Your correspondent loves his election campaigns. The colour, the passion, the drama. The endings aren't always happy ones though. And in just seven days time we should know how this one ends up.

What better place to visit then than the pre-poll booth at Brookvale, in the Northern Beaches electorate of Warringah, where the sitting member is one Tony Abbott. He's a former PM, a climate denier extraordinaire and an experienced fighter and survivor.




Passions are running high around here. They're traditionally rusted-on Liberal voters, but they may well be ready for a progressive change. The leading contender for liberating them from the incumbent is independent Zali Steggall, Olympic ski champion and barrister. She has impeccable conservative credentials, but is running strongly on climate action and other progressive causes.













I met Zali's proud dad. He's a former local rugby league hero.

Early polls indicate she might just do it. Stay tuned.

Canberra's jugglers and acrobats, and their fine old house

If you're a political junkie you need to visit Canberra now and again. That's where the action supposedly is. Or at least, that's where most of the political juggling and acrobatics happens.

I did New Parliament House last year, so this time it was Old Parliament House's turn. For over half a century they juggled to their heart's content there. Even made a few important decisions.

You can learn all about it as you wander around the place. It's part democracy museum, and part warm and cosy, fine and comfortable old building. There were very few other visitors when I was there. I paid my $2, and I was free to roam the corridors, the two chambers, the Prime Minister's and Speaker's offices and suites, whatever I liked. There's a nice cafe and an upmarket restaurant too, or you can hire bits of it for special events even.

Downstairs there's a nice little display of some of the year's best political cartoons, entitled 'Jugglers and Acrobats'.

Malcolm didn't show quite enough skill, it turned out!

Sydney's biggest ever climate march

Estimates of precise numbers varied, as ever, with published figures ranging from 3000 to 60,000! I was there, and I'd put it somewhere in the middle. It was definitely big though, and it was colourful, and very uplifting.

There were groups from churches, political parties, local action groups, solar power aficionados, and health professionals. There was even a small pro-nuclear group, and two (brave?) chaps whose banners just read < coal / >.  (I've no idea what that means exactly, or whether they were pro or anti coal. Note to placard writers: don't get too cryptic!)

There was music, there were speeches from some very worthy personages, and there were giant and horribly realistic versions of Tony 'King Coal' Abbott and Malcolm 'Innovate' Turnbull to scare the children.

We eventually marched from the Domain rallying place down to the Opera House, where the giant polystyrene politicians could scare the tourists too.

We'd been asked to colour code ourselves by dress choice, and march in our coloured blocks. I chose white, which was the designated colour for medicos and scientists. Several of my fellow marchers carried giant cardboard mosquitoes, signifying presumably malaria and suchlike diseases we can look forward to in a warmer Australia. 

Kerala politics

Now here's an ambitious topic! What a lot of it there is, and so many political parties, complex alliances, corruption charges, posters, marches, and demonstrations galore!

I can't claim to have got my mind around it to a very useful degree, or around Indian politics generally, but it's rather magnificent to get a glimpse of it all.

Here are a few pictures I snapped, which illustrate some of it. In recent times, Kerala's often been governed by a left wing alliance led by the Communist Party of India Marxist. When they are out of power it's been a coalition led by the good old Congress Party. The third big force in Indian politics - 'new broom' Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP - hasn't yet quite got there in Kerala, but we saw a very serious and enthusiastic march by a group of supporters, waving their new brooms and machetes rather menacingly to signal their intent to clean up the place.

Another march, pictured below, was by supporters of the incumbent Congress state government. They too looked rather joyless. They looked very convinced indeed about the seriousness of their task (to keep it unclean maybe!) or dare I suggest that they were just being paid to do it?

You'll notice there are four different brands of communist parties represented in these pictures. As I said, it's complicated. Here's Wikipedia on Kerala politics. They know it better than me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Kerala

The burnt-out bus? I'm not sure. It's on the border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. I tried to find references to it, and learned that in September last year, in response to the jailing of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for corruption, there was widespread rioting, and burning of government buildings and buses. Maybe this was one of those buses? And I just read that before her political career, she had been a film star - that's another common quirk of Indian politics.