John Tennock's Blog

3 August 2013 6:18pm

Another very mild sparkling day with the promise of a cold, clear starry night. We made and early start this morning, digging the trench around the garden plot before the day became too hot. Good progress made before cleaning up to attend a monthly community meeting. We haven't had much opportunity to participate in these over the years because we have spent so little time on site. We hope that an extended stay will allow us to be more actively involved in these discussions and other activities like working bees.

As the community membership has stabilised the meetings have become more civil the they often were in the early days. One reason for the change seems to be the increased number of women and families. There was a good turn-up and worthwhile discussion and decision making. Several new members were ratified, the conclusion of quite a long process these days.

By the time broke up it was close to lunchtime so it was back to our site for a delicious chicken lunch and a glass of red wine. Our neighbour returned from a morning surfing and, spotting us relaxing, came over to join us. It took a few more glasses of red before we had finished sharing our respective morning experiences. Apparently Crescent Head is one of the top surfing beaches on the east cost of Australia. The neighbourly chat ended with a trial run on his recumbent tricycle - quite an experience!

What was left of the afternoon was spent fitting some new kitchen shelves, briefly interrupted by a visit from another neighbour inviting us to his son's birthday party tomorrow.

It's quite a new experience having all these friendly neighbours. When we first stayed on our block the valley we are in, known as "The Bowl", was empty and we were the only occupants. Now it is more like an estate of acreage lifestyle blocks.

4 August 2013 8:50pm
I spent the morning digging another third of the 48metre perimeter trench around the garden plot to bury corrugated iron, on edge, as the bottom portion of a bandicoot-proof fence. I should finish it tomorrow.

Our neighbours have a son with Down's syndrome and we have spent the afternoon at their place celebrating his 42nd birthday. Most of the community turned up and it was a very  convivial occasion.

It has been interesting to experience the social environment here now that we have made a longer term commitment to being here and are no longer regarded as visitors. In fact, we are among the long term members of the cooperative, having taken up our share fairly soon after it was formed over 10 years ago. It's just that we have not previously stayed for much more than a week or so at a time, and often with periods of over a year between visits. The members who attended todays gathering were a range of ages, backgrounds and family situations. The thing they all seem to have in common is an unwillingness or inability to participate in 'main-stream', competitive, career oriented, consumption-driven society. Some have extraordinary social or creative skills, others could be regarded as significantly disabled. However, it seems that we can all come together socially with an attitude of tolerance and co-operation.

1 August 2013 6:43an

This the first day of our proposed three-months of 'off-grid' community living.

Just returned from 15 minute (each way) walk to communal toilet. Not a bad morning constitutional which I expect will have significant health benefits. Nevertheless, we will be putting a fairly high priority on commissioning the 'wheelie bin' composting toilets we have been storing for several years. The communal toilet is a commercially available composting system that was required, along with a water tank and camp-kitchen, as part of the 'primitive campsite' permit that was required for the cooperative to get started. No doubt this discussion  about 'black water' management will be a significant part of our experience here.

We usually make it a two-day trip to get here and arrive in daylight but with the trailer full of stuff we have brought this time we decided to make it in onbe day, so it was dark when we arrived. Our little cabin is wired for 12 volts and, fortunately a friend had loaded us a 50 A/H 12 volt gell-cell battery so we quickly had light (This is 'off-grid' living?).

Just made a cuppa using our butane powered camp-stove, and breakfast will be on the way soon. Cooking arranegements will evolve.

2 August 2013 07:03am
The first rays of sun are peering through the trees. I have just returned from my morning constitutional with the sun colouring the eastern horizon, the dips a valleys in the bush wraithed in mist and the morning chorus of birds filling the air. Responding to the calls of nature takes on a whole new meaning in this environment. Even going outside to relieve myself in the middle of the night is a breathtaking experience on these dark moonless nights and the only light as a million brilliant stars.

Most of yesterday was spent unpacking and setting up, including some new intrastructure like a TV antenna that allows us to watch TV on the lap-top computer (very low power consumption). The camp kettle has been commissions so most of our water boiling can be done with the abundant twigs and we have erected our hexagonal, mosquito-screened 'yurt' as a social/creative space.

Anne has been busy organising all our 'stuff' inside our tiny 3m x 3m house, has marked out a garden plot and built a brick fireplace to allow some outside cooking and reduce our use of gas as much as possible.

2 August 2013 12:31pm
We spent most of this morning measuring up for our proposed house extensions (a 3 metre wide verandah around 3 sides), and marking out a plot for growing stuff where is can be protected from kangaroos and bandicoots. Looks like we will finish upo with a fenced plot about 8.5m x 15.5 metres with corrugated iron set into the the ground to prevent the varmints from digging underneath. We have been accumulating corrugated iron and fencing wire for a few years and havle almost enough to do the job. Anne grilled a lovely steak on the brick stove she has built.

Greg Sheridan makes a good argument to support his assertion that "Australia should buy or lease a fleet of nuclear power submarines to replace the calamitous Collins-class boats nearing the end of their working lives." (Weekend Australian July 23-24).

There is no doubt that Australia's defence situation is unique and it may be that a clear headed, long term analysis would lead to the conclusion that nuclear is the only fuel that can satisfy the requirements for Australia's submarine fleet.

Instead Sheridan jumps to "It is the only non-greenhouse as emitting alternative base load energy supply available". Alternative base load energy supply has nothing to do with the special case that might be argued for nuclear submarines.

It has long been the case that mining lobby groups have trotted out the 'base-load' argument 'the sun doesn't shine at night' to oppose development of energy supplies based on renewable sources. This argument seems so obviously true that most people simply accept it without question. But it is not true!

The truth is that, in Australia, we are uniquely positioned to satisfy our base load energy requirements from renewable sources using currently available technology. The base load argument for nuclear power is no longer supportable.

What prompts Sheridan to declare that: "Unless you are a Greens/Taliban fundamentalist trying to de-indistrialise the west, you are not serious about climate change if you oppose nuclear energy"? The proposals that are currently on offer to power Australia entirely from renewables using concentrated solar with storage (CSS) are a huge industrial undertaking requiring sophisticated manufacturing.

It is more likely that our ability to undertake such a project might be hampered by the the abandonment of our manufacturing industries in favour of simply digging stuff out of the ground.

Check these out for starters:
Beyond Zero Emissions
Redflow Advanced Energy Storage

When I talk to people about climate change it sometimes becomes obvious that they find it incomprehensible that human activity could make any significant difference to our  climate. They are simply unaware of the potency of the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Here are some simple scientific facts that made the light come on for me.

If it wasn't for the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere the average surface temperature of planet earth would be a permanent, very cold, MINUS 17 degrees instead of the comfortable PLUS 15 degrees we currently enjoy.

Greenhouse gases, mostly water vapour, comprise only about 1% of our atmosphere. That means that just 1% of our atmosphere makes a difference of 32 degrees. The other 99% makes no contribution at all.

Carbon Dioxide comprises only 0.038% of our atmosphere, (that's the '380 parts per million' we keep hearing about). But CO2 contributes between 9% and 26% of the greenhouse effect that keeps us comfortable. That's potent!


Methane is even more potent with an almost unmeasurably small trace contributing between 4% and 9% of the greenhouse effect.


Quick Summary


Proportions Atmospeheric Gases






Contribution to Greenhouse Effect

Currently reading Steven Weber's book 'The Success of Open Source'

Weber investigates how and why a system that, by our current conventions shouldn't work, works so spectacularly. His exploration says a lot about new ways to think about ownership, collaboration, intellectual property.

In the chapter 'The Code That Changed The World', this quote:

For international politics, the demonstration of large-scale nonhierarchical cooperation is always important; when it emerges in a leading economic sector that disregards national boundaries, the implications are potentially large. And that is the minimum case. If the open source process is a more generalisable production process that can and will spread, under conditions that I lay out as hypotheses, then the implications will be bigger still.  

We do need some new ways for thinking and this points to some.

On Wednesday evening 27 October we attended the Brisbane Launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan.

The consequences of our increasing CO2 emissions is a concern we have been monitoring for some years and it was encouraging to finally see such a well developed plan presented to an enthusiastic audience of around 800 at the convention centre.

The detailed and fully costed plan provides a road map for Australia to move to zero carbon emissions by 2020 using proven technology that is already in use elsewhere.

Premier Anna Bligh addressed the meeting, but was unwilling to make any serious commitment to pursuing or even seriously investigating the plan, attempting to bounce the issue back to the authors demanding that they do more work to come up with a reduced cost model. The trouble with this response is it ignores the related question of the high cost of inaction. It is simply a stalling tactic while we dig more coal out of the ground.

Premier Bligh asserted the government's support for the need to reduce carbon emissions, but suggested that 'the public' were not ready yet. That is a pretty difficult position to maintain in the face of 800 smart, well informed supporters of the plan. She also spoke of the enthusiasm with which the public were taking up photovoltaics under government incentives. Not ready yet?

The Premier did not mention the Cloncurry Solar Thermal Power Station which was reported in November 2007 as follows:

The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, yesterday announced the north-west Queensland town had been chosen as the site for a "groundbreaking" 10-megawatt plant that will use 8000 mirrors to reflect sunlight onto graphite blocks.

...but then in August 2010, in the Courier Mail:

Cloncurry in the state's northwest was meant to be the centrepiece of a radical $30 million plan to use solar energy to heat water and generate electricity, cutting carbon emissions and reliance on diesel – and eventually taking the town off the grid.

But The Courier-Mail can reveal that three years after its launch, instead of a forest of 8000 mirrors the project consists only of four test panels and a fake tower behind a locked gate.

Does anyone seriously think public interest in clean energy has waned between 2007 and 2010. I am seeing a rapidly increasing level of interest.

It is also interesting to compare images of the present state of the Cloncurry project...


With Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) projects in other locations with a similar solar energy profile to much of Queensland...
You obtain a copy of the plan on the Beyond Zero Emissions web-site. Choices are to download a synopsis or the full plan for free, or purchase a bound copy on-line.

The Century of the Self - BBC Documentary from 2002 by Adam Curtis

I'm surprised that I hadn't spotted this before, given that it's been around since 2002.
Very thought provoking in our increasingly consumption driven society.

Four episodes...

1.Happiness Machines

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

2. The Engineering of Consent

The programme explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses.

Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again they set out to find ways to control this hidden enemy within the human mind.

3. There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed

In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas in America. They were inspired by the ideas of Wilhelm Reich, a pupil of Freud's, who had turned against him and was hated by the Freud family. He believed that the inner self did not need to be repressed and controlled. It should be encouraged to express itself.

4. Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

This episode explains how politicians on the left, in both Britain and America, turned to the techniques developed by business to read and fulfil the inner desires of the self.

Both New Labour, under Tony Blair, and the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group, which had been invented by psychoanalysts, in order to regain power. They set out to mould their policies to people's inner desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learnt to do with products.

Downloadable here http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12642.htm