So does anyone out there still believe global warming is a huge conspiracy? Are there still people who have their heads so far up their own asses and who like the scenery there better?
Because I'm 52, and I've spent 39 years of that in Western Australia, and I've got news for the naysayers. Keep your head right were it is. Just keep your nose out of everyone else's efforts to stem this. And yes one in particular I'm thinking of when I say that is short, has bushy eyebrows, and was our Prime Minister a few years back. Unfortunately.
Every year of the time since arriving in 1965 is there in my memory somewhere. And damned if there wasn't more rain in those memories, more time each year that vegetation remained green instead of dried up. And it wasn't the explosive kind of tinder dry we've been getting the last few years, either. Bushfires were scary when I was a kid, but they weren't the uncontrollable monsters I've seen here in WA - never mind the Black Saturday.
And this year is only the second time that I've gotten two crops of tomatoes off my plants, one lot in the "deep of winter." The only other time something like this happened was in the Northwest, where "winter" is days with temperatures dipping below 20C and an unreasonably cold winter's day is one where the mercury's approaching 14C...
I've seldom seen the weather as unsettled and uppredictable as it currently is, either. Nor have I seen as many people I respect being so concerned about the rapid acceleration of all effects of global warming. So I've made it my personal mission to grow my own food as much as possible, produce it with as little manufacturing or processing as possible, and make sure my skillsets include as much as I can fit in about animals and plants and old land lore.
I figure that if I'm wrong, the worst thing that can happen is that I get to look like an idiot to others - but an alive idiot. If I'm right, there'll be a lot of dead idiots and I'll be the one looking...
25 November, 2009
16 November, 2009
HPSUV Is Pretty Good. But.
It's admirable that more and more human-powered vehicles are coming to the public attention. (Follow the link in the article to the human-powered 4WD SUV and check out the pictures.)
I looked at the images of the pedal quad hopping rocks, getting all askew on a downhill run on a goat trail, and sliding sand dunes. First thought was NOT "Wow! What an interesting vehicle!" First thought WAS "Clever bike!"
I can't help it - I rode bikes, I know they have a certain speed range and power-speed curve that limits them to certain terrain, certain speeds, and certain athletes or couch potatoes. For me, a human powered machine is out, unless by "human powered" the designer meant "shovel a few humans you don't like into the fire box and then move Lever A to positi..." Emphysema does that to you.
But even when I was healthy and climbing 300metre antenna towers two and more times a day, I wouldn't have considered a bike to be anything remotely like a vehicle. For a start, in the Northwest where I was, a vehicle had a roof and air conditioning. And it covered between 400 and a thousand kilometres a day. Without me having to tow along a tanker of water to stay hydrated in 48C temperature days. Oh yeah and the tyres had to be made out of hardier stuff to drive over rocks and bitumen hot enough to slow cook eggs.
Looking at the action images, I had to admit they looked like fun. Except. I, like hundreds of others who will look at the pictures, will see a bike and wish there were an an engine. We're grown lazy from having the false impression that some deceased dinosaurs and trees pushing us around is a right.....
I looked at the images of the pedal quad hopping rocks, getting all askew on a downhill run on a goat trail, and sliding sand dunes. First thought was NOT "Wow! What an interesting vehicle!" First thought WAS "Clever bike!"
I can't help it - I rode bikes, I know they have a certain speed range and power-speed curve that limits them to certain terrain, certain speeds, and certain athletes or couch potatoes. For me, a human powered machine is out, unless by "human powered" the designer meant "shovel a few humans you don't like into the fire box and then move Lever A to positi..." Emphysema does that to you.
But even when I was healthy and climbing 300metre antenna towers two and more times a day, I wouldn't have considered a bike to be anything remotely like a vehicle. For a start, in the Northwest where I was, a vehicle had a roof and air conditioning. And it covered between 400 and a thousand kilometres a day. Without me having to tow along a tanker of water to stay hydrated in 48C temperature days. Oh yeah and the tyres had to be made out of hardier stuff to drive over rocks and bitumen hot enough to slow cook eggs.
Looking at the action images, I had to admit they looked like fun. Except. I, like hundreds of others who will look at the pictures, will see a bike and wish there were an an engine. We're grown lazy from having the false impression that some deceased dinosaurs and trees pushing us around is a right.....
07 November, 2009
Rabbitted Off
I drove almost 50km each way to get these two - only to get overcharged $5 each on them. The address where I picked them up turned out to be Mundijong Rural Supplies, and I was expecting to pay $15 each for them, but was charged $20 apiece. I arrived home and checked the advert they'd placed in the Quokka, and yes they have overcharged me. It's only $10 but to someone on a pension that's a fairly substantial hit, especially after splashing out on extra petrol as well. So I'm very disappointed and I'm letting you know what happened to me.
That's now on my Facebook for everyone to see. I'm just so disappointed that they would do something like that, and I really hope it makes other people think twice before buying anything from Mundijong Rural in future. I'll contact them tomorrow and see what they say. There's no way I want to drive another 90-plus km to get $10 back, so it's going to be interesting to see how the plan to resolve this. I'll keep them honest.
UPDATE:
Nope - I was told that $15 is "for the guinea pigs" and not for the rabbits. Bear in mind that the ad in the Quokka says NOTHING whatsoever about guinea pigs, only the NZ White rabbits. So she's not only dishonest in her actions, she kept lying to justify herself. Here's the ad direct off the website:
That's the entire ad, doesn't look like there's much in there that could be mistaken for "$20 per rabbit, $15 per guinea pig" now does it? I hate people who do this,I hope you do too.
That's now on my Facebook for everyone to see. I'm just so disappointed that they would do something like that, and I really hope it makes other people think twice before buying anything from Mundijong Rural in future. I'll contact them tomorrow and see what they say. There's no way I want to drive another 90-plus km to get $10 back, so it's going to be interesting to see how the plan to resolve this. I'll keep them honest.
UPDATE:
Nope - I was told that $15 is "for the guinea pigs" and not for the rabbits. Bear in mind that the ad in the Quokka says NOTHING whatsoever about guinea pigs, only the NZ White rabbits. So she's not only dishonest in her actions, she kept lying to justify herself. Here's the ad direct off the website:
| RABBITS (10) New Zealand white, 8 wks old $15 ea. Mndjng. 04xx-xxx-xxx |
That's the entire ad, doesn't look like there's much in there that could be mistaken for "$20 per rabbit, $15 per guinea pig" now does it? I hate people who do this,I hope you do too.
03 November, 2009
Pseudo Science, Wired Style
Quick thoughts when reading this article.
A) Since that's obviously NOT happening, (i.e. an area the size of the state of TX is NOT under intense farming just to feed the dogs and cats of the USA) you need to question the initial results that prompted the article. A study by architects, of an agricultural problem. It's easy for a few inaccurate base assumptions to multiply through the calculation chain.
B) That also presumes, I imagine, that the architects drew on their vast repository of knowledge of what goes into petfood, and extrapolated that into prime cuts of beef and lamb. The truth is that the majority of the meat that goes into petfood is the trimmings from the beautiful prime cuts that we hunt down in their styrofoam trays in supermarkets, so while meat processors may be being a bit more generous with their trimmings, it hardly adds up to the huge foodprint (which BTW is of my coinage, thank you Wired mag!) that's being claimed. If the trimmings weren't economically attractive as pet food, unscrupulous operators would find a way to recycle them as stock feed, leading to BSE, scrapie, and human Jakobs-Kreuzfeldt.
C) A lot more pet meat is supplied from culling operations. When hunters cull donkey or kangaroo numbers, that doesn't represent animals that were specifically grown to feed the ravenous pet food market, that represents a lessening of the demand on natural resources that our own meat livestock can then use. So again, there's a HUGE chunk of the pet foodprint that's proven to be actually beneficial.
D) The energy needs of the USA and the foodprint of pets are not equivalent. It's apples and oranges. I can, at need, change my pets to rabbits and chickens, and therefore gain a local food source. The same can't be said of electricity generated by a national grid. Also - I can easily change my pets over to a local food source, such as breeding rabbits and chickens to feed my cat. It would mean I have to expand my garden a bit, and find a local water source - but it's do-able, by me, without too much material needed. Solar panels on the other hand, are beyond my capabilities to manufacture. And that leads to -
E) The amount of land that needs to be covered in solar energy recovery technology isn't the whole story. If you add in the manufacture costs of the solar panels and collectors themselves, you find that the space they cover is the least of your worries... The toxins and pollution and raw materials needed eclipse the environmental effect of the land they would cover.
My readers know that I do everything in my power to be eco-friendly and save on everything and anything that I can. You know that I write pretty impassioned articles myself, pointing out where we're wasteful or messy or just plain malicious to the earth. But crap quality reporting like this, seeking a cheap sensationalist hook, just dilute the good articles.
Yes, your pets are expensive to keep. But it's also been proven that people with pets are less stressed, leading to more productive lives. More productive lives leads to better utilisation of resources, meaning you yourself don't need to use the services of a psychiatrist as often, you won't be at the doctor and consuming medications as much for stress-related illnesses, and you'll produce more in return for the food that you eat than someone who spends a month every year at home sick with SRI.
And you can switch your pet from extensivley processed and packaged pet food (which they don't really appreciate any more than raw feed) to something less processed. My two cats eat frozen kangaroo meat cubes, a small amount of tinned or pouch-sealed commercial cat food, mainly because I don't always have the 'roo meat to hand, and a handful of cat biscuits a week for dental health.
Compare and contrast my cats' one or two tins of catfood a week, one cupful of cat biscuits, and about four cupfuls of diced 'roo, against two almost identical cats eating seven tins of cat food, almost a full 1kg packet of cat biscuits, and no raw meat whatsoever. On top of that, because I keep rabbits and don't overfeed the cats, they also help themselves to the occasional mouse snack when any mice get among the rabbit feed.
Oh - and as far as "feeding America's energy needs" is concerned. Has it ever occurred to these plonkers that one might, you know, reduce one's energy needs instead?
A) Since that's obviously NOT happening, (i.e. an area the size of the state of TX is NOT under intense farming just to feed the dogs and cats of the USA) you need to question the initial results that prompted the article. A study by architects, of an agricultural problem. It's easy for a few inaccurate base assumptions to multiply through the calculation chain.
B) That also presumes, I imagine, that the architects drew on their vast repository of knowledge of what goes into petfood, and extrapolated that into prime cuts of beef and lamb. The truth is that the majority of the meat that goes into petfood is the trimmings from the beautiful prime cuts that we hunt down in their styrofoam trays in supermarkets, so while meat processors may be being a bit more generous with their trimmings, it hardly adds up to the huge foodprint (which BTW is of my coinage, thank you Wired mag!) that's being claimed. If the trimmings weren't economically attractive as pet food, unscrupulous operators would find a way to recycle them as stock feed, leading to BSE, scrapie, and human Jakobs-Kreuzfeldt.
C) A lot more pet meat is supplied from culling operations. When hunters cull donkey or kangaroo numbers, that doesn't represent animals that were specifically grown to feed the ravenous pet food market, that represents a lessening of the demand on natural resources that our own meat livestock can then use. So again, there's a HUGE chunk of the pet foodprint that's proven to be actually beneficial.
D) The energy needs of the USA and the foodprint of pets are not equivalent. It's apples and oranges. I can, at need, change my pets to rabbits and chickens, and therefore gain a local food source. The same can't be said of electricity generated by a national grid. Also - I can easily change my pets over to a local food source, such as breeding rabbits and chickens to feed my cat. It would mean I have to expand my garden a bit, and find a local water source - but it's do-able, by me, without too much material needed. Solar panels on the other hand, are beyond my capabilities to manufacture. And that leads to -
E) The amount of land that needs to be covered in solar energy recovery technology isn't the whole story. If you add in the manufacture costs of the solar panels and collectors themselves, you find that the space they cover is the least of your worries... The toxins and pollution and raw materials needed eclipse the environmental effect of the land they would cover.
My readers know that I do everything in my power to be eco-friendly and save on everything and anything that I can. You know that I write pretty impassioned articles myself, pointing out where we're wasteful or messy or just plain malicious to the earth. But crap quality reporting like this, seeking a cheap sensationalist hook, just dilute the good articles.
Yes, your pets are expensive to keep. But it's also been proven that people with pets are less stressed, leading to more productive lives. More productive lives leads to better utilisation of resources, meaning you yourself don't need to use the services of a psychiatrist as often, you won't be at the doctor and consuming medications as much for stress-related illnesses, and you'll produce more in return for the food that you eat than someone who spends a month every year at home sick with SRI.
And you can switch your pet from extensivley processed and packaged pet food (which they don't really appreciate any more than raw feed) to something less processed. My two cats eat frozen kangaroo meat cubes, a small amount of tinned or pouch-sealed commercial cat food, mainly because I don't always have the 'roo meat to hand, and a handful of cat biscuits a week for dental health.
Compare and contrast my cats' one or two tins of catfood a week, one cupful of cat biscuits, and about four cupfuls of diced 'roo, against two almost identical cats eating seven tins of cat food, almost a full 1kg packet of cat biscuits, and no raw meat whatsoever. On top of that, because I keep rabbits and don't overfeed the cats, they also help themselves to the occasional mouse snack when any mice get among the rabbit feed.
Oh - and as far as "feeding America's energy needs" is concerned. Has it ever occurred to these plonkers that one might, you know, reduce one's energy needs instead?
27 October, 2009
The Course Of Water
Bottled Water - It's a No No No No No! Okay Treehugger? No matter how you try and put lipstick on a pig, you still wouldn't take it on a date! The point is that water costs shitloads of energy to just get to a position where it can be used by the bottlers. Then it costs even more to filter (if you actually believe their bullshit that they do filter it) and then to make whatever you supply it in, fill that, seal it, print your bullshit across it, and truck it halfway around the country and refrigerate it.
The only way that they could make it right is to find some kind of natural channels... Surely there must be such a natural delivery system? Oh yeah - turns out there is - leave the effing stuff in rivers and dams, and instead of creating pollution to bottle and process it, how about instead you accept a commission from people for spending those kind of man-hours on patrolling a natural watercourse of your choice and making sure no-one pollutes it in the first place?
The only way that they could make it right is to find some kind of natural channels... Surely there must be such a natural delivery system? Oh yeah - turns out there is - leave the effing stuff in rivers and dams, and instead of creating pollution to bottle and process it, how about instead you accept a commission from people for spending those kind of man-hours on patrolling a natural watercourse of your choice and making sure no-one pollutes it in the first place?
26 October, 2009
How I Got A Free Coolroom That Runs For Free
You wanted a way to keep some of your food in a coolroom to preserve it better and save energy? But can't afford a coolroom and want one for practically free and practically free of running costs? You know what? I just may be able to help you...
Let me stress that this isn't for everyone. You may have concerns, or perhaps you don't have the space for a coolroom such as the one I'm about to describe. So let me lay out what you need:
I got a local friendly refrigeration technician to donate me a chest freezer that he was only going to have to take to the recyclers anyway, and asked him to de-gas it and identify the copper lines that went to the evaporator coil. (That's the one which is around the actual icebox and is the bit that cools the interior.) He not only identified it for me, he also kindly took out the compressor and neatly cut the copper tubes for me. That cost me a carton of the local brewery's finest, but hey! - I got a soon-to-be-very-useful coolroom out of it! (In fact, I got *two* for this price, I just haven't set up the second one yet.)
Now find the place where the feed to your buried drip irrigation system passes closest to your chosen location. (In my case, the front veranda fulfills all of these requirements.) Because I wanted to to be as environmentally conscious as possible (and where I am gets hellaciously hot in summer and is on bottomless sand where the water just seeps away to China within minutes of watering) I've made a load of compost and dug that into my vegetable garden beds, then added a low-pressure drip irrigation system and topped that off with leftover hay and straw from the rabbit cages. I feed this system from a grey-water recovery system that settles the grey water in a small tank on the ground and then pumps it up a few meters to the head tank. That gives enough flow for my garden, and it's all pretty much free water.
Anyhow - that water in the head tank stays fairly cool due to its large volume (200 liters) and location in the shade of some mature trees. And if you use a similar system (or perhaps a water bore with pressure reducer) or your irrigation system has a pressure reducer on it, then that's what you use. Find the line after the timer, solenoid, and pressure reducer, and cut the line. Put two right angle connectors on, and run two new hoses (preferably buried so it will stay cool) to your freezer.
Attach them to the copper tubes your technician pointed out, and then run your irrigation system and check for leaks around your new connections (and also under the freezer in case there *was* some leak in the evaporator coil) and check that running the water for an hour or so does indeed cool the inside of the freezer significantly.
That's it. There's not much to say about this. It may develop a leak due to corrosion one day - but old unloved chest freezers are a dime a dozen, and I'll have extended its lifespan by however many years it lasts. It works extremely well, because the cooling arrangements in a freezer are designed to transfer as much heat out of the icebox as possible. Be that into a refrigerant gas or water, doesn't matter.
So that is it - I've left the side panel off so you can see that the compressor is gone, and one of the hoses is attached to the copper down there. Unfortunately for me, the leak in this freezer was on the other copper pipe and I had to open up some of the lagging to get to it.
My next project will involve my evaporative cooler and the second freezer. See, the water in an evaporative cooler gets quite cooled by going around the cooling pads, and then sits there doing nothing else except go around again. So instead of pumping it to the cooling pads direct, I intend to redirect it through the second freezer first. I should get almost refrigerator-like cooling inside it, and since I'm running the evap cooler daily anyway, it will again be essentially for free. In winter, one will need only run the water pump, and cold air and breeze will supply what little cooling this second coolroom will need. And those small pumps cost less than a lightbulb to run... In fact, this project may well involve some 12V pumps and my lighting solar panel...
Visit The Body Friendly Zen Cookbook and help support my work!
Let me stress that this isn't for everyone. You may have concerns, or perhaps you don't have the space for a coolroom such as the one I'm about to describe. So let me lay out what you need:
- You need an old chest freezer in which the compressor has died, but which still has an intact evaporator. (If the chest freezer was trashed for leaks in the coils, forget it. It will have to hold water...)
- You need either an evaporative cooler that you use daily during summer, or a buried low pressure drip irrigation system on a timer (or that you use for an hour or two every day,) and preferably, one that runs on recycled grey water and rainwater, not on your town water mains supply.
- You need a spot outside which is conveniently handy to the kitchen, has day-round shade, and big enough to put your chest freezer.
I got a local friendly refrigeration technician to donate me a chest freezer that he was only going to have to take to the recyclers anyway, and asked him to de-gas it and identify the copper lines that went to the evaporator coil. (That's the one which is around the actual icebox and is the bit that cools the interior.) He not only identified it for me, he also kindly took out the compressor and neatly cut the copper tubes for me. That cost me a carton of the local brewery's finest, but hey! - I got a soon-to-be-very-useful coolroom out of it! (In fact, I got *two* for this price, I just haven't set up the second one yet.)
Now find the place where the feed to your buried drip irrigation system passes closest to your chosen location. (In my case, the front veranda fulfills all of these requirements.) Because I wanted to to be as environmentally conscious as possible (and where I am gets hellaciously hot in summer and is on bottomless sand where the water just seeps away to China within minutes of watering) I've made a load of compost and dug that into my vegetable garden beds, then added a low-pressure drip irrigation system and topped that off with leftover hay and straw from the rabbit cages. I feed this system from a grey-water recovery system that settles the grey water in a small tank on the ground and then pumps it up a few meters to the head tank. That gives enough flow for my garden, and it's all pretty much free water.
Anyhow - that water in the head tank stays fairly cool due to its large volume (200 liters) and location in the shade of some mature trees. And if you use a similar system (or perhaps a water bore with pressure reducer) or your irrigation system has a pressure reducer on it, then that's what you use. Find the line after the timer, solenoid, and pressure reducer, and cut the line. Put two right angle connectors on, and run two new hoses (preferably buried so it will stay cool) to your freezer.
Attach them to the copper tubes your technician pointed out, and then run your irrigation system and check for leaks around your new connections (and also under the freezer in case there *was* some leak in the evaporator coil) and check that running the water for an hour or so does indeed cool the inside of the freezer significantly.
That's it. There's not much to say about this. It may develop a leak due to corrosion one day - but old unloved chest freezers are a dime a dozen, and I'll have extended its lifespan by however many years it lasts. It works extremely well, because the cooling arrangements in a freezer are designed to transfer as much heat out of the icebox as possible. Be that into a refrigerant gas or water, doesn't matter.
Adapting from the thinnish copper tubing to your reticulation system is up to each individual situation. That's why there isn't a huge instructable, just all these vague holistic suggestions... I got clear tubing and adaptors at my local hardware, and just fitted it as best I could. It's important that you make sure there are no leaks!
Also of course, using that clear tubing ensures I'll never be tempted to put full water mains pressure on the system. It was a deliberate choice, because once you attach something like this to water mains, there's every possibility that you'll cost yourself a fortune in water, and of course also there's a huge environmental cost to town water, so why not use whatever you can recycle locally?
You'll also see that there is a second set of condenser tubes in there which I've just left - they don't go anywhere near the icebox itself and aren't needed. Also you'll see how I had to open up a section of the back of this freezer to get above the leaking section of copper tubing for one side of my water circuit, normally this would also come out in the compressor compartment.
It keeps a remarkably cool temperature inside, provided you run your water during the heat of the day. That's why I suggested a drip irrigation system, because these are best run around the hottest time - being buried, it doesn't damage the plants and in fact provides them with the water at the time they need it most - when the sun is driving their sap around at maximum rate. And that's also the time your coolroom will need the most help resisting the outside heat. It's a win/win situation...
You'll also see that there is a second set of condenser tubes in there which I've just left - they don't go anywhere near the icebox itself and aren't needed. Also you'll see how I had to open up a section of the back of this freezer to get above the leaking section of copper tubing for one side of my water circuit, normally this would also come out in the compressor compartment.
It keeps a remarkably cool temperature inside, provided you run your water during the heat of the day. That's why I suggested a drip irrigation system, because these are best run around the hottest time - being buried, it doesn't damage the plants and in fact provides them with the water at the time they need it most - when the sun is driving their sap around at maximum rate. And that's also the time your coolroom will need the most help resisting the outside heat. It's a win/win situation...
My next project will involve my evaporative cooler and the second freezer. See, the water in an evaporative cooler gets quite cooled by going around the cooling pads, and then sits there doing nothing else except go around again. So instead of pumping it to the cooling pads direct, I intend to redirect it through the second freezer first. I should get almost refrigerator-like cooling inside it, and since I'm running the evap cooler daily anyway, it will again be essentially for free. In winter, one will need only run the water pump, and cold air and breeze will supply what little cooling this second coolroom will need. And those small pumps cost less than a lightbulb to run... In fact, this project may well involve some 12V pumps and my lighting solar panel...
How To Save Hundreds A Year On Refrigeration.
If you're like me, you care about your carbon and pollution footprint. And you find articles like this one I found, which deals with using your freezer to do more, a Godsend. One little-known thing is to be found at the bottom of that article - by using an external thermostat which you plug into the wall and then plug your freezer into, you can have refrigerator temperatures at about 1/10th of the cost of running a refrigerator. It's a simple trick, but there are two gotchas with it which that article doesn't point out explicitly:
One - the external thermostat will cycle the freezer more often, in shorter bursts. I'm not sure if it will hurt, but it may reduce the life of the freezer from ten years to six or seven - someone with more fridgie tech knowledge than myself might care to comment and correct me.
Two - if you use a vertical freezer, all those bets are off. This 10% figure is for top-opening chest freezers only. The reason it won't help with a vertical is the same reason your fridge is so inefficient - when you open the door, ALL the cold air falls out. In a chest freezer on the other hand, the cold air can't fall out and you generally only disturb the top few inches of cold air.
Now to a more vexing question in refrigeration and food - I have a fridge that has "temperature zones" designed into it to provide me space for vegetables, pickles, and so forth. But each zone is small, and I like a lot of fresh vegetables. No help here, they are confined to the crisper section, and subject to temperature fluctuations every time I open the door.
The chest freezer with the external thermostat is the answer here - you can be sure the temperatures will stay very stable at the bottom, and fluctuate a lot less than any zone in a refrigerator near the top layers. It's inconvenient, of course, to lift things out of the way when using a "freezerator", and there still aren't many areas of distinct temperature for vegetables.
So I've come up with a solution. This will not work for you if you don't have a shaded area outside, and at least a drip or buried irrigation system. And I'll explain how you can have a "mini-coolroom" that is effectively free, and operates for free. Stay tuned to the following few articles!
One - the external thermostat will cycle the freezer more often, in shorter bursts. I'm not sure if it will hurt, but it may reduce the life of the freezer from ten years to six or seven - someone with more fridgie tech knowledge than myself might care to comment and correct me.
Two - if you use a vertical freezer, all those bets are off. This 10% figure is for top-opening chest freezers only. The reason it won't help with a vertical is the same reason your fridge is so inefficient - when you open the door, ALL the cold air falls out. In a chest freezer on the other hand, the cold air can't fall out and you generally only disturb the top few inches of cold air.
Now to a more vexing question in refrigeration and food - I have a fridge that has "temperature zones" designed into it to provide me space for vegetables, pickles, and so forth. But each zone is small, and I like a lot of fresh vegetables. No help here, they are confined to the crisper section, and subject to temperature fluctuations every time I open the door.
The chest freezer with the external thermostat is the answer here - you can be sure the temperatures will stay very stable at the bottom, and fluctuate a lot less than any zone in a refrigerator near the top layers. It's inconvenient, of course, to lift things out of the way when using a "freezerator", and there still aren't many areas of distinct temperature for vegetables.
So I've come up with a solution. This will not work for you if you don't have a shaded area outside, and at least a drip or buried irrigation system. And I'll explain how you can have a "mini-coolroom" that is effectively free, and operates for free. Stay tuned to the following few articles!
20 October, 2009
A Cup Of Water, Bunch Of Coral, And A Few Mistakes
It's not just bad maths, it's terrible maths. It's how to make a genuinely important message seem suss and slightly wacky.
I'm talking about the report that this story is about. I picked up the discrepancy right away - maybe I've got some warped sense of logic and economics but it stood out right away. Even more so, the headline is pure bullshit, too.
What am I talking about? Well, money is like energy, matter, and the ecology. There's a certain amount to go around, no matter how you try and stretch and squeeze it, there's a certain amount of value and that's it. So the report that's at the heart of the story is kind of wrong. Some of the value of reefs is in tourist dollars, that will be gone from the reef tourism scene but it doesn't mean the money will vanish in a puff of smoke - it will just be spent elsewhere.
And some of the value of the reefs is in fish that will have to be replaced by food from another source. But again, either you go out and catch fish at whatever that costs in materials and energy and so forth, or you pay money for someone else to spend that kind of materials energy and etc, in some other place.
Protecting coastlines? Yes, that will mean that coastlines will erode in places, but in other places there will be deposition of material, too. It's a loss to humankind and many animals and fish that depend on it, but to the Earth it's just a change.
And as for the headline, that is just a reporter who didn't work things out before reaching for the keyboard - $172bn will not be "sucked out of the economy" - it will only move from reefs and businesses surrounding the reefs to other areas and businesses.
Think of wealth (==money) as water. Now think of the Earth as a big closed bucket full of water. Now take "$172bn" worth of water from one edge of the bucket to another spot. Did the water magically get "sucked out of the economy?" Of course not. There's so much water before, and the same amount afterwards.
Boo Treehugger for making such an erroneous headline, too.
I'm talking about the report that this story is about. I picked up the discrepancy right away - maybe I've got some warped sense of logic and economics but it stood out right away. Even more so, the headline is pure bullshit, too.
What am I talking about? Well, money is like energy, matter, and the ecology. There's a certain amount to go around, no matter how you try and stretch and squeeze it, there's a certain amount of value and that's it. So the report that's at the heart of the story is kind of wrong. Some of the value of reefs is in tourist dollars, that will be gone from the reef tourism scene but it doesn't mean the money will vanish in a puff of smoke - it will just be spent elsewhere.
And some of the value of the reefs is in fish that will have to be replaced by food from another source. But again, either you go out and catch fish at whatever that costs in materials and energy and so forth, or you pay money for someone else to spend that kind of materials energy and etc, in some other place.
Protecting coastlines? Yes, that will mean that coastlines will erode in places, but in other places there will be deposition of material, too. It's a loss to humankind and many animals and fish that depend on it, but to the Earth it's just a change.
And as for the headline, that is just a reporter who didn't work things out before reaching for the keyboard - $172bn will not be "sucked out of the economy" - it will only move from reefs and businesses surrounding the reefs to other areas and businesses.
Think of wealth (==money) as water. Now think of the Earth as a big closed bucket full of water. Now take "$172bn" worth of water from one edge of the bucket to another spot. Did the water magically get "sucked out of the economy?" Of course not. There's so much water before, and the same amount afterwards.
Boo Treehugger for making such an erroneous headline, too.
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