Rain!!!

What is that sound? That's right it's that now very unfamilar yet comforting sound of rain on a tin roof. I'm sitting here in my living room in Melbourne and it is actually raining. Now this wouldn't be such a big deal of course if it wasn't for the fact that it just hasn't really rained since I moved here, until last week that was...We had a massive downpour on Friday night/Saturday morning and now more rain today and it's starting to feel like Wellington - sorry couldn't resist that dig.

It's amazing what a little rain can do for a dry and parched place. Suddenly things are growing again, the grass has a green tinge again and maybe just maybe the water storage will increase this week for the first time in ages. Rain, hate it or love it you know you can't live without it...

Righting the wrongs

Well I hate to sound like a stuck record, but yet again I am shocked to read another disgraceful editorial written in another engineering periodical. Yes, it was once again claiming that global warming is fictitious and invented by scientists to gather more funding for their research. This article contained not one single piece of evidence to back any of the authors tired and unresearched rhetoric. This is an article filled with lots of assertions and frequent use of 'single quotes' with comments such as the 'make guilty' lobby. If I wasn't so annoyed by the nerve of this guy I probably would have found the whole thing rather humorous. Naturally, he wasn't content with denying global warming, he also couldn't resist the chance to have a dig at renewable energy. All I can say is that it is lucky that people like him don't have much of an influence in the world or else we would probably still all be in the stone age for fear of trying something new, or improving our lot. So for any engineers who may still read engineering T&D magazine, I encourage you to show your disgust by asking for your organization to boycott this magazine.

Okay, on with more enjoyable and less serious matters. My parents have just left Melbourne after spending an enjoyable week with Asia and I. Last weekend we took them on three day trips over a long weekend. Firstly, down the Great Ocean Road to Apollo Bay, then to the Dandenong ranges for a bush walk and then for some wine tasting and a great meal in the Yarra Valley. The Great Ocean Road lived up to its reputation as being one of the premier ocean drives in the world, with some pretty spectacular scenery. Although, I must say that as a New Zealander who is pretty spoilt for scenery it was perhaps not as spectacular as I was expecting. Perhaps the biggest thrill of the whole journey was spotting a group of Koalas in gum trees on the side of the road. I have never seen them in the wild before so that was a bit of a treat.

Superb news in Melbourne today, it has been raining good and proper since yesterday evening. So far we have had 23 mm, which is pretty impressive for a 24 hour period considering what we have had lately. It's to early to say the drought has broken, but hopefully it's a sign of things to come.

Okay, well we have more visitors this weekend, Hamish and Liana, friends of ours from Wellington, so I better stop being anti-social. Ciao.

A dying land

It was in the news yesterday that the Thomson dam, Melbourne's main water storage facility that provides for over 60% of the cities drinking water, has dropped to a level of 20% full for the first time in its 24 year history. This for the dam that was supposedly drought proof when constructed. It just goes to show that politicians usually have no clue when it comes to talking about anything vaguely technical. The problem therein lies, that the general public looks to these politicians for advice on such matters as to whether we have enough water and how are we going to solve the problem. This is yet another example of the folly of the thinking that we have conquered nature as a species. We must not forget that we are still just the tiniest pin prick in natures eye. One thing is for certain, that although we are destroying the planet at an evermore alarming rate - once we are gone and this seems more of a certainty perhaps this century than any before it, nature will recover and the universe will scarcely even notice that once there was a species homo-sapiens who lived on a small beautiful blue world in a remote corner of a far galaxy...

This brings me back to my main story I guess and the inspiration for this post. I now realise, more truly than ever before, what an amazingly lush and beautiful country New Zealand is. Seeing the scorched and burnt countryside of Australia makes my heart bleed and I can't help but feel that this is a dying country. This drought will break though, and I only hope that global warming will not prevent the land from having time to recover before the next one hits.

I must say I am deeply disappointed with much of the engineering profession, who have by in large to this date, chosen to pretend that global warming is non-existent, or at the very minimum due to natural causes alone. The IPPC a bunch of internationally respected scientists has gone to all lengths to remove uncertainty from their most recent forecasts, so much so that the biggest 'devil' that climate change apologists and deniers used to rely on, the variation in solar radiation, has now been proven to have at most only 1/10 the effect of the anthropogenic emissions of CO2. It baffles me that engineers have turned their back on global warming in such a way. Engineers are doers, creators and problem solvers and more than ever before are the foundation of modern industrialised society. It strikes me as bizarre that so many of us would revolt to such a degree to ignore the greatest challenge of our time. Engineers used to be so linked to the science and scientists from which ultimately their profession was born. Now we have chosen to ignore them in perhaps our greatest showing of arrogance.

Despite the doom and gloom, I remain optimistic - I think you have to in these times. I believe that the majority of the world, will recognise the symptoms of our planet that are mounting up and becoming more obvious by the year - widespread glacial and ice melting, more frequent droughts and more intense cyclones to name a few. We will be forced to modify our lifestyles and their will be breakthroughs that will help us to overcome the global warming problem. Engineers can, must and will play a fundamental role in helping the world to solve this problem.

Halfmoon bay and others

Well time flies when you are having fun and before you know it's been a couple of weeks and you haven't posted on your blog. We did go to Halfmoon Bay a couple of weeks ago and it is a really great beach, nice golden sand, clear clean and slightly chilly water, which given that it was 38 degrees was much appreciated. I also managed to get stung by a jellyfish, nothing serious just a bit a pain in the shoulder and a renewed fear of creatures of the deep.

I also got a bout of food poisoning of some description a week and a bit ago which laid me low for a few days with a fever etc. On top of that I had to travel to Perth during the week and give some training. Giving training when you are 100% healthy is tiring enough, when you are feeling slightly crook it is nigh on torture. Nonetheless I survived and I'm traveling back there again this week.

Yesterday we booked or tickets to Greece for Nick and Georgia's wedding in July. We are going for two weeks, so it should be a really good chance for a holiday as well as going to the wedding. It will be peak tourist season (thanks for the expensive flights Nick :)) while we are there so there should be plenty of stuff happening.

Okay I leave you with some pictures of the beach...