Roody

Australia experiencing more extreme heat, high fire danger days, says the latest State of the Climate report

Machka 

Sorry, but I and many others, are not convinced about the veracity of articles like that for various reasons which I won't get into here (P&R).

The truth of the matter is that Australia has been going through cycles of drought followed by a few years of rain for centuries. The early settlers recognised that cycle early on and started putting measures in place to adapt to it.


The misinformation that makes its way across to North America is astounding sometimes. At least they got Perth in the right place ... unlike the coverage of the Missing Malaysia Airplane.

American network NBC publishes map showing the whole of Australia is on fire. Oops | News.com.au

phoebeisis

Machka
Teg -OK Arty is mollified- no PETD call.
You have Been to Louisiana-not in the deep summer I hope? Our spring/fall soooo nice- summer pretty humid
Granted we aren't anywhere near as hot as inland Australia-which seems to be Las Vegas hot(miserable unlivable place in summer)

No surprise Rowan knows his Australia.
We-USA-E-INS always assume most places are "like us" so figured "your aquifer" like our Ogal. which I would mis-spell
I found some study-your monster aquifer-sure enough it recharges with rainfall
Our big one-has very slow recharge rates- In N Texas as low as 0.6mm a year flows in -In places in Kansas as much as 6-8mm recharge per year.
Since in general we are withdrawing it MUCH MUCH faster than the recharge rate-it is dropping-100+ feet in places

Your aquifer-refills or can refill much much faster-maybe 1/4 rainfall total makes it to it-crazy fast in places 200mm/yr-in sandy areas-no clay-very fast.
Oh the below-a cut from "some article" showing just how "different" Australia is-
Your floods-dropped the ocean according to this!

Rain - in effect, evaporated ocean - fell in such colossal quantities during the Australian floods in 2010 and 2011 that the world's sea levels actually dropped by as much as 7mm.

Rainwater normally runs swiftly off continental mountain ranges, pours down rivers, collects in aquifers and lakes and then winds across floodplains into the sea. But Australia, as any Australian will proudly claim, is different.

Rain that falls in the outback of the largest island - also the smallest continent - tends to dribble away into inland waterways and seemingly get lost, without ever making it to the coast, or to collect in shallow inland seas and stay there till it evaporates.

"It is a beautiful illustration of how complicated our climate system is", says John Fasullo, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research. "The smallest continent in the world can affect sea level worldwide. Its influence is so strong that it can temporarily overcome the background trend of rising sea levels that we see with climate change."


Oh-apology to OP-but water-water use etc-central to cities suburbs countries-

We baby boomers were fascinated by Australia-
Everyone ignore below unless you were fascinated by Australia

Boomerangs -were typical late 1950'S CHRISTMAS presents-no kidding!( my buddy got one-my dad "too damn dangerous"BB *** same story.)
Rocket Rod Laver,Evonne Goolagong-
all those too damn fast swimmers(took us a while to develop better PED programs to beat them)
that HUGE ROCK-
beautiful beaches with FREAKIN SHARK NETS-who swims where you need s damn shark net!??-
Barrier Reef-
Sundowners-
Mad Max Movies-
On The Beach- downer movie
Neville Schutte Town Like Alice(not much to do with Australia-but made you wonder)
-Man From Snowy River-
The Tom Selleck *****man movie- he blasts kills bad guy saves aborigines of course
The Right Stuff , dig-er-e-do playing NASA radar station in Australia outback -night sky filled with stars
Gallipoli- Brits getting Aussies and NZ killed
Edmond Hillary( we see NZ as a pretty island suburb of Australia-no kidding we do)-
Kangeroos and those cute Koalas
Hoards of TOADS??
Hoards of Rabbits??
Those damn poisonous snakes-waaay too many
Crocodiles freshwater crocs BIGGER than our freshwater crocs(FLA has a few left)-saltwater crocs too I think.
Bells Beach??-mentioned in the surfing bank robber movie-Keanu Reeves-BIGGEST SURFING WAVES IN WORLD-

Old "racist" but typical of the time 1950's claim that "Aborigines were so primitive the they didn't know enough to get out of the rain"-
yeah I read that in a book-about 1960-
even then- kid in rural south- it didn't make much sense?? hot as hell so little rain-why get out of the rain??
but I distinctly remember reading it in some book-as an indication of their primitive nature/culture-
maybe to a Brit or European in a cold rainy climate it "rang true "

Guessing it was the WW2 connection that made USA-E-INS sooo fascinated by Australia

I-Like-To-Bike

Nowadays stimulating misinformation and bad, as well as crackpot, ideas can be disseminated world-wide in close to real time in a keystroke, and then "discussed" as if they were legitimate. Ain't the Internet grand?

dynodonn 

This thread has catastrophically derailed, gone into the river, and sank. Time for it to have a P&R address.

I-Like-To-Bike

Heck, this train-wreck thread never was on anything but the P&R railroad from the get-go; never had any bicycling or living carfree content and was political and economic P&R ranting before it left the station.

Maybe there should be a sticky thread for LCF posters to post P&R chitchat that comes to mind regardless of its OT content (sorta like the "Pub 51" thread in the 50+ list.)

I suggest the title for a sticky dedicated to LCF brand P&R content should be: "Hey You, Get Off Your Lawn!"

dynodonn 

At least the initial post made a somewhat attempt to facilitate ideas on furthering car free living, but this thread has finally degenerated into a multinational name calling/fervor quagmire.

I-Like-To-Bike

Hardly; the OP and following "discussion" was all about anti-"sprawl" however the posters dream of defining it. Not car free living, not bicycles; only P&R ranting about evil sprawl, and the evil people who build it or choose to live in this vaguely defined evil landscape.

At least the Australian/New Orleans geography lessons seemed to be based on some sort of reality.

Roody

I thought the topic was very interesting. Sprawl is caused by highways and cars, and makes carfree living very difficult in many areas. Therefore, the topic is of enormous importance to many carfree cyclists.

wolfchild

Getting back on topic:... You guys can argue and debate all you want about cities vs suburbs and about what a proper way to live is for a car-free person. Not all suburbs are bad.. I love my suburbs, I lived here for 26 years and I feel very comfortable living here. When I first moved here in 1988 our population was at 425 000 , now it's at almost 800 000, it's become a lot more dense then it was before.. I live in a good location where everything is within a short distance, as long as you have a job here, then it's very easy to live car-free in my area.. Even with all the "condo boom" and other developments, we still have enough ravines and wooded areas and if I wanted I could camouflage and hide and nobody would even know where I am...I can go fishing for salmon in late summer and I've also seen some huge snapping turtles in one of our local rivers, there is enough wildlife and edible wild plants that I could live off the land if I wanted to.

dynodonn 

I felt the same way until the thread degenerated...... sprawl tends to make many cites poor in walkability ratings, and favors infrastructure designs that cater towards motorized vehicle usage.

wolfchild

Over here we have as many miles of well maintained sidewalks as we have roads. If somebody doesn't want to use those sidewalks, then that's their problem, nobody is forcing anybody to drive everywhere.

Machka 

We were there in November 2012, for your Thanksgiving. It was quite nice then.


I have swam where there were shark nets and jelly fish nets. It's kind of funny up in Queensland ... there are so many signs on the beaches. If the sharks don't get you the octopus will ... if the octopus don't get you the crocs will ... if the crocs don't get you the jelly fish will ... if the jelly fish don't get you the coconuts falling from the palm trees will ...

I've also been out to the Great Barrier Reef and would love to go again. Beautiful!!

And Bells Beach ... my first encounter with Bellls Beach was on a simple, little Randonnee. I forget the distance off-hand, but I think it was just 150 km. It was early in the season, I was still recovering from DVT, and wasn't in the greatest shape. The first part of the ride was quite nice, and then we started coming along to Bells Beach ... and I was not prepared for the hills. The hills in that area are not too long (less than 1 km), but they are steep ... and I was off and walking. We DNF'd the ride because we lost so much time on those hills. But the area around there is beautiful ... Torquay, Barwon Heads, Ocean Grove ... we bought our tandem in Ocean Grove and made a weekend of it.


And the rain ... I spent a month cycling in Queensland one December (hot, hot time of year), and I remember getting into the campground after one particular hot day's ride ... and it started to rain, just a short tropical rain. It was like relief was pouring from the sky. I stood in it, and splashed in the puddles, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

wolfchild

It almost sounds as if living in Australia is more of a danger and health hazard, then riding a bicycle in car-centric American suburbs.

Roody

Nobody said anything about suburbs being bad. It was posted many times, by myself and others, that sprawl and suburbs are two different things.

The issue is not suburbs vs. city. It's sprawl vs. countryside--farms and wild areas. Sprawl is the biggest threat to wildlife and habitat, things you seem to value.

Roody

Some people are still talking about sprawl, while a couple others have been exchanging long posts about other topics that should have been posted on a different thread or as private messages. These thread derailments are tolerated on this loosely moderated forum, so we have to do our best to work around them. I think this disruptive spam is the Internet version of sprawl!

dynodonn 

This form a derailment would have been quickly squashed on A&S, yet there hasn't been a single warning shot fired, by the mods, across the LCF bow so far.

dynodonn 

My locale has many well maintained sidewalks as well, with sprawl..it's usually the increased distance between destinations that tends to make people not use the sidewalks, and directly or indirectly forcing people to use motorized transport.

Roody

OTOH, threads don't usually get this long without derailing. The mods should probably just lock it down.

wolfchild

Of course I value nature and wildlife and I am glad that efforts are being made to preserve some of it for future generations. But I also value strong economy and good strong job market. With human population increasing so rapidly it's only natural that there will be urban sprawl. I've seen a lot of local farmland disappear and getting converted to housing subdivisions, factories , schools and other developments. Urban sprawl is just a by-product of human population growth. Where are people supposed to go and live ??...Urban sprawl in North America is very tame and mild compared to the ugliness of sprawl and shantytowns in some third world countries.. we're lucky.

Roody

I don't think we need to sprawl in order to have a strong economy, a growing population, and good conservation of wilderness and farmland. It would take a bit of planning and organization, but sprawl is not necessary to growth and prosperity. In fact, sprawl, by inefficiently using time and resources, actually removes value from the useful economy.

I see over and over that some people believe that sprawl and suburbs are the same thing. They are not! Sprawl refers mainly to a pattern of development that is linear, decentralized, and that leap frogs instead of evolving in an orderly fashion. Not all suburbs follow that pattern. As Machka and others have demonstrated, there are many spacious and charming suburbs that don't follow the sprawl pattern.

phoebeisis

Thanksgiving-sorta late fall can be very nice here-our fall and our spring-soooo nice since there is still plenty of sunlight and the temperatures are near perfect

Like you mention-a nice rain after a hard hot day-feels sooo good
the odd claim typical of the time 1950's claim that "Aborigines were so primitive the they didn't know enough to get out of the rain"-
struck me as odd waaaay back when i was a kid-1960's-in a hot climate of course.
HAND TO GOD I didn't make that odd claim up-in was in some somewhat learned "publication" said by "someone other than George Wallace"
Doubt it was an actual academic-but i will hunt it down because this discussion brought it to mind.

And the Australia "sidebar" was not too far afield-since Australia developed "differently" in respect to what folks here call sprawl
DESPITE being "a lot like the USA" and being affluent and somewhat car crazy.

And WATER -always belongs in any discussion of cities/suburbs/transportation.

So the SHARK NETS are there-with plenty of SIGNS!! Yeah if we in the USA thought we needed shark nets-the nannie GOV folks and the lawyers would cause the beaches to be closed.(and JAWS scared us spit-less-yeah actually scared us-we believe what we see on TV and in movies)

Were you kidding about the octopus??? I am perfectly willing to believe you have killer octopus-what with the sharks nasty snakes horrible jellyfish-hoards of toads/rabbits tiny wild dogs(hard to believe you could have hoards of rabbits with lots of wild dogs around-guessing maybe "someone" shot most of the dogs(sheep ranchers??)

So you actually went to Bell's Beach(we USA-E-INS learn and believe everything we see on TV) -In the movie it showed the FBI agen(Keanu reeves) climbing down to the beach long sets of stairs-so hilly seems right. Always wondered if they actually paid the $$ to film at Bell's Beach-8000 mile flight from LA-

Yeah my generation was/is fascinated by Australia like no other country/continent.

RPK79

cooker

Our sprawl looks much nicer than a shanty town, but it's a hundred times more wasteful of farmland. How much food could be grown under the interchange of the 410 and 401? You don't see those dozens or hundreds of hectares of paving and sculpted berms and gravel shoulders around shantytowns. And each shack takes up a footprint of maybe 100 square feet, not 1000 like a suburban Canadian home, or much more counting the driveway, lawn and the street in front.

Machka 

It's hard to capture the steepness of the hills in a photograph, but this is one of the hills near Bells Beach, with a bit of Bells Beach and the ocean behind ...




And these are some of the beaches in that area ... Toquay, Barwon Heads, etc.



It's a beautiful area.