No room for a view

Posted to The Age (14/5/2012) on 14/5/2012 at 3:53 AM, 3:57 AM
Commenting on "No room for a view"
http://theage.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/no-room-for-a-view-20120513-1ykr8.html

Those people choose to live in high rise should have the commonsense to realise that their apartments are not the only one around. Melbourne is slow to adopt overseas trend of high rise in the CBD, and there is no excuse for those city dwellers not to take heed of examples in Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.

While many current high rise buildings may be green by design, they are definitely not green in the larger scheme of thing. They are the culprits which make CBD a concrete jungle, contribute towards the wind tunnel effect, shield off sunlight essential for human in the form of Vitamin D, increase flooding due to lack of open “soil” area to absorb rain water, and increase green house gases due to lack of trees and other vegetation.

The higher floor may command better view, if there is not another high rise around to block it, the quality of air may not be as good. As warm air rises, it carries with it other polluting suspension. The fresh air from the open windows may not be that “fresh” after all. Many buildings have passages which receive no sunlight, and fresh air, which means electrical equipments and electricity are needed to provide artificial lighting and recirculate the air 24 hours a day.

Some living in apartments especially on the higher floors may have the misconception that there is not a need to install curtain or opaque blind - they are wrong. When lights are turned on inside the apartment, the other apartment dwellers across facing the windows can see clearly what’s going on inside the building. Privacy may be compromised.

Before buying an apartment, why not leasing one for a year to check out the pros and cons. Landlord pays the management fees and rates, which can amount to couple of years of coffee supply.

Voters want election on carbon tax - Part 2

Posted to Adelaide Now (6/6/2011) on 6/6/2011 at 11:50 PM
Commenting on "Voters want election on carbon tax as poll finds a majority expect to be worse off"
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/voters-wants-election-on-carbon-tax-as-poll-finds-a-majority-expect-to-be-worse-off/story-e6frea6u-1226069714958

The carbon (dioxide) emission per capita of Australia is and will always be much greater than China and India because of our small pollution. To explain this, let us look at a household of 1 and another of 5. Both need only a refrigerator to keep food fresh or a washing machine to wash clothing. The household of 5 uses the same amount of electricity for the appliances and therefore "polluting" the planet with the same amount of greenhouse gas. Now, a hall with 1 occupant or 100 occupants requires the same number of lights to be turned on for a performance; and an electrified train carrying 1 passenger or 500 passengers consumes about the same amount electricity to commute between Melbourne and Sydney.

There are times when no consumers are involved and yet the waste has to be shared by the population. A lot of power is lost in transmitting electricity from the power stations to hundreds of kilometres of nothingness before populated towns or cities. A lot of energy is required to get rid of the sewer travelling great length of pipes to filtration plant. When we talk about power and energy, we really mean electricity which operates the equipment to make these things happen.

These examples explain the concept of economy of scale and illustrate the principle of fixed and variable costs. So long if we continue to live in a cocoon and not to increase our population, Australia will always be more expensive to live in and the greenhouse gas emission will be a lot higher than more populated countries. Population of USA is about 13.7 times of Australia's, and China is 59 times of Australia's.

I hope those people argue about our excessive greenhouse emission per capita will have a better understanding and hopefully conduct more meaning debate in the future.

Make carbon tax hurt, Julia Gillard advised

Posted to The Australian (23/5/2011) on 23/5/2011 at 1:28 AM (Not published)
Commenting on “Make carbon tax hurt, Julia Gillard advised”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/make-carbon-tax-hurt-julia-gillard-advised/story-fn59niix-1226060716218

I challenge Julia Gillard and all those climate scientists to give me an answer to this very simple question - where does the excess heat from the Sun that is not used up each day go to? This is so fundamental and yet these idiots can only come up with the most ridiculous argument that the heat is trapped by greenhouse gases which melt the ice.

The culprit causing global warming is the Sun, and greenhouse gases play an insignificant role in aggravating the process. Even without greenhouse gases, heat absorbed at the lower atmosphere level and by the oceans cannot dissipate fast enough to the almost-freezing upper atmosphere, unless the Earth rotation is slowed down so as to increase the duration of night for more heat to escape.

The melting ice cannot be reversed unless Earth’s temperature drops to sub-zero, which means the Earth has to experience another Ice Age. In short, Julia Gillard and the idiotic scientists expect us to freeze to death so that new icebergs can be formed again. During the new Ice Age, no one is allowed to turn on heaters, because that will increase the air temperature!

Increasing taxes set off a chain reaction in increasing prices of other consumer goods, utilities and other commodities. We can expect more closures of factories and even education institutions, increase in bankruptcies, unemployment, life-style stress, mental illness, homelessness and social unrest. What is the point of having a clean planet if ordinary people cannot enjoy, or in the worst case, without any human around to enjoy?

Julia Gillard must be the love child of Pinocchio and the big bad red-hair wolf which ate Red Riding Hood’s grandma!