First of all…
I’ve heard from Peter C regarding the business plan for next year’s proposed raffle. He has told me that it’s not quite ready yet but will circulate it soon. I agree with him working on it for an extra week because there’s no point in him circulating something that isn’t as good as he can make it.
I have not heard from Anthony J regarding the minutes from the AGM so I have not circulated them either. I’ll send them around by email as soon as I have a digital copy of the minutes from the secretary.
Due to the high cost of the Darwin Lectures, we’ve decided that we’ll have regular meeting after all on November 24. If anybody has a suggestion for a guest speaker for that meeting please let me know ASAP.
I'm pretty sure we need a board meeting, so could all board members please prepare to stay behind this evening?
November dates to note…
Tom B has a birthday on November 28
David W and Kathy have their 28th wedding anniversary on November 28
David L’s wife Maree has a birthday on November 29
Peter C and Vicki have their 23rd wedding anniversary on November 29
Arthur C and Hilary have their 36th wedding anniversary on November 30
Last week’s meeting (November 3, 2009)...
We had as apologies Rob B, David N, and Pres Adam (so I, your ever-faithful Past Pres, sat in the head chair).
As our club guests, we had Sally back again as well as our guest speaker, Ash Bland. I mentioned in last week’s blog that sitting next to Ash at dinner is a great place to be and he certainly did not disappoint me. He’s as interesting to chat to on-on-one as he is as a guest speaker.
Arthur C gave us a quick update about the “Ties Around the Mount” project for prostate cancer awareness. He let us know that the collection of enough ties to get all the way around Mount Panorama is going well and also gave us some insight into the logistics of stringing that many ties out end to end. The date has been set as (Thursday) February 11 so any Rotarians able to free up some time on that date would be greatly appreciated… it’s going to take a lot of hands to get all of those ties out!
Peter C gave us an update on the progress or the raffle he’s proposing for next year. While he reports that he’s got the support of the incoming DG, Bathurst East has declined to help. Pete says he’s drawing up a formal business plan and will send it to me to be circulated as soon as it’s ready.
After David L cleaned us out of any change, bills, watches, rings, property deeds, gold dental fillings, and anything else that might be of any value in the sergeant’s session, Andrew C welcomed Ash for his presentation. His presentation was particularly useful because, as he pointed out, while we’ve all heard the climate change hype on the news, few know what it’s really about. Ash explained that while the sun’s heat can come in through the atmosphere as UV energy, the radiant heat does not escape as well. According to the climate change theory, impeding the heat loss is an accumulating level of human-generated carbon dioxide. Thus, the theory is that carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas” and is serving to cause global warming by trapping the sun’s heat.
“Why should we care about carbon dioxide? After all, Australia only contributes 2% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.” Unfortunately, everybody on the planet will experience the same effects so it’s on us all to do our part. Considering that heat equals dryness, Australia will probably feel the effects of global warming WORSE than most countries. Also, increasing world population (11,000 people were added to the planet’s population during our meeting!) with diminished water will lead to diminished food availability. A reduction in resources can only lead to further world conflict. As one of the world’s leading Western cultures, Australia needs to lead the way.
And this is where some who were expecting a sermon from Ash on how to be green were a bit surprised… Ash told us that carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas causing global warming was the THEORY, but there is no way that the issue is that simple. According to Ash, “When a problem is defined poorly, you get stupid solutions.” There’s some debate over if the condition of global warming is man-made or if it’s just the natural cycling of the global climate. We know that the globe has gone through periods a few million years ago where there were no polar ice-caps at all. So why should we act? Maybe all of these plans to reduce carbon emissions won’t do a thing to reduce global temperatures. But what’s the worst that can happen if we DO reduce carbon dioxide? Even if reducing carbon dioxide doesn’t solve global warming, it’ll still reduce the pH of the oceans, saving ocean-based life and reduce acid rain, saving land-based life.
Considering that most carbon dioxide comes from power production (note that at this point in Ash’s presentation Bob P started shifting uncomfortably in his seat) the current line of thinking is that if governments begin “cap and trade” programs where they only allow their country to produce a certain amount of carbon dioxide (cap) and then let industries buy (trade) permits to produce that carbon dioxide, industries will then self regulate their carbon production. As carbon-producing products become more expensive consumers will then regulate consumption.
This all sounds like it’s going to be catastrophic to our economy. Lower production and consumption means fewer jobs. And the jobs will only be picked up by developing countries anyway, so it will only be Australia that loses unless THE ENTIRE WORLD signs on to this plan. But why would these developing countries sign on? They’re only building their economies now how most western countries built theirs a few deceased before: by massive production and export. So the economics of this problem are very complex indeed. And to further complicate the problem, maybe the problem is not carbon dioxide at all… maybe it’s water vapour (a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide) from de-forestation.
So is global warming man-made? Is the amount of carbon dioxide being put into the air sufficient to cause it? Could it be caused by water vapour rather than carbon dioxide? Should Australia really be leading the charge and sacrifice its economy? There are all questions that were hotly debated (but in a good nature) by the club with Ash well past 8 o’clock.
Ash was not a “greeny” pointing his finger and claiming to have all the answers. Ash mostly just raised the issues around the problem so that we could all understand that the solutions presented in the news are not that simple. And for that we all say a big thank-you to Ash for teaching us what all the hoopla is about.
This week’s meeting (November 10, 2009)…
Arthur C has arranged for Ian North and Bobby Bourke to come in to talk about the ties around the mount project… more appropriately known as “Get Knotted”. Thanks for coming up with this on such short notice Arthur.
In the coming weeks…
Nov 17th - David W’s guest Peter Sackett
Nov 24th – does anybody have any ideas?
Dec 1st - David L
Dec 8th - Nev D
Dec 15th - Chris B
Dec 22nd - Christmas Party
Dec 29th - No meeting
Jan 5th - No meeting
Jan 12th – Rob B to organise am informal cycling/walking BBQ River Park
Jan 19th - Steve E to organise a family BBQ and activities
Jan 26th – Committee - Aust day, duck race
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