First floods, then dust storms, now fire - NSW North Coast braces for further troubles in 2009

Brooms Head fire on the Clarence Coast

By late yesterday afternoon, there were 18 fires still listed by the NSW Rural Fire Service on the North Coast - thirteen of these in the Clarence Valley, two in the Kyogle area, one in the Coffs Harbour district and one each in the Richmond and Tweed Valleys.

Heartfelt thanks to those Firies on the frontline and other emergency service personnel. They may be very busy this summer.

The Daily Examiner Clarence Valley fire photographs

NSW RFS fire safety information sheets - Prepare, Act, Survive

Bright winding ribbon discovered at edge of solar system - it's the Universe waving Earth goodbye

This week NASA announced the discovery of a bright winding ribbon within the heliosphere surrounding our solar system.

One jaded local (tiring of the uphill battle to get government to do something about actually reducing national, state and regional carbon emission levels rather than just talking around the problem) suggests that this ribbon is the Universe giving one last wave goodbye to an Earth choking to death on greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

A bit of Australian leaders trivia from the Internetz

Our Kev has now racked up at least 338 tweets on his Twitter account, KevinRuddPM.
He has about 444 pics up on the account's photostream at Flickr and around 661,787 Twitter followers listed.

By comparison Truffles has a credit of around 665 tweets on his own Twitter account, TurnbullMalcolm.

He's uploaded about 23 pics to Twitpic and somewhere in the vicinity of 16,514 Twitter followers are recorded.

Sorta mirrors the divide between percentage points in the opinion polls - Kev winning just by being in the chair and Truffles running furiously on the spot trying to catch up.

The ups and downs of online paywalls for an American small town newspaper

It is starting to look as though Rupert Murdoch is determined to hide much of the news content on his media websites behind paywalls, no matter how many times he's told that this is rather a bad idea.

He will not be the first to do so.

Here is The Newport Daily News June 2009 paywall pricing strategy courtesy of Nieman Journalism Lab:

The 12,000-circulation Rhode Island newspaper is old school — it still publishes afternoons on Mondays through Fridays, with a morning edition on Saturday. Last month, the newspaper announced a new three-tier pricing structure for subscriptions. Want home delivery of the print paper? That's $145 a year. Want home delivery and online access? That's $245. And if you want just online access — to an electronic edition that duplicates the appearance of the print product — it's a whopping $345.

While some online content is still currently free on the website of this unashamedly parochial newspaper, there has been an initial significant drop in daily unique online reader numbers to a mere 500 - around a quarter of the former online readership.

What circulation growth there is appears confined to casual readership via the news agent (which may not survive adverse weather conditions normal in northern hemisphere winter months) which is rather mixed news for featured advertisers as its new circulation figures only roughly equate with where the paper was ten years ago.

The sudden fall in online readership saw The Newport Daily News offer readers (from outside the county) a yearly limited time online news subscription for about $129.

Taking advantage of the fact that online readership was up for grabs, a month after the paywall went up, Island Communications Inc. launched a free online news website, Newport-now.com.

This blog-style site presents its own version of local news but also pokes its tongue out at The Newport News by running a short daily sidebar rundown on TNN's major stories under the banner Other Headlines.

It does the weather and obits which are standard fare in print newspapers and, it is likely to attract those advertisers following any changing online allegiance.

Newport-now is not the only free local site out there - a celebrity gossip website is also available.

All in all, a rather unpromising scenario Australian regional newspapers might have to take into consideration if they foolishly decide to jump on the paywall bandwagon - there's always someone else ready to offer local news for free.

ETS?? What's an ETS?

Page 2 of Coastal Views on 9th October 2009

Page 10 of The Daily Examiner on 12th October 2009

Everyone is having a lend of us, right?

Centrelink Call Centre Blues: a true story

During a North Coast flood event a person I know rang Centrelink to see if he could fax his fortnightly Newstart form to the Grafton office instead of submitting it in person since he was cut-off by flood waters.

The conversation went like this:

Centrelink Call Centre: Sorry sir, you must present yourself to the nearest Centrelink office.

Newstart Recipient: I can’t get to Grafton because the roads are flooded.

Centrelink Call Centre: I will pull up the map of your area…………......
Sir we’re in luck. The nearest Centrelink office is in Yamba, you may hand your form in there.

Newstart Recipient: Does your map show a blue line between Iluka and Yamba?

Centrelink Call Centre: Yes sir.

Newstart Recipient: That line is called the Clarence River and it is in flood.

Centrelink Call Centre: Can’t you get a ferry or boat to go across the river?

Newstart Recipient: The ferry is closed because of all the trees and dead cows, not to mention flood water, coming down the river.

Centrelink Call Centre: Well sir, you will just have to go to the next suburb and catch the train.

Newstart Recipient: Iluka does not have a next suburb unless you count Woombah and to get there I have to cross another river called the Esk and it is in flood as well. The road is closed.

Centrelink Call Centre: Just go to your local train station.

Newstart Recipient: The nearest train station is in Grafton and to get there I would have to cross the Clarence River twice and travel along roads that are closed because of the flood.

Centrelink Call Centre: Please hold the line, sir. I will get my supervisor.

Then the above conversation was repeated.

The result of this was that the person was finally given permission to fax their form into the Grafton office – which then promptly recorded a breach of compliance and stopped the dole payments.

Today is 2009 Blog Action Day on Climate Change

Click on image to enlarge

15 October 2009 is Blog Action Day when the blogosphere is encouraged to post about and discuss climate change.

Over 5,000 bloggers in 125 countries are taking part according to the organisers.

Taking personal responsibility for your carbon footprint is a good way to start tackling climate change (see chart above), but by far and away the most important step one can take is to ensure that your local council, as well as state and federal members of parliament, know how important the issue is to you and your family.

Start demanding that all tiers of government stop talking and start acting on greenhouse gas reduction and climate change mitigation. Telephone, write, email, fax, tweet, post online today!

No I won't be Kindle-ing......

I've looked into the e-book phenomenon and I've decided that Kindle (or whoever else puts out a digital book reader in the future) won't be getting my custom.

In the first place, I know that a book in print on paper will not breakdown - as long as my eyes last out so will the book.

My eyes of course are important to me and I'm not sure that anymore peering at font on a bright background is good for these older orbs - or for younger ones for that matter.

If I drop a book when reaching for the loo roll it may curl its corners or even damage its spine, but that's nothing a little sticky tape won't cure - if I regularly drop a Kindle I might not have a workable screen for long. And if I drop it in the bath......

When I haven't got money for the latest bestseller, then my local library is sure to be getting a copy in for no cost to my good self. E-books aren't free.

Books don't need nasty parts like lithium thinga-me-jigs and can eventually return to the environment with less negative effect.

I have old discs and tapes which can't be used anymore because technology changed too fast - printed books can last hundreds of years. The family bible is now over 400 years old.

So Kindle away world - I'll continue to hobnob with real books.

Australian National Water Week begins on 18 October 2009 with a less than subtle hint on raiding coastal rivers: ACVP

From A Clarence Valley Protest yesterday:

Australian National Water Week begins on 18 October 2009 with a less than subtle hint on raiding coastal rivers

National Water Week is almost upon us and it is hard not to be a bit suspicious of this particular event as it seems to be primarily pushing the barrow of the big water utility companies.

After all, the week is co-sponsored by the 40 year-old Australian Water Association which identifies itself as Australia's peak water industry body, having the largest – and most broadly based – membership, connecting professionals around the country and across all water-related disciplines. AWA has over 4,000 individual, and 700 corporate members nationally.

Created water supplies of course mean money to many of these companies and not just as sources of drinking/agricultural water.

The multinational Maunsell AECOM which currently employs the AWA president Peter Robinson is in the business of:

• Land, sea and air transportation
• Hydro and geothermal power generation, transmission and distribution
• Mining and heavy industry
• Natural resource management and rehabilitation
• Buildings, infrastructure construction and management

The National Water Week website contains a resource page which should ring alarm bells for the NSW North Coast as it implies that a high percentage of freshwater could be safely diverted inland from coastal rivers and specifically mentions the Clarence River in Turning back rivers inland.

Definitely not a good look for National Water Week. Nor is it one that inspires confidence that the other co-sponsor, the Federal Government, really does understand the reality of coastal living or how hard local councils and communities work towards achieving water sustainability, though remedial water work on river systems and imposing permanent mandatory water restrictions in the Clarence Valley and voluntary permanent water saving measures in the Richmond and Tweed Valleys.