Wynner's Blog – Ross Wynne on Anything and Everything…

Another year, another take on Live Aid.
After worthy causes such as Live Aid, Farm Aid, Self Aid, and Live 8 comes Live Earth. A day of music on 7 continents to highlight Climate Change and some worn out old artists flagging careers (Madonna anyone?). It was pointed out to me that this was probably the worst way to address climate change since it will cause large energy usage on the day and hence release additional CO2 into the atmosphere.

Let’s do some figures….
Audience of 2 Billion
Wattage per hour of an average CRT TV (excluding sound system) : 120 Watts
(Rough) Average of number of people per TV: 3 people
Number of hours Live Earth is broadcast: 24 hours
Number of hours before people get bored: 3 hours (I know, a little optimistic)

=(2B*120*3)/3
=240 Billion Watts OR 240 Gigawatts

Now factor in the number of high wattage kettles used to brew tea in between acts and the length of time needed to do so and the number of tea drinkers in the world… Stats from the the UK National Grid shows that cultural events such as World Cup games, Who Shot JR/Phil Mitchell? and others caused energy usage spikes in the order of 2.1 to 2.8 GWatts.

So with a two hour major event (say) 2.5GW per 60 Million population
and the 3 hours per person we arrive at a figure of…

125GW in addition to the TV usage.

So far that’s 325GWatts of electricity.. Let’s calculate the CO2 emissions for this…
Lets assume we’re talking about just coal fired stations.
Using coal generates about 0.00091 metric tonnes per kilowatt hour.

=0.00091*325,000,000 = 295,750 Metric Tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Impressive eh!? I’ll leave you to factor in the cost of CO2 emissions from the aircraft all the ‘stars’ and support people use to fly about promoting this event… the energy usage of the computer systems, sound systems and light systems… The million or so people expected to attend the event have to get there somehow and most will travel by car.
.. etc etc…
Okay okay I’m being a bit mean but come on! The best way to reduce CO2 emissions is to not use electricity at all. I propose on the 7th of July that our
positive contribution to the environment is to knock off as many electrical goods as possible and to go outside and spend time in the world we all want to save in the first place! Who’s with me on this?

PS Even if the organisers use renewable energy sources for the concerts themselves you have to ask yourself why they don’t just leave that capacity in the system so as to reduce the need to burn fossil fuels.

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A very interesting website has been put together in the interests of informing voters of who’s in their electoral area plus their policies and background. Truly an exceptional use of the Internet! Well done!

www.mycandidate.ie

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According to Reporters Without Borders Ireland has done well in it’s ability to let the press continue the tradition of free speach. The US however has slipped further down the rankings to 53th place, behind countries like Chile and Namibia.

Northern European countries once again come top of the Index, with no recorded censorship, threats, intimidation or physical reprisals in Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands, which all share first place.

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I’ve been in the process of writing a robots.txt file for my website when I came across an interesting robots file for the Whitehouse.

For those who don’t know what a robots file is it’s a special file placed in a website’s main directory which tells ‘crawlers’ such as Google, MSN, Yahoo! and others what parts of the website to index and what not to index. This file usually is set to only disallow directories that are private and shouldn’t be publicly accessed.

To my surprise (but really it was fairly par for the course) the whole of the Whitehouse website seems to be deliberately set up so that it cannot be mirrored by such projects as the Internet Archive. Indeed a search of how the Whitehouse website looked over the years shows that the robots file must have been altered sometime after 11th Feb 2005.

So why is this a big deal you may ask… Well quite simply it means that anything published by on the Whitehouse website can be altered without any automated way of tracking the changes. Basically you can rewrite the content history of a website… There hasn’t been a reason given as far as I’m aware of why this changed occurred so I guess we can only speculate with various consperancy theories!

Check out the parts of the website you’re not allowed index with their robots.txt file.

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This week saw the two largest political egos take center stage in the UN. Both Bush and Ahmadinejad spoke about one of the hottest topics in world politics namely Iran’s development of nuclear weapon capabilities. Whatever Iran’s plans are we’ll obviously find out in due course but what about the US?

A little digging shows that the US really isn’t keeping its nose clean in nuclear issues either. A ban on developing small ‘tactical’ nukes was put in place by the US Congress in October 1994 but due to a request by the US DoD in 2003 this research ban was lifted. Since then a development program has started and after some renaming is now being done away from the public eye.

With this comes the rather sinister “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations” that was brought into force in 2005. This document outlines the eight reasons a military commander can request for a nuclear weapon to be deployed. It certainly has the fingerprints of the hawkish neo-cons all over it with their famous pre-emptive war strategy at the heart of the doctrine.

These are the eight ‘reasons’ for launching nukes (blatantly ripped from Wikipedia):

• An enemy threatening to use or using WMD against US, multinational, or alliance forces or civilian populations.
• To prevent an imminent biological attack.
• To attack enemy WMD or its deep hardened bunkers containing WMD that could be used to target US or its allies.
• To stop enemy potentially overwhelming conventional forces.
• To rapidly end a war on favourable US terms.
• To make sure US and international operations are successful.
• To show US intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter enemy from using WMDs.
• To react to enemy-supplied WMD use by proxies against US and international forces or civilians

My particular favourite is the ‘rapid end to a war’ point. It could be argued that the quagmire that Bush and Blair have gotten themselves into in Iraq could be solved by the wiping out of certain countries in the middle east hence giving the US ‘favourable’ access to all the oil and as we all know the US can’t even be slapped on the wrist by the UN due to the terribly undemocratic setup of vetoes. More than that though imagine these rules had been in force during Gulf War II. We were told continually that Iraq had WMD and as we found out they most certainly didn’t (at least in the areas in the particular satellite photographic ‘evidence’ that was presented to the UN) so the question must be asked…
Would the US really launch nukes on Iran and/or North Korea based on American intelligence saying that there are WMDs in those countries?

Jane’s certainly thinks it’s a possibility.

I cower in fear for the last two years of Bush…

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I spent this morning watching alleged-PM-to-be preside at the launch at the new (BMW) Mini in Oxford. Besides the fact that the Mini is now a German owned machine Chancellor Gordon Brown gave a speech as entertaining and dynamic as any budget speech he’s ever given. In fact the two other people I were watching it with enjoyed it so much that they started to snore quite naturally.

My own issue with his speech was not the fact that it repeated itself numerous times but that every one or two seconds he kept reaching for his notes whether he looked at them or not. In fact it was quite addictive to watch and totally had me transfixed.

I was sad enough to double check that I wasn’t being facitious and watched the whole video online. In the first five minutes he touches his notes 54 times. He reaches a hundred touches by 8mins 28secs and the final number of touches is 130 in the 10 mins 25secs speech! That’s a touch every 4.8 seconds!

Seriously go check out the video of the speech!

Is it as annoying as Mary Robinsons bobbing head, Tony Blair’s demonic smile or my ranting?

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…and so election year seems to have started in earnest… Our wonderful Irish Government has seen fit to promote how it has now exceeded its target of a 3% in employing people with disabilities in the public sector. Indeed the 7% they quote is quite impressive after years and decades of discrimination and lost opportunities. Well done FF & PDs…

BUT…

According to the Irish Examiner, Brian Cowen, Minister for Finance, called on the private sector to match such an impressive employment quota. For me this is the equivalent to running down the length of a football pitch to score the best goal of all time… except… you just put it past your own keeper… Fool…

When anyone with a disability applies for and gets a job you would like to think it’s because they are the right person for the right job. By confusing the issue with statistics we aren’t in reality reaching true equality in employment. We are in fact working towards a system of ‘positive discrimination’ which is one of my pet hates. Positive discrimination is nothing more than tokenism, a band-aid for social ills. True equality is were everyone has a fair chance to fulfil ambitions and careers.

What Brian should have announced was the government finally addressing the inequality in our education system by a windfall amount of money to increase access to education for people with disabilities. Oh I know… We have the HEA and the ESF fund. Sure that’ll do the job… Well err… No!

The problem certainly at third level is the total lack of considered investment and will to address the barriers to a full education for people with disabilities. Let me lay out the charges I hold over our Governments in relation to Trinity College Dublin.

1. Despite the efforts of a dedicated minority (namely those involved directly with the Student Disability Service) there is a fundamental lack of appreciation of the requirements (often without cost) of full integration of people with disabilities by the administration and staff. This is not an attack on the staff but more on the lack of information and training that is given to them as employees.
2. Systemic and prolonged issues with building design on campus and off. There is no physical access to a significant majority of buildings if you happen to be a wheelchair user. This is scandalous. There is minimal commitment to retrofitting existing buildings for access. Even if it’s a new building more often than not the Universal Design principles that have been allegedly been adopted are neglected on the finished building. This is usually the fault of either the moneymen or the contractors trying to finish on a job hastily.
3. A lack of social support. Of the 90+ societies and sports clubs in Trinity I ask how many have got specific policies on removing various barriers to inclusion? How many have been told of how by their governing funding body? And other than the cost of a sign language interpreter (which can be found for free on occasion) how many know that inclusion is only a matter of cost free logistics?
4. Barriers to the ‘fourth level’ of education. Within Trinity the number of students with disabilities that are post-graduate are astronomically low. Why? Is it because the main postgraduate reading room is inaccessible? Is it that the number of students with disabilities college wide is only a little over 2.5%?
5. Restrictive planning laws. If we did have the will and the money to make buildings accessible we are left with this final obstacle. The ultimate barrier if you will. ‘Listed Buildings’ and ‘Conservation Areas’ are the bane of my life. Some serious changes are needed to clarify these types of areas so they aren’t a convenient excuse to refrain for ones obligations to universal access. Also perhaps a ban for any listed building that is being used for public functions unless it has been made accessible. Food for thought at least.

Until we address education issues in Ireland we will never truly have the diverse and equal workforce that the Government demands in the private sector.

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It wasn’t long ago since our parents (& some of us older students) wore badges with mantras like Save the Whales & Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It’s a shame that we’re now having to refight these battles all over again due to nothing more than apathy…

Gordon Brown is expected to signal that he wants to keep and renew Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.

BBC News – Brown signals support for Trident

For the first time since ages, the pro-whaling nations won an important victory at the International Whaling Commission today with the adoption of the St. Kitts and Nevis Declaration.

Importantly the IWC says that the moratorium on whaling is “no longer necessary” as scientists agree that many whale species and stocks are abundant. The 1982 moratorium decision, in effect since 1986, is the basis of the extremely contentious situation in the IWC.

The IWC today declared its “commitment to normalizing the functions of the IWC”, in essence that means to work towards the normalisation of commercial whaling. This includes the IWC resuming its regulatory role with respect to the management of whaling, such as deciding catch quotas based on best available scientific knowledge.

High North Alliance – Historic victory to whaling nations

On the other hand check out the ‘Harpoon Cartoons‘ if you’re a committed pro-whaler.

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Having vividly remembering Bush calling all the inmates of Guantanimo Bay “bad people” before a single trial had been held I was somewhat amazed that his advisors had not told him to keep to the innocent until proven guilty mantra.

Yet again though he’s managed to prejudge a court hearing…

Mr Bush pledged to send many detainees back to their home countries, but said he wanted to put some on trial because they were “cold-blooded killers”.

“I’d like to end Guantanamo. I’d like it to be over with,” he said.

But he added that there were some detainees “who need to be tried in US courts”.

“They will murder somebody if they are let out on the street.”

Nice to see he believes in a fair hearing…

BBC News

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