Thursday, August 16, 2007

Engineering our way out

Its true " You can do almost anything if you have enough money" .
Polys , especially before an election tend to believe this. After all, its not their money they are spending and they can do almost anything !!!??/.Mr Turnbull is happy to spend big on the environment. But His big water iniiative going a bit cold with the weather . Does he know what he is doing ?
Clearly ALL those in parliaments right across the country, when charged with the very complex questions of design with nature ,are tempted ( for quite rational reasons ), on both sides of the house,tend to leave all the questions of risk management to Engineers .The polys don't know what they are doing and its a good thing when they admit same right! yes , but who should they listen to??? . Does Turnbull know something the tasmanian parliament don't?.Does turnbull trust somebody others don't ? now we are closer to the heart of Cousins dilemma . Turnbull think engineers are the can dos, and other scientists now can " go jump" -
The big question is - who should our leaders be listening to ?

Even if the public welcome Turnbulls cando approach ( and why wouldn't they when the media meddle ) , Just getting one side of the story just won't work . The most efficient way forward is always to have designers and natural process experts working together . The best result by far ( and that's value for effort short and long term )is to use both. This clearly is not happening with engineers insisting on their own way, on our coasts, even to this day ! The whole idea of the last quarter century was to ensure the broadening of the engineering approach to everything - so that there was a tension in the debate between those could design around limitations and those who were trained to know natures limits .

The very big question for The Stockade State is whether they have anybody left in their depleted ranks who can stand up for nature in the discussions that would avoid us paving the world with steel and concrete.

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Monday, August 06, 2007

The very very high cost of paperwork

as a result we have? ----Greasing the wheels of the environment?
Story : The Tasmanian government has recently HAD to change env planning legislation to get things happening in the state ( Pulp Mill) .
Finally something as a big as a state gets to feel the harsh wind of environemntal studies that cost the earth and take as long to complete . How big does the problem have to get before our polys do something about it ?
If tasmanian leaders can get the carpet pulled out from under them by good intentions locked up in paperwork - so can the bigger states .