Franklin News and Views

The Great Disruption : How the Climate Crisis Will Transform the Global Economy by Paul Gilding My rating: 4 of 5 stars An interesting book that held my interest. Paul Gilding describes the problems of the finite resources that we are using at a rate that means they can not last based on the scientific and mathematical evidence; facts that many people readily agree with. His conclusion is that we won't change until the economic consequences of this starts to come into play. He is confident that we will act and act very quickly when things become dire; virtually on a war footing. I would have liked to have had more of his views as to how some of the problems, such as population and water shortages caused by global warming, might pan out. A book well worth reading. View all my reviews

1835 The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia by James Boyce My rating: 4 of 5 stars In many ways this book is companion of James Boyce's book Van Diemens Land. It deals with the absolute arrogance and greed for land by the invading first settlers of south east mainland Australia, in what is now Victoria. The aboriginal people were duped and mislead into believing they would not be displaced from their land, but of course the opposite was exactly what happened and did so with the connivance of the governors of Van Diemens Land and New South Wales. It is hard not to feel very grieved for the appalling treatment of the local aboriginal communities. View all my reviews

A Day To Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - The Untold True Story by Graham Ratcliffe My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is both a book about mountaineering and investigative writing. In part it deals with Graham Ratcliffe's alpine climbing, but it generally does so to show how it related to the events of May 1996 when a number of climbers died on Mount Everest. He doesn't go into too much detail about his climbs which is good from my perspective. Graham was high on the mountain when the tragedy arose and was left wondering what would have happened if his team new had been called upon to help with the rescue. Eventually, but after several years had elapsed, the event came to so haunt him that he spent many years of his life as he painstakingly tried to establish if weather predictions were known by the leaders of the mountaineering teams and, if so, why did they ignore these dire predictions. Serious questions are also raised about the avoidance of these matters b

---- October 2011 Album of photos Click image to go to album Walled Gould

Click the image below to view photos from a walk in the Budawangs, Morton national Park NSW.   The walk was  the Foster, Styles Creek, Hidden Valley, Quiltys Circuit   from 20-23 September 2011   Budawangs2011

Peter's bookshelf: currently-reading A Day To Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - The Untold True Story by Graham Ratcliffe Quite interesting start, but haven't got very far trough yet. tagged: currently-reading That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott tagged: currently-reading

What makes it acceptable for blatant lies to be used with such impunity in our society? A Sydney paper has just said workers are struggling with a carbon tax, when there is no such tax, and a lobby group says businesses would be unfairly affected if they did not charge customers more than what the banks charge them for credit purchases. Both are examples of the straight out lies that are everywhere today. Much of the blame for the sad situation has to be directed to the fickle fools; that fairly large portion of the population who seems to have no ability to think critically. Blatant lies, such as “children overboard” and “weapons of mass destruction” should have seen the peddlers of falsehoods condemned, but instead were rewarded. You even have the current opposition leader admitting he tells lies at times, without him suffering as the consequence. Media moguls can encourage deceit and employ people to tell untruths and then reward them for doing so. In a good society all who deli