I’ve stopped driving. Funnily, or not, the impetus happened one day when I almost didn’t stop. I was heading towards the turnoff out of Quaama onto the Princes Highway, saw a car coming from the north, went to brake… no response. Went to brake again… still rolling down towards the highway. Looked down to check where foot was: not on brake. Planted foot on brake, stopped car just before give way sign.
Tag Archives: local
Cobargo Folk Festival 2015 Highlights
Friday Afternoon
I might have gushed a little last year about Canadian guitarist-singer-songwriter Scott Cook, so when I heard he was back I went along to make sure. In 2014 he was a last-minute entry and they stuffed him into the tiny Narira shed up the back, where a heads-upped crowd sweltered through a heart-on-sleeve set of blues, folk and country, more than tinged with sardonic enviro-politics. We loved him then, and we loved him again in 2015, when the organisers got wise and put him on the main Gulaga stage. At least it was a lot cooler.
Richard Denniss: Whatever happened to just in case?
The world’s sluggish response to climate change is a mystery to many. After all, overwhelming evidence of a problem usually results in mitigation of the problem. Witness the global response when scientists suggested in the 1990s that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) might be busting a hole in the ozone layer, leading to high rates of skin cancer, amongst other consequences. The reaction was swift; CFCs were banned from aerosol cans. In America, consumers voluntarily switched away from aerosol sprays, resulting in a 50% loss in sales even before legislation was enforced.
Continue reading Richard Denniss: Whatever happened to just in case?
Ten years lost: Ken Henry on the economics of climate change
It was an unseasonably balmy night at the Bermagui Hotel. The speaker was Ken Henry and the subject “The Economics of Climate Change”. We’d all been congratulating the Bermagui Institute’s Jack Miller on his orchestration of the China-US emissions reduction deal just in time to create a dramatic backdrop for the talk, when Henry told us, “it won’t make any difference” to Australian government policy on climate change action.
Continue reading Ten years lost: Ken Henry on the economics of climate change
Dennis Blanchfield 1949 – 2014
It was a cool, drizzly day on 13 October for the funeral of Dennis Blanchfield at Quaama Cemetery. He must have been well-remembered and liked, judging from the crowd.
Dennis’s brothers Jim, Danny and Brian all still live here in Quaama.
I didn’t know Dennis; he left Quaama well before my time. But I heard the expression “wild child” a few times in the days around his death in Canberra on 5 October.
Tony Windsor: The man with no secrets
It seems these days of political spin that you only find out what’s really going on from those outside the fray. Be they an ex-security advisor, or an ex-department head, or an ex-parliamentarian, at last they don’t owe any favours to anyone and can speak their mind.
Busted: The Baseload Myth
The restaurant in the Bermagui Hotel is buzzing as I enter at 6pm on Thursday 3 April for the Bermagui Institute Public Dinner. Such is the interest in tonight’s speaker, the Institute has raised its booking limit, and still I meet a couple of ticketless friends hanging hopefully by the door.
Dr Mark Diesendorf is Associate Professor and Deputy Director at the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of NSW, and formerly a principal research scientist at CSIRO. He is the author of Sustainable Energy Solutions (UNSW Press) and an expert in renewable energy.
Cobargo Folk Festival delivers again
Sunday 24 February at the Folk Festival. Kicked off with Michael Menager and Friends in Magpie tent. Michael, from Tantawangalo, plays guitar and sings his own songs, shades of Arlo Guthrie in their simplicity. It’s all in the lyrics, which are personal, confessional, wry and honest. Michael was accompanied by friends Heath Cullen (guitar, banjo) and Ricky Henderson (guitar).
Next up at the same venue: Peter Anderson, playing Appalachian Dulcimer and piano accordion. Can you imagine Buffalo Gals on dulcimer? He did it.
Earle Horne, 1923 – 2013
At Earle Horne’s funeral on Thursday 1 August we heard from his son-in-law Richard that Earle joined the army when World War II broke out, at just 16 years of age.
Rob Burgess, 1946 – 2013
They say you can tell a man’s heart by how he treats his dog. And if that’s true then Rob Burgess’s heart was solid gold. The Cobargo community would have seen Rob walking his Great Dane, Jensen, up and down the street on a regular basis until just a couple of months ago when his advancing cancer put an end to that.