Where is the Bay of Biscay?

Take the road from Shepparton to Echuca and about 10km from the river town you will cross the Bay of Biscay Bridge.
A friend who has a distinct affiliation with Spain’s Basque country, in particular Guernica that sits on a tidal river leading finally to the original Bay of Biscay.
He had never heard of “our” Bay of Biscay and was excited to think the area might have been settled by people of Basque descent or Basque people themselves.
However, it was not to be as research with the Echuca Historical Society involving about four hours of personally searching through files, my friend found no evidence of Basques having ever settled in the area, along with no reason, or known reason, for its name.
There was a theory, however, that many Australians served in France during the First World War and it is possible some returned to this area with memories of the Bay of Biscay as France and the Basque country share a border.
Intriguing coincidences that mean nothing in the greater scheme of things, but they were sufficient to lead me to writing this column.
My friend had, it might be said, educated me about the Basque country and events that gave Guernica notoriety and drove Pablo Picaso to create the memorable piece of artwork by the same name; he teased my interest such that I recently read Mark Kurlansky’s book, “The Basque History of the World”, and then I discovered that a friend’s wife actually knew of the Basque’s, something of their origins and where the Basque country is.
I enjoyed Kurlansky’s work and left the book with her. Should you enjoy non-fiction, I recommend the book.
All this, in itself is interesting to me, but it takes me no closer at all to knowing about or understanding why our Bay of Biscay has that surprising and seemingly without reason name.
The idea that the Bay of Biscay name was poached by soldiers returning from World War One seems to have merit, but as its origin still appears a mystery maybe you or another knows the answer. Email us at editor@sheppnews.com.au.

A welcome from the future: from the present.

Being a regular columnist in The Shepparton News it seemed possible column space would be available in the newspaper's first Saturday edition on May 1.
An imaginary retrospective piece was written in prepartion, but that wasn't needed and so it is published here.

Welcome to Saturday, May 7, 2050.
The journey of the past 50 years here has been a little like the 20th century in reverse.
That troubled 100 years saw the world ripped apart by violence taking it to the brink of extinction in that it was assaulted by industrialism, consumerism, globalization and around that there was a distinct misunderstanding by all about what it was we really wanted, along with an absence of ideas about anything that might be good for the human race in the centuries ahead.
Fortunately, and in a geological sense, only seconds before certain disaster, we realized that the endless pursuit of our wants as opposed to our needs was to come with a cost that humans would have been unable to pay.
The deterioration that would have ended with human extinction fortunately eased in late 2010 when we realized that our appetite for fossils fuels had unleashed a dynamic that at the start of this century few understood.

'....living in sustainable and resilient communities'

Fortunately some far-seeing souls could envision what was ahead, understanding that if our addiction continued unabated, they overcame powerful resistance with a promise of a more fulfilling life for all leading through living in sustainable and resilient communities.
The sweeping changes to our society from one that knew only fragility and violence to one that we have now that is sustainable, peaceful and embedded in localism as opposed to globalization has been completed, by necessity, swiftly and is the outcome of wonderful world-wide co-operation.
We now understand that industrialism, consumerism and globalization, giving us among other distasteful things violence, were about short-termism, answering only human wants and ignoring, largely, the human needs that are at the top of our survival hierarchy.
The insistence that growth and profit were the hallmarks of success, whatever the human cost, have been replaced by a vastly more humanitarian ideal that celebrates intellectual achievement, rather than the knock-down drag ‘em out testosterone ignited confrontational way of living that had come to permeate society.
Climate change was, and still is, troubling the world, but our reliance on fossil fuels is almost only a memory now as our reshaped and restructured communities use primarily sustainable energy.
Peak oil in 2010 changed most everything about how we live with fossil fuels being used now only for our public transport system and that being so good that motor vehicles, of any sort, are a rare sight and of little use considering that our road network is gradually collapsing because of negligible or non-existent, and unneeded, maintenance.

'Everything is in reverse'

Everything is in reverse – what once were villages, but which then disappeared through the onslaught of the motor car, are returning.
Our communities are again just that, each with its own government infrastructure; a governance system responding to the needs of three or four thousand people; work within easy cycling or walking distance; shopping and schooling in the same area and entertainment and leisure both nearby.
Community gardens are common, nearby farms have developed community supported agriculture, little is imported and most everything the community needs is produced here – we are self-reliant as opposed to self-sufficient.
Local farms are no longer attuned to the needs of a global market; rather to the needs of local markets hence they grow a variety of crops contrary to the fossil-fuel era of mono-cropping where vulnerability was high unlike the security inherent through the farming of many different crops.
Most backyards have several chooks ensuring families have a regular supply of eggs to supplement the regular supply of vegetables from their prolific gardens.
Shepparton’s Rotary Clubs have combined forces and, after negotiating with the Greater Shepparton City Council, has taken control of several of the city’s major car-parks and having ripped up the bitumen, now operate them as community gardens.
Other city service clubs have also stepped into help the community and have planted and are maintaining an array of food trees throughout the city.
Small general stores are returning to our community and they are the place where people can sell or trade overflow from their gardens or chook yards.

'Growing your own vegetables'

Health is now becoming less of a problem as our more physical way of living – growing your own vegetables, walking or cycling most of the time and largely replacing oil-fired energy with human muscle – has almost ended the need for large centralized hospitals with smaller health care centres dotted throughout our communities.
The change, while challenging, has had a huge positive impact on our communities psychological health – depression is much less of an issue.
Shepparton’s railway station is now easily accessible from both Hoskin and Purcell Streets and each day is alive with activity with people from throughout the district coming and going as the train is the transport of choice, or more accurately the only viable way of moving about.
Water shortages continue to produce difficulties – climate change is not just a passing fad – but with more Australians having a better understanding of its more effective and efficient use, we are now finding we actually have more water available.
We have enhanced our understanding of community and we know that resilience and strength comes from creating things on a human scale and so we have more beautiful public spaces and they are surrounded by a compact and denser style of residences that blend with the environment, depend upon sustainable energy and built to allow for family growth and ultimately cater for extended and aging families, ending our need for what in the 20th century became the traditional nursing home.

'...live comfortably and happily....'

This century opened with an emphasis on learning about and understanding modern technology, but in the past four decades there has been a huge shift to both comprehending and employing the techniques that allowed people to live comfortably and happily in the 19th century.
Ideas have been at the forefront of this different, but unique opportunity, and those ideas have enabled us to preserve much that was good from early this century to combine them with ideas from the past to ensure the decades, and centuries, ahead will be bountiful, fulfilling and rewarding.
I guess you know it is not really 2050, but actually May 1, 2010.
That four decade journey is one we must make and faced with the certain difficulties of climate change and the complications of peak oil, it needs to be undertaken thoughtfully and carefully.

The idea of food security and the coming famine resonate

Food security and the coming of a certain global famine resonated with about 300 people on Wednesday night (May 14).
They packed into the Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre at The University of Melbourne to hear author, journalist, editor, communicator and principal of Julian Cribb and Associates, Julian Cribb (left), discuss “The coming famine: risks and solutions for global food security” in the 2010 Dean’s Lecture Series.
Visit Science Alert, the website of Julian Cribb and Associates to read what he said on Wednesday in Melbourne - here is the link.
The presentation illustates what Julian said on Wednesday night, including the illustrations that help explain, in a pictorial fashion, what he was describing.

Turn out the lights before our lights go out, literally

People around the world engage in various pursuits aimed at preserving our fossil fuels and so help avoid the implications of climate change.
In the early 60s we had an important idea, widely implemented, that did both those things and actually was cheaper and was without the need for any complex carbon reduction pollution schemes.
Turning of street lighting may well make low wattage light globes, green shopping bags and hybrid powered cars redundant.
Walking home as young man from the weekly Saturday night dance (yes, we had them then and they were alcohol free, which didn’t mean drunks were not about) at one o’clock in the morning (the dance ended at midnight) and the streets would suddenly go dark.
Our way of life then saw all our street lights turn off at 1am - an inbuilt country-wide Carbon Reduction Pollution Scheme (CPRS) that must have had a huge impact on our demand for electricity.

'It is as simple as throwing a switch'

Leading US climatologist, Dr James Hansen, is overtly concerned about our burning of coal to generate electricity as it is, he argues, the most voluminous of all those gasses that impinge on the effectiveness of our atmosphere.
It is as simple as throwing a switch and turn off the lights, but the resultant complications are not so simple – darkness shrouds the playground of those who strain at a law abiding life and who often play in the dark by their own rules, mostly at the expense of others.
There are few workable alternatives to coal powered electricity generation with nuclear power most able to meet base loads being (something Dr Hansen advocates), but which brings with it baggage that humanity would be unwise to lug about.
Beyond helping save the planet, turning our street lamps out early would save money – presently some 6000 lamps cost the Greater City of Shepparton about $40 000 a month.
The answer appears obvious to those of us who nervously fear the other and what is different, and the dark, but unimpeded thinking, free from distraction and emotion can see a clear distinction – our failure to understand how we can live without night being day will soon the lights go out, literally, for all of us.