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Happenings at the last meeting Even though we are conducting our meetings via Zoom we still observe the usual formalities. After the toast and invocation President Harry passed the meeting to Chairman Chris who introduced our guest speaker. This week we had a return visit from our favourite “climatologist” Greg Holland. It’s been a while since we last heard from Greg but his talk was as interesting and captivating as ever. I’m afraid that I won’t be trying to cover all the detail that Greg presented but I’ll try and touch on the main topics. Greg has the floor and a captive audience The main difference in this talk has been the latest report from the International Program on Climate Change (IPCC). Greg feels that the previously conservative IPCC is now telling it like it is and is backing this up with strong science. The current state of the climate is regarded by the IPCC as “unprecedented” with the rise in global temperatures this year being the highest since human beings appeared on the planet. Even though the climate is always changing, especially on a local scale, the changes in the last 100 years are unique and continuing. Greg spoke about the increase in the frequency of temperature extremes and the anomalies of droughts in parts of Australia and floods in others. He also related the climate trends to what is going to happen on the Peninsular, in the next 20 to 40 years, to farming and fires. The other Peninsular-related topic was sea-level rises. The IPCC report estimates sea-level rises of between 2 to 5 meters in the Intermediate range that is currently being aimed at. If the lower range, of 1 to 2 meters, is used then take a local example of the Tootgarook Swamp. Greg compared the height above sea-level of 200 years ago (similar to today) with the sea-level of 6000 years ago. This was a sea-level rise of 1 to 1.5 meters and gives some idea of what the predicted lower range would do to the Peninsular. Next, Greg explained why things are getting hotter. In simple terms it’s too much CO2. The most likely temperature rise by 2050 is probably up around 2C. One of the reasons for this is that India and China are cleaning up their air pollution which means cleaning up So2 (Sulphur dioxide). The only problem is that So2 reflects sunlight/heat which means that temperatures will begin to rise quicker. Next, Greg spoke briefly about Tipping Points. I won’t attempt to summarise the ones he covered but his slides do cover most of his points. Another part of these Tipping Points is the melting of the Greenland’s glaciers. What can we do about this? We have to mitigate and learn how to live with the new world. Greg showed a graph, with no political comment, which shows that we have begun to smooth out our gas emissions with thanks to farming and other industries. Also, we are not clearing/burning forests at the same rate, although LPG is just methane gas and counters our coal reduction. Greg is not optimistic about our meeting of any targets but it can be done if we commit and stay committed. Community Action is the key. 2/3rd of global emissions are attributable to decisions we make as individuals. Big Business is leading the way in making positive decisions around climate change but LPG is now creating more Co2 than coal, so the future is good and bad for the climate. Many thanks to Greg for his efforts and insights. Back to the Meeting Harry requested reports from the Directors. Secretary Chris mentioned that World Polio Day is coming up in October and the club decided to purchase some aprons for the next BBQ. Mike Smith and Andrew Turner were thanked for joining the Board as replacement Directors. Eggs are once again available and have contributed money to the International Cambodia and Vietnam projects. Greg announced that our Halloween Celebration has had to be cancelled this year. Also, testing of the stove unit has begun and continues. International And a few words from Tyrrell. “Last week we transferred the $1,500under our Food Aid Project to Ms Debra Riedel, our contact in the Negombo District of Sri Lanka. Debra report today of the amount of goods purchased and distributed to recipients who Debra said were most grateful. The photographs Debra sent show goods purchased and families receiving the goods. Debra reported the gratitude expressed by the families. I will be making a submission to the Board for an extension of the project. Tyrrell McGeever 16 Sep 21” What great work and a good news story for the Bulletin. Thanks Tyrrell. The Spinners Rick has a few words regarding our Spinners. “Last week I emptied the Dromana Hub Spinner There is quite a procedure to go through. So I thought it would be worth recording so that anyone else that wants to volunteer will know just what to do. - 1 Remember to take with you an empty appropriate sized bucket or a large strong carry bag, with no holes in the bottom!!!
- Front up to the Ritchies Service ask for the keys. After you prove to be one of the worthy Rotarians on their list you are presented with a small plastic bag containing the two keys.
- Go to the spinner and unlock the two padlocks.
- Carefully lift the top of the spinner off and carefully put it down on the floor. It is fairly fragile!!!
- If you have a replacement bucket just remove the full one and replace it with the empty one. Otherwise there is a tedious process of emptying the contents into the bag you brought, and hope it is strong enough to cope with the weight. Be warned, there could be over 15KG of coins to recover.
- Then reassemble the spinner and return the keys to the Ritchies service counter.
I think there is a better security option than this so I will investigate further. Now a bit of History Not so long ago the Club purchased a coin counting/sorting machine, so I took the coins home and laboriously fed them into the machine. It was programmed to stop when the correct amount of each coin value (as determined by the bank) was counted. These were then put into bank supplied plastic bags. The outcome here was usually 20 to 40 plastic bags with containing coins from $2 down to 5 cents. One of the short comings of our coin counter is that it does not distinguish between Australian and similar sized foreign coins. It goes by size not size and weight! Unfortunately the Bank does both!! So although our machine came up with a count it was not necessarily correct. And if you have ever tried to find the odd foreign coin amongst the hundreds of legitimate coins!!! So the bank pay-in book is filled in and the bags of coins were taken to the Bendigo Bank in Dromana. I am sure the staff ducked for cover when they saw me come in, because some lucky teller had to recount, (actually weigh), each bag to insure that it had the correct amount in it. You may not know this, but each different currency even though its size is the same as a similar coin from Australia, weighs a slightly different amount!!! So the outcome of the bank visit invariably resulted in a correction to the pay in amount. You may remember that last year we able to sell those foreign coins to bolster the Project account. Now back to the Present Fortunately for us, and the Bendigo Bank Staff, the Branch at Rosebud has a very sophisticated coin counting machine that is able to detect and reject foreign coins. See here this week’s collection! Now we can just take the bucket of coins to the bank chuck, sorry, carefully load the coins, in to the machine and get a pocket full of foreign coins that have been rejected. The machine also produces a docket with the total counted for presentation to the teller. It is called progress!!! The Total banked this week was $466.55. John and Julie Barnes also emptied the spinner at McCrea and this resulted in $199.10 So it is good to see that even in lock down the public is supporting our causes. Rick H” After the usual conversational detours, the meeting came to an end. Ed would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this weeks Bulletin, any errors are mine alone.
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