Plastic bags, climate change, renewable energy,

Binaural

Binaural

Eats Squid
link1896 said:
First let me state, I'm all for wind, PV, and any other low impact energy generation technology, so don't please think for a second I'm pissing on wind turbine generation, but I have issues with the science and debate around noise impact.


I spend considerable time around measuring and controlling noise impact for the cinema industry, and myself have tinnitus from exposure to machine noise, including air conditioning plant.
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This was an interesting post, wish I'd seen it sooner. A few points to your comments:

link1896 said:
Equal loudness curves * as per Robinson and Dadson, aka ISO226, are by their very nature, an average curve from a huge sample of people. Myself, I have very sensitive hearing, co workers will be blissfully unaware a buildings HVAC system is generating noise in the LF region, below their threshold of audibility that I can clearly hear, and will drive me crazy if I don't pop in ear plugs. I'm talking serious tinnitus, which leads to rage, and mental exhaustion. I've experienced it first hand, I completely side with people claiming they are wind farm subsonic sub threshold of the average man's audibility, victims.

It's very hard to measure accurately, I've a Bruel and Kjaer 4133 I built a battery arrangement to polarise instead of the standard psu to get the noise floor low enough, then used a super low noise opamp and crystal semiconductors 24/96 ADC to capture. I'm about 25dB more sensitive at 20hz then ISO226:2003 would predict from my own experiments.
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It's actually not hard at all to measure low and infrasound frequencies at all. Most class 1 sound level meters (which you need to do environmental surveying) are within 2-4dB all the way down 10Hz,when correctly placed away from the ground or nearby reflective surfaces. Being honest, and reading your description of your test setup, it's more likely that your experimental setup is giving you bad data. 25dB is an absolutely massive differential from normal hearing even at low frequencies, even accounting for a hearing disorder. I'd strongly suggest getting a audiologist to check your actual low frequency sensitivity, as there might be means to treat this sort of condition (I used to work in R&D on implantable hearing aids so I used to have a professional interest in severe hearing disorders). But it sounds as if you might hyperacusis rather than tinnitus, tbh.

Consider also that while your hearing problems render you more sensitive to some degree, the vast majority of noise complaints are from people with hearing in the normal range who are claiming to be affected by low frequency noise they can't perceive but still feel strongly is affecting them. There is a strong nocebo effect at play here, and when assessing environmental impact noise is often used as a stalking horse for nearby residents affected by increased traffic, reduced visual amenity etc. If your tool to slow down or stop a nearby development is noise, then that's what people will latch onto even if there's little evidence of harm.

On a side note, the noise generated by wind turbines is proportional to the wind in the adjacent area (trees, ear and head turbulence etc.) and doesn't have much low frequency content or harsh harmonics that would increase annoyance. Also, when they generate more noise it's because there is more wind, and hence more background masking noise at the receiver site.
 
Binaural

Binaural

Eats Squid
btw, today I heard of the companion to NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) groups - BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything). Really describes how some groups treat any kind of new development of even the lowest grade of impact.
 
droenn

droenn

Fat Man's XC President
Flow-Rider said:
A lot of the plastic in the ocean comes from second and third world countries.
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I think you'll find its called the "Global South" these days :) (I haven't adopted this term - but its put forward more and more now...)

But yeah, we still throw a lot of shit away.

The international study calculated that 192 nations produced a total of 275 million tonnes of plastic waste.

The largest amount of this waste was produced by China, at 1.32 to 3.52 million tonnes. This was followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Australia — which didn't rate in the top 20 polluters — contributed less than 0.01 million tonnes.

But that still added up to 13,888 tonnes of litter per year, a quarter of which finds its way into waterways, according to study co-author Dr Chris Wilcox of CSIRO's Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-02-27/plastic-and-plastic-waste-explained/8301316
 
droenn

droenn

Fat Man's XC President
“We note that the Earth has never in its history had a quasi-stable state that is around 2C warmer than the preindustrial and suggest that there is substantial risk that the system, itself, will ‘want’ to continue warming because of all of these other processes – even if we stop emissions,” she said. “This implies not only reducing emissions but much more.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environ...events-could-push-earth-into-a-hothouse-state

Paper here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115
 
hifiandmtb

hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
And likely you will because there is no pricing influence on the destruction we cause.

It's really not your fault - we like our luxuries & they are so cheap we don't treat them as luxuries.

Living the dream.
 
pink poodle

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
It is hard to comprehend...I mean it's bin night here and I'm arranging my garbage to take down to the big bin. I have so little I just put it in my neighbour's bin. I could fit everything in a shoe box, without jamming it. This includes raiding the fridge for shot I haven't gotten too. And my little bit is bag free. I try but others just don't bother...I may as well give up right? Do I want a hummer or a tundra? It's a long way through the urban jungle to the shops.
 
Ponchoatdirtworks

Ponchoatdirtworks

Likes Dirt
Some nights I get home & find that my in-laws have dumped a large bag of assorted McDonald’s wrappers & leftovers in the carefully sorted recycling bin. They don’t recognize anything wrong with doing that.

I used to pull it out & re-sort it.

Now, I’m just... meh, it’s probably all going to landfill anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Flow-Rider

Flow-Rider

Burner
Ponchoatdirtworks said:
Do you have in-laws?

Is there a more persistent force in the universe?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Yeah, I've had many but not by marriage, one was actually a hippy and didn't believe in bras and had tits that touched her hips and long hair uncoloured like a witch but recycled just about everything you may think of. Her daughter, my girlfriend at the time was actually embarrassed by her because she rode a rusty old steel bike around the streets picking aluminium cans up.

Photo was for the finger pointers. :)
 
Freediver

Freediver

I can go full Karen
Ponchoatdirtworks said:
Some nights I get home & find that my in-laws have dumped a large bag of assorted McDonald’s wrappers & leftovers in the carefully sorted recycling bin. They don’t recognize anything wrong with doing that.

I used to pull it out & re-sort it.

Now, I’m just... meh, it’s probably all going to landfill anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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And the irony is that our waste ends up going to landfill because China doesn't want it anymore due to contamination.
 
Ponchoatdirtworks

Ponchoatdirtworks

Likes Dirt
Freediver said:
And the irony is that our waste ends up going to landfill because China doesn't want it anymore due to contamination.
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I think we as a community could have done a lot better from the start if we’d been informed of what & who was involved.
Australia needs to take responsibility for its own waste & pay for the solution. No subsidies, offshoring etc. I feel that would get the entrepreneurial efficiencies engaged.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ultra Lord

Ultra Lord

Hurts. Requires Money. And is nerdy.
Don’t worry Hifi, I already hate myself for what I do to the planet, you can ease up with the preaching.
Aside from consuming less, do you have anything we can actually do to make a real difference? I've had this shit rammed down my throat all through school, without anybody being able to actually give clear instructions aside from consume less and recycle. Neither of which has worked.
 
Dales Cannon

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
We can all do more. I don't have a veggie garden. I should and now will build one. We have great soil and enough water. Compost the scraps etc.

This will be my effort to do a bit more.

I like the initiative about coffee but worry the bogans will bring rubbish from home to get their free coffee at the beach.

So what changes will others make?
 
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