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On the 17th February 2020 Wendy and I set sail on Queen Elizabeth on a two week cruise up to Papua New Guinea, returning to Sydney on 2nd March.
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After a stop in Brisbane on the way the ship headed north to Rabaul, returning by:
Kiriwina Island; Milne Bay (Alotau); the Conflict Islands; and Cairns in far north Queensland
Sydney to Rabaul is around four thousand kilometres
A short story
The Bangkok Sky-train, that repetition of great, grey megaliths of ferroconcrete looms above us.
All along the main roads, under the overhead railway above, small igloo tents and market stalls provide a carnival atmosphere to Bangkok. It’s like a giant school fete - except that people are getting killed – half a dozen shot and a couple of grenades lobbed-in to date.
Periodically, as we pass along the pedestrian thronged roads, closed to all but involved vehicles, we encounter flattop trucks mounted with huge video screens or deafening loud speakers.
Next to Dinosaurs mummies are the museum objects most fascinating to children of all ages.
At the British Museum in London crowds squeeze between show cases to see them. At the Egyptian Museum in Cairo they are, or were when we visited in October 2010 just prior to the Arab Spring, by far the most popular exhibits (follow this link to see my travel notes). Almost every large natural history museum in the world has one or two mummies; or at the very least a sarcophagus in which one was once entombed.
In the 19th century there was something of a 'mummy rush' in Egypt. Wealthy young European men on their Grand Tour, ostensibly discovering the roots of Western Civilisation, became fascinated by all things 'Oriental'. They would pay an Egyptian fortune for a mummy or sarcophagus. The mummy trade quickly became a lucrative commercial opportunity for enterprising Egyptian grave-robbers.
Except of course, that a lot of politicians and bureaucrats have put in a lot of air miles and stayed in some excellent hotels in interesting places around the world like Kyoto, Amsterdam and Cancun.
In the interim technology has come to our aid. Wind turbines, dismissed here, have become larger and much more economic as have PV solar panels. Renewable energy options are discussed in more detail elsewhere on this website.
Climate change has wide ranging implications for the World, ranging from its impacts on agriculture (through drought, floods, water availability, land degradation and carbon credits) mining (by limiting markets for coal and minerals processing) manufacturing and transport (through energy costs) to property damage resulting from storms. The issues are complex, ranging from disputes about the impact of human activities on global warming, to arguments about what should be done and the consequences of the various actions proposed. The following paper explores some of the issues and their potential impact.