"Get me out."
"I'm sorry. I can't help you."
Funny Animal Pictures by Ty Buchanan
Euthanasia and Dying at Home Should be on the Agenda
Euthanasia should be legal. When you are ill and feel that your life is no longer worth living, you should be given access to drugs that can be self-administered. It is of no help to society or anyone for that matter to continue painful existence.
Even when doctors know you are dying, in Australia you are not taken home to die. Eighty six per cent of Australians die outside of their home. This is despite 70 per cent of people wanting to die at home. There is high demand for medical facilities. Nonetheless, the critically ill are kept in hospitals and residential care against their wishes.
More home care is made available in other Western countries to look after dying people at home. Why is this not done in Australia? At present more die at an old age. This state of affairs could change as the young adopt poor lifestyles and medical treatment becomes more privatised.
Making wishes known will not alter the state of affairs, because the key to improving matters lies with government. Government policy driven by uncaring third parties is at fault. A social structure supportive of choosing how one dies is needed.
✴ Health by Ty Buchanan ✴
Biomass is the Wrong Way forward
Much has been said about the adoption of biomass technology to replace wind and solar energy production. Biomass involves the burning of sugars, starches and oils from crops to make biodiesel and ethanol. The cost of gathering this waste has not been factored in. Wind and solar need maintenance but for the most part they just sit there and do their job.
Farmers have simply left waste in the fields - ultimately burning or plowing them in. They do not see money in gathering up the left overs from crops. Environmentally, biomass looks good. However, financially they are a no-go. Who will pay a higher price for electricity? Charges are already extremely high using coal which is just dug from the ground.
The biggest problem is that biomass involves burning while wind and solar do not. Just substituting biomass for widely available conventional fossil fuels is not a an ideal move forward. This is like electric cars which are only substitutes for petrol motor vehicles - a poor and inefficient one at that.
Saying that biomass can be made from wood and straw and could reduce the use of normal fossil fuels is a mistake. It is not as if oil is running out: it isn't. Australia is a "bowl" of natural resources. We do not have to be efficient with industrial waste like European countries which have to import oil.
To make biomass productive will take capital that Australia does not have. This country has a large deficit. It caused the Coalition government to abandon the carbon tax and redistribute savings back to the consumer. After tax collection costs, the government got very little income from the tax. It is simply not rational for Australia to abandon coal in power generation when other countries do nothing to reduce carbon emissions.
Technology by Ty Buchanan
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