Not too many people read this blog; I don’t know whether there are many who also look at my webpage. (I know that at least one person did, since WordPress helpfully tell me which pages have referred visitors here.) If you did, you may have noticed that I had a link entitled “Traveston Crossing Dam, an unwanted dam”, which has now been removed.
I removed the link because this was a rare instance of a successful protest.
I visited Australia and New Zealand in December 2008 – January 2009. (You can read an illustrated account of the trip here.) During that visit, I stayed for a week with my brother, who has a dairy farm at Lagoon Pocket, near Gympie in Queensland. He told me, and showed me, a lot about the dam that the State government proposed to build at Traveston Crossing. His property is just downstream from the proposed dam, and so he was not being forced off his land (unlike some of his friends), but he was still strongly opposed to the project, and it was not hard to see why.
The main problem was that it was a completely unsatisfactory place for a dam. The valley is very wide and flat, and even when full, the average depth of water would only be a couple of metres. In the Queensland climate, the losses to evaporation would be catastrophic. Added to this, the soil here is quite porous, and as well as evaporation, there would be a huge loss to seepage. And finally, such a shallow body of water would cover a huge area, and take rich land out of agricultural or environmental use.
However, the dam-builders in the State government seemed unable to see something which was obvious even to an amateur like me.
After a long fight, the campaigners finally saw off the dam this month, when the Environment minister in the Federal government refused the State permission to build it. Why? Well, the river here is home to several very rare and threatened species, including the Australian lungfish (a creature of great importance in our evolutionary history), and the Mary River turtle. The minister’s decision was based on the fact that scientific evidence suggested that these creatures would be put further at risk by the proposed dam, despite “safeguards” built into the plans; the evidence suggested that these “safeguards” would not work.
So, the right result, for reasons which (while important) were perhaps not the
right ones. The positive thing is that it was the scientific evidence which influenced the minister’s decision.
The “Save the Mary River” website still exists, and you might enjoy taking a look. Their fight is not over, despite the political decision; people who have lived under the shadow of the dam for years, and have had their properties purchased by the State, have to re-establish their livelihoods, and need help in this.
This decision set me thinking, as I discussed it with my family by email. My
brother thinks that the link I made was helpful in their campaign, in bringing
international traffic to the website.
Right now there are surely hundreds of similar battles being waged all over the world. It has always been the case that, in any battle between developers and conservationists, the developers only have to win once; the conservationists lose unless they win every battle.
Here in Britain we have a government that wants to build another runway at Heathrow; a government that sacks its scientific advisers when it finds their advice unpalatable; and a legal system which allows those who profit from pseudoscience to use the libel laws to suppress scientific reports. Also, as I have written on this blog, we have a scheme to undermine fundamental research for the sake of social and economic “impact”.
Which brings me back to my starting thought. Does anyone read this? Well, some people do, maybe not a whole lot. But I have many web pages, which I hope are interesting and informative to visitors. Some of them are mathematics: my papers, my lecture notes, lists of collaborators, and so on. Some of them have pictures, of family, places I walk, and so on. But some, like my travel diaries, are really just exercises in writing. Mathematicians are traditionally people who have trouble stringing words together into a sentence. This is not how I see myself; I am not afraid to put my writing on public view, and while it may not be very professional, this is how I can improve.
And why do I want to improve? Two reasons really, I think. First, I would like my family and friends to have an account of my life and experiences; I think they may be interested, and I want to write it as well as possible. But second, it seems very likely that one of these days, one of these battles will come much closer to home, and I will need all the eloquence I can master to defend a cause I believe in.
So, as ever, comments welcome!
To answer your question : I read this. Before going on, an apology : sorry for any english mistake, french is my mother-tongue.
As a mathematician, I think it vital to learn to write well (and it follows, to talk well): first, to make oneself be understood, to make one’s subject seem less dry and more lively and beautiful when explaining things to others (a bit like make-up in a way…). Also, to be able to write clearly one’s thoughts helps to understand things better : when I’m struggling with a problem, I write down my every thoughts on the paper (not just mathematical symbols, but complete sentences, like a dialogue with myself), and it clarifies my mind a lot. Anyway, writing is a creative process, so practising it can’t do any hurt.
I just wanted to say that I enjoy reading your blog and I do so on a regular basis. Although sometimes I do not have time to read a post completely, I come back to it eventually and read it. I find the posts here very interesting, particularly the ones on collaborations. Please keep it up!
Thanks for the feedback – this is much more interesting for me than blog stats saying so many people read something!
Please do suggest topics. I have a few thoughts about what to write about, but would welcome more.
As I said, I enjoy the stories about the collaborations and so on. But really pretty much anything interesting I would read. I can see that this blog is not entirely mathematical and that could well be a good break for me. Also maybe you could share your experience as a professional mathematician; I would be very interested in that.
Thanks for this. You might enjoy reading my G. C. Steward lectures
here.
Peter Cameron.
This looks very interesting, thanks a lot.
Like ahwingsecretagent, I would like to read about your experience as a professional mathematician and advices you’d like to give younger mathematician and students like me (I always pay more attention to the ones that I read than the ones that are given to me by speech – I find that writings have a kind of authority that you can’t ignore!), or you could talk about your work and study habits.
Also you could talk about anything that you find interesting in daily life, in the newspapers, that someone told you about – anything that you find worth sharing with us.
I read books and I read blogs to know more about people, about human nature, how other people think and feel, so I would enjoy anything that you might want to write, as long as you put yourself in it.
thanks for writing this blog