More Spaces in my Head

I like to know where all the cavities are in my house though of course this is totally impossible. There are always spaces which you can never get to. I have a couple of Odhams Press books from the 1940s which details various aspects of the technology of the day and one of the chapters was on house building. It included an exploded diagram of a typical brick built house and it was interesting to see all the doublings of the various cavities. My idea for a house would have no cavities. The inside walls would be the inner surfaces of the outside walls, the floor would rest directly on the base of the foundations and the roof would simply be laid on the walls. If you look at this irrationally, it seems to be a conspiracy against simplicity. All basic human needs can be served very simply and yet still leave us feeling that we have a good standard of living. Opponents of this idea would say that increasing technology makes live easier for us. If that is the case why is it that in general, societies with high levels of technology are the ones with most discontent at their existence? The exponetial rise in the use of technology is not directly proportional to the benefits and indeed, it seems that in some ways, the affects of technology are negative - in inverse proportion to the rise in technology. Technology seems to be introduced not for the benefit of humankind but for the whims of individual humans. Powergen is very laudably streesing the need for the intoduction of green sources of energy while gradually phasing out the use of fossil fuels. However, the thrust of their argument seems to be that fossil fuels will one day run out while wind, wave and sun power will never run out. I like to think that with the will, the world could phase out all fossil fuel burning power stations within ten years and within twenty could rid the world of oil burning vehicles. The will is not present. Most Green projects seem to be on a scale that could only ever be for publicity purposes. Having said this, there does seem to be an increase in the visibility and scale of these projects but the momentum needs to be a lot higher if it is to be of use. The question regarding fossil fuels running out, to me is one of whether the exhaustion will occur before or after we have ruined the planet. The following figures are not from anything I have read but are simply gut feelings. I would say that the total energy created and dispersed in just 10% of the sea surface of this planet, that is sunlight, wind and wave, would be more than enough to supply the energy needs of the entire world. The world uses too much energy anway, so maybe we are talking less than 5% of the sea surface. It can be done and with the profits from the world for one year. The will is not there because the returns are not clear. Everything is reduced to financial terms these days. Remember the car company who supposedly did not fix a dangerous fault on a particular model of car because the financial cost of handling the litigation from bereaved families and other legal suits, was determined to be less than the cost of fixing the fault? Go here for details. I know that this sort of thing happens at all levels of business and indeed Government. They say it is just for internal accounting purposes but it seems illogical to me. It is as of the business people are saying that normal feelings of grief and loss do not apply at this rarified business level a bit like the classical laws of physics break down at sub-atomic levels. Madness. I call it Madness.

A moment for reflection. See these wonderful panoramic views of the Malvern Hills. Sadly, they are not live which would have been nice but I emailed my brother this morning so he could tell me what the view of the hills from his office window was like (It was either raining or about to). Time to go. Bye