Re: [USMA:37879] Fw: Use metric unitsThanks Pat for your letter and commentary.
Putting the SI into practical terms with examples like you did will help to
break the barrier going the SI. However, short and simplified explanations are
necessary to get through to people and especially the public. That's why I
limited my remarks the way I did to the Commissioners of the Potomac river
Basin here in the Washington DC area.
However, I expect to get the normal negative response unlike the response I got
from the Superintendent of Schools here in Montgomery County who said to me on
two occasions that he is committed to the SI.
If we can get the SI taught and used exclusively in science classes and courses
in schools it will bring a solid constituency in the public arena.
Use the KISS principle - "Keep It Simple Stupid" in selling the SI. That's why
the new USMA SI UNITS chart was designed the way it now is. It simplifies the
SI concept for reference and general use, particularly for schools and
libraries.
A SI marketing campaign in food stores is needed when government and industry
decide to go metric only labeling with unit pricing in metric units. That's
what we should be preparing to do now to be ready for the transition to the SI.
Regards, Stan Doore
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Naughtin
To: STANLEY DOORE ; U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: [USMA:37879] Fw: Use metric units
Dear Stan,
This is an article that I sent to a gardening magazine in Australia. I know
that most of the content is local but you will easily get the gist of the
flexibility of using metric prefixes for water use.
Water, water, everywhere .
Many Australians are becoming used to the calculation that one millimetre of
water falling on a square metre of our roof gives us a litre of water in our
rainwater tank.
This is easy. At our house the side of the roof that feeds our tank is 20
metres long and 5 metres to the ridgeline, so each millimetre of rain gives us
100 litres of water in our rainwater tank.
Whenever we have a few millimetres of rain (say 7 mm) we simply multiply by
100 to estimate that we now have an additional 700 litres of water in our
rainwater tank.
We have a traditional suburban house allotment about 20 metres by 50 metres
or 1000 square metres. Whenever a millimetre of rain falls on this block we
gain 1000 litres, or one kilolitre, of water, which we can visualise as a cubic
metre of water.
For 1000 houses in our suburb a single millimetre of rainfall gives us a
collective 1000 kilolitres - or one megalitre - of water.
Using 7 mm of rain as an example, we receive 7000 litres or 7 kilolitres of
rain on our suburban block and the neighbourhood gets 7 megalitres of water.
Our basic water calculations are based on this rule:
One millimetre of rainfall per square metre equals one litre of water.
On a slightly larger scale:
One millimetre of rainfall falling on 1000 square metres equals one kilolitre.
And on an even larger scale:
One millimetre of rainfall per square kilometre equals one megalitre.
One millimetre of rainfall on all of Australia is 7 700 000 megalitres.
Assuming an average rainfall of 400 millimetres then Australia's total annual
rainfall amounts to about 3 000 000 000 megalitres (3 petalitres) each year.
At the end of World War 2, Australia had about 7 million citizens and the
government was about to embark on an ambitious program to accept war refugees
in large numbers from displaced people in Europe.
Australian scientists at that time recognised that water supply and therefore
rainfall was the ultimate key to sustainable human settlement in Australia.
Despite the fact that we have a large area available for settlement, the
scientists recognised that this large area was useless without adequate water.
In 1953, at the Australia and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of
Science (ANZAAS) Conference in Brisbane, discussion focused on Australia's
ultimate, sustainable, human carrying capacity. This was at a time when there
was little, if any, evidence of global warming or climate change and their
estimates were based on the level of water use at that time; they did not
include the extra water wanted for en-suite bathrooms, pools, and spas.
The ANZAAS delegates reached a consensus that a population of about 20
million would be as much as rainfall and water supply in Australia could
support.
By the end of 2007, Australia will have a population of 21 million. This is
based on the current population of 20.7 million that is estimated to be growing
at a rate of one person every 2 minutes and 11 seconds. This is 28 people per
hour, 660 people per day, or an extra 241 000 people each year.
Pat Naughtin ([EMAIL PROTECTED] )
On 2007 01 26 10:17 PM, "STANLEY DOORE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: STANLEY DOORE <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Potomac River Basin <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 5:20 AM
Subject: Use metric units
FROM: G. STANLEY DOORE
2913 Shanandale Drive
Silver Spring, MD 20904-1822
Tel.: 301.572.4939 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2007 January 26
TO: Potomac River Basin Commission
51 Monroe Street Suite PE-08
Rockville MD 20850
Thanks for your Potomac Basin Reporter. And thanks for the article titled
"Free Water for Everyone" in the Nov/Dec issue. The article would be much more
useful and understandable if you used the SI (International System of Units)
instead of conventional English units of measurement. Why?
The SI is a coherent system where length, volume and weight are
interrelated and are easy to use. For example:
One cubic meter of water contains 1000 liters (kL or kiloliter) which
weighs (has a mass of) one metric tonne since one liter of water weights one
kilogram (2.2 pounds). A meter is a little more than a yard in length.
Also, one millimeter (1/1000 of a meter) of rain in one square meter equals
one liter of water.
See how it all fits together? The U.S. Metric Association (USMA) has a
great chart which shows the relationship of standard metric units. The USMA
web site is: www.metric.org <http://www.metric.org> .
I recommend you begin to use the SI as the basic system of measurement. I
look forward to seeing it used in the future.
Regards,
G Stanley Doore
Meteorologist Retired
