In the Guardian newspaper, on the 27th of December 2008, Nick Laird talks about the struggle of creating beautiful poetry when the world seems to be ending in a number of different ways.
In Ireland last week I heard on RTE that back in October the world was only two hours from economic meltdown - money would have stopped coming out of ATMs, credit cards would have stopped working and society would rapidly break down. We sidestepped that - though economies have collapsed. All that, however, is as nothing compared to the ecological collapse. There's a kind of constant free-floating global anxiety at this time. Anything I try to write turns elegiac, as if elegy is the only appropriate tone. So much bad news. The earth is, to put it mildly, f***ed. Climate change. Rising seas. Mass extinctions. The destruction of fish stocks, rainforests. The Gulf Stream stopping. The earth is turning against us. I spent hours online last night reading how the bees are dying out. And what happened to bird flu?
Art is waist-deep in the spirit of the times and the French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, given the turbine hall at Tate Modern, has aimed to present "a postapocalyptic world 50 years in the future". She has filled the space with recreations of sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, Henry Moore, Bruce Nauman and others, and placed them among a grid of mattress-less metal bunk beds, where books such as The War of the Worlds and Fahrenheit 451 have been left. It's common enough to play Chicken Licken, to claim that the end of the world is nigh, but I've read my Stern report, my Lovelock, my Rachel Carson and John Gray, and I can't help feeling it too. What does poetry do in these circumstances? There is satire, but that seems such a hollow posture. In modern nature poetry - perhaps in modern poetry itself - the elegiac tone has come to be the dominant mode, the pervasive mood. Didn't Martin Amis once claim that the modern world meant the only appropriate fiction was comic? It seems in poetry the only tone left is elegiac.
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Friday, 19 December 2008
Did Early Global Warming Divert a New Glacial Age?
The Science Daily website, on the 18th of December 2008, has an article about how climate change began thousands of years ago, not recently and has stop the next ice age from starting.
The common wisdom is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age marked the beginning of human influence on global climate.
But gathering physical evidence, backed by powerful simulations on the world's most advanced computer climate models, is reshaping that view and lending strong support to the radical idea that human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe.
What's more, according to the same computer simulations, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age, altering a clockwork rhythm of periodic cooling of the planet that extends back more than a million years.
"Between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, both methane and carbon dioxide started an upward trend, unlike during previous interglacial periods," explains Kutzbach. Thus, the accumulation of greenhouse gases over the past few thousands of years, the Wisconsin-Virginia team argue, is very likely forestalling the onset of a new glacial cycle, such as have occurred at regular 100,000-year intervals during the last million years.
The common wisdom is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age marked the beginning of human influence on global climate.
But gathering physical evidence, backed by powerful simulations on the world's most advanced computer climate models, is reshaping that view and lending strong support to the radical idea that human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe.
What's more, according to the same computer simulations, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age, altering a clockwork rhythm of periodic cooling of the planet that extends back more than a million years.
"Between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, both methane and carbon dioxide started an upward trend, unlike during previous interglacial periods," explains Kutzbach. Thus, the accumulation of greenhouse gases over the past few thousands of years, the Wisconsin-Virginia team argue, is very likely forestalling the onset of a new glacial cycle, such as have occurred at regular 100,000-year intervals during the last million years.
2008 will be coolest year since 1997
Reuters’ website, and other news papers, on and after the 16th of December 2008, report on this year’s average temperature continuing to drop lower and give excuses for why we are not seeing them rise like Global Warming doomsayers had predicted.
This year will be the coolest since 1997 but still the tenth hottest in a temperature record dating back 150 years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.
The global mean temperature for 2008 was 14.3 degrees Celsius (57.7 degrees Fahrenheit), climate scientists at the UK's Met Office Hadley Center and Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who compiled data for the WMO, said.
"Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years," the Met Office's Peter Stott said in a statement."
Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.
The 10 warmest years measured since records began in 1850 have occurred since 1997, with global temperatures for 2000-2008 standing at almost 0.2 degrees Celsius above the average for the decade 1990-1999, the Met Office said.
I said this “La Nina” theory would be used to disregard the plain fact that global temperatures were going down and that Global Warming is looking like it is walking on thin ice.
Instead of telling us the planet is now cooling and not continuing to heat up like they predicted, they talk about now the last 10 years are the hottest on record. They seem to spin the bad news into something they can use or at least reshape it so they do not look foolish.
This year will be the coolest since 1997 but still the tenth hottest in a temperature record dating back 150 years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.
The global mean temperature for 2008 was 14.3 degrees Celsius (57.7 degrees Fahrenheit), climate scientists at the UK's Met Office Hadley Center and Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who compiled data for the WMO, said.
"Human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years," the Met Office's Peter Stott said in a statement."
Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.
The 10 warmest years measured since records began in 1850 have occurred since 1997, with global temperatures for 2000-2008 standing at almost 0.2 degrees Celsius above the average for the decade 1990-1999, the Met Office said.
I said this “La Nina” theory would be used to disregard the plain fact that global temperatures were going down and that Global Warming is looking like it is walking on thin ice.
Instead of telling us the planet is now cooling and not continuing to heat up like they predicted, they talk about now the last 10 years are the hottest on record. They seem to spin the bad news into something they can use or at least reshape it so they do not look foolish.
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Holes in Earth's magnetic cloak let the sun in
Reuters’ web site, on the 16th of December 2008, has an article about new findings that show that the Earth has holes in its magnetic field.
The Earth's protective magnetosphere has two large holes that are letting in disruptive solar winds, scientists said on Tuesday.
Understanding how these holes form will help them better predict the electrical storms that cause power grid blackouts and the aurora, activity that will peak in 2012 as sunspots hit their maximum level.
Scientists at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco said they had been entirely wrong about how solar particles that cause the storms were entering the Earth's magnetosphere.
The magnetosphere is a bubble of magnetism that surrounds Earth and protects us from solar wind.
"What we observed was the breach in the levee," said Jimmy Raeder, a physicist at the University of New Hampshire. "This has taken us completely by surprise."
"The opening was huge -- four times wider than Earth itself," said Raeder. "This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible."
The Earth's protective magnetosphere has two large holes that are letting in disruptive solar winds, scientists said on Tuesday.
Understanding how these holes form will help them better predict the electrical storms that cause power grid blackouts and the aurora, activity that will peak in 2012 as sunspots hit their maximum level.
Scientists at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco said they had been entirely wrong about how solar particles that cause the storms were entering the Earth's magnetosphere.
The magnetosphere is a bubble of magnetism that surrounds Earth and protects us from solar wind.
"What we observed was the breach in the levee," said Jimmy Raeder, a physicist at the University of New Hampshire. "This has taken us completely by surprise."
"The opening was huge -- four times wider than Earth itself," said Raeder. "This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible."
Sea level could rise by 150cm
The Guardian newspaper, on the 16th of December 2008, has article about how sea levels rises are going to be higher than first predicted.
Sea level rise due to global warming will "substantially exceed" official UN projections and could top 150cm by the end of the century, according to a report from the US Geological Survey on the risks of abrupt climate change. Such a rise would be catastrophic, seeing hundreds of millions of people affected by flooding.
Many scientists now fear the warming world is on the verge of "tipping points", in which climate change and its effects accelerate rapidly.
On sea level, the report found models used by the IPCC in 2007 do not take into account recent information on how fast glaciers slide into the oceans, particularly from Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets.
But the risk of the ocean circulation in the Altantic shutting down – freezing the coasts of America and Europe, as in the film The Day After Tomorrow – is rated as low by the report. It predicts a slowdown of around 25% to 30%. The chance of a catastrophic release of methane from frozen sub-sea stores at high latitudes is also rated low.
Sea level rise due to global warming will "substantially exceed" official UN projections and could top 150cm by the end of the century, according to a report from the US Geological Survey on the risks of abrupt climate change. Such a rise would be catastrophic, seeing hundreds of millions of people affected by flooding.
Many scientists now fear the warming world is on the verge of "tipping points", in which climate change and its effects accelerate rapidly.
On sea level, the report found models used by the IPCC in 2007 do not take into account recent information on how fast glaciers slide into the oceans, particularly from Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheets.
But the risk of the ocean circulation in the Altantic shutting down – freezing the coasts of America and Europe, as in the film The Day After Tomorrow – is rated as low by the report. It predicts a slowdown of around 25% to 30%. The chance of a catastrophic release of methane from frozen sub-sea stores at high latitudes is also rated low.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Ten Ways the World Could End
CBC Radio, on December the 6th 2008, had a show looking into 10 possible ways the world could end.
Despite what you may think, the universe is not necessarily a friendly place. Sure, things here on Earth have been pretty stable over the past few millennia, allowing human civilization to gain a foothold. But that could change at any time.
1. Dr. Ray Jayawardhana explains what will happen when the expanding sun engulfs the earth and roasts the planet.
2. Dr. Vicki Kaspi explores the irradiating effects of a giant gamma ray burst.
3. Dr. Laura Ferrarese suggests that a rogue black hole may set its voracious appetite on Earth.
4. Dr. Peter Brown tells us what will happen if a giant asteroid plunges into Earth and pulverizes us.
5. Dr. Richard Peltier has a chilling scenario: the earth becomes a Popsicle planet and puts a freeze on photosynthesis.
6. Dr. Jo-Anne Brown explains what would happen if the galactic magnetic cloud were to collapse.
7. Dr. Sabine Stanley says the reversal of Earth's magnetic field may cause us some trouble.
8. Dr. Peter Sutherland explores what would happen if a nearby star were to go supernova.
9. Dr. Sarah Barnes talks about the possibility of a gigantic super-volcano blowing us to smithereens.
10. Robert J. Sawyer imagines an Earth under alien invasion.
Despite what you may think, the universe is not necessarily a friendly place. Sure, things here on Earth have been pretty stable over the past few millennia, allowing human civilization to gain a foothold. But that could change at any time.
1. Dr. Ray Jayawardhana explains what will happen when the expanding sun engulfs the earth and roasts the planet.
2. Dr. Vicki Kaspi explores the irradiating effects of a giant gamma ray burst.
3. Dr. Laura Ferrarese suggests that a rogue black hole may set its voracious appetite on Earth.
4. Dr. Peter Brown tells us what will happen if a giant asteroid plunges into Earth and pulverizes us.
5. Dr. Richard Peltier has a chilling scenario: the earth becomes a Popsicle planet and puts a freeze on photosynthesis.
6. Dr. Jo-Anne Brown explains what would happen if the galactic magnetic cloud were to collapse.
7. Dr. Sabine Stanley says the reversal of Earth's magnetic field may cause us some trouble.
8. Dr. Peter Sutherland explores what would happen if a nearby star were to go supernova.
9. Dr. Sarah Barnes talks about the possibility of a gigantic super-volcano blowing us to smithereens.
10. Robert J. Sawyer imagines an Earth under alien invasion.
Monday, 8 December 2008
UN is told that Earth needs an asteroid shield
The Observer newspaper, on Sunday the 7th of December 2008, reports on a group of world scientists who are asking the UN to create a system to stop asteroids from hitting Earth.
A group of the world's leading scientists has urged the United Nations to establish an international network to search the skies for asteroids on a collision course with Earth. The spaceguard system would also be responsible for deploying spacecraft that could destroy or deflect incoming objects.
The group - which includes the Royal Society president Lord Rees and environmentalist Crispin Tickell - said that the UN needed to act as a matter of urgency. Although an asteroid collision with the planet is a relatively remote risk, the consequences of a strike would be devastating.
'The international community must begin work now on forging three impact prevention elements - warning, deflection technology and a decision-making process - into an effective defence against a future collision,' said the International Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation.
The risk of a significantly sized asteroid - defined by the panel as being more than 45 metres in diameter - striking the Earth has been calculated at two or three such events every 1,000 years, a rare occurrence, though such a collision would dwarf all other natural disasters in recent history.
A group of the world's leading scientists has urged the United Nations to establish an international network to search the skies for asteroids on a collision course with Earth. The spaceguard system would also be responsible for deploying spacecraft that could destroy or deflect incoming objects.
The group - which includes the Royal Society president Lord Rees and environmentalist Crispin Tickell - said that the UN needed to act as a matter of urgency. Although an asteroid collision with the planet is a relatively remote risk, the consequences of a strike would be devastating.
'The international community must begin work now on forging three impact prevention elements - warning, deflection technology and a decision-making process - into an effective defence against a future collision,' said the International Panel on Asteroid Threat Mitigation.
The risk of a significantly sized asteroid - defined by the panel as being more than 45 metres in diameter - striking the Earth has been calculated at two or three such events every 1,000 years, a rare occurrence, though such a collision would dwarf all other natural disasters in recent history.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Revealing the next catastrophic threat to our world
The Daily Mail newspaper, on the 23rd November 2008, has an article about a new TV program that looks at how the earth was formed through many different catastrophes how they are likely to return.
Earth has been subjected to some apocalyptic events in its 4.5billion-year history. Volcanoes, meteors, fire and ice have almost obliterated all life and threatened the very existence of the planet itself.
Now, a new Channel 4 programme, Catastrophe, looks at the science behind the destruction and reveals the threat our planet could still be under.
A TOXIC CLOUD OVER BRITAIN
In 1783 in Laki, Iceland, a volcanic eruption occurred, spewing out gas and lava for eight months and covering an area of 200sq miles in molten rock.
The eruption sent a huge toxic cloud across Western Europe - it was the greatest natural disaster to hit modern Britain, with acid rain, smog and extreme weather continuing over the country for months.
Laki’s killer cloud took the lives of an estimated 23,000 British men and women. And it could happen again - Iceland has 18 volcanoes that have been active in recent centuries, the greatest concentration anywhere on the planet.
A SUPERVOLCANO ERUPTION
Scientists believe the next most likely supervolcano eruption will be at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, US.
Underneath the park is a vast chamber of molten lava beneath the Earth’s crust - 25km wide by 50km long and 8km deep. That’s 500 times the size of the City of London.
The Yellowstone caldera - a cauldron-like volcanic feature formed by a collapse of land after a volcano has erupted - has been rising three inches every year since 2004. Scientists believe this is a sign of an impending eruption.
The last big eruption at Yellowstone was 640,000 years ago. Similar eruptions have happened on a fairly regular basis over the past 2million years, so it could be said that the next is overdue.
Earth has been subjected to some apocalyptic events in its 4.5billion-year history. Volcanoes, meteors, fire and ice have almost obliterated all life and threatened the very existence of the planet itself.
Now, a new Channel 4 programme, Catastrophe, looks at the science behind the destruction and reveals the threat our planet could still be under.
A TOXIC CLOUD OVER BRITAIN
In 1783 in Laki, Iceland, a volcanic eruption occurred, spewing out gas and lava for eight months and covering an area of 200sq miles in molten rock.
The eruption sent a huge toxic cloud across Western Europe - it was the greatest natural disaster to hit modern Britain, with acid rain, smog and extreme weather continuing over the country for months.
Laki’s killer cloud took the lives of an estimated 23,000 British men and women. And it could happen again - Iceland has 18 volcanoes that have been active in recent centuries, the greatest concentration anywhere on the planet.
A SUPERVOLCANO ERUPTION
Scientists believe the next most likely supervolcano eruption will be at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, US.
Underneath the park is a vast chamber of molten lava beneath the Earth’s crust - 25km wide by 50km long and 8km deep. That’s 500 times the size of the City of London.
The Yellowstone caldera - a cauldron-like volcanic feature formed by a collapse of land after a volcano has erupted - has been rising three inches every year since 2004. Scientists believe this is a sign of an impending eruption.
The last big eruption at Yellowstone was 640,000 years ago. Similar eruptions have happened on a fairly regular basis over the past 2million years, so it could be said that the next is overdue.
Monday, 17 November 2008
Insecticide - An ecological disaster that will affect us all
The Independent newspaper, on the 15th of November 2008, has an article about the decline of insects and how it will create a disaster.
While the plight of mammals and birds commands the world's attention, insects are quietly but rapidly disappearing. Michael McCarthy explains why their loss is bad news for the planet.
The population declines among invertebrates in general and insects in particular are now greater than among any other group of living things, greater than declines in mammals, birds and plants. Yet although people get excited about endangered pandas, or eagles, or orchids, endangered insects generally remain below the level of their perception, Mr Shardlow says.
"There are more extinctions among invertebrates than in any other groups, and a greater proportion of the species are in decline, and the decline is steeper, than in plants, birds and mammals, wherever there is data."
"There are a whole set of different species, including beetles and flies, which are also undertaking unique and different pollination roles. You can't fix pollination by saving one species. You have to save the full gamut of invertebrate diversity. Insects are fundamental to the fabric of life, and if we start to tear that fabric apart, the consequences for all of the services that are provided from ecosystems will be severe."
While the plight of mammals and birds commands the world's attention, insects are quietly but rapidly disappearing. Michael McCarthy explains why their loss is bad news for the planet.
The population declines among invertebrates in general and insects in particular are now greater than among any other group of living things, greater than declines in mammals, birds and plants. Yet although people get excited about endangered pandas, or eagles, or orchids, endangered insects generally remain below the level of their perception, Mr Shardlow says.
"There are more extinctions among invertebrates than in any other groups, and a greater proportion of the species are in decline, and the decline is steeper, than in plants, birds and mammals, wherever there is data."
"There are a whole set of different species, including beetles and flies, which are also undertaking unique and different pollination roles. You can't fix pollination by saving one species. You have to save the full gamut of invertebrate diversity. Insects are fundamental to the fabric of life, and if we start to tear that fabric apart, the consequences for all of the services that are provided from ecosystems will be severe."
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Earth may face freeze worse than Ice Age
The Reuters website, on the 12th of November 2008, has an article about how the world may face a new Ice Age in as little as 10,000 years.
The planet could face a freeze worse than an Ice Age starting in as little as 10,000 years, giving future societies a headache the opposite of coping with global warming, scientists said on Wednesday.
The researchers, based in Britain and Canada, said that now-vilified greenhouse gases might help in future to avert a chill that could smother much of Canada and the United States, Europe and Russia in permanent ice.
They said the study, based on records of tiny marine fossils and the earth's shifting orbit, did not mean the world should stop fighting warming, stoked by human emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.
"Historians of science hate to say 'this is a special time'," Crowley said.
"But when you go through the models, each step seems reasonable and you get to an astonishing conclusion that we are right at the end of a 50-millionyear evolution."
"It might not come for tens of thousands of years," he said. "I'm sure some headline writers will want to say 'CO2 good for the atmosphere', or 'CO2 is good for us'. That's not the case."
The planet could face a freeze worse than an Ice Age starting in as little as 10,000 years, giving future societies a headache the opposite of coping with global warming, scientists said on Wednesday.
The researchers, based in Britain and Canada, said that now-vilified greenhouse gases might help in future to avert a chill that could smother much of Canada and the United States, Europe and Russia in permanent ice.
They said the study, based on records of tiny marine fossils and the earth's shifting orbit, did not mean the world should stop fighting warming, stoked by human emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.
"Historians of science hate to say 'this is a special time'," Crowley said.
"But when you go through the models, each step seems reasonable and you get to an astonishing conclusion that we are right at the end of a 50-millionyear evolution."
"It might not come for tens of thousands of years," he said. "I'm sure some headline writers will want to say 'CO2 good for the atmosphere', or 'CO2 is good for us'. That's not the case."
Monday, 10 November 2008
Carbon Dioxide Levels Already in Danger Zone
On the physorg.com website, around the 10th of November 2008, there is a report about how the levels of carbon dioxide are already at dangerous levels and that we need to reduce them and not just cut emissions.
If climate disasters are to be averted, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) must be reduced below the levels that already exist today, according to a study published in Open Atmospheric Science Journal by a group of 10 scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
“This work and other recent publications suggest that we have reached CO2 levels that compromise the stability of the polar ice sheets,” said author Mark Pagani, Yale professor of geology and geophysics. “How fast ice sheets and sea level will respond are still poorly understood, but given the potential size of the disaster, I think it’s best not to learn this lesson firsthand.”
While they note the task of moving toward an era beyond fossil fuels is Herculean, the authors conclude that it is feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II and that “the greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.”
If climate disasters are to be averted, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) must be reduced below the levels that already exist today, according to a study published in Open Atmospheric Science Journal by a group of 10 scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
“This work and other recent publications suggest that we have reached CO2 levels that compromise the stability of the polar ice sheets,” said author Mark Pagani, Yale professor of geology and geophysics. “How fast ice sheets and sea level will respond are still poorly understood, but given the potential size of the disaster, I think it’s best not to learn this lesson firsthand.”
While they note the task of moving toward an era beyond fossil fuels is Herculean, the authors conclude that it is feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II and that “the greatest danger is continued ignorance and denial, which could make tragic consequences unavoidable.”
Earth Can't Cope, New Planets Needed
The livescience.com website, on the 7th of November 2008, has an article about how mankind is using up too much of the Earths resources and at a too greater rate for it to cope.
"The Earth’s biocapacity is the amount of biologically productive area – cropland, pasture, forest, and fisheries – that is available to meet humanity’s needs.
"Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot - the Ecological Footprint has exceeded the Earth’s biocapacity - by about 25%.
"Effectively, the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand – people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources.
"A moderate business-as-usual scenario, based on United Nations projections of slow, steady growth of economies and populations, suggests that by 2050, humanity’s demand on nature will be twice the biosphere’s productive capacity."
"The Earth’s biocapacity is the amount of biologically productive area – cropland, pasture, forest, and fisheries – that is available to meet humanity’s needs.
"Since the late 1980s, we have been in overshoot - the Ecological Footprint has exceeded the Earth’s biocapacity - by about 25%.
"Effectively, the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand – people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources.
"A moderate business-as-usual scenario, based on United Nations projections of slow, steady growth of economies and populations, suggests that by 2050, humanity’s demand on nature will be twice the biosphere’s productive capacity."
'Clean-up' bees could save endangered hives
The newspaper The Observer, on Sunday 9th November 2008, has an article about a British scientist who is trying to breed a better Bee that will keep its hive clean from different types of diseases. This should help stop the decline in Bee numbers.
A British scientist is hoping to reverse the critical decline of the honeybee by breeding 'cleaner bees' to protect hives from potentially devastating diseases.
Francis Ratnieks, the UK's only professor of apiculture, is undertaking pioneering research based on a breed of worker bee genetically programmed to keep hives clean. So-called 'hygienic' bees are responsible for removing dead pupae and larvae from hives, but they only exist in very small numbers.
The Sussex University academic believes that, if more of them can be artificially bred, they will protect hives from parasites such as the varroa mite which last year killed two billion honeybees and wiped out one in three colonies.
'Hygienic bees have a strong tendency to clean things up, removing pupae and larvae if they are dead or dying,' said Ratnieks, who has been studying bees, ants and wasps for 25 years. 'What this hygiene can do is control certain types of disease, particularly diseases of the brood like chalkbrood, American foulbrood and varroa mite.’
There is still the false idea that declining Bee numbers will have a disastrous affect on crops, but this has all happened before and to a much greater scale. At the beginning of the 20th century 90% of honeybees were wiped out.
A British scientist is hoping to reverse the critical decline of the honeybee by breeding 'cleaner bees' to protect hives from potentially devastating diseases.
Francis Ratnieks, the UK's only professor of apiculture, is undertaking pioneering research based on a breed of worker bee genetically programmed to keep hives clean. So-called 'hygienic' bees are responsible for removing dead pupae and larvae from hives, but they only exist in very small numbers.
The Sussex University academic believes that, if more of them can be artificially bred, they will protect hives from parasites such as the varroa mite which last year killed two billion honeybees and wiped out one in three colonies.
'Hygienic bees have a strong tendency to clean things up, removing pupae and larvae if they are dead or dying,' said Ratnieks, who has been studying bees, ants and wasps for 25 years. 'What this hygiene can do is control certain types of disease, particularly diseases of the brood like chalkbrood, American foulbrood and varroa mite.’
There is still the false idea that declining Bee numbers will have a disastrous affect on crops, but this has all happened before and to a much greater scale. At the beginning of the 20th century 90% of honeybees were wiped out.
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Ten Ways the World Will End
The Discover Magazine, on the 28th of October 2008, has a list of different ways the earth will finial be destroyed. It gives a list of events and for some of them it also gives the odds of them happening in our own lift time.
Will it be a solar flare? Or a gamma-ray burst? DISCOVER's own Phil Plait lays out the odds.
Asteroid impact
1 in 700,000
Solar flare/cme, collapse of power grid, potential ozone depletion
Supernova, ozone depletion, radiation
1 in 10,000,000
Gamma-ray burst, ozone depletion, radiation, setting planet on fire
1 in 14,000,000
Black hole, destruction of Earth
1 in 1,000,000,000,000
Alien attack, humanity wiped out by aliens, space bugs give us runny noses
Death of the sun, earth cooked to a crisp
Galactic doom, ice ages, radiation, eaten by supermassive black hole
Death of the universe, decay of all matter, collapse of false vacuum
Will it be a solar flare? Or a gamma-ray burst? DISCOVER's own Phil Plait lays out the odds.
Asteroid impact
1 in 700,000
Solar flare/cme, collapse of power grid, potential ozone depletion
Supernova, ozone depletion, radiation
1 in 10,000,000
Gamma-ray burst, ozone depletion, radiation, setting planet on fire
1 in 14,000,000
Black hole, destruction of Earth
1 in 1,000,000,000,000
Alien attack, humanity wiped out by aliens, space bugs give us runny noses
Death of the sun, earth cooked to a crisp
Galactic doom, ice ages, radiation, eaten by supermassive black hole
Death of the universe, decay of all matter, collapse of false vacuum
Monday, 20 October 2008
Sun's protective 'bubble' is shrinking
On the Telegraph newspaper’s website, on the 19th October 2008, there is an article about the 25% decline of the heliosphere, the sun given shield against galactic radiation which can destroy DNA and the climate. It says,
New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.
Dr Nathan Schwadron said: "The interstellar medium, which is part of the galaxy as a whole, is actually quite a harsh environment. There is a very high energy galactic radiation that is dangerous to living things.
"Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment."
Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.
If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase.
This could result in growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and potentially even harm life on Earth.
New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.
Dr Nathan Schwadron said: "The interstellar medium, which is part of the galaxy as a whole, is actually quite a harsh environment. There is a very high energy galactic radiation that is dangerous to living things.
"Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment."
Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.
If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase.
This could result in growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and potentially even harm life on Earth.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Agriculture unaffected by pollinator declines
The Nature web site, on the 16th October 2008, has an article about a report that found that bee declines were not affecting crop yields. It says,
Bees and many other insects may be in decline almost everywhere — but agriculture that depends on pollinators has been surprisingly unaffected at the global scale.
When the researchers compared crops that are cultivated almost exclusively in tropical regions, they found no difference between the success of insect-pollinated crops — such as oil palm, cocoa and the Brazil nut — and those crops that need only the breeze to spread their pollen.
Some scientists think that the pollinator crisis is overplayed. Jaboury Ghazoul, a plant ecologist at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, has argued that it is driven mainly by reported declines of crop-pollinating honeybees in North America and bumblebees and butterflies in Europe.
However, Klein points out that a sudden drop in crop yields could be just around the corner. "There could be a more widespread threshold effect coming," she says, "especially if the honeybee problems get worse in places like California."
The decline in bee numbers is not a big problem nor is it going to mean mass starvation. So the scare stories that popup every now and then can be ignored.
Bees and many other insects may be in decline almost everywhere — but agriculture that depends on pollinators has been surprisingly unaffected at the global scale.
When the researchers compared crops that are cultivated almost exclusively in tropical regions, they found no difference between the success of insect-pollinated crops — such as oil palm, cocoa and the Brazil nut — and those crops that need only the breeze to spread their pollen.
Some scientists think that the pollinator crisis is overplayed. Jaboury Ghazoul, a plant ecologist at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, has argued that it is driven mainly by reported declines of crop-pollinating honeybees in North America and bumblebees and butterflies in Europe.
However, Klein points out that a sudden drop in crop yields could be just around the corner. "There could be a more widespread threshold effect coming," she says, "especially if the honeybee problems get worse in places like California."
The decline in bee numbers is not a big problem nor is it going to mean mass starvation. So the scare stories that popup every now and then can be ignored.
Thursday, 9 October 2008
'Vaccinate now' to beat bird flu
The BBC’s website, on the 9th October 2008, has an article about a report telling us we need to vaccinate against bird flu now and not wait until the pandemic starts. It says,
A jab against one strain of avian flu, given years earlier, may "prime" the immune system to fight a wide range of bird flu strains.
When the pandemic arrives, "pre-vaccinated" people could then be given a booster shot, and be protected far quicker, said researchers.
The speed that pandemic flu - labelled the "gravest threat" to the UK by a recent government document - could sweep the world, is one of the great challenges facing scientists and governments.
Some suggestions say it might only be a matter of weeks before an emerging virus reached the UK.
By the time a vaccine exactly matching the pandemic strain is developed and administered, it may already have claimed many thousands of lives.
"If governments are thinking about stockpiling vaccine, you could actually be stockpiling it in people's arms."
The “gravest threat” now seems to have some magic snake oil to cure it.
A jab against one strain of avian flu, given years earlier, may "prime" the immune system to fight a wide range of bird flu strains.
When the pandemic arrives, "pre-vaccinated" people could then be given a booster shot, and be protected far quicker, said researchers.
The speed that pandemic flu - labelled the "gravest threat" to the UK by a recent government document - could sweep the world, is one of the great challenges facing scientists and governments.
Some suggestions say it might only be a matter of weeks before an emerging virus reached the UK.
By the time a vaccine exactly matching the pandemic strain is developed and administered, it may already have claimed many thousands of lives.
"If governments are thinking about stockpiling vaccine, you could actually be stockpiling it in people's arms."
The “gravest threat” now seems to have some magic snake oil to cure it.
Monday, 6 October 2008
No Geomagnetic Reversal in 2012
The Universe Today website, on the 3rd of October, has an article debunking the claims that the geomagnetic reversal (the north and south polls swapping around) will take place in the year 2012. It says,
Using the Mayan Prophecy as an excuse to create new and explosive ways in which our planet may be destroyed, 2012 doomsayers use the geomagnetic shift theory as if it is set in stone. Simply because scientists have said that it might happen within the next millennium appears to be proof enough that it will happen in four years time. Alas, although this theory has some scientific backing, there is no way that anyone can predict when geomagnetic reversal might happen to the nearest day or to the nearest million years…
Some 2012 theories suggest that the Earth's geomagnetic reversal is connected to the natural 11-year solar cycle. Again, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this claim. No data has ever been produced suggesting a Sun-Earth magnetic polarity change connection.
Geomagnetic reversal is an engrossing area of geophysical research that will continue to occupy physicists and geologists for many years to come. Although the dynamics behind this event are not fully understood, there is absolutely no scientific evidence supporting the claim that there could be a geomagnetic reversal around the time of December 21st, 2012.
The theory comes from man called Patrick Geryl who has authored the book “How to survive 2012”. The Mayans have a calendar that is said to end in 2012 and as a result there is a number of people who want to scare you into buying they books.
Using the Mayan Prophecy as an excuse to create new and explosive ways in which our planet may be destroyed, 2012 doomsayers use the geomagnetic shift theory as if it is set in stone. Simply because scientists have said that it might happen within the next millennium appears to be proof enough that it will happen in four years time. Alas, although this theory has some scientific backing, there is no way that anyone can predict when geomagnetic reversal might happen to the nearest day or to the nearest million years…
Some 2012 theories suggest that the Earth's geomagnetic reversal is connected to the natural 11-year solar cycle. Again, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this claim. No data has ever been produced suggesting a Sun-Earth magnetic polarity change connection.
Geomagnetic reversal is an engrossing area of geophysical research that will continue to occupy physicists and geologists for many years to come. Although the dynamics behind this event are not fully understood, there is absolutely no scientific evidence supporting the claim that there could be a geomagnetic reversal around the time of December 21st, 2012.
The theory comes from man called Patrick Geryl who has authored the book “How to survive 2012”. The Mayans have a calendar that is said to end in 2012 and as a result there is a number of people who want to scare you into buying they books.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
UN urged to coordinate killer asteroid defences
The New Scientist website, on the 26th of September 2008, has an article about a report given to the UN asking them to take control of defending the earth from asteroids. Its says,
The report asks the UN to assume responsibility for responding to potentially catastrophic asteroid threats. "For 4.5 billion years, we've been bashed continuously by asteroids. It's time for that to stop," former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart told the assembly.
Currently, NASA is watching 209 NEOs, none of which is considered to be dangerous. But a threat is likely to be detected within the next 15 years, according to the ASE. "New telescopes coming online will increase these discoveries by a factor of 100," said Ed Lu, astronaut on space shuttle Atlantis.
Recent "benign catastrophes", such as the meteorites that recently struck Peru and Canada, and the Tunguska fireball that exploded 120 years ago over Siberia with a force equivalent to 2,000 Hiroshima bombs, may have helped raise public awareness. "The Tunguska fireball could have destroyed a city," warned Schweickart.
The ASE believes the price tag of the project to be around $500 million, half the cost of putting a single geosynchronous satellite into orbit.
How we have managed to survive without this up to now truly is a mystery.
The report asks the UN to assume responsibility for responding to potentially catastrophic asteroid threats. "For 4.5 billion years, we've been bashed continuously by asteroids. It's time for that to stop," former Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart told the assembly.
Currently, NASA is watching 209 NEOs, none of which is considered to be dangerous. But a threat is likely to be detected within the next 15 years, according to the ASE. "New telescopes coming online will increase these discoveries by a factor of 100," said Ed Lu, astronaut on space shuttle Atlantis.
Recent "benign catastrophes", such as the meteorites that recently struck Peru and Canada, and the Tunguska fireball that exploded 120 years ago over Siberia with a force equivalent to 2,000 Hiroshima bombs, may have helped raise public awareness. "The Tunguska fireball could have destroyed a city," warned Schweickart.
The ASE believes the price tag of the project to be around $500 million, half the cost of putting a single geosynchronous satellite into orbit.
How we have managed to survive without this up to now truly is a mystery.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
The methane time bomb
The Independent newspaper has an article on their website, on the 23rd September 2008, about the dangerous levels of methane being released from the Arctic and how it will increase global warming. It says,
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Reassuring children about the world's end
The BBC website, on the 13th of September 2008, talks about how some child have been fearful about the world ending because of the Large Hadron Collider experiment creating black holes. It says,
"What is this experiment about, Daddy, and is it going to blow up the Earth?"That was the question many parents collided with as scientists prepared to flick the switch on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
In the run-up to the switch-on on Wednesday, doomsayers predicted the £5bn machine could create a world-ending black hole. One teenager was so terrified, she committed suicide in India.
Educational psychologist Alex Griffiths says hearing that the world might end can be "devastating" for a child of a certain age.
"Their brains are not as well developed and they have little experience of scaremongering to draw from. It also appeals to their imagination."
This experiment has played on children's fears, just as the prospect of nuclear annihilation did during the Cold War, and the swirling rumours about the new millennium.
Mr Griffiths says such scaremongering is unlikely to have any long-term effect on children's mental health.
So to talk about the world ending because of black holes is scaremongering, but talking about the world ending because of man made climate change is not? Children have more to fear from people than from the world ending.
"What is this experiment about, Daddy, and is it going to blow up the Earth?"That was the question many parents collided with as scientists prepared to flick the switch on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
In the run-up to the switch-on on Wednesday, doomsayers predicted the £5bn machine could create a world-ending black hole. One teenager was so terrified, she committed suicide in India.
Educational psychologist Alex Griffiths says hearing that the world might end can be "devastating" for a child of a certain age.
"Their brains are not as well developed and they have little experience of scaremongering to draw from. It also appeals to their imagination."
This experiment has played on children's fears, just as the prospect of nuclear annihilation did during the Cold War, and the swirling rumours about the new millennium.
Mr Griffiths says such scaremongering is unlikely to have any long-term effect on children's mental health.
So to talk about the world ending because of black holes is scaremongering, but talking about the world ending because of man made climate change is not? Children have more to fear from people than from the world ending.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
The Sun Will Eventually Engulf Earth
In Scientific American, on September 8th 2008, there is an article about how the sun will end up engulfing the earth and all life on it, sometime in the future. It says,
The future looks bright—maybe too bright. The sun is slowly expanding and brightening, and over the next few billion years it will eventually desiccate Earth, leaving it hot, brown and uninhabitable. About 7.6 billion years from now, the sun will reach its maximum size as a red giant: its surface will extend beyond Earth’s orbit today by 20 percent and will shine 3,000 times brighter. In its final stage, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf.
Although scientists agree on the sun’s future, they disagree about what will happen to Earth. Since 1924, when British mathematician James Jeans first considered Earth’s fate during the sun’s red giant phase, a bevy of scientists have reached oscillating conclusions. In some scenarios, our planet escapes vaporization; in the latest analyses, however, it does not.
But all is not lost. The article also gives a little message of hope.
Could Earth be saved if someone is still left at home? In a bold piece of astronomical engineering, Don Korycansky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues have proposed nudging Earth with a large asteroid arranged to pass nearby periodically. It could take one billion years to move our planet out to somewhere safe, like the orbit of Mars. Our moon, though, might have to be left behind, and any miscalculation could mean extinction. Needless to say, more study is required.
The future looks bright—maybe too bright. The sun is slowly expanding and brightening, and over the next few billion years it will eventually desiccate Earth, leaving it hot, brown and uninhabitable. About 7.6 billion years from now, the sun will reach its maximum size as a red giant: its surface will extend beyond Earth’s orbit today by 20 percent and will shine 3,000 times brighter. In its final stage, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf.
Although scientists agree on the sun’s future, they disagree about what will happen to Earth. Since 1924, when British mathematician James Jeans first considered Earth’s fate during the sun’s red giant phase, a bevy of scientists have reached oscillating conclusions. In some scenarios, our planet escapes vaporization; in the latest analyses, however, it does not.
But all is not lost. The article also gives a little message of hope.
Could Earth be saved if someone is still left at home? In a bold piece of astronomical engineering, Don Korycansky of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his colleagues have proposed nudging Earth with a large asteroid arranged to pass nearby periodically. It could take one billion years to move our planet out to somewhere safe, like the orbit of Mars. Our moon, though, might have to be left behind, and any miscalculation could mean extinction. Needless to say, more study is required.
Monday, 1 September 2008
Legal bid to stop CERN from destroying the world
On the Telegraph website, on the 31st of August 2008, there is an article about a legal bid to haut the CERN particle accelerator from starting up because of the possibility of mini black holes destroying the earth. It says,
Critics of the Large Hadron Collider - a £4.4 billion machine due to be switched on in ten days time – have lodged a lawsuit at the European Court for Human
Rights against the 20 countries, including the UK, that fund the project.
Professor Otto Rössler, a German chemist at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen who is one of the most vocal opponents of the LHC and was one of the scientists who submitted the complaint to the court, said: "CERN itself has admitted that mini black holes could be created when the particles collide, but they don't consider this a risk.
"My own calculations have shown that it is quite plausible that these little black holes survive and will grow exponentially and eat the planet from the inside. I have been calling for CERN to hold a safety conference to prove my conclusions wrong but they have not been willing.
"We submitted this application to the European Court of Human Rights as we do not believe the scientists at CERN are taking all the precautions they should be in order to protect human life."
Professor Rössler claims that, in the worst case scenario, the earth could be sucked inside out within four years of a mini black hole forming.
Critics of the Large Hadron Collider - a £4.4 billion machine due to be switched on in ten days time – have lodged a lawsuit at the European Court for Human
Rights against the 20 countries, including the UK, that fund the project.
Professor Otto Rössler, a German chemist at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen who is one of the most vocal opponents of the LHC and was one of the scientists who submitted the complaint to the court, said: "CERN itself has admitted that mini black holes could be created when the particles collide, but they don't consider this a risk.
"My own calculations have shown that it is quite plausible that these little black holes survive and will grow exponentially and eat the planet from the inside. I have been calling for CERN to hold a safety conference to prove my conclusions wrong but they have not been willing.
"We submitted this application to the European Court of Human Rights as we do not believe the scientists at CERN are taking all the precautions they should be in order to protect human life."
Professor Rössler claims that, in the worst case scenario, the earth could be sucked inside out within four years of a mini black hole forming.
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Arctic ice 'is at tipping point'
The BBC web site, on the 28th of August 2008, had an article about the shrinking Arctic ice cape, and how it is now at the “tipping point” of disaster. It says,
Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second smallest extent since satellite records began, US scientists have revealed.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) says that the ice-covered area has fallen below its 2005 level, which was the second lowest on record.
Melting has occurred earlier in the year than usual, meaning that the iced area could become even smaller than last September, the lowest recorded.
Researchers say the Arctic is now at a climatic "tipping point".
"We could very well be in that quick slide downwards in terms of passing a tipping point," said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the Colorado-based NSIDC.
"It's tipping now. We're seeing it happen now," he told the Associated Press news agency.
A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080.
Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050; and some researchers now believe it could happen within five years.
Then they say something very interesting indeed.
Last September, the ice covered just 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles), the smallest extent seen since satellite imaging began 30 years ago.
They have only been looking at the Arctic ice for 30 years. What they are seeing could all be down to long term cycles where the ice shrinks and grows over time. 30 years is small fraction of time in the life of natural global climate changes.
Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second smallest extent since satellite records began, US scientists have revealed.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) says that the ice-covered area has fallen below its 2005 level, which was the second lowest on record.
Melting has occurred earlier in the year than usual, meaning that the iced area could become even smaller than last September, the lowest recorded.
Researchers say the Arctic is now at a climatic "tipping point".
"We could very well be in that quick slide downwards in terms of passing a tipping point," said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the Colorado-based NSIDC.
"It's tipping now. We're seeing it happen now," he told the Associated Press news agency.
A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080.
Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050; and some researchers now believe it could happen within five years.
Then they say something very interesting indeed.
Last September, the ice covered just 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles), the smallest extent seen since satellite imaging began 30 years ago.
They have only been looking at the Arctic ice for 30 years. What they are seeing could all be down to long term cycles where the ice shrinks and grows over time. 30 years is small fraction of time in the life of natural global climate changes.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Is a Mega-Katrina "Hypercane" Possible?
The Daily Galaxy website, on the 25th of August 2008, had an article about a report from MIT scientists saying super strong mega hurricanes were possible. It says,
MIT's Kerry Emanuel describes the worst nightmare hurricane that could ever happen –a "hypercane" with winds raging around its center at 500 miles an hour. Water vapor; sea spray and storm debris are spewed into the atmosphere, punching a hole in the stratosphere 20 miles above the Earth's surface; at landfall, its super-gale-force winds would flatten forests and toss boulders with a 60-foot tsunami-like storm surge flooding nearby shores. The water vapor and debris could remain suspended high in the atmosphere for years, disrupting the climate and the ozone layer.
Could this happen? Possibly. But this hypercane scenario is one of Emanuels' computer models. A professor at MIT's atmosphere, oceans and climate program, Emanuel studies the physics of hurricanes, deconstructing their behavior, and digs into their geological past -- all to understand what makes these monster storms tick.
No one knows for sure how hurricanes get started. The ingredients for cooking one up still remain a mystery.
To create such a monster storm, parts of the ocean would have to warm up to at least 100 degrees, and only the impact of a large asteroid hitting the tropical ocean or a massive undersea volcano could generate such intense heating. Emanuel and his colleagues theorize that asteroid-triggered hypercanes may have contributed to massive global extinctions millions of years ago.
MIT's Kerry Emanuel describes the worst nightmare hurricane that could ever happen –a "hypercane" with winds raging around its center at 500 miles an hour. Water vapor; sea spray and storm debris are spewed into the atmosphere, punching a hole in the stratosphere 20 miles above the Earth's surface; at landfall, its super-gale-force winds would flatten forests and toss boulders with a 60-foot tsunami-like storm surge flooding nearby shores. The water vapor and debris could remain suspended high in the atmosphere for years, disrupting the climate and the ozone layer.
Could this happen? Possibly. But this hypercane scenario is one of Emanuels' computer models. A professor at MIT's atmosphere, oceans and climate program, Emanuel studies the physics of hurricanes, deconstructing their behavior, and digs into their geological past -- all to understand what makes these monster storms tick.
No one knows for sure how hurricanes get started. The ingredients for cooking one up still remain a mystery.
To create such a monster storm, parts of the ocean would have to warm up to at least 100 degrees, and only the impact of a large asteroid hitting the tropical ocean or a massive undersea volcano could generate such intense heating. Emanuel and his colleagues theorize that asteroid-triggered hypercanes may have contributed to massive global extinctions millions of years ago.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
The oxygen crisis
The Guardian website, on the 13th of August 2008, has an article about the constant decline of the oxygen levels in our atmosphere and how it could threaten human survival. It says,
Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis.
Around 10,000 years ago, the planet's forest cover was at least twice what it is today, which means that forests are now emitting only half the amount of oxygen.
Desertification and deforestation are rapidly accelerating this long-term loss of oxygen sources.
The story at sea is much the same. Nasa reports that in the north Pacific ocean oxygen-producing phytoplankton concentrations are 30% lower today, compared to the 1980s. This is a huge drop in just three decades.
The pace of oxygen loss is likely to have speeded up massively in the last three decades, with the industrialisation of China, India, South Korea and other countries, and as a consequence of the massive worldwide increase in the burning of fossil fuels.
There will be a tax on breathing next to help cut our oxygen usage.
Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis.
Around 10,000 years ago, the planet's forest cover was at least twice what it is today, which means that forests are now emitting only half the amount of oxygen.
Desertification and deforestation are rapidly accelerating this long-term loss of oxygen sources.
The story at sea is much the same. Nasa reports that in the north Pacific ocean oxygen-producing phytoplankton concentrations are 30% lower today, compared to the 1980s. This is a huge drop in just three decades.
The pace of oxygen loss is likely to have speeded up massively in the last three decades, with the industrialisation of China, India, South Korea and other countries, and as a consequence of the massive worldwide increase in the burning of fossil fuels.
There will be a tax on breathing next to help cut our oxygen usage.
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
GM farming will end in ecological disaster
The Guardian website, on 13th August 2008, reports on what Prince Charles had said about genetic modification farming and how it could lead to disaster. It says,
Prince Charles has warned that the adoption of genetic modification in farming has set the world on course for "the biggest disaster, environmentally, of all time".
In an outspoken assault on GM crops, the prince accused unnamed "gigantic corporations" of "conducting a gigantic experiment with nature, and the whole of humanity, which has gone seriously wrong".
"We [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness," the prince said.
"What we should be talking about is food security, not food production - that is what matters, and that is what people will not understand.
"And if they think it's somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another, then count me out because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."
This is not the first time Prince Charles has gone a little overboard in scaring us about some future threat or impending disaster. He was in the headlines some years ago talking about nanotechnology and gray goo.
Prince Charles has warned that the adoption of genetic modification in farming has set the world on course for "the biggest disaster, environmentally, of all time".
In an outspoken assault on GM crops, the prince accused unnamed "gigantic corporations" of "conducting a gigantic experiment with nature, and the whole of humanity, which has gone seriously wrong".
"We [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness," the prince said.
"What we should be talking about is food security, not food production - that is what matters, and that is what people will not understand.
"And if they think it's somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another, then count me out because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."
This is not the first time Prince Charles has gone a little overboard in scaring us about some future threat or impending disaster. He was in the headlines some years ago talking about nanotechnology and gray goo.
World in 'Mass Extinction Spasm'
The NBC website, on 12th August 2008, has an article about how the earth is going through a new mass extinction. Its says,
Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just the deaths of frogs and salamanders, University of California, Berkeley scientists said Tuesday.
Researchers said substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal
species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet, the scientists said in an online article this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now," said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. "Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn't. The fact that they're cutting out now should be a lesson for us."
New species arise and old species die off all the time, but sometimes the extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species, scientists said.
Extreme cases of this are called mass extinction events. There have been only five in our planet's history, until now, scientists said.
The sixth mass extinction event, which Wake and others argue is happening currently, is different from the past events.
"My feeling is that behind all this lies the heavy hand of Homo sapiens," Wake said.
Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just the deaths of frogs and salamanders, University of California, Berkeley scientists said Tuesday.
Researchers said substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal
species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet, the scientists said in an online article this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now," said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. "Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn't. The fact that they're cutting out now should be a lesson for us."
New species arise and old species die off all the time, but sometimes the extinction numbers far outweigh the emergence of new species, scientists said.
Extreme cases of this are called mass extinction events. There have been only five in our planet's history, until now, scientists said.
The sixth mass extinction event, which Wake and others argue is happening currently, is different from the past events.
"My feeling is that behind all this lies the heavy hand of Homo sapiens," Wake said.
New bird flu threat could be H9N2
Reuters has a report, on the 12th August 2008, about a new strain of bird flu, H9N2. It says,
Countries around the world may be preparing for a possible H5N1 bird flu pandemic, but another strain called H9N2 also poses a threat to humanity, researchers reported on Tuesday.
Tests on the H9N2 strain of the virus show it is capable of infecting and spreading with very few changes, a team from the University of Maryland, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, and elsewhere reported.
"Our results suggest that the establishment and prevalence of H9N2 viruses in poultry pose a significant threat for humans," the researchers wrote in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
Most influenza experts agree that a pandemic -- a deadly global epidemic -- of some kind of flu is inevitable.
Just a few mutations could turn it into a virus that people catch and transmit easily. But flu experts caution H5N1 is not the only virus with this potential.
There are hundreds of strains of avian influenza viruses, but only four -- H5N1, H7N3, H7N7, and H9N2 -- are known to have caused human infections, according to the World Health Organization.
So far Bird Flu has infected 385 people and killed 243 since 2003 and 300 million birds have been slaughtered.
Countries around the world may be preparing for a possible H5N1 bird flu pandemic, but another strain called H9N2 also poses a threat to humanity, researchers reported on Tuesday.
Tests on the H9N2 strain of the virus show it is capable of infecting and spreading with very few changes, a team from the University of Maryland, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, and elsewhere reported.
"Our results suggest that the establishment and prevalence of H9N2 viruses in poultry pose a significant threat for humans," the researchers wrote in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
Most influenza experts agree that a pandemic -- a deadly global epidemic -- of some kind of flu is inevitable.
Just a few mutations could turn it into a virus that people catch and transmit easily. But flu experts caution H5N1 is not the only virus with this potential.
There are hundreds of strains of avian influenza viruses, but only four -- H5N1, H7N3, H7N7, and H9N2 -- are known to have caused human infections, according to the World Health Organization.
So far Bird Flu has infected 385 people and killed 243 since 2003 and 300 million birds have been slaughtered.
Friday, 8 August 2008
The truth is, we're fighting for survival
In the Guardian news paper, on the 8th of August 2008, is an article about the report of now we should handle living with a 4C increase in global temperatures. It says,
Up to 4 billion people left without water. Up to 5 billion at risk of flooding. Half a billion left hungry as agricultural yields decline by 15-35% in Africa with entire swaths of the world ceasing food production altogether. More than 80 million exposed to malaria in Africa. The Amazon collapses and 50% of species go extinct. It's basically the end of the world.
There is such a gaping chasm between the matter-of-fact reporting of this nightmarish 4C scenario that government scientists now say we should be planning for, and the total failure of apparently rational people to understand what is happening...
Reports from Kingsnorth, the site of this year's climate camp, completely fail to scrutinise the pinstriped criminals who are pushing the planet towards the brink.
With climate change, in order to be "serious" you need to acknowledge that the end of the world is an interesting detail in the broader pattern of economic "progress", but never succumb to the incredible naivety of the protesters, who fail to realise that the survival of life on earth is a bourgeois luxury which we can ill afford in these times of economic constraint.
They go on as if we are all going to die next week. As if we are sleep walking into a fire or we are like a frog in a pan of water slowly heating up and being cooked.
Up to 4 billion people left without water. Up to 5 billion at risk of flooding. Half a billion left hungry as agricultural yields decline by 15-35% in Africa with entire swaths of the world ceasing food production altogether. More than 80 million exposed to malaria in Africa. The Amazon collapses and 50% of species go extinct. It's basically the end of the world.
There is such a gaping chasm between the matter-of-fact reporting of this nightmarish 4C scenario that government scientists now say we should be planning for, and the total failure of apparently rational people to understand what is happening...
Reports from Kingsnorth, the site of this year's climate camp, completely fail to scrutinise the pinstriped criminals who are pushing the planet towards the brink.
With climate change, in order to be "serious" you need to acknowledge that the end of the world is an interesting detail in the broader pattern of economic "progress", but never succumb to the incredible naivety of the protesters, who fail to realise that the survival of life on earth is a bourgeois luxury which we can ill afford in these times of economic constraint.
They go on as if we are all going to die next week. As if we are sleep walking into a fire or we are like a frog in a pan of water slowly heating up and being cooked.
Monday, 28 July 2008
Lifeboat Foundation
There is an organization called the Lifeboat Foundation that tries to develop methods for helping humanity survive a variety of dangers that are global and fatal. There is some of the “About” text from there web site,
The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.
There have a number of programs running that look at different areas of concern. Below are some of the more interesting ones.
AI Shield
To protect against unfriendly AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Asteroid Shield
To protect against devastating asteroid strikes
Nano Shield
To protect against ecophages and nonreplicating nanoweapons
Particle Accelerator Shield
To prevent, and also make plans on surviving when possible, particle accelerator mishaps including quantum vacuum collapse, mining the quantum vacuum, formation of a stable strangelet, and the creation of artificial mini-black holes
Some of their long term programs are ambitious. I can’t see anyone being able to do anything about these possible problems?
Alien Shield
To prevent annihilation by an alien race (biological or otherwise)
Antimatter Shield
To prevent antimatter-based annihilation
Black Hole Shield
To protect against black holes that are not manmade. This would include an "eye to the sky" program that would scan for signs of them
Gamma Ray Shield
To protect against gamma ray bursts
Sun Shield
To protect against and/or cope with our sun becoming a red giant and other harmful fluctuations in its output
There are some more down to earth problems that the organization are looking into which seems noble and worth doing. But there are some that are clearly daft.
The web site is lifeboat.com.
The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.
There have a number of programs running that look at different areas of concern. Below are some of the more interesting ones.
AI Shield
To protect against unfriendly AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Asteroid Shield
To protect against devastating asteroid strikes
Nano Shield
To protect against ecophages and nonreplicating nanoweapons
Particle Accelerator Shield
To prevent, and also make plans on surviving when possible, particle accelerator mishaps including quantum vacuum collapse, mining the quantum vacuum, formation of a stable strangelet, and the creation of artificial mini-black holes
Some of their long term programs are ambitious. I can’t see anyone being able to do anything about these possible problems?
Alien Shield
To prevent annihilation by an alien race (biological or otherwise)
Antimatter Shield
To prevent antimatter-based annihilation
Black Hole Shield
To protect against black holes that are not manmade. This would include an "eye to the sky" program that would scan for signs of them
Gamma Ray Shield
To protect against gamma ray bursts
Sun Shield
To protect against and/or cope with our sun becoming a red giant and other harmful fluctuations in its output
There are some more down to earth problems that the organization are looking into which seems noble and worth doing. But there are some that are clearly daft.
The web site is lifeboat.com.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
100 months to save the planet
The BBC website, on the 21st July 2008, has an article about how we only have 100 months to stop runaway climate change using a “Green New Deal”. It says,
A "Green New Deal" is needed to solve current problems of climate change, energy and finance, a report argues.
According to the Green New Deal Group, humanity only has 100 months to prevent dangerous global warming.
Its proposals include major investment in renewable energy and the creation of thousands of new "green collar" jobs.
The name is taken from President Franklin D Roosevelt's "New Deal", launched 75 years ago to bring the US out of the Great Depression.
The new grouping says rising greenhouse gas emissions, combined with escalating food and energy costs, mean the globe is facing one of its biggest crises since the 1930s.
The authors say that that within "the very real timeframe of 100 months" the world will reach the point where the risk of "runaway" climate change became unacceptably high.
In an article for the BBC News website's Green Room series, Mr Simms warns that the combination of the current credit crunch, rising energy prices and accelerating emissions are "conspiring to create the perfect storm".
It seems people are using the climate change brush and using it to paint whatever image they want. Change banks and large corporations, use global warming. Change how people live and move around, use rising sea levels. Change countries and rulers, use climate change.
A "Green New Deal" is needed to solve current problems of climate change, energy and finance, a report argues.
According to the Green New Deal Group, humanity only has 100 months to prevent dangerous global warming.
Its proposals include major investment in renewable energy and the creation of thousands of new "green collar" jobs.
The name is taken from President Franklin D Roosevelt's "New Deal", launched 75 years ago to bring the US out of the Great Depression.
The new grouping says rising greenhouse gas emissions, combined with escalating food and energy costs, mean the globe is facing one of its biggest crises since the 1930s.
The authors say that that within "the very real timeframe of 100 months" the world will reach the point where the risk of "runaway" climate change became unacceptably high.
In an article for the BBC News website's Green Room series, Mr Simms warns that the combination of the current credit crunch, rising energy prices and accelerating emissions are "conspiring to create the perfect storm".
It seems people are using the climate change brush and using it to paint whatever image they want. Change banks and large corporations, use global warming. Change how people live and move around, use rising sea levels. Change countries and rulers, use climate change.
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
'Inevitable' flu pandemic will kill 50 million
The Mail Online, on 21st July 2008, reports on the UK’s House of Lords saying that Britain was facing an inevitable flu pandemic that will kill millions. It says,
Britain is facing an 'inevitable' and 'devastating' flu pandemic which will kill up to 75,000 people, a government committee revealed today.
The outbreak – most likely a strain of bird flu which could claim the lives of up to 50 million worldwide – will be on a scale not seen for decades.
The pandemic will require an ‘urgent’ response to prevent the rapid spread of infection, the powerful House of Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee warned.
And the Lords also attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘dysfunctional’ and lacking the ‘organisation and resources’ to curb a major outbreak.
The next pandemic will kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and a fair fraction of that in the UK, it said.
Echoing the report, the Government said: ‘While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable.
Does ‘inevitable’ mean soon or just one day in the far future? It is ‘inevitable’ the Sun will go out, one day. Doesn’t mean we should panic.
Britain is facing an 'inevitable' and 'devastating' flu pandemic which will kill up to 75,000 people, a government committee revealed today.
The outbreak – most likely a strain of bird flu which could claim the lives of up to 50 million worldwide – will be on a scale not seen for decades.
The pandemic will require an ‘urgent’ response to prevent the rapid spread of infection, the powerful House of Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee warned.
And the Lords also attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘dysfunctional’ and lacking the ‘organisation and resources’ to curb a major outbreak.
The next pandemic will kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and a fair fraction of that in the UK, it said.
Echoing the report, the Government said: ‘While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable.
Does ‘inevitable’ mean soon or just one day in the far future? It is ‘inevitable’ the Sun will go out, one day. Doesn’t mean we should panic.
Friday, 18 July 2008
Charming us to Believe Climate Change
The Independent newspaper, on 17th July 2008, has an article about the new drama from the BBC, called Burn Up, where the oil-industry conspires to cover up the full extent of global warming. It says,
Christopher Hall, the producer of Burn Up, which is going to hit the screens next week, admits that "the question we kept asking ourselves was, 'How do we make a sexy programme about CO2? It's a gas, for goodness' sake!' So we see this piece as a Trojan horse: we rivet viewers with good drama and smuggle the message in that way."
Whitford, who won an Emmy in 2001 for his role as the loyal presidential aide Josh, starts by underlining the importance of sugaring the pill of the eco-message in Burn Up. "If you're dealing with urgent matters, you have to be very careful that the piece works dramatically. Nobody enjoys being served worthy vegetables – 'Eat up your civic greens or you'll feel guilty!'
Penry-Jones chips in: "Viewers don't like being lectured to. That gets very annoying very quickly, and the film-makers come across as do-gooders. Burn Up is a complex drama that respects its audience's intelligence. So much television these days is dumbed down to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
What makes Burn Up intriguing is that it is not mere banner-waving, eco-friendly agitprop. Mack, an almost irredeemably slippery lobbyist for Big Oil, is by far the most seductive figure, a devil who, once again, has all the best tunes. Whitford says: "Mack thinks that if there are any international constraints put on oil production or carbon emissions, then it will interrupt the glorious beauty of the free-market system. So he uses all the charm at his disposal to promote unfettered capitalism."
This is more propaganda. They are using television as a means to shape your mind and get us to believe in their theory of man made global warming.
For some reason it’s the oil companies that are getting the blame. It is as if they are trying to link this to how cigarette companies denied lung cancer was down to smoking.
Christopher Hall, the producer of Burn Up, which is going to hit the screens next week, admits that "the question we kept asking ourselves was, 'How do we make a sexy programme about CO2? It's a gas, for goodness' sake!' So we see this piece as a Trojan horse: we rivet viewers with good drama and smuggle the message in that way."
Whitford, who won an Emmy in 2001 for his role as the loyal presidential aide Josh, starts by underlining the importance of sugaring the pill of the eco-message in Burn Up. "If you're dealing with urgent matters, you have to be very careful that the piece works dramatically. Nobody enjoys being served worthy vegetables – 'Eat up your civic greens or you'll feel guilty!'
Penry-Jones chips in: "Viewers don't like being lectured to. That gets very annoying very quickly, and the film-makers come across as do-gooders. Burn Up is a complex drama that respects its audience's intelligence. So much television these days is dumbed down to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
What makes Burn Up intriguing is that it is not mere banner-waving, eco-friendly agitprop. Mack, an almost irredeemably slippery lobbyist for Big Oil, is by far the most seductive figure, a devil who, once again, has all the best tunes. Whitford says: "Mack thinks that if there are any international constraints put on oil production or carbon emissions, then it will interrupt the glorious beauty of the free-market system. So he uses all the charm at his disposal to promote unfettered capitalism."
This is more propaganda. They are using television as a means to shape your mind and get us to believe in their theory of man made global warming.
For some reason it’s the oil companies that are getting the blame. It is as if they are trying to link this to how cigarette companies denied lung cancer was down to smoking.
Monday, 7 July 2008
The Bright Side of the End of the World
The Time magazine, on 5th July 2008, has a funny little article about Rob Kutner’s new book that takes a humours look at the end of the world. It says,
Environmental reporting will give you an apocalyptic mindset. There's the melting Arctic ice and rising sea levels; torched rainforests and polluted Chinese megalopolises. Animals going extinct — gone forever, a mini-apocalypse — up to 10,000 times faster than the rate believed over the past 60 million years. When we talk about climate change, we're not just talking about rising temperatures or altered landscapes. We're talking about the end of human civilization as we know it.
While most creative works about Armageddon (The Day After Tomorrow, Omega Man, The Road) tend to be bummers, heavier on cannibalism than comedy, Kutner's book is a lighthearted romp that looks on the bright side of the end of the world.
If nuclear annihilation was the apocalyptic mainstay through the decades of the Cold War, the eco-apocalypse has clearly taken its place. In some ways, the "Al Gore Scare Machine," as Kutner puts it, is more of the same. Like nuclear war — or like the more fantastical possibilities that Kutner imagines, such as a robot uprising or an unleashed super-plague — global warming will be an apocalypse of our own making.
Global warming is very scary because once it truly gets started, we may in the end be helpless to stop it. But fear has never been a very good motivator, especially not for the decades-long societal changes we'll need to make to slow climate change.
Rob Kutner is the host of the TV program “The Daily Show” and is the author of the book “Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times”.
Environmental reporting will give you an apocalyptic mindset. There's the melting Arctic ice and rising sea levels; torched rainforests and polluted Chinese megalopolises. Animals going extinct — gone forever, a mini-apocalypse — up to 10,000 times faster than the rate believed over the past 60 million years. When we talk about climate change, we're not just talking about rising temperatures or altered landscapes. We're talking about the end of human civilization as we know it.
While most creative works about Armageddon (The Day After Tomorrow, Omega Man, The Road) tend to be bummers, heavier on cannibalism than comedy, Kutner's book is a lighthearted romp that looks on the bright side of the end of the world.
If nuclear annihilation was the apocalyptic mainstay through the decades of the Cold War, the eco-apocalypse has clearly taken its place. In some ways, the "Al Gore Scare Machine," as Kutner puts it, is more of the same. Like nuclear war — or like the more fantastical possibilities that Kutner imagines, such as a robot uprising or an unleashed super-plague — global warming will be an apocalypse of our own making.
Global warming is very scary because once it truly gets started, we may in the end be helpless to stop it. But fear has never been a very good motivator, especially not for the decades-long societal changes we'll need to make to slow climate change.
Rob Kutner is the host of the TV program “The Daily Show” and is the author of the book “Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times”.
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Climate Change June 2008 Round Up
Here is this month’s roundup of climate change events and stories in the media.
Problems created by climate change.
Rising ocean acidity threatens low-lying islands
Hummer (the car) sales decrease
Warmer seas blamed for rapid decline of Scottish puffin colony
Turning sea into acid bath
Climate change blamed as mango harvest goes sour in India
Melting Arctic ice could spur inland warming
Senegal city is 'most threatened'
Ocean changes may trigger US megadrought
Arctic thaw threatens Siberian permafrost
Conflicts fuelled by climate change causing new refugee crisis
Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster'
Retreating Antarctic sea ice threatens southern whales
Global warming to spark increase in US wildfires
Extreme floods, storms seen increasing in North America
Climate change to create "plant refugees"
Global warming moves Costa Rica coffee land higher
Climate change may strain U.S. forces
Plants and trees head for the hills to escape global warming
No ice at the North Pole
What we are told to do to help stop climate change.
Eating insects is good for us and for the environment, scientists claim
Generation energy at home
Japanese families to take speedier baths
Drive less and ditch your electric toothbrush
Personal carbon trading
Carbon capture from power stations
Forces homes to fix solar tiles in German
Scientist urges carbon taxKill your air conditioner
Problems created by climate change.
Rising ocean acidity threatens low-lying islands
Hummer (the car) sales decrease
Warmer seas blamed for rapid decline of Scottish puffin colony
Turning sea into acid bath
Climate change blamed as mango harvest goes sour in India
Melting Arctic ice could spur inland warming
Senegal city is 'most threatened'
Ocean changes may trigger US megadrought
Arctic thaw threatens Siberian permafrost
Conflicts fuelled by climate change causing new refugee crisis
Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster'
Retreating Antarctic sea ice threatens southern whales
Global warming to spark increase in US wildfires
Extreme floods, storms seen increasing in North America
Climate change to create "plant refugees"
Global warming moves Costa Rica coffee land higher
Climate change may strain U.S. forces
Plants and trees head for the hills to escape global warming
No ice at the North Pole
What we are told to do to help stop climate change.
Eating insects is good for us and for the environment, scientists claim
Generation energy at home
Japanese families to take speedier baths
Drive less and ditch your electric toothbrush
Personal carbon trading
Carbon capture from power stations
Forces homes to fix solar tiles in German
Scientist urges carbon taxKill your air conditioner
Bird flu 'still a major threat'
The BBC website, on 30th June 2008, had an article about the possible bird flu pandemic. It says,
The world is still at risk from a new pandemic strain of flu according to leading scientists.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has been out of the headlines for some time but experts say it still poses a potential threat.
In January that year there had been the first human deaths in Turkey and the threat to Western Europe seemed palpable.
The level of media interest in bird flu has subsided - but has the threat disappeared? Not really.
The threat may be theoretical at present - but all of the infectious disease experts I have spoken to over recent years agree that it is not a matter of if but of when the next flu pandemic will occur.
Nick White, a leading expert on infectious disease and professor of tropical medicine at Mahidol University in Bangkok and Oxford University then goes on to say.
"We did not overreact to the threat from bird flu and we should still be worried,
"It is fortunate that nothing has happened so far but a flu pandemic could be cataclysmic for the human race.
"If it became as infectious as Spanish flu in 1918-9 it could kill hundreds of millions of people."
At the moment you are more likely to die from lightning than blue flu, unless you’re a bird of course.
The world is still at risk from a new pandemic strain of flu according to leading scientists.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has been out of the headlines for some time but experts say it still poses a potential threat.
In January that year there had been the first human deaths in Turkey and the threat to Western Europe seemed palpable.
The level of media interest in bird flu has subsided - but has the threat disappeared? Not really.
The threat may be theoretical at present - but all of the infectious disease experts I have spoken to over recent years agree that it is not a matter of if but of when the next flu pandemic will occur.
Nick White, a leading expert on infectious disease and professor of tropical medicine at Mahidol University in Bangkok and Oxford University then goes on to say.
"We did not overreact to the threat from bird flu and we should still be worried,
"It is fortunate that nothing has happened so far but a flu pandemic could be cataclysmic for the human race.
"If it became as infectious as Spanish flu in 1918-9 it could kill hundreds of millions of people."
At the moment you are more likely to die from lightning than blue flu, unless you’re a bird of course.
Fire in the sky
The BBC website, on 30th June 2008, had an article about the 100 year anniversary of the comet explosion that flattened some 80 million trees in over 2000 square kilometres near Tunguska. It says
The blast was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and generated a shock wave that knocked people to the ground 60km from the epicentre.
The cause was an asteroid or comet just a few tens of metres across which detonated 5-10km above the ground.
To many, this event - the biggest space impact of modern times - serves as a reminder of the continuing threat posed to our planet by objects from space.
The international Spaceguard survey programme has been working to identify the Near-Earth Objects larger than 1km - the class of object could cause a "nuclear winter" if one were to strike the planet, possibly threatening civilisation.
Objects the size of the one that caused the Tunguska impact are too small to be seen by present-day surveys.
But there is no guarantee the next object will explode over the sea or a sparsely populated wilderness. This begs an obvious question: how prepared are we for the next one?
Dr Richard Crowther is head of the United Nations Near Earth Object (Neo) programme. He told the BBC News website: "Tunguska reminds us that these impact events have occurred in the relatively recent past.
"The surveys suggest that objects of this size are numerous enough to anticipate similar events in the relatively near future."
The blast was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and generated a shock wave that knocked people to the ground 60km from the epicentre.
The cause was an asteroid or comet just a few tens of metres across which detonated 5-10km above the ground.
To many, this event - the biggest space impact of modern times - serves as a reminder of the continuing threat posed to our planet by objects from space.
The international Spaceguard survey programme has been working to identify the Near-Earth Objects larger than 1km - the class of object could cause a "nuclear winter" if one were to strike the planet, possibly threatening civilisation.
Objects the size of the one that caused the Tunguska impact are too small to be seen by present-day surveys.
But there is no guarantee the next object will explode over the sea or a sparsely populated wilderness. This begs an obvious question: how prepared are we for the next one?
Dr Richard Crowther is head of the United Nations Near Earth Object (Neo) programme. He told the BBC News website: "Tunguska reminds us that these impact events have occurred in the relatively recent past.
"The surveys suggest that objects of this size are numerous enough to anticipate similar events in the relatively near future."
Saturday, 28 June 2008
The Happening
The Guardian newspaper, on June 24th 2008, has an article by Sue Hartley about her views on the film “The Happening” and its plot of a Mother Nature attack on humanity. It says,
In The Happening, nature strikes back at mankind by releasing a toxin from trees that causes people to commit suicide.
The Happening suggests, correctly, that vegetation can react to attack. For instance, there are some plants that protect themselves from herbivores trying to eat them by releasing volatile compounds to attract wasps - which then attack the herbivores.
However, these airborne signals don't go very far. For small plants, the furthest a signal can travel is 15 to 30 centimetres. From trees, it's perhaps 10 metres - but that's still not enough to provoke an epidemic.
People are very keen on the idea of some kind of unified force of nature, a "Gaia force" that keeps the world in balance; but there is no real evidence for this.
There is a tiny grain of scientific truth in The Happening, diluted by a massive amount of utter fantasy.
Sue Hartley is a professor of ecology at the University of Sussex.
This film is more propaganda by the climate change people who want to force you to love the planet as a god and worship it. They see people as a cancer on the earth and if Mother Nature kills a million here or there then good, it is just her way of keeping mankind in its place. They seem to love nature more than people.
In The Happening, nature strikes back at mankind by releasing a toxin from trees that causes people to commit suicide.
The Happening suggests, correctly, that vegetation can react to attack. For instance, there are some plants that protect themselves from herbivores trying to eat them by releasing volatile compounds to attract wasps - which then attack the herbivores.
However, these airborne signals don't go very far. For small plants, the furthest a signal can travel is 15 to 30 centimetres. From trees, it's perhaps 10 metres - but that's still not enough to provoke an epidemic.
People are very keen on the idea of some kind of unified force of nature, a "Gaia force" that keeps the world in balance; but there is no real evidence for this.
There is a tiny grain of scientific truth in The Happening, diluted by a massive amount of utter fantasy.
Sue Hartley is a professor of ecology at the University of Sussex.
This film is more propaganda by the climate change people who want to force you to love the planet as a god and worship it. They see people as a cancer on the earth and if Mother Nature kills a million here or there then good, it is just her way of keeping mankind in its place. They seem to love nature more than people.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Popcorn Nukes
The New Scientist magazine, on 26th June 2008, has an article about the possibility of nuclear bombs going off by accident. It says,
You might think nuclear weapons have been carefully designed not to go off by accident. Yet more than 1700 of them have design flaws that could conceivably cause multiple warheads to explode one after another – an effect known as "popcorning" - according to a UK Ministry of Defence safety manual.
However, a nuclear-weapons safety manual drawn up by the MoD's internal nuclear-weapons regulator argues that this standard single-point design might not be enough to prevent popcorning.
Stefan Michalowski, a senior scientist at the OECD in Paris, France, who researched warhead safety at Stanford University in California in the 1990s, is concerned about the risks of an extreme event such as a firefight with direct gunshots. "The explosion of a boatload of missiles in a port would be an unimaginable catastrophe," he says. "It's a very, very scary thought."
A spokeswoman for the MoD told New Scientist that although it is "a theoretical possibility", popcorning is "a scenario that is not credible".
You might think nuclear weapons have been carefully designed not to go off by accident. Yet more than 1700 of them have design flaws that could conceivably cause multiple warheads to explode one after another – an effect known as "popcorning" - according to a UK Ministry of Defence safety manual.
However, a nuclear-weapons safety manual drawn up by the MoD's internal nuclear-weapons regulator argues that this standard single-point design might not be enough to prevent popcorning.
Stefan Michalowski, a senior scientist at the OECD in Paris, France, who researched warhead safety at Stanford University in California in the 1990s, is concerned about the risks of an extreme event such as a firefight with direct gunshots. "The explosion of a boatload of missiles in a port would be an unimaginable catastrophe," he says. "It's a very, very scary thought."
A spokeswoman for the MoD told New Scientist that although it is "a theoretical possibility", popcorning is "a scenario that is not credible".
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Earth 'not at risk' from collider
The BBC web site, on 24th June 2008, has an article about a report that says there is no danger of the new CERN particle accelerator creating black holes and swallowing the earth. It says,
Our planet is not at risk from the world's most powerful particle physics experiment, a report has concluded.
Critics are worried that mini-black holes made at the soon-to-open facility on the French-Swiss border might threaten the Earth's very existence.
Most physicists believe the risk of a cataclysm lies in the realms of science fiction. But there have been fears about the possibility of a mini-black hole - produced in the collider – swelling so that it gobbles up the Earth.
Critics have previously raised concerns that the production of weird hypothetical particles called strangelets in the LHC could trigger the mass conversion of nuclei in ordinary atoms into more strange matter - transforming the Earth into a hot, dead lump.
The scientific consensus appears to be on the side of Cern's theorists.
The idea of the CERN project is to explore the unknown. All of the concerns about the possible dangers are based on theories and all of the rebuttals are also based on theories. It is only the scientific consensus that wins the argument. Lets all hope there are more right guesses than wrong ones.
Our planet is not at risk from the world's most powerful particle physics experiment, a report has concluded.
Critics are worried that mini-black holes made at the soon-to-open facility on the French-Swiss border might threaten the Earth's very existence.
Most physicists believe the risk of a cataclysm lies in the realms of science fiction. But there have been fears about the possibility of a mini-black hole - produced in the collider – swelling so that it gobbles up the Earth.
Critics have previously raised concerns that the production of weird hypothetical particles called strangelets in the LHC could trigger the mass conversion of nuclei in ordinary atoms into more strange matter - transforming the Earth into a hot, dead lump.
The scientific consensus appears to be on the side of Cern's theorists.
The idea of the CERN project is to explore the unknown. All of the concerns about the possible dangers are based on theories and all of the rebuttals are also based on theories. It is only the scientific consensus that wins the argument. Lets all hope there are more right guesses than wrong ones.
Friday, 20 June 2008
Sea Level and Mass Extinction
The Daily Galaxy website, on June 19th 2008, has an article that looks at the possibility that some past extinctions were down to rising sea levels and how climate change is bring about another one. It says,
Peters' research, which recently appeared in the journal Nature, provides an intriguing perspective on one of nature’s most pervasive mysteries. Most of us correlate Earth's periodic mass extinctions with dramatic and sudden events like a blazing asteroid or a sky-blackening super volcano—the kind of things that have been linked to the demise of the dinosaurs. While dramatic events like these do appear to have played major roles in some extinction periods, they certainly haven’t accounted for all of them. Peters says that is where sea level comes into play. His research provides evidence that convincingly fills in the gaps.
But does any of this apply to us today, and if so, how? National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Manager Rich Lane believes it does. "This breakthrough speaks loudly to the future impending modern shelf extinction due to climate change on Earth," says Lane.
Lane is referring to the fact that many climate experts fear a warming climate will cause sea levels to rise with devastating consequences. The Daily Galaxy asked Peters how climate affects sea levels.
“In my opinion, a much bigger concern with respect to global warming-induced sea level rise is the human impact. A very large fraction of the world's population and infrastructure is within a few meters of sea level. Thus, even a small rise is going to wreak almost unimaginable havoc,” Peters told The Daily Galaxy. “In fact, I think the impending sea level rise is the most serious threat posed by global warming. The biosphere is well conditioned to deal with the magnitude of sea level rise that we are likely to induce. We, as a society, are not.”
So it looks like we are very close to another mass extinction by rising sea levels brought on by global warming. Is it time to run to higher ground?
Peters' research, which recently appeared in the journal Nature, provides an intriguing perspective on one of nature’s most pervasive mysteries. Most of us correlate Earth's periodic mass extinctions with dramatic and sudden events like a blazing asteroid or a sky-blackening super volcano—the kind of things that have been linked to the demise of the dinosaurs. While dramatic events like these do appear to have played major roles in some extinction periods, they certainly haven’t accounted for all of them. Peters says that is where sea level comes into play. His research provides evidence that convincingly fills in the gaps.
But does any of this apply to us today, and if so, how? National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Manager Rich Lane believes it does. "This breakthrough speaks loudly to the future impending modern shelf extinction due to climate change on Earth," says Lane.
Lane is referring to the fact that many climate experts fear a warming climate will cause sea levels to rise with devastating consequences. The Daily Galaxy asked Peters how climate affects sea levels.
“In my opinion, a much bigger concern with respect to global warming-induced sea level rise is the human impact. A very large fraction of the world's population and infrastructure is within a few meters of sea level. Thus, even a small rise is going to wreak almost unimaginable havoc,” Peters told The Daily Galaxy. “In fact, I think the impending sea level rise is the most serious threat posed by global warming. The biosphere is well conditioned to deal with the magnitude of sea level rise that we are likely to induce. We, as a society, are not.”
So it looks like we are very close to another mass extinction by rising sea levels brought on by global warming. Is it time to run to higher ground?
Monday, 16 June 2008
Aids? There's big money at stake
The Times newspaper had an article, on June 16th 2008, about now HIV funding and UN support doesn’t look at the real courses of the virus spreading and is more concerned about political correctness than saving lives. It says,
For all the talk of a “global pandemic”, there are two completely separate HIV epidemics in the world. One is in parts of Africa, where HIV is spread by unprotected sex between men and women who have more than one steady partner. Governments - such as Uganda's, with its “zero grazing” approach to fidelity - that recognised the perils of the custom of having concurrent sexual partners confined the epidemic. Most didn't. The result of the neglect is that in some countries up to two in five adults are infected with a fatal virus.
The second epidemic covers the rest of the globe. Nine out of ten humans (and three in ten of those infected with HIV) live in countries where the virus is spread mostly when people buy and sell sex, when they shoot up drugs, and when men have anal sex with lots of other men. Only a minority do these things in any country, but that still adds up to several million people worldwide. We know how to prevent HIV in these populations, and we have known for years that in Asia, the Americas, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, if you do that prevention well, HIV won't spread farther. Even if you don't control HIV in these populations, it won't go all that much farther.
If we don't recognise this, we will never effectively prevent the spread of HIV. But a lot of UN agencies, governments and even Aids activists don't want to recognise it. Governments don't want to because it would mean recognising that if they want to deal with HIV they have to spend money on services for junkies, sex workers and gay men - groups that don't top the popularity stakes with voters. Ironically, they will happily fund treatments for these people with expensive medicines once they do get sick. That is more acceptable to voters than to give cheap condoms and needles to prevent them getting infected in the first place.
The article was by Dr Elizabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist who has worked as a consultant to UNAids and the WHO and is the author of The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of Aids.
Will political correctness be history’s biggest killer? Is this a question we are allowed to ask?
For all the talk of a “global pandemic”, there are two completely separate HIV epidemics in the world. One is in parts of Africa, where HIV is spread by unprotected sex between men and women who have more than one steady partner. Governments - such as Uganda's, with its “zero grazing” approach to fidelity - that recognised the perils of the custom of having concurrent sexual partners confined the epidemic. Most didn't. The result of the neglect is that in some countries up to two in five adults are infected with a fatal virus.
The second epidemic covers the rest of the globe. Nine out of ten humans (and three in ten of those infected with HIV) live in countries where the virus is spread mostly when people buy and sell sex, when they shoot up drugs, and when men have anal sex with lots of other men. Only a minority do these things in any country, but that still adds up to several million people worldwide. We know how to prevent HIV in these populations, and we have known for years that in Asia, the Americas, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, if you do that prevention well, HIV won't spread farther. Even if you don't control HIV in these populations, it won't go all that much farther.
If we don't recognise this, we will never effectively prevent the spread of HIV. But a lot of UN agencies, governments and even Aids activists don't want to recognise it. Governments don't want to because it would mean recognising that if they want to deal with HIV they have to spend money on services for junkies, sex workers and gay men - groups that don't top the popularity stakes with voters. Ironically, they will happily fund treatments for these people with expensive medicines once they do get sick. That is more acceptable to voters than to give cheap condoms and needles to prevent them getting infected in the first place.
The article was by Dr Elizabeth Pisani, an epidemiologist who has worked as a consultant to UNAids and the WHO and is the author of The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of Aids.
Will political correctness be history’s biggest killer? Is this a question we are allowed to ask?
Friday, 13 June 2008
The Sun is "Dead"
The web site “www.dailygalaxy.com” has an article, on June 11th 2008, about the sun not having any sunspots and why this could lead to a new little ice age. It says,
Dark spots, some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. These strange and powerful phenomena are known as sunspots, but now they are all gone. Not even solar physicists know why it’s happening and what this odd solar silence might be indicating for our future.
Although periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, this current period has gone on much longer than usual and scientists are starting to worry—at least a little bit. Today's sun is as inactive as it was two years ago, and solar physicists don’t have a clue as to why.
Tsuneta said solar physicists aren't weather forecasters and they can't predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700. Coincidence? Some scientists say it was, but many worry that it wasn’t.
If the world does face another mini Ice Age, it could come without warning.
Sorokhtin believes that a lack of sunspots does indicate a coming cooling period based on certain past trends and early records. In fact, he calls manmade climate change "a drop in the bucket" compared to the fierce and abrupt cold that can potentially be brought on by inactive solar phases.
Maybe this is man made just like global warming? We are pumping out millions of mega watts of radio waves and they are interfering with the natural processes going on within the sun. To stop this we need a global campaign to reduce radio wave outputs by taxing the rich and starving the poor. I am sure we can find the some evidence that this is happening from somewhere. Come, let us worship the sun as a god and force people to save the sun from radio waves. All we need now is Al Gore to make a film.
Dark spots, some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. These strange and powerful phenomena are known as sunspots, but now they are all gone. Not even solar physicists know why it’s happening and what this odd solar silence might be indicating for our future.
Although periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, this current period has gone on much longer than usual and scientists are starting to worry—at least a little bit. Today's sun is as inactive as it was two years ago, and solar physicists don’t have a clue as to why.
Tsuneta said solar physicists aren't weather forecasters and they can't predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700. Coincidence? Some scientists say it was, but many worry that it wasn’t.
If the world does face another mini Ice Age, it could come without warning.
Sorokhtin believes that a lack of sunspots does indicate a coming cooling period based on certain past trends and early records. In fact, he calls manmade climate change "a drop in the bucket" compared to the fierce and abrupt cold that can potentially be brought on by inactive solar phases.
Maybe this is man made just like global warming? We are pumping out millions of mega watts of radio waves and they are interfering with the natural processes going on within the sun. To stop this we need a global campaign to reduce radio wave outputs by taxing the rich and starving the poor. I am sure we can find the some evidence that this is happening from somewhere. Come, let us worship the sun as a god and force people to save the sun from radio waves. All we need now is Al Gore to make a film.
Monday, 9 June 2008
Climate of suspicion
The Guardian newspaper, on 7th June 2008, has an article about how the declining global temperatures over the last 10 years do not disprove global warming. It says,
The deniers of global warming are about to latch on to a new argument. The world is cooling. And they are right - well, slightly.
In any case, we can expect the deniers to make the most of this opportunity to pour cold water on the whole climate change narrative. No year has yet been hotter than 1998, they will say. True: it was a huge El Niño year. Now we are on the way back down, they will say. Nonsense. The underlying trend remains upwards; and as every decade passes, natural cycles can do less and less to counter the growing human influence on temperature.
By late next decade, natural warming will once again combine with man-made warming to push temperature rise into overdrive. The surge that we saw through the 1980s and 1990s will resume with a vengeance. That could be the moment that climate change passes a point of no return, when ice sheets start to collapse and parched rainforests and soils dump their carbon into the air, accelerating warming.
Global warming “deniers”, being placed in the same bracket as holocaust deniers, would point to the facts, not the theories or fanciful computer models, to make their arguments. How long will it be before the next ice age is here I wonder?
The deniers of global warming are about to latch on to a new argument. The world is cooling. And they are right - well, slightly.
In any case, we can expect the deniers to make the most of this opportunity to pour cold water on the whole climate change narrative. No year has yet been hotter than 1998, they will say. True: it was a huge El Niño year. Now we are on the way back down, they will say. Nonsense. The underlying trend remains upwards; and as every decade passes, natural cycles can do less and less to counter the growing human influence on temperature.
By late next decade, natural warming will once again combine with man-made warming to push temperature rise into overdrive. The surge that we saw through the 1980s and 1990s will resume with a vengeance. That could be the moment that climate change passes a point of no return, when ice sheets start to collapse and parched rainforests and soils dump their carbon into the air, accelerating warming.
Global warming “deniers”, being placed in the same bracket as holocaust deniers, would point to the facts, not the theories or fanciful computer models, to make their arguments. How long will it be before the next ice age is here I wonder?
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Nine meals from anarchy
The Daily Mail newspaper, on 7th June 2008, has an article about how close people in Britain are from a “food crisis”. It starts off with,
Long before many others, Cameron saw the potential of a real food crisis striking not just the poor of the Third World, but us, here in Britain, in the 21st Century.
The scenario goes like this. Imagine a sudden shutdown of oil supplies; a sudden collapse in the petrol that streams steadily through the pumps and so into the engines of the lorries which deliver our food around the country, stocking up the supermarket shelves as soon as any item runs out.
If the trucks stopped moving, we'd start to worry and we'd head out to the shops, stocking up our larders. By the end of Day One, if there was still no petrol, the shelves would be looking pretty thin. Imagine, then, Day Two: your fourth, fifth and sixth meal. We'd be in a panic. Day three: still no petrol.
What then? With hunger pangs kicking in, and no notion of how long it might take for the supermarkets to restock, how long before those who hadn't stocked up began stealing from their neighbours? Or looting what they could get their hands on?
It was Lord Cameron's estimation that it would take just nine meals – three full days without food on supermarket shelves - before law and order started to break down, and British streets descended into chaos.
It then goes on to show the signs that this may be going to happen in the near future. Below are some I’ve picked out.
Oil prices are spiralling
Food price inflation
Food production methods are now 95 per cent dependant on oil
Cost of transporting food
Carbon footprint of chemical fertilisers
Wheat prices have doubled
Pig farmers are going out of business
Disabled people and poorer pensioners have to go short of food
WalMart rationing rice
It also goes on to say,
And so as oil prices have risen, so too has the cost of food - and I'm afraid it's only set to get worse. The age of cheap food is at an end - and it will impact not only on our supermarket bills, but on the whole economy.
London imports more than 80 per cent and a food shortage would hit the capital the hardest.
The net result is a looming crisis of which soaring oil prices could simply be the starting gun.
Today, we stand on the brink of a longer-term problem. In the words of Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, London: 'We are sleep-walking into a crisis.'
Suddenly, that warning of being 'nine meals from anarchy' no longer seems such a distant or improbable threat.
The article was by Rosie Boycott
Long before many others, Cameron saw the potential of a real food crisis striking not just the poor of the Third World, but us, here in Britain, in the 21st Century.
The scenario goes like this. Imagine a sudden shutdown of oil supplies; a sudden collapse in the petrol that streams steadily through the pumps and so into the engines of the lorries which deliver our food around the country, stocking up the supermarket shelves as soon as any item runs out.
If the trucks stopped moving, we'd start to worry and we'd head out to the shops, stocking up our larders. By the end of Day One, if there was still no petrol, the shelves would be looking pretty thin. Imagine, then, Day Two: your fourth, fifth and sixth meal. We'd be in a panic. Day three: still no petrol.
What then? With hunger pangs kicking in, and no notion of how long it might take for the supermarkets to restock, how long before those who hadn't stocked up began stealing from their neighbours? Or looting what they could get their hands on?
It was Lord Cameron's estimation that it would take just nine meals – three full days without food on supermarket shelves - before law and order started to break down, and British streets descended into chaos.
It then goes on to show the signs that this may be going to happen in the near future. Below are some I’ve picked out.
Oil prices are spiralling
Food price inflation
Food production methods are now 95 per cent dependant on oil
Cost of transporting food
Carbon footprint of chemical fertilisers
Wheat prices have doubled
Pig farmers are going out of business
Disabled people and poorer pensioners have to go short of food
WalMart rationing rice
It also goes on to say,
And so as oil prices have risen, so too has the cost of food - and I'm afraid it's only set to get worse. The age of cheap food is at an end - and it will impact not only on our supermarket bills, but on the whole economy.
London imports more than 80 per cent and a food shortage would hit the capital the hardest.
The net result is a looming crisis of which soaring oil prices could simply be the starting gun.
Today, we stand on the brink of a longer-term problem. In the words of Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, London: 'We are sleep-walking into a crisis.'
Suddenly, that warning of being 'nine meals from anarchy' no longer seems such a distant or improbable threat.
The article was by Rosie Boycott
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Food shortages and civilisations
The Times newspaper, on June 3rd 2008, has an article about the affects food shortages has had on civilisations in the past. It says,
The State exists to feed people. Politicians proclaim defence or law and order or social issues or wealth creation or health as their priority. But without food, nothing else matters.
When food gives out, revolutions follow. Famine helped to precipitate the Ming dynasty to power in China. French revolutionaries asked Marie Antoinette for bread before they called for her head. One reason why the British gave up their Indian Raj was an awareness that they could not cope with famine. Food failure can bring down whole civilisations.
Today's failure to deliver food for the people is worldwide. In the West, it means higher grocery bills. In much of the rest of the world, it means hunger. In at least 30 countries, it means famine. The price of staple grains has risen by an average of 80 per cent over the past two years. Some prices have trebled.
The political convulsions have begun. The world's hunger victims are biting rubber bullets. In Haiti, the starvelings have rebelled. In West Africa, Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Madagascar they are rioting. In the West, governments' votes fall as grocery bills rise.
The article was written by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of “Food: A History”.
The State exists to feed people. Politicians proclaim defence or law and order or social issues or wealth creation or health as their priority. But without food, nothing else matters.
When food gives out, revolutions follow. Famine helped to precipitate the Ming dynasty to power in China. French revolutionaries asked Marie Antoinette for bread before they called for her head. One reason why the British gave up their Indian Raj was an awareness that they could not cope with famine. Food failure can bring down whole civilisations.
Today's failure to deliver food for the people is worldwide. In the West, it means higher grocery bills. In much of the rest of the world, it means hunger. In at least 30 countries, it means famine. The price of staple grains has risen by an average of 80 per cent over the past two years. Some prices have trebled.
The political convulsions have begun. The world's hunger victims are biting rubber bullets. In Haiti, the starvelings have rebelled. In West Africa, Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Madagascar they are rioting. In the West, governments' votes fall as grocery bills rise.
The article was written by Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of “Food: A History”.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Nuclear bomb blueprints for sale
The Guardian newspaper, on May 31st 2008, reports about warnings of nuclear bomb blueprints for sale on the world black market. It says,
Nuclear bomb blueprints and manuals on how to manufacture weapons-grade uranium for warheads are feared to be circulating on the international black market, according to investigators tracking the world's most infamous nuclear smuggling racket.
Alarm about the sale of nuclear know-how follows the disclosure that the Swiss government, allegedly acting under US pressure, secretly destroyed tens of thousands of documents from a massive nuclear smuggling investigation.
"It's amazing these people had so much information, incredibly sensitive stuff on nuclear weaponisation and gas centrifuges," said David Albright, a Washington-based former UN weapons inspector. "I'm sure the US got a copy. But who else got the documents? Can you believe these two, the brothers [Marco Tinner is also in custody] were the only ones who got the stuff?"
President Couchepin said: "There were detailed construction plans for nuclear weapons, for gas ultracentrifuges to enrich weapons-grade uranium as well as for guided missile delivery systems."
You would need billions of dollars, highly trained experts and many years of work to create a nuclear bomb. I don’t think we have anything to fear even if al-Qaida had the documents, which they more than likely don’t.
Nuclear bomb blueprints and manuals on how to manufacture weapons-grade uranium for warheads are feared to be circulating on the international black market, according to investigators tracking the world's most infamous nuclear smuggling racket.
Alarm about the sale of nuclear know-how follows the disclosure that the Swiss government, allegedly acting under US pressure, secretly destroyed tens of thousands of documents from a massive nuclear smuggling investigation.
"It's amazing these people had so much information, incredibly sensitive stuff on nuclear weaponisation and gas centrifuges," said David Albright, a Washington-based former UN weapons inspector. "I'm sure the US got a copy. But who else got the documents? Can you believe these two, the brothers [Marco Tinner is also in custody] were the only ones who got the stuff?"
President Couchepin said: "There were detailed construction plans for nuclear weapons, for gas ultracentrifuges to enrich weapons-grade uranium as well as for guided missile delivery systems."
You would need billions of dollars, highly trained experts and many years of work to create a nuclear bomb. I don’t think we have anything to fear even if al-Qaida had the documents, which they more than likely don’t.
The end of the world is nigh
The Times newspaper, on 28th May 2008, has an article about a man named Gordon Ritchie, a member of the Jehovah's Witness splinter group The Lords' Witnesses, who claims he is the first horseman of the apocalypse. It says,
To be fair to Gordon, he doesn't go shouting about being the first horseman. It pops up only when we're discussing the Book of Revelation, the last chapter of the Bible so beloved of apocalyptic prophets. The second horseman of Revelation, says Gordon, is War and he is already up and running in the form of George W. Bush. The third horseman, Famine, is loose, too - in the body of the UN which is wrecking the world through its oil-for-food programme, and the fourth horsemen, Death, is in full tack and waiting at the stable door in the form of nuclear weapons.
It is his considered opinion that the world ended on March 21, 2008. Are you seeing the flaw in this yet? To be fair to him, he thinks March 21 was just the beginning of the end, Christ warming up for the Second Coming, so to speak, but he has a long track record of incorrectly prophesying all sorts of calamity.
“Admittedly, we have got it wrong before,” says Gordon. How many times? “Over 70 but just because we've been wrong in the past doesn't mean we will be wrong in the future. We've been right about some things. About one in ten of our prophecies are correct.”
If I remember my Sunday school teacher right, all false prophets were stoned to death, and didn’t Jesus saying something about no one knowing when he would return? Anyway, the article also includes some interest predictions from the past that didn’t quite come to pass.
March 25, 970: Logicians foresaw the End when Annunciation and Good Friday fell on the same day, believing that it was the day that Adam was created, Isaac was sacrificed, the Red Sea was parted, Jesus was conceived, and Jesus was crucified.February 1, 1524: London astrologers believed a flood would destroy the world; 20,000 people abandoned their homes.
October 1, 1914: The author and minister Charles T. Russell created the most hyped Armageddon date for Jehovah's Witnesses after an 1881 prediction didn't materialise, picking out quotations from the Book of Daniel and assigning them random numerical values to come up with this date.
Friday, February 13, 1925: Young Margaret Rowan predicted the End after having a dream of Angel Gabriel. A man then spent his life savings on advertising space for an eleventh-hour gathering. When nothing happened, he suggested that perhaps she meant Pacific time.
2006: A British cult filled caves in India with dry goods, believing the end was nigh.
The article was by Mark Barrowcliffe.
To be fair to Gordon, he doesn't go shouting about being the first horseman. It pops up only when we're discussing the Book of Revelation, the last chapter of the Bible so beloved of apocalyptic prophets. The second horseman of Revelation, says Gordon, is War and he is already up and running in the form of George W. Bush. The third horseman, Famine, is loose, too - in the body of the UN which is wrecking the world through its oil-for-food programme, and the fourth horsemen, Death, is in full tack and waiting at the stable door in the form of nuclear weapons.
It is his considered opinion that the world ended on March 21, 2008. Are you seeing the flaw in this yet? To be fair to him, he thinks March 21 was just the beginning of the end, Christ warming up for the Second Coming, so to speak, but he has a long track record of incorrectly prophesying all sorts of calamity.
“Admittedly, we have got it wrong before,” says Gordon. How many times? “Over 70 but just because we've been wrong in the past doesn't mean we will be wrong in the future. We've been right about some things. About one in ten of our prophecies are correct.”
If I remember my Sunday school teacher right, all false prophets were stoned to death, and didn’t Jesus saying something about no one knowing when he would return? Anyway, the article also includes some interest predictions from the past that didn’t quite come to pass.
March 25, 970: Logicians foresaw the End when Annunciation and Good Friday fell on the same day, believing that it was the day that Adam was created, Isaac was sacrificed, the Red Sea was parted, Jesus was conceived, and Jesus was crucified.February 1, 1524: London astrologers believed a flood would destroy the world; 20,000 people abandoned their homes.
October 1, 1914: The author and minister Charles T. Russell created the most hyped Armageddon date for Jehovah's Witnesses after an 1881 prediction didn't materialise, picking out quotations from the Book of Daniel and assigning them random numerical values to come up with this date.
Friday, February 13, 1925: Young Margaret Rowan predicted the End after having a dream of Angel Gabriel. A man then spent his life savings on advertising space for an eleventh-hour gathering. When nothing happened, he suggested that perhaps she meant Pacific time.
2006: A British cult filled caves in India with dry goods, believing the end was nigh.
The article was by Mark Barrowcliffe.
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Last flight of the honeybee?
The Guardian news paper, on 31st May 2008, reports on the declining numbers of honeybees around the world. They say,
Hackenberg was the first beekeeper to report that his bees had vanished. On a November day 18 months ago, he checked the hives in his Florida bee yard to find they were empty. "They weren't dead, they were just gone," he recalls.
Since then, close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.
UK farming minister Lord Rooker, however, warned last year that honeybees are in acute danger: "If nothing is done about it, the honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years,"
Honeybees are vital for the pollination of around 90 crops worldwide. In addition to almonds, most fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are dependent on honeybees. Crops that are used as cattle and pig feed also rely on honeybee pollination, as does the cotton plant.
According to Albert Einstein, our very existence is inextricably linked to bees - he is reputed to have said: "If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."
It then goes on to say something very interesting.
This is not the first time that honeybees have disappeared. The first recorded unexplained loss was in the US 150 years ago and ever since large numbers have vanished at intervals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. An epidemic first reported on the Isle of Wight wiped out 90% of honeybee colonies in the UK at the beginning of the 20th century.
So why all the panic then, if this sort of thing happens again and again and even seems natural.
The book is “A World Without Bees” by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum.
Hackenberg was the first beekeeper to report that his bees had vanished. On a November day 18 months ago, he checked the hives in his Florida bee yard to find they were empty. "They weren't dead, they were just gone," he recalls.
Since then, close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.
UK farming minister Lord Rooker, however, warned last year that honeybees are in acute danger: "If nothing is done about it, the honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years,"
Honeybees are vital for the pollination of around 90 crops worldwide. In addition to almonds, most fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are dependent on honeybees. Crops that are used as cattle and pig feed also rely on honeybee pollination, as does the cotton plant.
According to Albert Einstein, our very existence is inextricably linked to bees - he is reputed to have said: "If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."
It then goes on to say something very interesting.
This is not the first time that honeybees have disappeared. The first recorded unexplained loss was in the US 150 years ago and ever since large numbers have vanished at intervals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. An epidemic first reported on the Isle of Wight wiped out 90% of honeybee colonies in the UK at the beginning of the 20th century.
So why all the panic then, if this sort of thing happens again and again and even seems natural.
The book is “A World Without Bees” by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum.
Friday, 30 May 2008
Climate Change May 2008 Round Up
As there is a constant flow of climate change news, keeping you scared and in a panic, I don’t report on it daily. Instead I will do monthly round ups of some of the more interesting events.
Things started off by some German scientists telling us the last 10 years of cooling is down to natural climate cycles and things will be getting hotter again by 2020.
We also heard news that the UN has wasted 10 billion dollars in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, who should not of qualified.
Exxon, the oil company, is to cut funding to climate change denial groups. If there is no one looking at the possibility that there is no man made global warming then there is only going to be one point of view looked at. I thought science was about finding truth and not about backing the current political ideology.
The current food crisis is being blamed on climate change too, when other factors are to blame. Food is being grown for bio fuel and green policies have been forcing farm land to go fallow, so the amount of food to eat has decreased. Also, China is demanding more food to feed its growing middle classes.
Below are some the new things that are “affected by climate change”.
The Australian islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged
Force 1 billion people from their homes by 2050
Tropical insects will be the first to go
Plate tectonics could shut down
Extinction for butterflies in Scotland
French truffle threatened
Lead the poor to 'barbarisation'
Rising ocean to submerge part of South Florida
One in eight of the world's birds are at risk of extinction
Sea life at risk from rapid acidification
Threat to US crops and water
Reindeer herders face extinction
The narwhal, a whale with a long spiral tusk, is at risk
We are being told to do the following to help to combat climate change.
Eat insects. A group of experts endorse bugs as a nutritious and sustainable food source
The halting of logging in the world's rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said
Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them. Stop making fat people
Become a vegetarian, as growing livestock is more damaging to the environment
Cultivation your own fruit and vegetables
Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry 'carbon ration cards'
World must cut CO2 to India levels
This constant stream of fear is the real global threat. Forcing people to do the will of others in order to “save the planet” and make a quick buck or gain power at the same time.
Things started off by some German scientists telling us the last 10 years of cooling is down to natural climate cycles and things will be getting hotter again by 2020.
We also heard news that the UN has wasted 10 billion dollars in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, who should not of qualified.
Exxon, the oil company, is to cut funding to climate change denial groups. If there is no one looking at the possibility that there is no man made global warming then there is only going to be one point of view looked at. I thought science was about finding truth and not about backing the current political ideology.
The current food crisis is being blamed on climate change too, when other factors are to blame. Food is being grown for bio fuel and green policies have been forcing farm land to go fallow, so the amount of food to eat has decreased. Also, China is demanding more food to feed its growing middle classes.
Below are some the new things that are “affected by climate change”.
The Australian islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged
Force 1 billion people from their homes by 2050
Tropical insects will be the first to go
Plate tectonics could shut down
Extinction for butterflies in Scotland
French truffle threatened
Lead the poor to 'barbarisation'
Rising ocean to submerge part of South Florida
One in eight of the world's birds are at risk of extinction
Sea life at risk from rapid acidification
Threat to US crops and water
Reindeer herders face extinction
The narwhal, a whale with a long spiral tusk, is at risk
We are being told to do the following to help to combat climate change.
Eat insects. A group of experts endorse bugs as a nutritious and sustainable food source
The halting of logging in the world's rainforests is the single greatest solution to climate change, Prince Charles has said
Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them. Stop making fat people
Become a vegetarian, as growing livestock is more damaging to the environment
Cultivation your own fruit and vegetables
Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry 'carbon ration cards'
World must cut CO2 to India levels
This constant stream of fear is the real global threat. Forcing people to do the will of others in order to “save the planet” and make a quick buck or gain power at the same time.
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Asteroid Deflection Research Center
The Iowa State University website, on May 22nd 2008, has news that they will be hosting an Asteroid Deflection Research Center on their campus for researchers from around the world to talk about different methods of deflecting asteroids. The article says,
Just 100 years ago, June 30, 1908, an asteroid or comet estimated at 100–200 feet in diameter exploded in the skies above Tunguska, Siberia. Known as the Tunguska Event, the explosion flattened trees and killed other vegetation over a 500,000-acre area. But if the explosion had occurred four hours later, it would have destroyed St. Petersburg or Moscow with an equivalent energy level of about 500 Hiroshima nuclear bombs.
Last November, NASA reported 900 known potentially hazardous objects (PHOs), most of which are asteroids. PHOs are defined as objects larger than 492 feet in diameter whose trajectories bring them to within about 4.6 million miles of the Earth’s orbit. NASA scientists estimate the total population of PHOs to be around 20,000. “However,” Wie said, “the asteroid we have to worry about is the asteroid that we don’t know.”
According to Tom Shih, professor and chair of aerospace engineering, “the potential for a major catastrophe created by an asteroid impacting Earth is very real. It is a matter of when, and humankind must be prepared for it."
Bad news indeed, but at the end of the article we have something a little more reassuring.
The chances of having to use deflection technologies on an asteroid in the near future are admittedly remote. Scientists estimate the frequency of an extinction-class (6 miles in diameter or larger) object striking Earth as once every 50–100 million years, and for a 200-foot or larger object as once every 100–500 years.
The estimate is for one every 100-500 years, but the last one was a 100 years ago, therefore the next one can happen at anytime. Is it time to panic?
The website is www.engineering.iastate.edu
Just 100 years ago, June 30, 1908, an asteroid or comet estimated at 100–200 feet in diameter exploded in the skies above Tunguska, Siberia. Known as the Tunguska Event, the explosion flattened trees and killed other vegetation over a 500,000-acre area. But if the explosion had occurred four hours later, it would have destroyed St. Petersburg or Moscow with an equivalent energy level of about 500 Hiroshima nuclear bombs.
Last November, NASA reported 900 known potentially hazardous objects (PHOs), most of which are asteroids. PHOs are defined as objects larger than 492 feet in diameter whose trajectories bring them to within about 4.6 million miles of the Earth’s orbit. NASA scientists estimate the total population of PHOs to be around 20,000. “However,” Wie said, “the asteroid we have to worry about is the asteroid that we don’t know.”
According to Tom Shih, professor and chair of aerospace engineering, “the potential for a major catastrophe created by an asteroid impacting Earth is very real. It is a matter of when, and humankind must be prepared for it."
Bad news indeed, but at the end of the article we have something a little more reassuring.
The chances of having to use deflection technologies on an asteroid in the near future are admittedly remote. Scientists estimate the frequency of an extinction-class (6 miles in diameter or larger) object striking Earth as once every 50–100 million years, and for a 200-foot or larger object as once every 100–500 years.
The estimate is for one every 100-500 years, but the last one was a 100 years ago, therefore the next one can happen at anytime. Is it time to panic?
The website is www.engineering.iastate.edu
Monday, 26 May 2008
The 11th Hour
Channel 4, on the 25th May 2008, showed the film “The 11th Hour”. This was a call to ordinary people about the environmental disasters that are happening now and what will happen next if we do not start to take action to stop climate change. Sadly its message was drowned out by the very heavy use of propaganda techniques.
There were two extremes shown, the good environmentalist and everyone else. When showing the good side you would hear soft music and see long clips of some beautiful environment. When showing the other side you had loud fast music with a lot of short clips of destruction, pollution and human suffering. What you never see is the middle ground, the life we live every day.
Below are a number of quotes from the film that I found interesting.
The biosphere is sick, a planet that is behaving like an infected organism.
Thom Hartman, author of “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”
What I hear in my dreams are the generations in the future screaming back to us in time, saying, what are you doing, don’t you see, we are at this critical point in time, and we have evolved to be the leaders of our biological community and we are misleading, we are coursing the devastation to the very foundation of our life system, that has given us birth and we are ultimately committing suicide.
Paul Stamets, Mycologist, Author of “Mycelium Running”
Even to think we are separated from nature is some how a thinking disorder.
James Hillman, Psychologist
If we were to have to go back to simply living off current sunlight, lacking technology, the planet couldn’t sustain more than half a billion to at the most a billion people.
Thom Hartman
We don’t know where the global warming will stop. But the worst case scenario is the earth will become like its sister planet Venus. With a temperature of 250 centigrade and raining sulphuric acid. The human race could not survive in those conditions.
Stephen Hawking
...coming close to what many scientists call the tipping point. A tipping point where we loss control of climate. And when we loss control of climate, then things like Katrina [the Hurricane], Katrina scale events will simply become the norm.
David Orr, Chair, Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College
The human impacts, it is happening first and fastest in the Arctic. We are starting to see that things are happening even faster than what scientists have indicated. By the end of the century, perhaps even in a few decades, the Arctic will be quite ice free.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, International Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Conference
The UN estimates that by the middle of the century that there maybe 150 million environmental refuges at any given time from climate change.
Bill Mickibben, Author, Founder, Stepitup07.org
There were two extremes shown, the good environmentalist and everyone else. When showing the good side you would hear soft music and see long clips of some beautiful environment. When showing the other side you had loud fast music with a lot of short clips of destruction, pollution and human suffering. What you never see is the middle ground, the life we live every day.
Below are a number of quotes from the film that I found interesting.
The biosphere is sick, a planet that is behaving like an infected organism.
Thom Hartman, author of “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”
What I hear in my dreams are the generations in the future screaming back to us in time, saying, what are you doing, don’t you see, we are at this critical point in time, and we have evolved to be the leaders of our biological community and we are misleading, we are coursing the devastation to the very foundation of our life system, that has given us birth and we are ultimately committing suicide.
Paul Stamets, Mycologist, Author of “Mycelium Running”
Even to think we are separated from nature is some how a thinking disorder.
James Hillman, Psychologist
If we were to have to go back to simply living off current sunlight, lacking technology, the planet couldn’t sustain more than half a billion to at the most a billion people.
Thom Hartman
We don’t know where the global warming will stop. But the worst case scenario is the earth will become like its sister planet Venus. With a temperature of 250 centigrade and raining sulphuric acid. The human race could not survive in those conditions.
Stephen Hawking
...coming close to what many scientists call the tipping point. A tipping point where we loss control of climate. And when we loss control of climate, then things like Katrina [the Hurricane], Katrina scale events will simply become the norm.
David Orr, Chair, Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College
The human impacts, it is happening first and fastest in the Arctic. We are starting to see that things are happening even faster than what scientists have indicated. By the end of the century, perhaps even in a few decades, the Arctic will be quite ice free.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, International Chair, Inuit Circumpolar Conference
The UN estimates that by the middle of the century that there maybe 150 million environmental refuges at any given time from climate change.
Bill Mickibben, Author, Founder, Stepitup07.org
So what's Plan Bee?
In The Observer, on Sunday May 25th 2008, there was an article about the continuing decline of the British bee population. It says,
They are nature's most productive workers, the farmer's friend and the essence of wholesome country life. But within a decade Britain's honeybee could be extinct. Simon Garfield meets the keepers battling a killer disease that's already wiped out a third of America's colonies – and now threatens our own.
Then talking about the different diseases bees can get it continues,
Then there was the potential catastrophe of the acronym CCD, the cause or symptoms of which no one claimed to fully understand, but whose name suggested a sort of bee Armageddon: Colony Collapse Disorder. But the problem with bees should not just be of concern to those gathered in a small English lecture hall, but a matter for us all. The question of dwindling honey supplies is one thing, but the greater threat is to apples, pears, raspberries, cherries, strawberries, blackcurrants, broad and runner beans and oilseed rape, and about 20 other crops dependent on insects for pollination. For bees are not just part of the foodchain; they are its clasp.
The article also when on to say that the government are doing very little about it.
They are nature's most productive workers, the farmer's friend and the essence of wholesome country life. But within a decade Britain's honeybee could be extinct. Simon Garfield meets the keepers battling a killer disease that's already wiped out a third of America's colonies – and now threatens our own.
Then talking about the different diseases bees can get it continues,
Then there was the potential catastrophe of the acronym CCD, the cause or symptoms of which no one claimed to fully understand, but whose name suggested a sort of bee Armageddon: Colony Collapse Disorder. But the problem with bees should not just be of concern to those gathered in a small English lecture hall, but a matter for us all. The question of dwindling honey supplies is one thing, but the greater threat is to apples, pears, raspberries, cherries, strawberries, blackcurrants, broad and runner beans and oilseed rape, and about 20 other crops dependent on insects for pollination. For bees are not just part of the foodchain; they are its clasp.
The article also when on to say that the government are doing very little about it.
Saturday, 24 May 2008
Spain's drought: a glimpse of our future?
The Independent, on the 24th May 2008, looks at the possible future water shortage problems we will face and at the resent droughts in Spain. It says,
Barcelona is a dry city. It is dry in a way that two days of showers can do nothing to alleviate. The Catalan capital's weather can change from one day to the next, but its climate, like that of the whole Mediterranean region, is inexorably warming up and drying out. And in the process this most modern of cities is living through a crisis that offers a disturbing glimpse of metropolitan futures everywhere.
Its fountains and beach showers are dry, its ornamental lakes and private swimming pools drained and hosepipes banned. Children are now being taught how to save water as part of their school day. This iconic, avant-garde city is in the grip of the worst drought since records began and is bringing the climate crisis that has blighted cities in Australia and throughout the Third World to Europe. A resource that most Europeans have grown up taking for granted now dominates conversation. Nearly half of Catalans say water is the region's main problem, more worrying than terrorism, economic slowdown or even the populists' favourite – immigration.
The political battles now breaking out here could be a foretaste of the water wars that scientists and policymakers have warned us will be commonplace in the coming decades. The emergency water-saving measures Barcelona adopted after winter rains failed for a second year running have not been enough.
Spain has always had water shortage problems, it’s a hot country. But the problem has become worse because of irrigation systems for agriculture, old and leaking pipes, tourism (with their swimming pools and golf courses), and a larger population. This is more a man made problem than a global warming issue.
Will there be water wars in the future? We will have to wait and see.
Barcelona is a dry city. It is dry in a way that two days of showers can do nothing to alleviate. The Catalan capital's weather can change from one day to the next, but its climate, like that of the whole Mediterranean region, is inexorably warming up and drying out. And in the process this most modern of cities is living through a crisis that offers a disturbing glimpse of metropolitan futures everywhere.
Its fountains and beach showers are dry, its ornamental lakes and private swimming pools drained and hosepipes banned. Children are now being taught how to save water as part of their school day. This iconic, avant-garde city is in the grip of the worst drought since records began and is bringing the climate crisis that has blighted cities in Australia and throughout the Third World to Europe. A resource that most Europeans have grown up taking for granted now dominates conversation. Nearly half of Catalans say water is the region's main problem, more worrying than terrorism, economic slowdown or even the populists' favourite – immigration.
The political battles now breaking out here could be a foretaste of the water wars that scientists and policymakers have warned us will be commonplace in the coming decades. The emergency water-saving measures Barcelona adopted after winter rains failed for a second year running have not been enough.
Spain has always had water shortage problems, it’s a hot country. But the problem has become worse because of irrigation systems for agriculture, old and leaking pipes, tourism (with their swimming pools and golf courses), and a larger population. This is more a man made problem than a global warming issue.
Will there be water wars in the future? We will have to wait and see.
Friday, 23 May 2008
Bananas are dying
The Independent, on 22nd May 2008, had an article looking at the disease affecting the banana and how it’s over production has lead to its down fall. It says,
Below the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.
There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon – in five, 10 or 30 years – the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist.
What lead to this has been a long list of errors from companies more interested in shareholders’ profits and short term gains. It seems this problem is mainly down to unregulated capitalism at its worst. Greedy men doing evil things for the love of money.
The book is “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World” by Dan Koeppel.
Below the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.
There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon – in five, 10 or 30 years – the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist.
What lead to this has been a long list of errors from companies more interested in shareholders’ profits and short term gains. It seems this problem is mainly down to unregulated capitalism at its worst. Greedy men doing evil things for the love of money.
The book is “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World” by Dan Koeppel.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
The Struggle to Control World Population
The Sunday Times, on 18th May 2008, reviewed a book by Matthew Connelly called “Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population”. The book looks at methods used over the years to try to reduce and control population levels. The review starts off as follows.
The population-control freaks are back in town. Two factors have given the neo-Malthusians hope that their bleak world view and dismal remedies might once again become intellectually fashionable.
The first is the notion that the most efficient way for mankind to cut its carbon emissions is not to breathe at all - or at least to do so in much smaller numbers. The second is the recent rapid increase in food prices worldwide - which the neo-Malthusians, as ever, do not believe is capable of being addressed by either the market or agricultural technology. These days, even apparently liberal commentators in the mainstream press write effusively in admiration of China's coercive one-child policy.
Against this background, the publication of Matthew Connelly's book is not just perfectly timed: it is essential. The assistant professor of history at Columbia University has delivered a devastating account of the population-control movement; he demonstrates, detail by shocking detail, how a movement that believed it was acting from the highest humanitarian ideals became responsible for callous abuses of human rights on a global scale, ruining millions of lives in a grotesque eugenic experiment.
The book highlights the affect fear can have in making governments do horrible things, believing them to be for the best. How many other foolish actions will take place because of overhyped, exaggerated fears?
The population-control freaks are back in town. Two factors have given the neo-Malthusians hope that their bleak world view and dismal remedies might once again become intellectually fashionable.
The first is the notion that the most efficient way for mankind to cut its carbon emissions is not to breathe at all - or at least to do so in much smaller numbers. The second is the recent rapid increase in food prices worldwide - which the neo-Malthusians, as ever, do not believe is capable of being addressed by either the market or agricultural technology. These days, even apparently liberal commentators in the mainstream press write effusively in admiration of China's coercive one-child policy.
Against this background, the publication of Matthew Connelly's book is not just perfectly timed: it is essential. The assistant professor of history at Columbia University has delivered a devastating account of the population-control movement; he demonstrates, detail by shocking detail, how a movement that believed it was acting from the highest humanitarian ideals became responsible for callous abuses of human rights on a global scale, ruining millions of lives in a grotesque eugenic experiment.
The book highlights the affect fear can have in making governments do horrible things, believing them to be for the best. How many other foolish actions will take place because of overhyped, exaggerated fears?
Monday, 19 May 2008
Obesity contributes to global warming
Reuters, 15th May 2008, had an article on a study about the affects that fat people have on global warming. It said,
Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.
At least 400 million adults worldwide are obese. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.
In their model, the researchers pegged 40 percent of the global population as obese with a body mass index of near 30. Many nations are fast approaching or have surpassed this level, Edwards said.
Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture, Edwards said.
For some reason this story didn’t get reported in the news papers. Maybe there would have been a big backlash condemning them for discriminating again fat people.
Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.
At least 400 million adults worldwide are obese. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.
In their model, the researchers pegged 40 percent of the global population as obese with a body mass index of near 30. Many nations are fast approaching or have surpassed this level, Edwards said.
Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture, Edwards said.
For some reason this story didn’t get reported in the news papers. Maybe there would have been a big backlash condemning them for discriminating again fat people.
Friday, 16 May 2008
Expert warns climate change will lead to 'barbarisation'
The Guardian, on May 15th 2008, has a report about a lecture given by Mohan Munasinghe, vice-president of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), about the possible future problems that will face the world because of climate change. It said,
Climate change will lead to a "fortress world" in which the rich lock themselves away in gated communities and the poor must fend for themselves in shattered environments, unless governments act quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change is, or could be, the additional factor which will exacerbate the existing problems of poverty, environmental degradation, social polarisation and terrorism and it could lead to a very chaotic situation.
The scenario, which he termed "barbarisation" was already beginning to happen, he said. "Fortress world is a situation where the rich live in enclaves, protected, and the poor live outside in unsustainable conditions.
Climate change will lead to a "fortress world" in which the rich lock themselves away in gated communities and the poor must fend for themselves in shattered environments, unless governments act quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change is, or could be, the additional factor which will exacerbate the existing problems of poverty, environmental degradation, social polarisation and terrorism and it could lead to a very chaotic situation.
The scenario, which he termed "barbarisation" was already beginning to happen, he said. "Fortress world is a situation where the rich live in enclaves, protected, and the poor live outside in unsustainable conditions.
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Food supply at risk from species loss
Reuters, May 14th 2008, has an article about governments missing goals to slow the rate of extinctions and how the loss of biodiversity will result in putting food supplies at risk. They says,
Governments are set to miss a self-imposed goal of slowing the rate of extinctions by 2010 and as a result are putting long-term food supplies at risk, a top environmentalist said before a U.N. biodiversity conference.
There is no question that the long-term sustainability of the world's food supply depends in no small part on how we take care of the world's biodiversity.
U.N. experts warn the planet is facing the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Some estimates say a species vanishes every 20 minutes, due mainly to human activity and greenhouse gas emissions.
What about the theory of evolution and the “survival of the fittest”. At some point the next weak species to die out will be us.
Governments are set to miss a self-imposed goal of slowing the rate of extinctions by 2010 and as a result are putting long-term food supplies at risk, a top environmentalist said before a U.N. biodiversity conference.
There is no question that the long-term sustainability of the world's food supply depends in no small part on how we take care of the world's biodiversity.
U.N. experts warn the planet is facing the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Some estimates say a species vanishes every 20 minutes, due mainly to human activity and greenhouse gas emissions.
What about the theory of evolution and the “survival of the fittest”. At some point the next weak species to die out will be us.
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
How the world's oceans are running out of fish
The Observer, on May 11th 2008, had an article about the constantly depleting number of fish in the oceans. It says,
The future of our seas has never been more precarious. Ninety years of industrial-scale overfishing has brought us to the brink of an ecological catastrophe and deprived millions of their livelihoods.
North Atlantic fish stocks have been in decline for well over a century. Callum Roberts points out in his recent book The Unnatural History of the Sea that it was obvious from the 1880s that fish stocks were in decline.
Is there any hope for fish? If we cannot sort out the problem of bluefin tuna – a highly prized fish, whose life cycle is well understood, and whose fishing is closely monitored - what hope is there for the other stocks? Will our children eat wild fish or only farmed?
The Newfoundland cod fishery, for 500 years the world's greatest, was exhausted and closed in 1992, and there's still no evidence of any return of the fish. Once stocks dip below a certain critical level, the scientists believe, they can never recover because the entire eco-system has changed.
The future of our seas has never been more precarious. Ninety years of industrial-scale overfishing has brought us to the brink of an ecological catastrophe and deprived millions of their livelihoods.
North Atlantic fish stocks have been in decline for well over a century. Callum Roberts points out in his recent book The Unnatural History of the Sea that it was obvious from the 1880s that fish stocks were in decline.
Is there any hope for fish? If we cannot sort out the problem of bluefin tuna – a highly prized fish, whose life cycle is well understood, and whose fishing is closely monitored - what hope is there for the other stocks? Will our children eat wild fish or only farmed?
The Newfoundland cod fishery, for 500 years the world's greatest, was exhausted and closed in 1992, and there's still no evidence of any return of the fish. Once stocks dip below a certain critical level, the scientists believe, they can never recover because the entire eco-system has changed.
Monday, 12 May 2008
What Condoms Have to Do with Climate Change
The Time magazine, on 12th May 2008, has an article about how overpopulation will affect climate change and how we can help by having fewer children. It says,
Michael Hayden should have some insight on the biggest threats facing the U.S. But when Hayden recently described what he saw the most troublesome trend over the next several decades, it wasn't terrorism or climate change. It was overpopulation in the poorest parts of the world.
The sudden spike in both food and fuel prices is raising concerns that we may not be able to grow forever, that even with the best technological innovation, the planet may have limits. It's becoming increasingly clear that if we can't curb carbon emissions in a world of 6.8 billion, it may be impossible to do when there are 9 billion of us.
The question remains though: what can we do about population? State-mandated birth control is essentially unfair. The key to limiting population growth, he [Engleman] says, is to give control over procreation to women. In society after society, even in countries where large families have always been the norm, when women take control over family size, birth rates shrink.
The population of the Earth continues to increase and the affects on climate change are going to increase along with it. Therefore we need to stop families having too many children by giving woman the control to dictate when they get pregnant.
The article also had something interesting to say about the same thing being said before in 1970.
That era, which saw the birth of the modern environmental movement, was obsessed with the idea of global limits, that without drastic intervention, we were doomed to overpopulation. Books like Paul Erhlich's The Population Bomb warned that the Earth was reaching the end of its carrying capacity, and that within decades, hundreds of millions of people would starve to death.
Fast-forward 30 years, however, and the situation has changed. The mass famines that Erhlich and others prophesized never happened, and while population growth has continued — an estimated 6.8 billion people nowlive on Earth — and on the whole, the world is better off today than it has ever been.
They got it wrong before therefore it is possible they have got it wrong again. But over 30 years have past and there is a new generation of people to scare.
The book is “More: Population, Nature and What Women Want” by Robert Engelman.
Michael Hayden should have some insight on the biggest threats facing the U.S. But when Hayden recently described what he saw the most troublesome trend over the next several decades, it wasn't terrorism or climate change. It was overpopulation in the poorest parts of the world.
The sudden spike in both food and fuel prices is raising concerns that we may not be able to grow forever, that even with the best technological innovation, the planet may have limits. It's becoming increasingly clear that if we can't curb carbon emissions in a world of 6.8 billion, it may be impossible to do when there are 9 billion of us.
The question remains though: what can we do about population? State-mandated birth control is essentially unfair. The key to limiting population growth, he [Engleman] says, is to give control over procreation to women. In society after society, even in countries where large families have always been the norm, when women take control over family size, birth rates shrink.
The population of the Earth continues to increase and the affects on climate change are going to increase along with it. Therefore we need to stop families having too many children by giving woman the control to dictate when they get pregnant.
The article also had something interesting to say about the same thing being said before in 1970.
That era, which saw the birth of the modern environmental movement, was obsessed with the idea of global limits, that without drastic intervention, we were doomed to overpopulation. Books like Paul Erhlich's The Population Bomb warned that the Earth was reaching the end of its carrying capacity, and that within decades, hundreds of millions of people would starve to death.
Fast-forward 30 years, however, and the situation has changed. The mass famines that Erhlich and others prophesized never happened, and while population growth has continued — an estimated 6.8 billion people nowlive on Earth — and on the whole, the world is better off today than it has ever been.
They got it wrong before therefore it is possible they have got it wrong again. But over 30 years have past and there is a new generation of people to scare.
The book is “More: Population, Nature and What Women Want” by Robert Engelman.
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