Posts filed under 'Global Warming'
I hate, and I really do mean hate, corn flakes. They taste like cardboard, and they are hopeless as a cereal as they become soggy far too easily. Whilst they are nice and crunchy when dry, they aren’t particularly appetising. You can imagine how pleased I was when I found out that global warming is going to make corn flakes a potentially fatal meal…finally we can rid the planet of these awful little flaky things.
Climate change could lead to “killer cornflakes” with the cereal carrying the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told.
The effects of the toxins, known as mycotoxins, have been known since the Middle Ages, when rye bread contaminated with ergot fungus was a staple part of the European diet, environmental health researcher Lisa Bricknell from Central Queensland University (CQU) said.
“People started suffering mass hallucinations, manic depression, gangrene, abortions, reduced fertility and painful, convulsive death,” Ms Bricknell told the 10th World Congress on Environmental Health in Brisbane on Tuesday.
[..]
Mycotoxins can appear in the food chain as a result of the fungal infection of crops in the field or in storage, either by being eaten directly by humans, or by being used as livestock feed.
[..]
Ms Bricknell said there had been outbreaks of high levels of aflatoxins in Australian crops in recent years and global warming was providing a new threat to food safety, with temperatures expected to rise in inland areas of the eastern states while rainfall was tipped to fall.
[..]
“In a situation of climate change, if we are importing more products and imported products are not regulated … we can also expect that other countries may be experiencing similar problems with increased contamination.
The end of cornflakes almost makes me want the global temperature to stop falling.
Samuel
April 30th, 2009 at 02:47pm
It was always inevitable that the Kyoto protocol and an emissions trading scheme was going to increase the cost of living…now we see it begin:
Emissions trading scheme blamed for power bill hike
Heidi Tiltins
There are claims the Federal Government is actually to blame for a potentially massive hike in the cost of power because of its emissions trading scheme.
Many families across NSW are struggling to make ends meet, and it doesn’t look like ending any time soon.
In fact, if IPART has its way, we’ll be forking out around $180 a year extra on electricity.
The Pricing regulator has released its draft recommendations, which include a 21.5 per cent hike in the cost of power.
But Premier Nathan Rees isn’t happy
“We are disappointed and concerned and we’ll be making a submission of our own.”
Mr Rees asked IPART to reconsider, given the current economic climate.
But Doctor Jennifer Morahasy from the Australian Environment Foundation has told [2GB’s] Jason Morrison we’ll soon fork out much more as electricity retailers pass on the cost of emissions trading.
“When Australia signed Kyoto we all felt good about that, but there are consequences to that.”
And all this when the world is cooling, not warming. *sigh*
Samuel
March 13th, 2009 at 12:34pm
Some journalist at The Scotsman must have been having a bad day when they wrote this contradictory nonsense:
Scientists in Britain have identified new eight-legged spider species that could soon invade Scotland. Experts say the creatures are moving northwards due to climate change. The dark-colored spider comes from the Canary Islands and Madeira and has been brought into the country in boxes of imported bananas.
Experts now believe these spiders will soon be crawling across Scotland. They have also expressed concerns about another spider specie[s] named, the “false black widow”. This one rushes towards people who come along its path. It is not really clear whether these mass spider movements are generated by climate. This is because other media in Scotland say they are moving northwards to decongest their populations in the South of the country.
An eight-legged spider? In other words it’s not one of the daddy long legs from my house.
The spiders are migrating:
1. because of climate change
2. in boxes of imported bananas from the Canary Islands (how did they know the climate would be better at in Scotland?)
3. in order to decongest southern Scotland
Perhaps the journalist had been out in the sun for too long…
Samuel
March 3rd, 2009 at 04:51pm
Continuing our not-quite-as-regular-as-I-had-envisaged feature on all of the terrible, horrible and downright awful things which are either claimed to have occurreed, or predicted to occur, due to global warming climate change (I can’t decide which one to us…the earth is cooling but we’re still hearing about the supposed effects of it warming), it seems that dear old Nessie is a victim of global warming climate change.
LEGENDARY Nessie hunter Robert Rines is giving up his search for the monster after 37 years.
[..]
World War II veteran Robert has devoted almost half his life to scouring Loch Ness.
He started in 1971. The following year, he watched a 25ft-long hump with the texture of elephant skin gliding through the water.
His original trip was to help another monster hunter with sonar equipment and quickly identified large moving targets.
He was smitten and returned the next year, which is when, he says: “I had the misfortune of seeing one of these things with my own eyes.”
Since then, he has been obsessed with tracking down the creature with a staggering array of hi-tech equipment. It was this gear that took the famous “flipper” picture that year which created a stir around the world.
Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming.
He still wants to check almost 100 contacts on the floor of the loch, believing one may be the monster’s remains.
This is surely one of the more outrageous claims relating to planetary heating (hmmm, that’s a good name for it), especially seeing as no evidence is supplied to back up the claim…although why would we need evidence if we can just blame planetary heating (oh, you didn’t like the name?) climate change.
In 1975, the trained physicist and inventor managed to get a photograph in the murky waters of the loch which apparently showed the body, flipper, neck and head of an animal.
Oh, silly me there is proof, he’s a “trained physicist”, well that’s good enough for me. Somebody get out the freezer and the pacemaker…we have a monster to cool down and bring back to life!
Samuel
February 19th, 2009 at 03:09pm
Seeing as the news over the weekend carried the story of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reporting that carbon dioxide emissions between 2000 and 2007 were higher than they expected. Of course, the IPCC took the opportunity to bleat about how awful, horrible and world-dooming this is, conveniently ignoring the fact that temperatures have not risen over the last decade, and appear to be trending downwards.
In light of this news, I thought it would be a good time to take another look at some of the more hysterical claims about the problems which will be caused by global warmenings.
I really should save this one for later in the week, but it’s just so funny that I’m going to share it with you now. Apparently global warming will cause world war four (Update: Link corrected)…”what happened to world war three?” you ask, well these loons think it’s already happened! I suppose it’s only fitting that they also believe that carbon emissions control the climate.
So, what precisely will start WW4?
Crowding and Territorial Tensions- The number one cause of such tensions will be the migration of different cultures to other territories in search of new resources to replace the increasingly depleting ones. Not only will many cultures find their resources disappearing, but the rising sea level will cover over parts of much of the land, minimizing usable farm area, fresh water, and cattle herds. In some cases, entire islands may become submerged.
[..]
Competition of Newly Habitable Lands- The opposite scenario of crowding may also occur as the open space around the Arctic regions becomes available due to the increased air temperatures. As these uninhabitable areas become habitable for the first time in history, competition from the various coastal countries and islands who have lost their native homeland will become fierce.
In addition to the smaller powers, larger world powers who previously ignored such land will eventually see the profit potential of such areas and involve themselves in the competition. The large nations will be less interested in the usable space and more keen on the possibility of exploiting the relatively untapped oil resources of these areas for strategic economic positioning.
Oh of course, they’ll be fighting for oil…it’s amazing how they can blame oil for post-warming-apocalypse along with the warming itself.
In all seriousness though, at least they aren’t deluded enough to think that the UN would serve any useful purpose in resolving these fictional issues.
I’m still curious to find out when World War Three happened, because I must have blinked and missed it:
When you say “World War Three” the average person conjures the image of World War II. But the Cold War is the more relevant episode
The Cold War? Most countries were not involved and yet somehow it was a “world war”.
No wonder I have a hard time taking these people seriously.
More from the global warmening files tomorrow.
Samuel
February 17th, 2009 at 11:51am
An interesting article (I’m hesitant to call it an article considering that more than 50% of it is a quote from Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope, however I’ll let them off the hook as the article proves a point, and it can be horribly difficult to abridge the unwieldy sentences of the Turnip) from CityNews this week in which Jon Stanhope calls on the federal government to allow paid parking for commonwealth public servants:
CHIEF Minister Jon Stanhope will be campaigning hard this year to get paid parking introduced into the parliamentary triangle and all areas managed by the Commonwealth.
It’s one of his agenda items for 2009 to get a positive outcome for the ACT in relation to equity in paid parking.
Ahh yes, “equity in paid parking”, the cornerstone of his re-election campaign…or to be serious for a moment, an instant election-loser of a phrase. Thankfully for our esteemed Turnip, much like his amazing school closures, it’s quite early in his term and people will forget by the time 2012 comes around.
On the subject of the school closures, this sentence really does sound familiar:
None of us like paid parking, but this is a question about equity between employees and it is also about the Commonwealth Government accepting the responsibility and take the hard decisions that need to be taken in relation to [..]
I seem to recall Jon Stanhope going on about “the tough decisions” after his government so badly mismanaged the budget that they felt a need to close 39 schools.
Anyway, back on topic, what are this week’s tough decisions about pay parking in aid of? The Turnip’s sentence continues with the answer…
[..] climate change and the development of sustainable transport systems
Jon, let me ask you this. Why do shopping centres have parking spaces dedicated to employees when a heap of bus services run past said shopping centres? It’s not because people unpack their fold-up cars as soon as they hop off the bus, it’s because they drive to work despite the paid parking…any why do they do this Jon? Because your government continues to mangle the bus service.
I have some more ideas which I should write down about the bus network in Canberra…but my top thought at this moment for the Chief Turnip or anyone in the ACT government who will listen (and that probably narrows it down significantly) is this: Why is Gungahlin excluded from the intertown service?
Back on topic again, and my point is that people will continue to drive simply because it is more convenient to do so. This paid parking for commonwealth employees nonsense has nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with raking in more money…who knows, if they put in enough meters, they might be able to afford another awful sculpture by the side of the road.
Samuel
January 30th, 2009 at 01:23pm
Macquarie National News, presumably delirious in Sydney’s cooler temperatures after recent “scorchers”, have invented a new word to describe the supposed issue of greenhouse gases making the planet hotter…apparently the climate is “changeial”.
(click to enlarge)
Macquarie get full credit for this one as, despite the story being from AAP, there is no sign of the word “changeial” anywhere in the AAP feed, or on any of the other websites which grab content from AAP.
So, is “changeial” the act of causing change (eg. “Humans are supposedly being changeial to the climate”) or the process of something changing (eg. “The climate is being changeial all by itself”)?
Update: They’ve changed the headline to “Rudd, Obama pledge to team up on climate” which, whilst great from a typographical standpoint, leaves me no closer to finding out what “changeial” means. End Update
Samuel
January 28th, 2009 at 01:48pm
When an email from GetUp about climate change was forwarded to me earlier this year by a friend, all that I could do was laugh…I couldn’t even muster up a full rant due to my amusement.
It wasn’t the fact that it was an email pushing the “humans are destroying the planet” line, asking for people to sign an online petition that caused me to be amused, it was the fact that this friend, who I consider to be quite intelligent, had fallen for GetUp’s version of the story which, as usual for this mob, was quite a twisting of the truth.
Perhaps this press release which has crossed my desk late yesterday from The Australian Environment Foundation will adequately explain what I couldn’t find the words to explain after receiving that email and falling in to a fit of laughter a few months ago:
Australian Environment Foundation
Media Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, 29 December 2008
Getaway GetUp on the ETS
GetUp’s global warming television ads (to air today) are dishonest and inaccurate, according to Dr Jennifer Marohasy, Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation.
“For all sorts of reasons a number of groups, of which Internet campaigners GetUp.org.au are one, are pretending that the Rudd Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is a minor 5 to15 percent adjustment to our way of life”.
“In fact, the government’s ETS will reduce the amount of energy available to every man; woman and child currently living in the country by an extraordinary 35 percent, absent the discovery and implementation of an unknown source of carbon free energy in the next ten years”.
Dr Marohasy said that this would be the equivalent of closing down all of Australia’s manufacturing and half its rural industries.
“Or thought of another way, it is the equivalent of closing 72% of our current power generation capacity (stationary power)”.
Dr Marohasy said that population growth masked the severity of the scheme.
“Our natural birth-rate plus immigration intake adds around 360,000 to the population every year, roughly the equivalent of another Brisbane every 5 years – 20 percent growth in 11 years – making 35% look like 15%”.
Dr Marohasy said that it was understandable that groups like GetUp that stand for nothing and are opposed to everything would want to downplay the severity of the government’s proposals.
“If GetUp has nothing to complain about they are out of business, so of course they want to portray the government’s decision in the ‘worst’ light”.
She said that the government also has a vested interest in downplaying the severity of their scheme.
“Kevin Rudd wants to convince Australians that it won’t hurt one little bit, so he’s happy for groups like GetUp to criticize him for being John Howard lite.
In fact, the proposed ETS will make Australians poorer; while it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”.
Sources:
Click to access vol1-summary.pdf
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane
– ENDS –
I just love the “groups like GetUp that stand for nothing and are opposed to everything” quote, and I hope this story gets a good run in the media today.
Samuel
December 30th, 2008 at 04:43am
How much do you know about Global Warming/Climate Change?
To find out, and brush up on what you don’t know, take The Global Warming Test.
Update: Link corrected, sorry about that. End Update
For the record, I correctly answered nine out of ten.
(Thanks to Jim Ball for the link).
Samuel
August 13th, 2008 at 08:51pm
For one reason or another, I can’t remember why now, I was looking at data about Canberra’s hottest days a few days ago, and I found something rather interesting…none of the hottest days are in recent years:
Canberra’s Hottest Days
January: 1968 (31st)
February: 1968 (1st)
March: 1965 (3rd)
April: 1968 (12th)
May: 1967 (10th)
June: 1957 (3rd)
July: 1975 (19th)
August: 1977 (30th)
September: 1965 (26th)
October: 1967 (28th)
November: 1959 (23rd)
December: 1957 (25th)
All of these exceptionally hot days occurred in the years 1957-1977, with the years 1965, 1967 and 1968 taking seven of the twelve places. Surely if the planet is warming we would see some, probably the majority, of years coming from the 1990s and 2000s…perhaps Canberra is just unusual, how does Melbourne stack up?
Melbourne’s Hottest Days
January: 1939 (13th)
February: 1983 (8th)
March: 1940 (11th)
April: 1938 (5th)
May: 1905 (7th)
June: 1957 (2nd)
July: 1975 (30th)
August: 1982 (29th)
September: 1928 (28th)
October: 1914 (24th)
November: 1894 (27th)
December: 1876 (15th)
Well that’s interesting, nothing after 1983, with two thirds of the hottest days occurring before 1950.
So, what does this prove? It proves that even if the planet is warming (which it isn’t), it’s been hotter and we all survived, even prospered. Makes you wonder what all the hype is about doesn’t it?
Samuel
June 24th, 2008 at 01:47pm
Seeing as it’s Friday, I think you deserve two side-effects of global warming today:
1. Longer days:
Belgian scientists have identified a hitherto unsuspected benefit of global warming – more time for all of us.
They say increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere will slow the Earth’s rotation.
This will make every day a little longer than it is already.
[..]
They found that each day would lengthen because of angular momentum changes, including variations in surface pressure over land masses, average surface pressure over the ocean, and zonal winds and currents.
[..]
the effect would be measurable, with a probable increase of 11 microseconds per decade during this century.
The Belgian’s have also expanded on ACTION mathematics to the point where zero is replaced with a random positive number:
“It means 24 hours won’t be 24 hours any more. It will be something a little bit more.”
2. Days will be shorter:
Of all the possible ways in which climate change could affect our planet, this is the most bizarre: as the oceans warm up, Earth will start rotating a wee bit faster, reducing the length of a day.
The time it takes for Earth to complete one rotation is affected by anything that changes the distribution of the planet’s mass relative to its axis of rotation.
“Think of an ice skater who is spinning,” says Felix Landerer of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. “When you stretch your arms out you slow down, and when you bring your arms closer to your body you spin faster.” Earth, it seems, will hug itself a little bit tighter because of global warming.
Perhaps, if the Earth hugs itself and becomes more windy, the days won’t change at all.
Samuel
May 23rd, 2008 at 03:25am
On the bright side, once the planet explodes, it will stop warming.
Can Earth explode as a result of Global Warming?
Dr Tom J. Chalko 1 , MSc, PhD
Submitted on 8 April 2001, revised 30 October 2004.
[..]
Abstract: The heat generated inside our planet is predominantly of radionic (nuclear) origin. Hence, Earth in its entirety can be considered a slow nuclear reactor with its solid ”inner core” providing a major contribution to the total energy output. Since radionic heat is generated in the entire volume and cooling can only occur at the surface, the highest temperature inside Earth occurs at the center of the inner core. Overheating the center of the inner core reactor due to the so-called greenhouse effect on the surface of Earth may cause a meltdown condition, an enrichment of nuclear fuel and a gigantic atomic explosion.
There are seven pages filled with the gory details of the demise of our fair planet, but the basic summary is that if the melting of the polar caps doesn’t provide enough of a “heatsink” for the planet, there will be an increase in volcanic activity, followed by a nice large planet-destroying nuclear explosion. Of course, the doctor takes so much longer to say that. It makes for some fun reading if you’ve got some spare time.
Samuel
May 22nd, 2008 at 03:14am
Yes that’s right, apparently global warming is responsible for acne.
Human body maintains a temperature of around 98.2 degrees F, it is the ideal temperature for your body. Slight fluctuation in the scale of temperature may occur temporarily during exercise and other activities. Your body works efficiently at 98.2 degrees F. Sebaceous glands and sweat glands are heat sensitive and rapidly produce their secretions. Thus, persistent rise in temperature results in increased activity of sebaceous glands and overproduction of sebum. Overproduction of sebum mixes with dead skin cells and clogs the hair follicles and acne breakouts occurs.
Average temperature has considerably risen since 1940 affecting hundreds of biological and ecological system. The persistent rise in temperature greatly influences on your skin and its disorders.
[..]
Various skin disorders such as acne, scars are the result of global warming and climate change.
It’s so laughable that it’s hard to tell whether or not the author is making it up.
Samuel
May 21st, 2008 at 03:35am
Professor Tim Flannery has some bright ideas to prevent global warming:
SCIENTIST Tim Flannery has proposed a radical solution to climate change which may change the colour of the sky.
[..]
Professor Flannery says climate change is happening so quickly that mankind may need to pump sulphur into the atmosphere to survive.
[..]
The gas sulphur could be inserted into the earth’s stratosphere to keep out the sun’s rays and slow global warming, a process called global dimming.
Well that’s all well and good except that, firstly, sulphur is generally not a gas, and secondly, when it is, it works wonders if you want acid rain. In a gaseous form you can have either sulphur dioxide or sulphur trioxide; the former is a primary cause of acid rain as sulphuric acid, the latter is mixed with water to produce sulphuric acid.
Unfortunately News Limited omitted the line of the AAP story explaining why Professor Flannery wants sulphur in the atmosphere, but The Age were kind enough to include it:
The gas sulphur could be inserted into the earth’s stratosphere to keep out the sun’s rays and slow global warming, a process called global dimming.
That’s odd, I thought it was only the “greenhouse gases are not the cause of global warming, it’s all the sun’s fault” crowd that wanted to blame the sun’s rays for changes in Earth’s climate. Thankfully the professor proves that he is not in my camp on that one:
Regardless of what happened to emissions in the future, there was already far too much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, he said.
Cutting emissions was not enough. Mankind now had to take greenhouse gases out of the air.
OK, but how? I suppose more trees could help (unless you’re the confused scientist who kept telling 2CC’s Mike Jeffreys about the merits of de-forestation this morning…he didn’t realise he had the wrong term at any stage during the conversation) but if we need to actively remove it from the atmosphere, doesn’t that mean burning an awful lot of fuel to get extraction devices up there?
Personally, I’d much rather watch the temperature fall all by itself.
At the very least, kudos to the nutty professor for trying, and for giving me some extra entertainment.
Samuel
May 20th, 2008 at 08:35pm
I must say, I quite liked having the lights on between 8pm and 9pm. It was a good way to spend Earth Hour. The full set of photos can be seen on the photo gallery at http://photos.samuelgordonstewart.com/EarthHour08.
Earth Hour coincided with half an hour of The Bill, so I recorded The Bill and watched it on a half hour delay.
A few choice photos:
The lounge room to the dining room, kitchen and laundry
Looking the other way
Power Dog models a rather busy power board. I deliberately waited to charge my mobile phone until Earth Hour, and likewise with the laptop which was also plugged in.
The outside lights were on.
As was the light in the oven, which was cooking dinner at the time.
Power dog enjoys three light sources.
The main light, a lamp and a torch.
Whilst it wasn’t open for the whole hour, the glow of the fridge is still appealing.
Quite frankly, I think I prefer having all the lights on, the whole house looks quite nice when it’s bright.
I hope you enjoyed Earth Hour as much as I did.
Samuel
March 29th, 2008 at 11:52pm
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