spinning boxes
Corruption, de Freitas, Vaillant
corruption:
In NZ: Samoan MP convicted of corruption:
Seems he let some Thai men stuck in Samoa stay in his house. They did some tiling work as a thankyou.
Somehow one guy didnt get a visa, got angry and called the NZ police.
Meanwhile in England:
"contributing to the democratic life of the country through trade union activities or canvassing for a political party" - could reduce the [visa] process from three years to one."
And back in NZ a minister gets $1K per week for renting his house from his wife.
Dont get me wrong, I thought about hiring a hit on the RP agent who took money from me for a visa and didnt do squat, but this conviction seems like racism.
Wildfires
The area of forest burnt by wildfires in the USA.. to increase by over 50% by 2050.. the worst affected areas .. Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountains, wildfire ... 78% and 175% respectively.
...based on a increase of 1.6° C over 40 years.
Amazon.......
the Amazon river is 11 million years old and took its present shape 2.4 million ybp... two boreholes near the mouth of the river
nasa
Peak Oil
The International Energy Agency believes peak oil will come perhaps by 2020. But it also believes that we are heading for an even earlier "oil crunch" because demand after 2010 is likely to exceed dwindling supplies.???
(isnt that the definition of Peak?)
Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s chief executive, Jeroen Van Der Veer warned that the next spike in oil prices is already in the making as demand will continue to grow and the current oil and gas industry cannot supply all the additional needs.
Climate Denialogue in NZ
, there is an atrocious paper that has just been published in JGR by McLean, de Freitas and Carter that is doing the rounds of the denialosphere. These authors make the completely unsurprising point that that there is a correlation between ENSO indices and global mean temperature – something that has been well known for decades – and then go on to claim that that all trends are explained by this correlation as well. This is somewhat surprising since their method of analysis (which involves taking the first derivative of any changes) eliminates the influence of any trends in the correlation.
... In New Zealand, Salinger got the sack for speaking.Yet these people and Plimer keep their jobs for doing really, really bad science.
.............................
Chris de Freitas paper trashed.... Auckland University revealed as harbouring a fool... how shameful
tamino
Dr de Freitas published a major study last year in the Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, edited by his brother Dr Tim de Freitas, of Talisman Energy in Calgary, arguing that “there is no reason to believe that catastrophic [climate] change is under way”.
On further examination, De Freitas is a Scoundrel, not simply a fool
realclimate
Bryan Leyland is an “energy consultant” and prominent NZ climate crank. He has an aggressive approach to the local media, and has often been able to get indefensible rubbish into print....cross the line from exaggeration into downright misrepresentation.... Leyland wrote “I twisted Gorman’s arm – but it didn’t need much twisting.” Even if Leyland is playing to the gallery, it makes Gorman’s original approach to the story the more reprehensible.shit masquerading as science..
Carter long ago burned his bridges to academic respectability. He is on record as claiming that m.odern temperatures are the same as those 60 years ago (see Bob’s big lie). De Freitas has a history of denying the basic science of climate change, and McLean is just another in a long line of amateurs playing. with data, trying to bolster a predetermined position.
...
Wind Turbines
Typical NZ complaint 'those wind turbines will "Totally ruin this landscape"' -
I guess "Totally ruin" is one stage less than ...."Literally, Totally ruined" eg hydro lake,
which would be one step less than................. "Seriously, Literally, Totally ruined" eg coal mine,
which would be less than ................................."Completely Fucked up. Seriously, Literally ruined" eg 6°C climate shift
Machiavelli : ".. If you wish to deprive a people of their liberties, cr.eate the conditions in which they demand you do so..."
Kunstler has great comments
Crisis
Prof. Santiago Niño Becerra.
when the real crisis occurs in 2010. Right now we are still at the outer margins of this crisis.kunstler
"We find ourselves in the 'pre-crisis' that will last from September 2007 to July 2010, a phase where it goes up and down, but mostly down. The stock market will fall and rise, the same with unemployment, and some - mainly politicians- will assert we are on the right track" the 58-year-old professor told berlingske.dk
the next two things to watch for will be the fall flu season in North America, and exacerbated problems with the world food supply (e.g. how Ug99 has reached the Americas)
kunstler
Vaillant
thomaspainescorner
Vaillant, who, in 1894, exploded a bomb in the Paris Chamber of Deputies, strikes the true keynote of the psychology of such acts:
“Gentlemen, in a few minutes you are to deal your blow, but in receiving your verdict I shall have at least the satisfaction of having wounded the existing society, that cursed society in which one may see a single man spending, uselessly, enough to feed thousands of families; an infamous society which permits a few individuals to monopolize all the social wealth, while there are hundreds of thousands of unfortunates who have not even the bread that is not refused to dogs, and while entire families are committing suicide for want of the necessities of life.
.................
“Gentlemen, I am one of these last. Wherever I have gone, I have seen unfortunates bent beneath the yoke of capital. Everywhere I have seen the same wounds causing tears of blood to flow, even in the remoter parts of the inhabited districts of South America, where I had the right to believe that he who was weary of the pains of civilization might rest in the shade of the palm trees and there study nature. Well, there even, more than elsewhere, I have seen capital come, like a vampire, to suck the last drop of blood of the unfortunate pariahs.
Cow Methane
AgResearch has genetically modified forage crops .. can reduce methane emissions from livestock
..three traits they have isolated... Grasslanz Technology in Palmerston North...... reduced methane emissions, improved the nitrogen cycle and led to superior performing livestock. ???
....less nitrous oxide and ammonia being expelled, while modifying lipids resulted in lower methane emissions.
.....meat and milk even more healthier for humans by altering the ratio of fatty acids.
odt
(early Spring grass have Omega 3 ???)
Iran
nytimes
NYT is describing the 3 Americans who wandered into Iran with a bottle of whisky, as incredibly decent guys..."Zapatisa..., peace and conflict studies..., New American Media"... gosh the Iraians are going to look really really mean if they dont hand them back. This setup seems way more sophisticated than Hillary could have come up with...
Iraq
following the Iraqi Parliament's eviction of the UK on Wednesday and the withdrawal of the last Australian troops on Friday, it has finally shrunk to a coalition of one...
straw bales for the edges, composted horse manure for the soil, and cardboard to smother the grass/weeds. As he says, just add seeds and water!
__________________________________________________________
Sahel North African Monsoon to rise again?
Scientists are now seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall.
..(some) climate models, which predict a return to conditions ...Sahara into a lush savanna... 12,000 ybp.
..Images taken between 1982 and 2002 revealed extensive regreening throughout the Sahel,.... Biogeosciences.
...huge increases in vegetation in ..central Chad and western Sudan.
..Throughout North Africa, new trees, such as acacias, are flourishing,..
In 2008 Kröpelin...visited Western Sahara...
"The nomads there told me there was never as much rainfall as in the past few years," Kröpelin said. "They have never seen so much grazing land."
..it's a similar story in the eastern Sahara area of southwestern Egypt and northern Sudan..
"Before, there was not a single scorpion, not a single blade of grass," ...
"Now you have people grazing their camels in areas which may not have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years. You see birds, ostriches, gazelles coming back...
"The trend has continued for more than 20 years. It is indisputable."
..An explosion in plant growth has been predicted by some climate models.
..2005 a team led by Reindert Haarsma...forecast significantly more future rainfall in the Sahel.
...Some studies simulate a decrease in rainfall.
..Max Planck's Claussen said North Africa is the area of greatest disagreement among climate change modelers.
.."Half the models follow a wetter trend, and half a drier trend."
nationalgeographic
a unique desert lake in ..northern Chad.
..Lake Yoa, sustained by prehistoric groundwater, has survived for millennia despite constant drought and searing heat.
..an unbroken climate record going back at least 6,000 years,.. Stefan Kröpelin ..
Ancient pollen, insects,.. in the lake's sediments point to a gradual transformation to a desert environment.
..The study contradicts past research that suggested the region dried up within a few hundred years. That research was based on windblown Saharan dust found in Atlantic Ocean sediments.
..Pollen samples .. the decrease in tropical trees accelerated after 4,800 ybp,.. desert plants.. 3,900 -3,100 ybp. ...
....The only rapid change..was in the lake .., which switched from a freshwater to a salt lake .. 4,200 - 3,900 ybp
..when monsoon rains began moving .. south..
..6 meters. of water evaporate .. every year...
The last green phase,. 12,000 ybp, may be due to increased water evaporation from oceans. This led to monsoon rains that penetrated the interiors..
"Now, today, man is probably causing the same thing," he said.
So Climate Change may green the Sahara... despite Lovelocks "Gaia likes it colder"
Tracking Alien Species With Smart Phones
every time I came across a weed like Spanish Broom, especially a new occurrence we didn't know about, all I would have to do is take a photograph of it and it would automatically be linked to a GPS point and we wouldn't have to do any data entry,...........nationalgeographic
On campus we wanted to do something where we can explore the flora that exist around our university. So we had students go out into UCLA and take pictures of things that are blooming at the time. So we had an application that students around campus could use and you can capture the actual photo, capture a photo of these flowers around campus." According to the AP, Students submitted about 4,000 photos in only two weeks
Basking whale
posted by giordano bruno @ Thursday, August 06, 2009
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