© USGS
Magnitude:
5.4
Date-Time:
- Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 16:17:51 UTC
- Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 06:17:51 PM at epicenter
Earth Changes
Magnitude:
5.4
Date-Time:
- Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 16:17:51 UTC
- Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 06:17:51 PM at epicenter
© Christopher Bird
Rooks are a member of the corvid family
Rooks are a member of the corvid family
Tests on captive birds revealed that they could craft and employ tools to solve a number of different problems.
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, came as a surprise as rooks do not use tools in the wild.
Despite this, the UK team said the birds' skills rivalled those of well-known tool users such as chimpanzees and New Caledonian crows.
Dr Nathan Emery, an author of the paper from Queen Mary, University of London, said: "The study shows the creativity and insight that rooks have when they solve problems."
The scientists focused on four captive rooks: Cook, Fry, Connelly and Monroe, and discovered that the birds were able to use tools in a number of ways to solve a variety of problems.
© East News / Rex Features
A family of Starlings has chosen a post box for the third year running in an Essex seaside town to raise their young brood.
A family of Starlings has chosen a post box for the third year running in an Essex seaside town to raise their young brood.
The B1042 that winds from the Bedfordshire town of Sandy towards the village of Potton is a difficult road to cross. Fast and twisty, there are several blind bends where pedestrians must take their lives into their hands. That is trickier than it sounds, for most pedestrians who cross the B1042 already have a pair of binoculars in their hands.
The road separates the grand headquarters of the RSPB, home to hundreds of birdwatchers, from some unkept fields, home to hundreds of watchable birds - hence the regular skips across the tarmac.
So, I am a climate realist because the available evidence indicates that climate change is predominantly, if not entirely, natural. It occurs mostly in response to variations in solar heating of the oceans, and the consequences this has for the rest of the Earth's climate system. There is no evidence to support the hypothesis runaway catastrophic climate change due to human activities.In 1996 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Second Assessment Report was released, and I was listed as one of approximately 3000 "scientists" who agreed that there was a discernible human influence on climate.
I was an invited reviewer for a chapter dealing with the economic impact of sea level rise on small island nations. In keeping with IPCC procedures, the chapter was written and reviewed in isolation from the rest of the report, and I had no input into the process after my review of the chapter draft. I was not asked if I supported the view expressed in my name, and my understanding at the time was that no evidence of a discernible human influence on global climate existed.
The chapter I reviewed dealt primarily with the economic consequences of an assumed sea level rise of 1 m causing extensive inundation. My response was that I could not comment on the economic analysis, however, I disagreed with the initial assumptions, particularly the assumed sea level rise in the stated time period. Further, there was good evidence at the time that sea level rise would not necessarily result in flooding of small island nations, because natural processes on coral atolls were likely to raise island levels.
The IPCC Second Assessment Report assessed sea level rise by AD 2100 as being in the range 0.20-0.86 m, with a most likely value of 0.49 m (less than half the rate assumed for the economic analysis). Subsequent research has demonstrated that coral atolls and associated islands are likely to increase in elevation as sea level rises. Hence, the assumptions were invalid, and I was convinced that IPCC projections were unrealistic and exaggerated the problem.
The tide on climate change is starting to turn. The Australian government is becoming more cautious.
It is rare to read a new book likely to make a huge difference to public opinion. Professor Ian Plimer's 500 page book with 2300 footnotes "Heaven and Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science" is such a book. 30,000 copies were sold in its first month.
Plimer is not a climate change denier, because history shows the planet is dynamic and the climate is always changing, sometimes drastically.
Ice Ages have come and gone and we don't know why. History has seen glaciers at the equator and at one time Scandinavia was under 5 kilometres of ice. Sea levels have been 130 metres lower than today. Some consolation comes from the fact that ice sheets predominated for only 20 per cent of the earth's history.
It is rare to read a new book likely to make a huge difference to public opinion. Professor Ian Plimer's 500 page book with 2300 footnotes "Heaven and Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science" is such a book. 30,000 copies were sold in its first month.
Plimer is not a climate change denier, because history shows the planet is dynamic and the climate is always changing, sometimes drastically.
Ice Ages have come and gone and we don't know why. History has seen glaciers at the equator and at one time Scandinavia was under 5 kilometres of ice. Sea levels have been 130 metres lower than today. Some consolation comes from the fact that ice sheets predominated for only 20 per cent of the earth's history.
© AFP
Firefighters said they had found stones as big as tennis balls
Firefighters said they had found stones as big as tennis balls
The violent 15-minute squall blew up at around nightfall on Thursday after an otherwise pleasant day around Roanne, a small town in central France. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
"I was just feeding the horses when the first hail fell. At first, for about 20 seconds, it was light and scattered, then it was a deluge, like rocks from the sky," said a resident of Pouilly-sous-Charlieu.
"The flowers and orchards were ripped to shreds and some of the cars in the neighbourhood look like they've been worked over with a hammer. Many of them had shattered windscreens," he said.
Magnitude:
4.3 (Light)
Date-Time:
- Monday, October 09, 2006 at 01:35:28 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time
- Monday, October 09, 2006 at 10:35:28 AM - local time at epicenter
4.3 (Light)
Date-Time:
- Monday, October 09, 2006 at 01:35:28 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time
- Monday, October 09, 2006 at 10:35:28 AM - local time at epicenter
© USGS
While the USGS cannot confirm that the recent event was a nuclear test, it was shallow and located in the vicinity of the October 2006 North Korean nuclear test (magnitude 4.3).
There is part one of an interview with Professor Stephen Schneider regarding global warming and climate change issues published on Examiner.com on May 24 2009. It is titled "The global warming debates: Stephen Schneider" and is written by Thomas Fuller who is the San Francisco Policy Environmental Policy Examiner reporter. This interview is an excellent example of the failure to present a balanced presentation of the climate science issues.
The reporter asked the following question
Steve Schneider, unfortunately, chose not only to fail to correct this error, but demeaned the scientific value of these websites.
The reporter asked the following question
"More specifically, the principal skeptic websites (Watt's Up With That, Climate Skeptic, Climate Audit and Climate Science) that I look at regularly seem to think they are winning the day. They think data is coming in that questions the established paradigm."First, the reporter erroneously presented my perspective as a "skeptic" website.
Steve Schneider, unfortunately, chose not only to fail to correct this error, but demeaned the scientific value of these websites.
A person needn't be a buffoon or political hack to be skeptical of global warming. That would be news to The Washington Post's news desk, however.
A Post article on May 19 falsely reported that there is a "consensus" among scientists and a growing portion of the American public that human carbon emissions are causing a dangerous, long-term increase in worldwide temperatures. The facts, overwhelmingly, show no such consensus.
The Post's David A. Fahrenthold reported that Republican "warming skeptics" are becoming ever bolder on Capitol Hill even as "most" or a "consensus" of "scientists around the globe have rejected their main arguments - that the climate isn't clearly warming, that humans aren't responsible for it, or that the whole thing doesn't amount to a problem." He continued: "Public opinion has also shifted" in favor of warming's existence and importance.
A Post article on May 19 falsely reported that there is a "consensus" among scientists and a growing portion of the American public that human carbon emissions are causing a dangerous, long-term increase in worldwide temperatures. The facts, overwhelmingly, show no such consensus.
The Post's David A. Fahrenthold reported that Republican "warming skeptics" are becoming ever bolder on Capitol Hill even as "most" or a "consensus" of "scientists around the globe have rejected their main arguments - that the climate isn't clearly warming, that humans aren't responsible for it, or that the whole thing doesn't amount to a problem." He continued: "Public opinion has also shifted" in favor of warming's existence and importance.
