Earth ChangesS


Chess

In Defence of 'Heaven and Earth'

Book Heaven and Earth
© Ian Plimer

In the following open letter to the President of the Australian Academy of Science, William Kininmonth explains that the science of climate change is 'not settled' and if the scientific community is to get to a position where it can confidently prediction future climate it will be necessary to both understand why and how the climate system has varied in the past, and to have a robust computer construct of the climate system. Given so far we have neither, the recent very public criticisms of Ian Plimer's new book 'Heaven and Earth' are not logical or consistent.

Brick Wall

Global Warming - This global hoodwink just goes on

Propaganda, disinformation, nonsense and bare-faced lies continue to pour out of the mouths of the global warming fanatics. They are not even qualified to issue their propaganda.

For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likes to advertise itself as the representative body of world experts on the subject. It is not so, being largely made up of politicians with, perhaps, as few as 25 climatologists in its ranks.

By contrast, there are many highly qualified and experienced climatologists who get together from time to time and issue reports - reports which argue convincingly against the IPCC, but which generally go unmentioned in the media where the entire global warming fraud has been swallowed whole.

Other distinguished scientists (Professor Syun-Ichi Akasofu, former Director of the Arctic Research Centre, and Dr Willie Soon, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics) have made telling criticisms of the scare stories. Among them was the fact that sea levels are not rising catastrophically, but merely continuing the modest annual increase of 3mm over the past 200 years; the Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, except in one small corner of that great frozen expanse; and tropical hurricane activity has not, as predicted by the global warmers, increased, but is at its lowest level for 30 years.

Bell

Australia: Putting the burning question to global-warming alarmists

Steve Fielding has had a conversion that could blow apart the great global warming scare.

No wonder the Rudd Government is scrambling and the ABC is already sliming the Family First senator.

You see, Fielding has suddenly realised that global warming may not be caused by humans after all.

What has startled him out of merely accepting we're heating the world to hell with our carbon dioxide emissions is one fact in particular.

While our emissions are increasing fast each year, satellite measurements show the world's temperatures have still not risen above the 1998 record, and have actually fallen since 2002.

Of course, all this has been pointed out before. I've asked both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong - to their faces - to explain why the world isn't still warming as it should if their global warming theories are right.

Neither has given me an answer. Nor have they answered similar challenges from the few sceptics in Parliament who have dared to reveal themselves - notably the Nationals' Barnaby Joyce and the Liberals' Dennis Jensen.

But here's why Fielding's conversion is potentially so much more dangerous to the Government than sniping from mere columnists or Coalition MPs.

Camera

White Lions Return to the Wild in South Africa

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© BarcroftMandla and Zihra

White lions have returned to the wild for the first time in the Limpopo Province of South Africa

Pictured here, the lions became only the second pride to take their first steps to freedom in the greater Timbavati region of South Africa.

Immediately establishing their territory the five-strong pride delighted conservationists of the Global White Lion Protection Trust who have worked tirelessly to re-establish the rare white lion in a long term scientific reintroduction program over the past seven years.

Bizarro Earth

Newly Discovered Snow Roots Are 'Evolutionary Phenomenon'

It may not be the Yeti, but in a remote region of the Russian mountains a previously unknown and entirely unique form of plant root has been discovered. Lead Scientist Professor Hans Cornelissen and his Russian-Dutch team describe this finding today in Ecology Letters.

The root belongs to the small alpine plant Corydalis conorhiza and unlike normal roots, which grow into soil, they extend upward through layers of snow. Given this novel behaviour, the scientists have termed them 'snow roots'.

"This is a completely new discovery," says Cornelissen, an associate professor of ecology at VU University in Amsterdam. "Snow roots are thus far unknown and a spectacular evolutionary phenomenon."

The team made their discovery high up in the Caucasus Mountains, where the ground remains covered in snow for much of the year. As the snow melted at the height of summer the scientists noted that C. conorhiza plants were surrounded by a filigree network of above-ground roots, stretching uphill and to each side for around 50cm. During the spring and perhaps also winter, these roots extend into the surrounding snow and during the summer they die and decompose, which may explain how they had remained undiscovered.

Cloud Lightning

US: Texas storms flood, cancel flights, shut off power

Texas sunset
© AP Photo/Matt SlocumThe sun sets behind a windmill after a severe storm swept through the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Wednesday, June 10, 2009, in Richardson, Texas
A series of powerful storms packing heavy rains and frequent lightning strikes grounded dozens of flights, left hundreds of thousands without power and caused widespread damage across portions of Texas on Thursday.

No deaths or injuries were reported from the storms that began whipping the Dallas-Fort Worth area Wednesday night with winds up to 70 mph. By the time the storms cleared the city, some areas of Dallas got more than 8 inches of rain.

More than 180,000 homes and businesses were without power Thursday night, said Megan Wright, a spokeswoman for Oncor Electric Delivery.

Magic Wand

Tiny Digger Turns Deserts into Gardens

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© Andy ZakeliThe endangered bilby helps make the desert bloom.
Australia- Despite its diminutive size, the humble bilby can dig a desert back to life, according to research that reveals the marsupial's vital role in arid environments.

Alex James, a PhD student from the University of NSW, said the bilby's night-time foraging expeditions left the desert surface full of potholes, which made for ideal conditions for nutrient-rich "hot spots" to develop.

Bizarro Earth

Texas Town Hires Geologist After 5 Earthquakes

Cleburne - A fourth earthquake prompted city officials to hire a geologist and then another earthquake happened about an hour before the emergency meeting.

The fifth earthquake took place Tuesday at 6:19 p.m. and the U.S. Geological Survey measured it at a 2.1-magnitude. Cleburne officials called for an 8 p.m. emergency meeting Tuesday after the fourth earthquake, measuring a 2.6, happened that same day at 5:10 p.m.

No damage or injuries have been reported from the tremors.

"I've been here all my life, since 1950. Everybody's worried about it. That's all the talk all over town - earthquakes. You know everybody blames the oil companies, gas companies," said Cleburne resident James Barton. The city's leaders are not ruling gas drilling as a cause.

Evil Rays

We Have Become a Spoiled, Obese, Expectant and Fearful People

Fears_1
© Unknown
I've spent a lot of times in foreign countries. I've seen people in Bosnia eat the bark off of trees and I claim the Appalachian Trail as a previous address.

I may be jaded but I also realize that for thousands of years, people lived without the luxuries that we now consider necessities. In fact, a recent study just found that what we thought were necessities just last year, we think of as luxuries. Things like cell phones, air conditioning.... Not too long ago, electricity and automobiles were luxuries. Maybe as a result, I think that we can all toughen up just a tiny bit.

In 1st world countries, we have become a spoiled, obese, expectant and fearful group of people. We have learned to manipulate nature and our philosophies to our benefit, our comfort and our profit, to the detriment of our planet, our society, our ethics, our health, our children and ourselves:

We live in climate controlled 72 degree homes, offices and cars, 12 months a year.

We demand and get, fat and ripe strawberry's grown in Latin America in the middle of February.

We build our homes further into the woods and mountains and then kill the animals who stray into our yards.

We eat beef that has been doped with antibiotics from birth.

We leave our porch lights on all night, not realizing that 130,00 Americans die every year from fine particulate matter spewing from coal plants.

Bizarro Earth

Typhoons trigger earthquakes on Taiwan

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© UnknownOften considered a curse, typhoons -- for Taiwan -- could in fact could be a blessing.
Surprised scientists say that typhoons which hit Taiwan unleash long, slow earthquakes, a phenomenon that may save the island from devastating temblors.

Seismologists installed movement sensors in boreholes at depths of 200-270 metres (650-870 feet) in eastern Taiwan, monitoring a spot where two mighty plates, the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian plate, bump and jostle in an oblique, dipping fault.

Over five years, researchers saw a remarkable link between tropical storms and "slow" earthquakes, a seismic beast first identified three decades ago.

Slow quakes entail a slippage in the fault that unfolds progressively over hours or days, rather than a sudden, violent release of the kind that destroys buildings and lives.

The sensors noted 20 such slow earthquakes, 11 of which coincided with typhoons, during the study period.