jennifermarohasy.com/blog - The Politics and Environment Blog

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Miniposts 0.6.5

Learning by Candlelight
As I waited night after night for the electricity to return, candlelight kept teaching me about moving air’s talent for removing heat, hampering any effort to keep warmth “down here” by constantly sending it up and away.   Read more here. (0)

People Powered Gym
A US gym has installed specially-adapted exercise bikes that recycle energy generated by people as they work out.   Read more here. (0)

Flying on Vegetable Oil
A passenger plane has successfully completed a two-hour test flight partly powered by vegetable oil.  Read more here. (2)

Reef Recovery After Tsunami
Scientists have reported a rapid recovery in some of the coral reefs damaged by the Indian Ocean tsunami four years ago.  Read more here. (0)

Lots of Dinosaur Fossils in China
Scientists in China say they have discovered the world’s largest dinosaur fossil site in the eastern province of Shandong.  Read more here. (0)

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Archive for April, 2008

Antarctic Snowfall and Temperature Trends in Global Climate Models

”We compare new observationally-based data sets of Antarctic near-surface air temperature and snowfall accumulation with 20th century simulations from global climate models (GCMs) that support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. Annual Antarctic snowfall accumulation trends in the GCMs agree with observations during 1960–1999, and the sensitivity of snowfall accumulation to near-surface [...]

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Changing Habitat - A Note from Gavin

A former resident of Canberra complained today on talkback radio about how the city had become “tatty” during her brief absence. Apparently her family now lives somewhere up the north coast and have green lawns. The difference I reckoned was that the ACT region has missed out again in late autumn with our miserable share [...]

Earth’s CO2 Balance

Using evidence from an Antarctic ice core, Zebee and Caldiera calculated that over a period of 610,000 years the long-term change in atmospheric CO2 concentration was just 22 parts per million volume (ppmv), although there were larger fluctuations associated with the transitions between glacial and interglacial conditions.
By comparison, two centuries of human industry have raised [...]

Natural Gas to Replace Oil in Australia?

The recent prediction by the head of Caltex Australia that the price of oil may very well double the already record highs for crude, have only heightened concerns about the security of Australia’s future fuel supplies. The Federal Government, for instance, has launched a national energy security assessment.
As oil production in Australian fields declines, the [...]

Biofuel Production Criminal: Jean Ziegler

The United States and the European Union have taken a “criminal path” by contributing to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to produce biofuels, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said today.
At a press conference in Geneva, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland said that fuel policies pursued [...]

Satellite Tagged Seals Collect Data from Ocean Around Antarctica

The latest research from scientists in Antarctica reveals the deep ocean around the frozen continent is becoming less salty and that this could play a major role in changing ocean currents and the climate. New details about changes to salinity are coming from deep beneath the sea ice, courtesy of satellite tagged seals. This unique [...]

Oh, what a golden web she weaves (part III)

Funny, the things that you see in nature, like this humanoid face on the cephalothorax of a golden orb-weaver, Nephila pilipes.
I have previously described aspects of this spectacular species of spider, here and here. With this instalment, the adult female in the image below descended from her web on the 19th April to build [...]

Fred Singer Does Not Believe in Martians: Lawrence Solomon

Fred Singer, one of the world’s renowned scientists, believes in Martians. I discovered this several weeks ago while reading his biography on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. “Do you really believe in Martians?” I asked him last week, at a chance meeting at a Washington event. The answer was “No.”
Wikipedia’s error was neither isolated nor inadvertent. [...]

100 per cent ‘Green’ Tax Increase, Less Than 1 per cent Decrease in CO2 Emissions

In case anyone didn’t notice, the UK Treasury is the epicentre of climate related reports and also benefits from the resultant so called ‘green taxes.’ Nicholas Stern was a member of the Treasury at the time of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change, which was based on extreme computer modelled scenarios. [...]

Who the Hell is Robyn Williams? Request for Information from Graham Young

This morning’s Ockham’s Razor broadcast was by Don Aitkin on global warming. Presenter Robyn Williams introduced him in these terms:
“It is one of the disappointments of my life as a broadcaster that I’ve never managed to interview Nigella Lawson. How would she fit into a science program you may wonder, but that’s mere detail.
I have, [...]