Sydney to Offset New Year Fireworks
Posted by Charlotte Ramotswe, December 31st, 2008 - under News.
Sydney wants green to be the dominant colour in its massive New Year’s Eve fireworks and festivities to herald in 2009. Read more here.
a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment
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Scientists have discovered the Arctic ocean seabed is leaking huge amounts of methane into the atmosphere. The research published in the journal Science shows the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic shelf, which was thought to be a barrier sealing methane, is perforated. Read more here. (1)
NYT: Pachauri Faces Credibility Siege
The New York Times is reporting that: Dr. Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest from climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream scientists. More here. (1)
Phil Jones Guilty, But
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny. B ut… Read more here. (0)
Banks Leave Carbon Market
Banks and investors are pulling out of the carbon market after the failure to make progress at Copenhagen on reaching new emissions targets after 2012. Read more here. (0)
UK Met Office Can't Forecast Weather
The UK Met Office is debating what to do with its long-term and seasonal forecasting after criticism for failing to predict extreme weather. It was predicted that this winter would be warmer than average – yet it has been unusually cold. Read more here. (2)
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Posted by Charlotte Ramotswe, December 31st, 2008 - under News.
Sydney wants green to be the dominant colour in its massive New Year’s Eve fireworks and festivities to herald in 2009. Read more here.
I for one would love to see a greener cleaner Sydney, but seriously ‘purchasing carbon friendly power’ to offest the NYE fireworks. Sound like a bit of political spin and waffle to be saying what they think the community may wish to hear. How about some real action, some real initiatives, something that will have a far reaching impact on Sydney and the world… maybe, just maybe Sydney could lead the way and become famous for it’s more enviromentally friendly lifestyle.
Gurr the Toy Maker
On 8-13-05, we set out from Sacramento County to hike the little-known Bassi Cabin loop trail. The hike is a symphony of coniferous forest, running water, and glacier-polished granite. I was joined by my friend Gurr–a large handsome Border Collie mix–and Kanako, a young woman who responded to my posting of the outing on a local Yahoo hiking group.
As Kanako and I walked down through the trees, Gurr ran ahead to be certain that there were no ferocious Golden Retrievers in our path, stopped to sniff the shrubbery, ran back to check up on us , and then ran forward again. When we came to some large Jeffrey pines, we turned off the trail for the short cross-country leg of our adventure. In a few minutes, we came to the creek. Gurr promptly jumped into the water, and when he came out, we walked downstream for about 200 m, before crossing over. We followed a game trail to Bassi cabin, which is still occasionally used by the Bassi family.
The cabin itself is fairly ordinary, but the backdrop is gorgeous. The steep face of a gigantic granite boulder, flanked by conifers, towers over the cabin. About 100 m past the cabin, Kanako and I sat down by the creek for lunch.
Unlike humans, Gurr thinks that a lunch break is for playing fetch. He prefers to fetch big sticks, rather than small ones, because the heavier sticks give his neck muscles a better workout. Gurr managed to find a nice piece of wood of the right weight. Then, to my surprise, he started chomping down on one end. He is not normally a very chewy dog. When Gurr has excess energy–which is most of the time–he usually runs, swims, or digs. But the wood chips were flying, and I wondered what he was up to. My question was answered a few minutes later, when Gurr brought the wood chunk to me, knowing that I would throw it for him. Initially, the wood chunk was too large for Gurr to grip comfortably in his mouth; so he chewed a handle on one end!
Before Jane Goodall’s pioneering study of wild chimpanzees, most of us believed that tool-use and especially tool-making were exclusively human activities. Goodall was intrigued when she first observed a chimp poking a stick into a termite mound, waiting a minute, pulling out the stick, and then licking off the termites.
Gurr’s toy-making is one notch above chimp termite-fishing. The canine craftsmanship had nothing to do with high-priority survival, and everything to do with lower-priority preparation for play. As an indicator of cognitive function, toy-making trumps tool-making. In terms of intelligence, chimpanzees have nothing on Border Collies!
Here’s a link to a Gurr photo (from a different hike).
http://tinyurl.com/p7g9p6
Larry’s outdoor climate history laboratory
The last Ice Age killed off all of the coniferous trees in Finland. After the ice sheet retreated, trees from elsewhere–like the Scots Pine–gradually colonized the vacant niche. On a smaller scale, the same thing happened in many high mountains of the Earth’s temperate regions, including the Sierra Nevada Range of California. We can learn a thing or two about climate history from Alpine dendrology.
Round Top Lake, at 9340 feet elevation in the Northern Sierras near Carson Pass, is my favorite place for informal climate history research. White Bark Pine trees grow in tight clumps around half of the lake. Here’s a link to a photo from Kevin Gong’s website.
http://tinyurl.com/n9bzxg
The pines in any given group are nearly identical genetically; they reproduce asexually. A new tree trunk will grow outward from an existing root system, and then curve upward. The seeds that do sprout can’t endure the harsh Winters at that altitude.
Walking along the trail, one can see a small gap between the pines near the lake and the ‘normal’ ones farther down. Question: After the last Ice Age, how did the pines reach the lake in the first place?
Answer: At some time after the last Ice Age, the Northern Sierras were somewhat warmer than they are now. The pines sprouted from seeds at that time.
Several years ago, I was surprised to see a knee-high pine seedling a short distance outside the half-circle of pine clusters hugging the lake. However it did not survive.
If the Northern Sierra climate heats up in a big way, I’d expect individual seed-sprouted pines at Round Top Lake to eventually supplant the clumps of small trees. Over the last thousand years, the clones have been gradually accumulating random mutations, which would put them at a competitive disadvantage with their surviving seed-sprouted progeny. When I see isolated pine seedlings that grow to 6 feet in height, then I’ll believe that the Northern Sierra climate is the warmest that it’s been since before the last Ice Age.
Naturalist Jeffrey P Schaffer devoted a couple of pages to Round Top Lake in his hiking guidebook, The Tahoe Sierra.
I emailed the photographer several days ago, and have not received a reply yet. If worst comes to worst, we could use one of the many Google-search images that don’t illustrate the main point of the article. With luck, we could get permission from one of these photographers to run their picture. Or we can simply link to the Round Top Lake photo at Kevin’s website. Of course, this is assuming that the article passes muster with you.