http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:49:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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. http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/learning-by-candlelight/ We're often told that the sea temperature along the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is increasing and that soon the coral will be bleached and the reef be destroyed. But what's the real story according to the data? The USA's National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a web page with recent ... http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/sea-surface-temperatures-along-the-great-barrier-reef/ “Researchers in Australia say the growth of coral on the country's iconic Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has fallen since 1990 to its lowest rate in 400 years,” variations of this message have been repeated around the world from South Korea to London with global warming, and the associated acidification of ... http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/global-warming-unlikely-reason-for-slow-coral-growth/ In the next week/s the institutions responsible for collecting and collating thermometer temperature data will complete their analysis for December 2008 thus enabling a comparison of the entire year with other years typically back to the 1860s.  There will be much discussion about how warm the year 2008 was, relative to ... http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/beware-thermometer-temperature-data/ The Japan Whaling Association (JWA) today called on the Australian and New Zealand governments to close their ports to a Dutch vessel committing criminal acts in the Antarctic. The President of the JWA, Mr Keiichi Nakajima, said the Dutch vessel committing terror on the Antarctic high seas is running low on ... http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/reject-steve-irwin-whalers-plea-to-australian-government/ THERE is a lot less “stuff” being produced in the US and China as a consequence of the financial crisis.  According to Joe Kishore writing at The World Socialist Website: “Manufacturing in the US is collapsing, with a key index falling to its lowest level in 20 years on Friday. Other figures ... http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/measuring-the-financial-crisis-in-terms-of-reduced-carbon-emissions/ A US gym has installed specially-adapted exercise bikes that recycle energy generated by people as they work out.   Read more here. http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/people-powered-gym/ "THERE is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism ... http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/environmentalism-as-a-good-religion-needing-to-be-a-tolerant-of-global-warming-sceptics-freeman-dyson/ A dam wall burst releasing more than a billion gallons of coal ash in East Tennessee just before Christmas on December 22.    The gray sludge apparently now covers over 300 acres and has destroyed three homes.   Interestingly the spill has been blamed on cold weather and above-normal rains (see MSNBC ... http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/coal-ash-disaster-in-tennessee/ A passenger plane has successfully completed a two-hour test flight partly powered by vegetable oil.  Read more here. http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/01/flying-on-vegetable-oil/