Today (02/03/05) Miranda regals us with her support for scientists who are sceptical of Climate Change.

 Sure, there is not a "concensus" of science on the subject as it is a very complex issue to decipher with its many variables. But those who spend time and rigorous analysis on modelling the impact of human activities on climate should take precedence over the "scientists" of the petroleum industry who encourage such activities. 

I had a laugh when after reading the nonsense Miranda writes, that the retail sales in January had reached a record high by an extra  0.8 per cent because people were buying fans and air conditioning as if there was some heat looming around, of course compounding the problem of more energy expenditure... Yes Miranda, I did calculate the average temperature for January and February was above average. by 2 degrees (check with the weather bureau if they arived at the same conclusion)..

All this came because Tim Flannery, a scientist, an expert of the future by looking at the past and the present, was helping advertise solar energy panels...

From the ABC

Scientists say Antarctica's mammoth ice sheet is in "significant decline", probably due to climate change.

United States researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder say online in the journal Science that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 152 cubic kilometres of ice a year.

Dr Isabella Velicogna from the University's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences says it is the first study to indicate the total mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet is in significant decline.

The team calculated the ice sheet lost 152 cubic kilometres a year from April 2002 to August 2005, give or take 80 cubic kilometres.

That is equivalent to global seas rising 0.4 millimetres a year, with a margin of error of 0.2 millimetres, the researchers say.

The bulk of the loss is occurring in the West Antarctic ice sheet, Dr Velicogna says, whose team used two satellites orbiting Earth in tandem to gather data.

The satellites estimate Earth's global gravity field and variations in the gravity field over time were used to determine changes in Earth's mass distribution, necessary for estimating changes in mass of the Antarctic ice sheet.

"The changes we are seeing are probably a good indicator of the changing climatic conditions there," Dr Velicogna said.

 

Gus melts:

When this information is addded to the rest concerning this issue, the trend is massively towards hot. As mentioned before here, past geology and such would lead us believe that we should be entering an ice age... 

On Sunday Miranda Devine writes that:
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""""""Every time I write an article pointing out there is no scientific consensus on the extent of man-made - as opposed to natural - climate change, or that attacks on genetically modified food are flawed, I am accused, quite seriously, of being on the payroll of Monsanto or Western Mining.

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Perth exploration geologist Louis Hissink suspects "politicised science has replaced religion as the arbiter of human affairs ... priesthoods of both organisations are concerned with what happens in the future and that current behaviour is thought to affect that future, hence it needs to be proscribed and prescribed".

It used to be men in purple robes who controlled us. Soon it will be men in white lab coats. The geeks shall inherit the earth.""""""

Gus call:
Well,  as far as being on the payroll of big business, we have no idea about that here, but I could guess they don't have to pay you a brass razoo  since you're doing such a great job for theirr little enterprises....

And I hope that that Louis Hissink is right... Yes, I hope you're right about the men in white robes — not all of them mind you since there are quite a few Frankenstein amongst them working for the monsantos of this world... Because at the moment too many greedy  entrepreneurs, humongous numbers of bloody scrooge pillaging politicians and the zillion sport pages in fluffy rags are disturbing us away from the most important matters.

So, add a few hippies on top of the serious environmental geeks and the world will be hunky-dory for many more years to come...

From the ABC
Earth in grip of mass extinction: scientists
By environment reporter Sarah Clarke
Scientists say Earth is experiencing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years.
Environmental scientist Professor Norman Myers says the loss of species is more severe than the five mass extinctions of the geological past.
"In the lifetime of many [television news] viewers we could lose half of all those 10 million species around the world," he said.
There are 33 extinction hotspots around the world.
The Australia Museum's Frank Howarth says two are in Australia and up to 80 per cent of the crucial habitat has been wiped out.
"One [is] north Queensland rainforest, the other is in south-western Australia but in Australian terms we have a lot of areas where we have real competition between endemic animals that are found nowhere else," Mr Howarth said.
Green groups say current measures to protect sensitive habitats are not effective.
"The Australian Government is investing a lot of money in biodiversity but it's not being invested in the most responsible way," Nicola Beynon, from the Humane Society International, said.
Professor Myers says if governments do not do more, the planet will continue to lose 50 species per day compared to the natural extinction rate of one species every five years.
"The whole thing is taking place in what you might call a flickering of an evolutionary eye," he said.

Gus would suggest that a combination of destruction of habitat, introduction of aggressively competitive species, increase usage of detergents, phosphate, insecticides, herbicides, mass produced hormones, climate changed induced by burning fossil fuel, plus many cancers induced by tars and increased radioactivity plus many other man-made chemicals are actively contributing to this acceleration of extinction...

In the SMH (09/03/06) Miranda Devine ends a fluff piece on Tinsel town"

"Stewart alluded to the problem of video piracy - which threatens ultimately to strip the revenue base from Hollywood. The days of the big movie studios may be numbered, leaving the luvvy lunatics to run the asylum. And then - who knows? Their politics might change when they have to do some real work for a living."

Gus is impressed:

Ah Miranda... You've got such a way to lambast anyone who does not think the same rat-bag raise-your-right-arm-to-our-little-grocer as you do ... Are your column writings real work or, really admit to it, vicarious enjoyment by playing the devil's advocate? Have you ever laughed at yourself once in your life? Are you so right to be so eagerly wrong? Ah... you fill our Thursdays with so much fluff and fairy floss, all laced with razor blades and cactus barbs that our cafe lattes curdle and our Chardonnay turns to vinegar... Lucky me I only drink black coffee and red ned... Saved by chateau cardboard... Who'd think that?

Ah... real work... But please define real work. Is having amnesia and being hard of hearing real CEO work?... Is lying about reasons to go to war, about medicare, about never knowing what's happening while being in charge... is that real PM work? Or is it a dangerous psychopathic attitude that makes the luvvy lunatics running the asylum the only sane way to go forward without blowing up our little planet?

Ah... Miranda, you raise so many issues! yet you must be too young to know the real answers... (mind you many old foggies including myself, have no clue either). But please keep on that "real" work... It does not mean you understand anything... But it's so funny... but.

And by the way, by George (meaning the little clown in the white house)... Oh by George, is Dubyawood out of touch... !

From the ABC

Acid rain affects one third of China: report
By China correspondent John Taylor

An official report in China has found one third of the country is suffering from acid rain.

China's rapid economic development is coming at a frightening environmental cost.

A new official report says one third of China's land mass was affected by acid rain last year.

Some regions are receiving nothing but acid rain.

It poses a major threat to soil and food safety.

The report written for China's rubber-stamp Parliament says water and air pollution is worsening.

Governments are setting targets to reduce pollution but they are being missed.

The report blames the deteriorating environment on local governments' blind pursuit of economic growth.

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Yes Miranda, acid rain is still a problem in some countries... and it could be more of a problem over the world if people did do what you've done... ignored the reality of it...

Mirandola generationagapus refreshment

I'm confused by today's offering from [http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/gen-ys-dish-it-back-for-the-right-reasons/2006/10/18/1160850995575.html|Miranda]... So the generation gap is a good thing because the youngsters of today are more right-wing than a Bank? Is it real, imagined or promoted by sellers of hip goods? Is there several unseen gaps that straddle the uncharted waters of X, Y and Z, and X1, Z2 or WHY not?...
Are we talking about the smart young men who look already middle-aged in their suit n' tie on the way to their stock-brokering firms, with a carefully styled morning after sticky-gelled hairstyle and a shoulder bag? Or are we placing our spy glass upon the young women so full of their own boots they cannot find Mr Peeeeeerfect since these gentle macho men are all gay? Or are we talking about the gap between the racist louts, the young real estate funky or the young other decent men and women who still know they don't know everythink? Or the ones still in prams pushed by pierced, punked and gothic parents?
To many it seems the generation gap is wider than ever, wider than the seven seas since no-one youngish is talking to the old-foggies... and possibly for good reasons... we may have mucked up the future and they are not ready to fix it for us, All they want is cash... For some of us, the young ones appear like generation cardboard... Yes, while we used to play with cardboard boxes and a hefty dose of imagination, these youngsters appear to have so much plastic stuff and muffs, that their brains appear like liquid paper paste... But I digress...
Sure Miranda, there is a generational gap somewhere but it seems a bit vertical as the upwardly mobile kids are stepping on us to go up, while "in my day" we enjoyed destroying our parents houses... Not our unAustralian Johnnee mind you... He still lived there till he hit his thirties or close enough...
In the end gap or no gap, it does not matter one iota, as long as we old foggies are long-time gone when one of them youngsters eager to show he/she can press buttons with his/her fingers, sees that little red one on his/her presidential desk with glee... Then the gap won't matter a duck's fart...

In her yet best effort, Amanda Devine turns up the air conditioning on full bore to keep Global Warming at bay. The fresh breeze coming from the contraption is bliss...
What she writes in today's Sydney morning Herald is enough hot air to crank up global warming by a couple of notches:

Turn down the volume and we might listen...
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But the claim we are suffering the worst drought in 1000 years cannot be substantiated, since records go back only 150 years.
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Sober analyses by scientists, economists and statisticians over the past week have exposed its profound flaws and exaggerated assumptions.
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Gus: Yes quite right, Miranda, we're rarely sober... A sober scientist must be quite a sight. Most do enjoy a tipple... But but but, says I like an outboard engine burning a too rich mixture and about to blow a gasket... The record goes back further than 150 years... Ah... you mean the record by farmers and white right-wing red-neck men? fair enough... But truly you sound a bit like the creationists who can't see past the great biblical floods of 5,000 years ago... — actually these floods happened about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Intelligent people were living then and did notice. It's actually recorded in the "record" of Aboriginal drawings and paintings in the Arnhem Land plateau. Changes in the animal presence were noted. Furthermore geological records can tell us with some precision what the weather has been doing from a thousand years ago...

And we've been whispering about this little problem for yonks but no one listened... that's why we had to go on the roof tops and shout! Hey, have you ever heard of inertia and friction? I'm sure you know all about it...

Well what the weather patterns are experiencing is delayed reaction (due to inertia and friction) to a few very strong forces. One of them is the present amount of CO2 in the atmosphere which is the highest it has ever been for more than 800,000 years... Mechanically and physically It does a few things: it increase the heat in the atmosphere... a few degrees here, a few point of a degree there... This leads to the melt of glaciers and bits of the Arctic ice sheet, this in return retards the general increase of heat but still increase difference of temperature extremes. In some places in Russia the permafrost is now the no-frost. In Canada some icy regions have experienced an increase of temperature of 5 degrees in the past 30 years. etc...

Hey what do I care? I'll be fertiliser to a crop of white daisies soon enough...
Yet you know what? That hockey stick analogy? It's actually a hyperbole... No I do not mean an exaggeration of literary proportion, no... I mean a mathematical equation that —unlike the gullibility of punters measured daily by the stock market reports to reinforce the gullibility of punters — tells us there is a trend... a real trend towards global warming... And if you wait till the water laps the front step on your harbour mansion, by the time you decide to do something, only the chimneys will be visible.

From the ABC

Australia criticised for comments at climate meeting
Environmental groups at the United Nations climate conference in Kenya have criticised the Australian delegation for its conduct at the meeting.

The Australians have come under fire for saying the country's situation is on a par with African and Pacific nations when it comes to dealing with global warming.

Members of the Climate Action Network say it is not appropriate for a developed country to compare itself with some of the world's most impoverished nations.

They also complained that Australia has placed a 6:00pm (local time) limit on debate at the meeting, which environmentalists say needs more time.
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Gus: Unfortunately unless people like Rupert Murdoch climb on the Climate change bandwaggon and start doing their bit — that would sortta make up for their disastrous support for going to war in Iraq — Johnnee's government is going to fiddle faddle with the big end of town and create more grief for the future with its subsidies to the nuke and coal industries... WE NEED RENEWABLE sources of energy, like wind, solar (individual) and crops. Penalise the rest... We soon would have a powerful NON-CO2 emitting reliable massive energy supply...

Ah... I see. The underlying reason why the primal Munster wants to sponsor and subsidise "Big" industries like coal and "nukculear" is because if you give "Little" industries like solar and wind the 'POWER" to supply energy, then who in hell is going to be able to "control" people? Control is power, isn't it? And having all the little people with their own little power supplies on the rooftops and sharing around, that would be a bit too bitty if too efficient, wouldn't it be? And then what to do with all this extra moneys that our prime Munster claims as "his" from our taxes that should have been spent on education?... "What I am going to do with my money is subsidise Nuclear Power"... Of course, following this route, due to the fact that every ounce of nuke-fuel has to be accounted and not transformed into little BIG bombs, means an increase spending in the security budgets, including armies and private consortium by a factor of 500 per cent... Then you can control people, can't you? With all this security around we would be able to sleep comfortably, wouldn't we? Except being waken up in the middle of the night by the sound of jackboots... Ah... I see... it's next door... I never liked them... really. Did I dob them in...?

Go ahead, Grandpa, make my grey day

According to Henry Alford, author of How To Live: A Search For Wisdom From Old People, for many people over 70, "old age is … a time of self-fulfilment and self-mastery, a time when they are more themselves than ever … Our cultural landscape is currently graced with a group of creative people over 70 who critics say are doing some of the best work of their careers."

Why, if old age is all insomnia, worn-out organs and crippling medical costs, does society bother with it? Alford cites an old African saying, "the death of an old person is like the burning of a library". Old guys remind us there are other ways of being human.

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Yes Miranda... And now is time for you to read the books from that library... Especially the one we refer to here on global warming... Time for you to recant or change camps. We, oldies who survived the hot summer of 39, can teach you a few things or two. Sure, some oldies may contribute to the opposite view but they're the Alzheimered ones... Fried brains.

Go ahead, Miranda, make my bald head shine day... Come to papa... Grand dad, I mean...