Climate modelling of new data from the Aztec Codex Cihuacoatl has identified a relationship with important implications for global warming mitigation. The research suggests a strong causal pathway exists between climate change and Aztec rituals of “nourishing the gods” with blood sacrifice… Human sacrifice was an ancient mitigation strategy to neutralise the threat of dangerous climate change and risks of rising temperature, declining precipitation and poor crop yields. Read more here.
Archives for July 2009
Meeting the Moral Challenge of Climate Change
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s citing of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech in support of his policy of subsidising the construction of many thousands of otherwise uneconomic wind turbines might appear grotesque, even comical; but not if you genuinely believe that Britain’s switching from coal to wind power for its electricity generation will save the lives of countless Africans. Read more here.
First Moon Landing
I’ve heard a ‘baby boomer’ definded as someone born after World War II who remembers the Apollo II moon landing. I remember being told about it at school, in the afternoon. I was five years old, in grade 1 at Batchelor State School in the Northern Territory of Australia.
It happened forty years ago today – July 20, 1969.
Defining the Greens (Part 16) and Bushfires
IN 1994, Ray Evans bought a cottage at Marysville (Victoria, Australia) which he and his wife subsequently renovated and extended. The cottage and its extensive garden were destroyed by fire on the night of Saturday February 7 – now known as Black Saturday. In the following provocative and political article Mr Evans blames the fire “on green doctrine” and the Victorian government wilfully ignoring the advice of a previous inquiry because it did not want to “offend the sensitivities of the Greens”.
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Safe Portable Nuclear – Almost
“The future of nuclear energy could lie in plants that can be factory built, shipped to a site, and operated 30 years without refuelling…
“It has become commonplace to say that we are at the beginning of a global revitalization of the nuclear energy enterprise. The scope and timing of this “nuclear renaissance,” however, remain somewhat uncertain. What is known is that in countries around the globe, including the United States, significant numbers of new nuclear energy projects are under way or in various stages of planning, and this activity represents a departure from that of recent decades…
IPCC Author on Natural Variability
Tom Tripp, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said there is so much of a natural variability in weather it makes it difficult to come to a scientifically valid conclusion that global warming is man made. “It well may be, but we’re not scientifically there yet.” Read more here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.