Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb. Read more here.
News
The Wilderness Society and Bushfire Management
I have been critical of many environmental activists over the years on the grounds that they know what they are against, but they don’t know what they are for. For example, bushfire management systems developed by forestry agencies over many decades are savagely condemned, but no alternative system is offered up as a replacement.
I was therefore interested to see that the Wilderness Society News 173 (Winter 2008) contains a Six Point Action Plan that the Society says will “reduce bushfire risks and help to protect people, property, wildlife and their habitat”. They have done this because they assert that a “massive increase in hazard reduction burning and firebreaks is destroying nature, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and in many cases increasing the fire risk to people and properties by making areas more fire prone”.
[Read more…] about The Wilderness Society and Bushfire Management
Links to Stories on Weather Last Century
Links to three interesting ‘weather reports’ from last century from Art Raiche
http://tinyurl.com/66tegq 1922 Washington Post story
http://tinyurl.com/6ghpb8 1937 Time story re Northwest passage
http://tinyurl.com/3xfoak 1974 Time story on ice age
Temperature Data from Satellites: Inconvenient but Accurate
IT is my prediction that in not so many years time weather station data will be collected more for fun, a sense of history and for site-specific information, than for serious regional and global climate statistics. In the future it will be data from satellites that is recognised as much more reliable for understanding regional and global temperature trends. [Read more…] about Temperature Data from Satellites: Inconvenient but Accurate
No ‘IPCC’ For Biodiversity
Plans for a scientific panel on biodiversity, similar to a Nobel-winning group on climate change, have been knocked back by representatives of 80 countries at UN-sponsored talks. Read more here.
Industries Prepare to Abandon Australia
There is increasing anger in Australia over plans for an emissions trading scheme with State governments urging changes to the proposed formulas for compensating export industries to ensure they are not pushed offshore. 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.