Last night I went to see the Al Gore documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Which highlight’s Gore’s persuasive argument that global warming is the biggest challenge facing our global civilisation.

This morning I woke to one newspaper article reporting that our NSW State Government is getting ready to appeal against the recent landmark ruling that it must consider the greenhouse impacts of burning coal to make electricity.

And, another article about a New Zealand-led scientific drilling team in Antarctica that has recently recovered three million years of climate history. Their conclusion — the Ross Ice Shelf, a raft of ice the size of France, may collapse as quickly as Larsen B did in 2002, triggering a dramatic rise in sea level.

The Larsen Ice Shelf which is on the Antarctic Peninsula had been stable for 10 thousand years or so but in 2002 proved that when these things decide to go, they go extremely quickly. A total of about 3,250 km2 of shelf area disappeared in a 35-day period. The Larsen Ice Shelf is now about 40 percent of the size of its previous stable minimum. You can view the speed and the extent of the Larsen B break up at the British Antarctic Survey. Link

The scientific consensus is clear: global warming is real, it’s happening now and it is the result of our use of oil and other fossil fuels. There is a lot you and I can do. Learn more here!

The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty on climate change, assigning mandatory targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to signatory nations. It has been signed and ratified by upward of 160 countries.

The USA and Australia continue to be the only countries that refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

There’s no doubt about it — this world gets crazier by the day!

It seems to me that if we create genetically identical animals, it’s going to have repercussions we don’t yet know about (because they haven’t been around long enough) — isn’t it genetic diversity that provides the resilience and strength of a species against illness and adverse conditions?

This is just one more reason to read the label and make sure were your food is coming from — you won’t get me eating these frankenfoods intentionally.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s nothing more dangerous than a scientist! Well, one thing maybe: a corporation that gets the scent of a profit making possibility.

Three years after the Food and Drug Administration first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.

The decision, expected by the end of this year, is based largely on new data indicating that milk and meat from cloned livestock and their offspring pose no unique risks to consumers. | Link

It seems eating whale meat in Norway may no longer be as cool as it used to be. It is being reported that Norwegian taste for the mammal has declined. “It shows that it is no longer cool to eat whale,” says Truls Guwolsen from the Norwegian branch of Greenpeace. “The market is disappearing.”

Since the whaling season started on April 1, fishermen have caught about half the number of animals allowed by the Norwegian government – around 500 minke whales out of 1,052, the highest quota ever allowed. Norway is the only country in the world to conduct commercial whaling. Link

I wrote about monster waves a week back and received an interesting e-mail from Bob who directed me to a US Navy site that predicts wave activity around the world.

I checked the site out last week and it showed big waves predicted to move from the Great Australian Bite up the east coast.

Yesterday, the sea was huge and it was reported by the mainstream media that some Sydney beaches had their largest waves in 30 years. Link

Bob wrote:
…the story was interesting, and like the Scientific American article says, the 112 ft wave is the largest OBSERVED — I have no doubt they can get much larger, and in time I suppose that someone will see larger waves – they most certainly exist — in time we will learn a lot more.

Here is an interesting link to a US Navy web site that predicts wave activity around the world for several days. Link

Thanks Bob!

A British research team has observed some of the biggest sea swells ever measured. A whole series of giant waves that were so big, they shouldn’t even exist. Link.

I was at the beach this morning drinking coffee and eating a rather yummy egg and bacon roll. There’s a cafe just a few meters from the surf and as I sat there and watched the waves break and the sea swell and the birds fly, I realised that I knew nothing much about nature and how it all works. I’m a city boy. I know about city things. I know how to get around, how to make a quid, how to find a parking spot and how to find a good cup of coffee, a muffin and some free bandwidth. While these are important things — I know diddly-squat about nature.

As I watched the waves break I realised there are people who look at the sea and actually see stuff that I don’t. They see currents, understand how the waves are breaking, they see rips and tides and where fish are swimming and heaps of other things that I haven’t got a clue about.

In other words, they not only see the forest, they see the trees and the leaves on the trees and the tiny little insects that crawl on the ground.

Me, I often fail to see the whole bloody forest — think I need to get some new glasses.

A friend of mine, Amanda Hampson who just released her first novel — The Olive Sisters sent me this e e cummings poem this morning.