Michael Duffy had a column in the Sydney Morning Herald today with some (I hope) last gasp global warming denial. Before I got into blogging, I suspect I would have read it as making some valid points. Unfortunately, for Michael Duffy, I had already read the comprehensive demolition from theContinue Reading
Via Elizabeth, at Half Changed World, I found this index of walkability of where you live. It works on google maps, which unfortunately isn’t populated for my local part of Sydney, so I don’t know where my house comes out on the scale. To see how the scale works, here’s whereContinue Reading
Last week, after a week of sustained rain (and fortunately not too much more flooding), Sydney’s dam levels got to 50%. The last time they were that high was May 2004*. For the past three years, Sydney has had ever increasing levels of worry about our water crisis. People haveContinue Reading
The recent horrendous floods in the Hunter Valley have reminded me (again) of another example of insurance market failure – flood insurance. It hasn’t hit the headlines yet, but it will. In the Australian insurance market, it is pretty close to impossible to buy insurance against flood. Wordings vary, butContinue Reading
I know it is April 2 now, but as a holder of a New Zealand passport, I still had to link to this fantastic explanation of how the sheep population of NZ is causing global warming. And a bonus link – climatologists secure funding to breed glaciers in captivity. It’s goodContinue Reading
From Charlotte via (un)relaxed dad: . What do you for the birds and the bees? According to the report in Newsweek, we need to plant a pollinator garden to counteract the effect pollution, pesticides and habitat destruction are having on birds, bees and insects. Bees, for instance, like yellow, blue andContinue Reading
I have yet to see the movie Happy Feet (which of course, given the name of this blog, I must). But I’m interested to see that it’s already come under attack for being “environmentalist propaganda”. As I understand it, in spite of the poles being more likely to warm upContinue Reading
A few months ago, in Melbourne, a pedestrian was killed by a cyclist while crossing the road. It was early on a Saturday morning, when the local cyclists were out on their morning ride. A friend told me that the cyclists on this ride are notorious for not obeying the roadContinue Reading
Mr Penguin and I were discussing global warming last night. Specifically, what should we do right now if we believed that all the worst case stuff was really true? Let’s posit a scenario. In 20 years time, the climate of Australia has changed irrecovably, so that our current drought isContinue Reading
After my gloomy posts on global warming, I had to link to RealClimate’s recent post on tipping points – a superb summary of all the various things that might tip the planet into a new (probably unpleasant) climatic stage.Continue Reading
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