Taken near Swanson, SK Feb.7

...how come Toronto has all of the smog?

We're Doomed! - With the earth’s population growing by around 80 million - a new Germany - each year, the Optimum Population Trust has assembled a distinguished group of experts to discuss the scientific case for lowering global and national populations to environmentally sustainable levels. Speakers include [...] Prof. Andrew Watkinson, former director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research...

We're Doomed! - Britain’s Met Office says the world is on a path towards a potential increase in global temperatures of 4 degrees as early as 2060. If this occurs, only about half a billion people out of about 9 billion will survive, according to Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate change ...

By inebriated request.

The advent of a right-wing challenger to Canada's longest serving dynasty is more than just a political junkie's once-in-a-lifetime dream come true.

More like the mainstream conservative remedy to the Liberals who have taken over their former party from the inside. But the rest of the column is still quite good.

Join the Yellow Tail wine boycott

Related: another disaster, another HSUS scam.

May, 2009

February, 2010

Update: Hi Mom!

More - the secret behind His Eloquence?

USA 17

Alinghi 5

The weather in Valencia looks good for some proper racing in the first match of the 33rd America's Cup challenge, which is ready to start, in a few hours, at 02:00 Mountain time on Monday, 2010-02-08. On the toss of a coin between the commodores of the defender yacht club, Switzerland's Société Nautique de Genève, and the challenger, the USA's Golden Gate Yacht Club, the priority to enter the start area for the first race, with the right of way on starboard tack, went to the USA's BMW ORACLE Racing. I've tested the live streaming Internet video coverage and it appears to be ready to go at www.americascup.com (you'll need to install the RayV viewer if you don't already have it).

Update, 00:30: it became apparent, at our little A/C 33 pre-party, here in the SDA LNR studios, when we were discussing the interaction between the torques involved in these structures and Reynolds numbers, that some folks just don't grok how big these sailboats are. I can fix that: the images to the left are to scale (pick to zoom). USA 17 is twenty stories high.

Update: Race 1 postponed to Wednesday due to lack of wind.

Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments.

]]> http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013302.html http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/013302.html Reader Tips Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:01:02 -0500

Don't laugh. You'll exhale, for one thing.

"The poodles are heading for the endangered species list, and deservedly so."

The claims in the Synthesis Report go back to the IPCC’s report on the global impacts of climate change. It warns that all Africa faces a long-term threat from farmland turning to desert and then says of north Africa, “additional risks that could be exacerbated by climate change include greater erosion, deficiencies in yields from rain-fed agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000-20 period, and reductions in crop growth period (Agoumi, 2003)”.

“Agoumi” refers to a 2003 policy paper written for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canadian think tank. The paper was not peer-reviewed.

Its author was Professor Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan climate expert who looked at the potential impacts of climate change on Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. His report refers to the risk of “deficient yields from rain-based agriculture of up to 50% during the 2000–20 period”.

These claims refer to other reports prepared by civil servants in each of the three countries as submissions to the UN. These do not appear to have been peer-reviewed either.

EU Referendum;

Not least of the anomalies is that the author, Ali Agoumi, is not a climate scientist, as such. Although he seems to have worked for Morocco's Ministry of Land-use Management, Water and the Environment, he currently seems to make his living from drawing up carbon credit applications under the UN's clean development mechanism. He has worked as consultant for the firm Ecosecurities, a company which specialises in carbon trading.

Emphasis mine.

Via Climate Audit, where the issue was raised two weeks ago.