Melting Icecaps

 

“This made their climate models more accurate, and showed that observed changes in temperatures over the 20th century could only have occurred if the impact of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, and upper atmosphere ozone depletion, are taken into account.”

These British scientists form the University of East Anglia appear to be getting us useful data because the picture is becoming muddied and the scientists are the ones who will be able to gather data and interpret it so that we can make better decision. We have to make them and we have to make them now. We have to change. There is a bit of a debate going on as to whether we are having global warming or cooling but the bottom line is the ice caps are melting in a very unusual way and that will increase the sea levels. That puts countries and islands in particular under threat. It also means that the salinity of the ocean will be affected. I should have thought global warming would have increased evaporation and then the cooler temperatures we have experienced would have made that evaporation condense and give us rain or snow. There have been unprecedented rainfalls and snowfalls in various areas but we have just become dryer and dryer and we live near the Antarctic. Your average person has to go by what they consider as normal and of course weather patterns change but here it is a case of us not being able to do the things we have normally been able to do for centuries and plants and animals which have survived for centuries are now dead or threatened. We follow good advice but there needs to be a commitment from the whole planet and that cannot occur until people see a picture they cannot dispute. This kind of research will be  helpful in adding clarity to our picture.

Humans to blame for melting Antarctica | The Australian

Weeds and Pests

Image via WikipediaOur latest pest comes in the form of Mexican feather grass which is one of our declared pest plants. The problem we seem to have in this case is that nurseries have sold them and there are still 44 unaccounted for. It will create damage to our environment, especially pasture lands because people do not realise just how invasive pest plants can become here. They take off like a rocket and just spread far and wide. We have large tracts of land which are really hard to manage. Some sheep stations in Australia are bigger than countries. Dealing with pest plants and weeds becomes a horrendous headache. The problem with the nurseries selling them is they do not seem to be properly informed about our banned species and if plants are banned under the Natural Resources Management Act then we need better ways of monitoring what is actually sold. Likewise, we , as the general public don’t seem to know what is banned. We know a few of the common plants and we know to be on the lookout for them but we’d be blissfully unaware of most of them.I wouldn’t have know about Mexican feather grass had I not read about it in this article. So there is not enough awareness of these plants. In today’s environment with technology, we ought to be able to get the information out there really easily and have information and pictures which help people to know what they should be looking for. We have our own native stipa and there isn’t a problem with that.

Top Five Global Problems

Image via WikipediaWe seem to have a few problems lately in the world. Not just easy to deal with problems…real , life threatening and planet endangering stuff. My top five would be:

Global warming
Health
Nutrition
Finance
Nuclear weapons

Any one of those has other associated issues. Global warming is affecting our food production, water, species and weather. Finance not only covers the share market meltdown but also the abject poverty in this world, the unequal distribution of wealth and then global financial practices. We have created these problems and we have worked really hard to create them. The only ones we seem to be able to manage and make headway with are health and nutrition. We have been hammering that everywhere and the message is getting through so the changes are occurring. We need signs that we, as a species, can actually create a world that thrives.