Archive for January, 2014

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Fox found frozen in the ice

January 24, 2014

Winters and ice pose serious hazards for wildlife.

Closely following the pictures of a frozen shoal of fish and an elk in a frozen lake in Norway comes this picture from The Local  of a fox found frozen in the ice on a lake in central Sweden. Presumably the fox fell through thin ice and then drowned or froze to death before being encased in the thickening ice.

frozen fox photo Jeffer Sandström

frozen fox photo Jeffer Sandström

More pictures of the frozen fox here.

Cold is a killer, warm is good!

Frozen herring

frozen herring lovund (image Norwegian Radio)

frozen herring lovund (image Norwegian Radio)

Frozen Elk (Moose)

frozen elk in Valnesfjord image Inger Sjoberg

frozen elk in Valnesfjord image Inger Sjoberg

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Wildlife, Winter | Comments Off on Fox found frozen in the ice

Carthaginians were a nasty lot – probably

January 23, 2014

The Carthaginian Empire supposedly came into being with the Phoenician Queen Elissa (better known as Dido) sometime around 813 BCE. It reached its zenith around 500 years later  and by 264 BC controlled the Western Mediterranean.

Carthage in 264 BC (Ancient Encyclopedia)

Carthage in 264 BC (Ancient Encyclopedia)

But they made the mistake of expanding into Sicily and this was the start of their conflict with Rome:

Ancient Encyclopedia:

The Carthaginian trading ships sailed daily to ports all around the Mediterranean Sea while their navy, supreme in the region, kept them safe and, also, opened new territories for trade and resources through conquest.

It was this expansion which first brought Carthage into conflict with Rome. When Rome was weaker than Carthage, she posed no threat. The Carthaginian navy had long been able to enforce the treaty which kept Rome from trading in the western Mediterranean. When Carthage took Sicily, however, Rome responded. Though they had no navy and knew nothing of fighting on the sea, Rome built 330 ships which they equipped with clever ramps and gangways (the corvus) which could be lowered onto an enemy ship and secured; thus turning a sea battle into a land battle. The First Punic War (264-241 BCE) had begun. After an initial struggle with military tactics, Rome won a series of victories and finally defeated Carthage in 241 BCE. Carthage was forced to cede Sicily to Rome and pay a heavy war indemnity.

The Carthaginian Empire effectively came to an end when they lost the third Punic War against Rome

A Roman embassy to Carthage made demands to the senate which included the stipulation that Carthage be dismantled and then re-built further inland. The Carthaginians, understandably, refused to do so and the Third Punic War (149-146 BCE) began. The Roman general Scipio Aemilianus besieged Carthage for three years until it fell. 

It is not surprising that most Roman and Greek writings are quite disparaging about Carthage and the customs of the Carthaginians. It is from these accounts by the victors that we learn that the vile Carthaginians were a very nasty lot who indulged in child sacrifice. Many have put this down as black propaganda and a biased view. But apparently this is still a hot topic among archaeologists with the same bones leading to diametrically opposite conclusions.

(more…)

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, History, Religion | Comments Off on Carthaginians were a nasty lot – probably

A garden moose

January 23, 2014

We regularly get deer in our garden (and they eat everything but yellow flowers) but once in a while we are honoured by the moose (Swedish Älg). Two years ago we had a moose cow and her calf who got lost on a foggy morning and ended up in our garden

But this morning at about 0830 (sunrise today was at 0821), we had a lone moose cow which seemed to have spent a good part of the night sleeping in front of my garage.  It was wary but didn’t seem much bothered by my presence – about 10 m away – and continued munching on our bushes. It left after a leisurely breakfast about half an hour later.

Just minus 12°C and very light snow and an Urban Moose.

Moose in the garden 2

Moose in the garden 2

Moose in the garden January 2014

Moose in the garden January 2014

Tags:, ,
Posted in Sweden, Trivia, Wildlife | Comments Off on A garden moose

Turney’s tourists return

January 22, 2014

UPDATE!

Climate Audit points out:

The Sydney Morning Herald account adds the remarkable claim that Turney took more passengers into the field even after the evacuation notice had been issued:

A passenger standing near Professor Turney overheard the voyage leader, Greg Mortimer, telling him over the radio to bring passengers back to the ship so it can leave. But minutes later, Professor Turney drove six more passengers into the field. The overloaded vehicle had no space to collect returning passengers.

=============================================

Turney and his tourists from the Ship of Fools have returned.

The BBC covers the return.

But there are still unanswered questions as to who will pay for the expensive international rescue mission. The Aurora Australis had to suspend a resupply mission to Australia’s permanent base in the Antarctic, Casey Station, to take part in the rescue.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a long and – for them – unusually questioning article about the fiasco.

The inside story of how a polar expedition went terribly wrong, leaving dozens of tourists and scientists trapped in the ice.

This account has been reconstructed from interviews with members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 2013/14, most of whom wished to remain anonymous, who witnessed events or overheard conversations, and the report the voyage leader, Greg Mortimer, submitted to IAATO.

Mortimer declined to comment on his report.

The Shokalskiy’s captain, Igor Kielev, did not respond to Fairfax Media’s emails.

Chris Turney and Chris Fogwill, the expedition leaders, also declined to comment on specific questions regarding events on December 23.

Nicky Phillips and Colin Cosier travelled on board the Aurora Australis as part of the Australian Antarctic Division’s media fellowship program.

Amazingly, Chris Turney gets an award for “contributing to the understanding natural phenomena”. I suppose it’s a case of rewarding the Fool Who Rushed In!!

JoNova:

The Australian Academy of Science has announced it’s 2014 Academy awards to “celebrate scientific excellence.”

To show how excellent, their excellence is, the Frederick White Prize for scientific achievements contributing to the understanding of natural phenomena goes to Professor Chris Turney, University of New South Wales.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Alarmism, Antarctic, Climate, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Turney’s tourists return

Electric vehicles have no impact on emissions

January 22, 2014

If electric vehicles are to succeed they will have to provide the consumer with some real benefits by way of cost or convenience which are more than for feeling good. That in turn depends upon the further development of battery technology and increasing the range of the vehicle on a single charge. The cost of the vehicle and the speed of charging are other key factors.

The supposed environmental benefits are largely illusory since they merely shift the source of power generation (combustion from the internal combustion engine in a vehicle) to a power plant. In the United States this power generation is most likely to be fossil fired (coal or shale gas). A new study shows that even if electric vehicles made up more than 40% of all vehicles, emissions would be largely unchanged. As of 2012 electric vehicles made up about 0.5% of new vehicle sales and about 0.06% (170,000 of 254 million) of all vehicles on the road in the US.

(Phys.org) — A new study from North Carolina State University indicates that even a sharp increase in the use of electric drive passenger vehicles (EDVs) by 2050 would not significantly reduce emissions of high-profile air pollutants carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides. … The researchers ran 108 different scenarios in a powerful energy systems model to determine the impact of EDV use on emissions between now and 2050. They found that, even if EDVs made up 42 percent of passenger vehicles in the U.S., there would be little or no reduction in the emission of key air pollutants. …..

The energy systems model also showed that key factors in encouraging use of EDVs are oil price and battery cost. If batteries are cheap and oil is expensive, EDVs become more attractive to consumers.

“How Much Do Electric Drive Vehicles Matter to Future U.S. Emissions?” Published: online January 2014 in Environmental Science & Technology pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es4045677

Abstract Image

Energy System Model

Abstract
Hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric vehicles—known collectively as electric drive vehicles (EDVs)—may represent a clean and affordable option to meet growing U.S. light duty vehicle (LDV) demand. The goal of this study is twofold: identify the conditions under which EDVs achieve high LDV market penetration in the U.S. and quantify the associated change in CO2, SO2, and NOX emissions through mid-century. We employ the Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System (TIMES), a bottom-up energy system model, along with a U.S. dataset developed for this analysis. To characterize EDV deployment through 2050, varying assumptions related to crude oil and natural gas prices, a CO2 policy, a federal renewable portfolio standard, and vehicle battery cost were combined to form 108 different scenarios. Across these scenarios, oil prices and battery cost have the biggest effect on EDV deployment. The model results do not demonstrate a clear and consistent trend towards lower system-wide emissions as EDV deployment increases. In addition to the tradeoff between lower tailpipe and higher electric sector emissions associated with plug-in vehicles, the scenarios produce system-wide emissions effects that often mask the effect of EDV deployment.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Air pollution, Automobiles, Business, Technology | 2 Comments »

Reality bites as EU backs away from climate goals

January 22, 2014

The European Commission’s new climate change and energy policy is due to be published today. Leaked reports have been circulating and it is clear that reality and the financial crisis are focusing minds and that expensive “feel-good” policies  are being dumped. After 2 decades, meaningless “climate policy” and emissions (read carbon dioxide) limitations have proven to be profligate and counter-productive. Climate has not been influenced in the slightest and European electricity prices are the highest in the world.

It is expected that binding national targets will be scrapped and instead there will instead be EU-wide “goals” or targets.

BBC:

  • Binding national targets on renewable energy are expected to be dropped from new EU proposals due to be unveiled on Wednesday.
  • The EU executive will also outline a goal on emissions cuts for 2030, set to be 35 or 40% below 1990 levels.
  • A source within the Commission said that going forward, there would be a EU wide target on renewable energy for 2030, but it was likely that there would not be binding national targets. 

  • As well as proposals on emissions cuts, the Commission will set out its thinking on shale gas. It is likely that they will suggest a series of non-binding recommendations as opposed to a EU wide regulation. 

  • The Commission will also outline an effort to reform the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS). 

  • The Commission’s proposals will go forward for consideration at heads of government meetings in March and June this year. ……  that the climate and energy plan may be watered down even further at these meetings.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Emissions, Energy, European Union | Comments Off on Reality bites as EU backs away from climate goals

Ban Ki-Moon: Puppet without a string ….

January 22, 2014

The UN Secretary General is a puppet on many strings. And when the puppet tries to write the screen-play or to manipulate the puppeteers, the play usually suffers.

Ban Ki-Moon seemed to have forgotten that when he issued his invitation to Iran to the Geneva II talks about Syria last week and tried to write his own script for the talks. It didn’t take long before he had to backtrack.

Iran has insisted all along that it would only attend if it was without conditions. The US has long held that Iran could attend only if they accepted the results of Geneva I (where Iran was not present). So why Ban Ki-Moon tried act independently is not very clear. Presumably he was persuaded to by his staff who believe that the UN has some legitimacy beyond what is provided by the puppeteers.

(Also inviting Australia and Mexico and Korea and Luxembourg leaves me mystified.)

I have decided to issue some additional invitations to the one-day gathering in Montreux. They are: Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Greece, the Holy See, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, and Iran. I believe the expanded international presence on that day will be an important and useful show of solidarity in advance of the hard work that the Syrian Government and opposition delegations will begin two days later in Geneva.

As I have said repeatedly, I believe strongly that Iran needs to be part of the solution to the Syrian crisis.

I have spoken at length in recent days with Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Javad Zarif.  He has assured me that, like all the other countries invited to the opening day discussions in Montreux, Iran understands that the basis of the talks is the full implementation of the 30 June 2012 Geneva Communique, including the Action Plan.

Foreign Minister Zarif and I agree that the goal of the negotiations is to establish, by mutual consent, a transitional governing body with full executive powers.  It was on that basis that Foreign Minister Zarif pledged that Iran would play a positive and constructive role in Montreux.

Therefore, as convenor and host of the conference, I have decided to issue an invitation to Iran to participate.

It didn’t take very long before the US made it impossible for his invitation to remain valid:

NY Times: Mr. Ban announced the Iran invitation on Sunday a little before 6 p.m. Eastern time. By that time, it was the middle of the night in Tehran — way too late for government officials to respond, but early enough for Washington to do so. …. 

Less than two hours after Mr. Ban’s briefing, the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in a statement: “The United States views the U.N. secretary general’s invitation to Iran to attend the upcoming Geneva conference as conditioned on Iran’s explicit and public support for the full implementation of the Geneva Communiqué, including the establishment of a transitional governing body by mutual consent with full executive authorities.”

As the New York Times puts it “But in diplomacy, there are no dress rehearsals. Mr. Ban’s choreography went awry, forcing him into a corner. Less than a day after issuing the invitation, the secretary general reversed course. Iran could not attend the talks, he said, because it had not affirmed the ground rules as he said he had been assured.”

It could be that even Ban Ki-Moon’s perception of his own independence was manipulated. Whether the invitation and its withdrawal were orchestrated by the US State Department, and whether the US was reacting to the fears of the Sunnis in the Middle East is unclear. (The report published with great fanfare yesterday about the human rights violations, detentions and executions by the Assad Government yesterday was apparently commissioned by the Government of Qatar. The timing of the publication of this report was also dictated by Sunni interests). I believe that the invitation and its withdrawal – paradoxically – strengthens Iran’s hand since they are conspicuous by not being present – and through no fault of their own.

The barbarism in Syria continues. I have no great expectations of Geneva II but it is part of a necessary process. If Al Qaida is to be kept in check, I think the involvement of Iran is both necessary and unavoidable. Without Iran not all of the Syrian opposition groups will be represented. And without Iran the Al Qaida factions could dominate the opposition.

A puppet with a broken string does not gain an extra degree of freedom. The UN Secretary General cannot entertain any delusions of grandeur or any thought that he can act independently of his puppeteers.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Behaviour, Diplomacy, Syria, UN, US | Comments Off on Ban Ki-Moon: Puppet without a string ….

Minus 42°C – back to a normal winter after a mild Christmas

January 21, 2014

This Christmas was the mildest in about 10 years but things are getting back to normal winter conditions. We have now had plenty of snow and are currently going through another cold wave. In the north of Sweden temperatures dropped to minus 42°C.

The usual chaos on the roads and with train traffic. My back hurts – as usual – after clearing snow from our garden path. Its only minus 12°C at the moment but thank goodness for electricity.

It’s just weather and we may even come up – temporarily – to a high of 0°C sometime next week. But the days are getting longer and summer is surely on its way.

Photo: Björn Lindgren/TT

The Local: 

Sunday night saw the lowest temperature of the season when Karesuando in the far north hit -41.9°C, but the mercury didn’t stop there.

“It was -42.5°C in the early morning hours,” said Lisa Frost, meteorologist at Sweden’s weather agency SMHI. “The high pressure system is still hanging over northern Scandinavia. These temperatures are here to stay for the coming days.

Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Tags:, ,
Posted in Sweden, Winter | Comments Off on Minus 42°C – back to a normal winter after a mild Christmas

Greens are close to Trotskyites

January 21, 2014

I have always felt that the Green movement was penetrated and then effectively taken over by the extreme left who had no place to go after the fall of communism. This takeover by the extreme left – whether they were Maoists, Trotskyites or Leninists – coincides with when the Green movement moved from local environmental issues (where they did a great job) to large “global” issues – where they have been remarkably ineffective and terribly destructive. These global issues (climate, GM crops…) are ostensibly about large abstract (but non-existent)  threats but really concerned with furthering the communistic ideals of wealth redistribution.

Now Lord Deben (the former John Gummer) – who has not himself been above making money from “green” policies – labels the Greens openly as Trotskyites (though it may have more to do with the money he stands to make by promoting the fracking of shale). Gummer has been quite happy to be allied with the Trotskyites when it has suited him to promote renewable energy. But now it is not sustainable for Europe to perpetuate its lack of competitivity against the US with gas prices 3 times higher and electricity prices twice as high as in the US. And these high costs are almost entirely due to the misguided “green” policies in the EU (which have only succeeded in replacing nuclear power with coal). Fracking is inevitable and while Gummer is just ensuring his own future, it suits him to expose the undoubted extremism of the “Greens”.

The Guardian:

Lord Deben, who is chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, said those who condemn fracking as extremely damaging are taking a “nonsensical position” and called on environmentalists who take a more “sensible” view to disassociate themselves from these groups.

In an interview with the Guardian, the Conservative ex-cabinet minister, formerly known as John Gummer, argued that the best way of protecting the planet is broad agreement about practical solutions, including exploitation of Britain’s shale gas reserves. 

He said the fight against climate change will not be won if moderates allow their position to be associated with campaigners who have “extremist” views close to Trotskyism that are not really connected to the environment.

The chairman’s remarks are likely to prove controversial with groups that strongly oppose fracking, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the Green Party, whose MP Caroline Lucas was arrested during an anti-shale protest in Balcombe in August. They have raised worries about the carbon emissions and potential for water contamination, air pollution, flaring and visual impact on the landscape.

However, David Cameron and many other Conservatives have hailed the technology as a way of possibly bringing down bills and boosting growth, while insisting it will be properly regulated. The prime minister declared last week that he was “going all out for shale”.

Deben would not single out any particular green groups in the UK, but criticised what he called the “Christine Milne school of thought” in the environmental movement – a reference to the leader of the Australian green party, who is a senator for Tasmania.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Alarmism, Environment, Politics | Comments Off on Greens are close to Trotskyites

Poltergeists on Mars

January 21, 2014

Mysterious forces and poltergeists are at work  on Mars (which in due course will be found not to be so mysterious after all). But stories about moving rocks, and possible aliens are not new. The latest however is just doing the rounds based on the pictures SOL 3528 and 3540.

Rock appears mysteriously in front of Mars Opportunity rover

Rock appears mysteriously in front of Mars Opportunity rover

(Phys.org) —The lead scientist for NASA’s Mars rover exploration team (Steve Squyres) has announced that recent images beamed back by the Opportunity rover show a rock sitting in a place nearby where there wasn’t one just twelve days prior. The image, he says, has caused quite a commotion with the rover team as possible explanations for the sudden appearance of the rock are bandied about. The announcement was part of a meeting at California Institute of Technology to celebrate a decade of service by the tiny rover. …… 

….. How it got there has NASA’s best scratching their heads. Thus far, they have two main likely explanations: either the rock was tossed to that spot after a meteorite impact nearby, or far more likely, it came to rest there as a result of clumsy maneuvering by Opportunity itself. The rover is having trouble getting around these days as one of its actuators has failed. This means one wheel winds up scrapping the ground during turns, producing what Squyres described as “chatter” which he said could have caused some debris to be flung to where the rock is now.

But these stories have been appearing since – at least – about 2009 (based for example on pictures SOL 1833 onwards). Moving rocks on Mars have a long history of fanciful – and some not so fanciful – notions. A whole bunch can be found here and here. But it would seem that most of the conspiracy theories and “Life on Mars” stories are connected to the selling of particular books.

As far as stories are concerned, the first ever fictional account of Mars was probably Across the Zodiac (1880) by Percy Greg. But for me, The War of the Worlds (published in 1898) by H. G. Wells  and Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Martian Trilogy – published between 1912 and 1943 and which I first read in 1959 – are not easily surpassed.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Astronomy, Literature, Space | Comments Off on Poltergeists on Mars

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »