Another fly in the ointment: Global Drought

The economy is in free fall, we are involved in two endless wars,  people are rioting. Could it get worse? Yes, that’s what I have been saying since last July. Pay attention people! I got the map above from this fine site. And as far as I can tell, it’s pretty darn accurate. (click on [...]

The Wilkin’s Ice Shelf is Collapsing… Time for Another Global Warming Post

The Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica started to collapse in February. It’s been breaking up since then and is pretty much “hanging by a thread.” The Antarctic summer is coming to a close, so the show is over for now most likely. Still, more bad news. On the one hand the Antarctic peninsula [...]

Through Thick and Thin

I couldn’t help but notice that Bush made a speech on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War. I didn’t listen to it, I’ve never found him a terribly inspiring speaker. And truth be told, I almost never listen to any politician’s speeches. They rarely have much to say. I do however glance at [...]

It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas

Isn’t that cute? Yes, you too can get a kiss under the mistletoe from a whale if you travel to Hakkeijima Sea Paradise on Yokohama Island. Read all about it plus look at other cute pics of whales in Christmas hats here. Unfortunately though the article is more or less a [...]

A new global warming peril…giant rats

A new species of giant rat was “discovered” recently in a remote corner of Indonesia. I say “discovered” since these guys are so unafraid of humans that they wandered into the scientist’s camp. So it’s more correct to say a group of scientists was discovered by giant rats. Scientists also discovered a new species [...]

Mortality Tales

Well, I step out the door to work yesterday and my neighbour’s house is wrapped gaily in police tape. Complete with police, news cameras, and a coroner’s van. Generally a coroner’s van is bad news, and this was no exception. A woman had called a friend down south and casually mentioned that her son [...]

Ten Global Calamities – existential disasters facing the human race

OK, if I’m going to go for five depressing posts in a row, why mess around? Here is my list of the top ten possible calamities facing the human race. I’m defining a calamity as a terrible event that could kill huge numbers of people, millions or more, in a very short space of [...]

“Save me Mr. Wizard!” Global warming, it just keeps getting worse and worse…

Until this summer it was possible to make a reasonable case that alarmism was a hallmark of global warming theory. The terrible predictions about extremes had not and would not come to pass, that the changes occurring were part of a natural cycle, and that humans had adapted just fine to changes that occurred [...]

Dark Days II

Well, I had strange and disturbing dreams last night. And just in general I have been down lately, it’s even seeped into my blogging and paralysed my ability to write. So what the hell, let’s just get it all out in the light and see if maybe we can shrivel up some of these [...]

Red Sun

It’s been kind of eerie living in the Bay Area the last few days, a pall of smoke from various wild fires has settled over the region, and the light from the sun has a subtle reddish cast. It’s not smoky enough to be annoying, and none of the fires are any local danger…so it’s [...]