French scientist Claude Allegre’s second thoughts:
"…in an article entitled ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ in l’ Express, the French weekly…[he] cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro’s retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, come from natural causes. ‘The cause of this climate change is unknown,’ he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the ‘science is settled.’"
Worth a look. Via Drudge.
Comments Off on Another global warming denier
Posted in Science/Engineering, Weather/Climate
Tagged Claude Allegre, global warming
Total lunar ecplise Saturday evening won’t hardly be visible at the rancho, beginning as it does in daylight and ending about dusk. But you folks on the east coast and in Europe will enjoy it. Directions and more here./Sky & Telescope photo by Richard Tresch Fienberg.
UPDATE The Brits liked it, anyway.
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space
Tagged 2007, March 3, total lunar eclipse
Thanks to Iowahawk:
"Are you concerned that your profligate personal lifestyle is harming the environment? Losing sleep over the long-term ecological damage resulting from those greenhouse gases constantly emitted by your family, your cars, your pets, and your shrubbery? Do you want to become carbon-neutral, but just don’t know how? Well rejoice, sinner! Carbon atonement is no longer the exclusive preserve of the Malibu set — with the Iowahawk EcoPals Network!"
Complete with Flickr stickers. Via Instapundit.
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Weather/Climate
Tagged carbon credits, global warming, Gore
More good, if a few trifle far-fetched, reasons to return to the moon, by former moon astronaut Buzz Aldrin who recalls looking back from its surface in 1969 to "…the cloudy blue ball that should only be mankind’s starter home." The plan is to put the base at the moon’s south pole, where there is some evidence of water ice and more shelter from the sun, and rotate astronaut teams in and out every six months. Top of the far-fetched list, it seems to me, is beaming solar energy home, but the argument’s at least as interesting as the space elevator. /NASA
Via Instapundit
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space
Tagged Buzz Aldrin, Moon base, NASA, solar energy, space elevator
NEOs, or Near-Earth Objects, are well known to astronomers who generally believe there is very little chance of them hitting the planet. Earth simply is too small and the solar system is too vast. Places like Meteor Crater in Arizona are notable for being so rare. But now scientists who study NEOs have a candidate for worry: Apophis, a 250-meter (750 feet) wide asteroid weighing an estimated twenty million tons might strike in 2036. Former moon astronaut Rusty Schweickart wants the hapless, corrupt and dictator-dominated UN to mount an effort to do something about it. Fat chance. At least there’s plenty of time to talk about it, a form of "action" for which the UN is famous. Some sort of talk might be a good thing. Even if Apophis isn’t the size of the object that is believed to have killed the dinosaurs, and even if the odds are it would fall in one of the oceans that form most of the planet, it could still do a lot of damage to coastal areas.
Comments Off on Catastrophe 2036
Posted in Science/Engineering, Space
Tagged Apophis, asteroid, NEO, Rusty Schweickart
"The hum is a low rumble continually present in the ground even when there are no earthquakes happening, but is detectable only by very sensitive seismometers. Its frequency is near 10 millihertz, below the range of human hearing."
And new evidence suggests it is caused by ocean waves, causing a thump, thump on the seabed.
Via Slashdot
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Posted in Science/Engineering
Tagged Earth's hum, New Scientist, SlashDot
I’m another anti-nuke power guy who’s changed to favoring the technology–stupid though it may be because its waste stays dangerous for many years–but the waste problem remains. No one wants it and until a repository is found, there’s little point in building more plants.
Via Instapundit
UPDATE Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards, for one, wants the waste stored near the reactor. Build a reactor, store the waste with it. He doesn’t like the proposed federal repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The site at the link, NEI Nuclear Notes, is a good resource on the whole subject.
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Posted in Science/Engineering, Scribbles
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 