Author: bobmcgee

The Salamander effect …

Widespread rapid reductions in body size of adult salamanders in response to climate change.

Nicholas M. Caruso, Michael W. Sears, Dean C. Adams and Karen R. Lips.

From the abstract …

We compared historic and contemporary size measurements in 15 Plethodon species from 102 populations (9450 individuals) and found that six species exhibited significant reductions in body size over 55 years. Biophysical models, accounting for actual changes in moisture and air temperature over that period, showed a 7.1–7.9% increase in metabolic expenditure at three latitudes but showed no change in annual duration of activity. Reduced size was greatest at southern latitudes in regions experiencing the greatest drying and warming.

The biophysical model was a computer model of course which can be summarised thus …

To estimate activity, humid operative temperatures (Teh) were calculated for each minute of the day as:

display math              (1)
where,
display math                                                  (2)

… otherwise known as the salamander equation ! Global warming = smaller salamanders.

The literature is far from unanimous on the effect of warming and drying on salamanders. If you would prefer them to get bigger try this paper instead …

Bruzgul J. E., Long W. & Hadly E. A. BMC Ecol., 5. 7 (2005).  Reported in Nature …

Fossil hunters in Yellowstone National Park have discovered an unusual way to record the effects of climate change. Specimens from the past 3,000 years suggest that salamanders have grown bigger as the climate has warmed, and may continue to change as temperatures rise and lakes dry up.

During development, tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinum) can metamorphose and head for land rather than staying in the water. And warmer climes have made salamanders on land outgrow their water-based relatives, says Elizabeth Hadly of Stanford University in California. Hadley and her colleagues examined almost 3,000 salamander vertebrae from the park’s Lamar Cave in Wyoming.

The difference is particularly pronounced in the warmest period of Yellowstone’s history, between 1,150 and 650 years ago, the researchers add. Hotter conditions allow for more abundant food and faster growth rates, they suspect, and such effects are expected to be less marked in the water, where temperature changes are smaller.

Global warming = bigger salamanders.

Let’s just say climate change = altered salamanders.

Shall I compare thee …

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

WoW …

In response to the tide of unwashed marchers in March today I will Work on Wednesday.

I will work hard, I will insult no one, threaten to shoot no one in the head, display no rude banners.

At some point in the day I will find time to reflect on the value of democracy, rule of law and the privileges I enjoy.

It is the millions of people that work that provide the wonderful standard of living this country of ours has. Without our taxes there would be no schools, health service, police force, garbage collection or welfare payments.

Join with us today and demonstrate your respect for Australia.

Such suspense …

Craig Thomson is sentenced …

Thomson was sentenced to one year in jail but the magistrate ruled that would include nine months suspended jail time.

Thomson, 49, showed little emotion as Victorian magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg handed down the sentence before an overflowing courtroom this morning.

Mr Rozencwajg said he was in “no doubt” imprisonment was the only appropriate sentence, referring to Thomson’s “blatant dishonesty” and “flagrant and insouciant” behaviour.

Mr Rozencwajg said Thomson had exhibited a brazen sense of entitlement and lack of concern for any accountability.

“These offences were committed by you in a position of trust,” he said.

Mr Rozencwajg said Thomson had been charged with protecting and advancing the interests of HSU members and his crimes were “a breach of trust in the highest order”.

The man that Labor propped up so that he might prop them up goes down. Not for  his insouciance but for using Health Services Union money for his own purposes, including paying for prostitutes. He will appeal and will apply for bail.

My first thought is that a suspended sentence ought to involve a noose, but that is a little harsh (especially since I await sentencing for denying the climate). But really what is the point of decorating an inadequate jail term with a few months of make believe jail time?

The cat …

Predators are relatively rare in a natural landscape, limited by, among other things, the availability of food.

Domestic cats … and dogs, as well, are maintained at artificially high densities because of supplementary feeding. But if they wander at large they do hunt and they do spread alarm amongst prey species. All in addition to the natural and feral predators already present in the environment.

The Shire of Yarra Ranges spreads from the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria eastwards into the foothills of the Great Divide. It includes some great forest habitat which is home to the iconic Regent Lyrebird and some less well-known beauties such as the Pilotbird and Olive Whistler, all three of these and many other bird species feed on the ground. The shire council have just proclaimed a 24 hour cat curfew. If you want a cat you must keep it in.

My attitude towards cats is very much like my attitude to the French. As a group they are detestable but as you get to know them you find some individuals are OK, really.

The cat owners are up in arms and are shouting about lack of consultation and demanding the law be repealed. Not one of them has a cat that ever killed anything and of course they all wear bells, the cats that is.

My attitude to cat owners is very much like my attitude to the French, except when you get to know them only a small minority turn out to OK. I have yet to meet a cat owner who consulted me before allowing their cat to piss in my yard or terrorise my budgerigar.

My congratulations to the Shire of Yarra Ranges. To the cat owners let me say that it is entirely possible to keep a happy cat indoors, you just need some imagination …

 

Slave

A good walk spoilt …

Robert McGee was at the golf club.  He began his round with an eagle on the first hole and a birdie on the second.
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On the third hole he had just scored his first ever hole-in-one when his mobile phone rang… It was a doctor notifying him that his wife had been in an accident and was in a critical condition in ICU.
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The man told the doctor to inform his wife where he was and that he’d be there as soon as possible. As he hung up he realized he was leaving what was shaping up to be his best ever round of golf.
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He decided to get in a couple of more holes before heading to the hospital. He ended up playing all eighteen, finishing his round shooting a personal best 61, shattering the club record by five strokes and beating his previous best game by more than 10. He was jubilant….
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Then he remembered his wife. Feeling guilty he dashed to the hospital. He saw the doctor in the corridor and asked about his wife’s condition.
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The doctor glared at him and shouted, “You went ahead and finished your round of golf didn’t you! I hope you’re proud of yourself!”
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“While you were out for the past four hours enjoying yourself at the country club your wife has been languishing in the ICU! It’s just as well you went ahead and finished that round because it will be more than likely your last! For the rest of her life she will require round the clock care.  She will need IV fluids,  you will have to change her colostomy bag every 3 hours and her tracheal tube twice a day. She will have to be spoon fed slowly and almost continuously, oh and not to mention  the hygiene care.”
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The man broke down and sobbed.
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The doctor chuckled and said, “I’m just messing with you. She’s dead.
What was your score?”

It could be worse …

The European Union is not renowned for the sanity of some of its regulations, straight bananas anyone?

With the willing collusion of the UK Parliament the British energy sector has become uninvestable. Npower is set to write off hundreds of millions of pounds on the value of its British power plants. Companies have stopped building new power stations amid a political and regulatory backlash, sparked last year by Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy prices.But is there anything more insane than this?

The UK is committed by law to a radical shift to renewable energy. By 2020, the proportion of Britain’s electricity generated from ‘renewable’ sources is supposed to almost triple to 30 per cent, with more than a third of that from what is called ‘biomass’.

The only large-scale way to do this is by burning wood, man’s oldest fuel – because EU rules have determined it is ‘carbon-neutral’.

So our biggest power station, the leviathan Drax plant near Selby in North Yorkshire, is switching from dirty, non-renewable coal. Biomass is far more expensive, but the consumer helps the process by paying subsidies via levies on energy bills.

That’s where North Carolina’s forests come in. They are being reduced to pellets in a gargantuan pulping process at local factories, then shipped across the Atlantic from a purpose-built dock at Chesapeake Port, just across the state line in Virginia.

Carbon neutral because trees recently sequestered the carbon and will sequester it again as they grow again but …

Drax’s wood-fuelled furnaces actually produce three per cent more carbon dioxide (CO2) than coal – and well over twice as much as gas: 870g per megawatt hour (MW/hr) is belched out by wood, compared to just 400g for gas.

Then there’s the extra CO2 produced by manufacturing the pellets and transporting them 3,800 miles … when all that is taken into account, using biomass for generating power produces 20 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

How will the environment tell the difference? Regrowth takes about 100 years.
Our whole business case is built on subsidy, like the rest of the renewable energy industry. We are simply responding to Government policy.
All this has required an investment of £700 million. Thanks to the green subsidies, this will soon be paid off. Even if all Britain’s forests were devoted to Drax, they could not keep its furnaces going. ‘We need areas with lots of wood, a reliable supply chain”.
Get that? Even if all Britain’s forests were devoted to Drax, they could not keep its furnaces going. Lunacy.
For the whole story read The Bonfire of Insanity.