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Some pictures taken near the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

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Tuvalu and Tokelau (the latter a territory of NZ) have been in the news in the last few days due to the fact of an extreme water shortage caused by drought. Tuvalu has a population of 10,544, Tokelau a total of 1400. Tuvalu has 4 reef islands and 5 coral atolls, Tokelau has three atolls. In the case of Tuvalu they are said to have 5 days' water ( Read more... )

I read the following today (thanks to Yule Heibel):

In a 2007 report for the Council on Foreign Relations, Charles Ferguson noted that all of the 104 reactors currently operating in the United States will likely need to be decommissioned by mid-century. Replacing those reactors (so simply preserving the status quo) would mean building a new ( Read more... )

"If we stick with nuclear, there will be problems. There will be accidents. I think we have to accept that. The alternatives are all worse."It is going to take a long time before we find better alternatives ( Read more... )

So, if all goes well in the Senate, I will have to pay the princely sum of $260 in the next financial year as my contribution to the flood levy. Nobody earning under $50k will pay anything and 'victims' will not pay - that will be the tricky part to implement. There will be endless cases to judge about who is a victim and who is not ( Read more... )

Topic 1: I slept through the football this morning, so we beat Liverpool. I should try that more often! Arsene Wenger also had a haircut between Chelsea and Liverpool - maybe that's what made the difference. Anyway the defence apparently were able to function today ( Read more... )

Despite the freezing weather in the northern hemisphere this winter, the area of Arctic sea ice continues to decline. "The linear rate of decline for December is now 3.3% per decade."

December air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean region, eastern Siberia, and northwestern North America were warmer than normal. In contrast, temperatures in Eurasia ( Read more... )

Here's the story I get from listening to Obama's press conference (given exclusively to the US media):

I came here this morning and I had a chat to President M from Ethiopia ("representing Africa") and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa (presumably not representing Africa) and we agreed that we couldn't agree to do anything in ( Read more... )

I enjoyed listening to a debate between George Monbiot and Ian Plimer as part of the Copenhagen Fest. I haven't read Plimer's book and probably never will now because it is clear that what he is on about is not science, but politics. His opening gambit was that all these summit talks are just a ploy by governments to increase our taxes [a rather ( Read more... )