Feed aggregator

Australia adds new colour to temperature maps as heat soars

The Guardian - Tue, 2013-01-08 21:34
Forecast temperatures are so extreme that the Bureau of Meteorology has had to add a new colour to its scale. It is a sign of things to come

• Australian project simulates effects of runaway climate change
Deadly heatwaves will be more frequent in coming decades

Global warming is turning the volume of extreme weather up, Spinal-Tap-style, to 11. The temperature forecast for next Monday by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology is so unprecedented - over 52C - that it has had to add a new colour to the top of its scale, a suitably incandescent purple.

Australia's highest recorded temperature is 50.7C, set in January 1960 in South Australia. The record for the hottest average day across the nation was set on Monday, at 40.3C, exceeding a 40-year-old record. "What makes this event quite exceptional is how widespread and intense it's been," said Aaron Coutts-Smith, the weather bureau's climate services manager. "We have been breaking records across all states and territories in Australia over the course of the event so far." Wildfires are raging across New South Wales and Tasmania.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

SSEE QLD Wishes you a Merry Christmas!

Newsletters QLD - Sun, 2012-12-16 22:58
SSEE QLD Wishes you a Merry Christmas!
Categories: Newsletters QLD

Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed - video

The Guardian - Wed, 2012-12-12 19:38
It's like watching 'Manhattan breaking apart in front of your eyes', says one of the researchers for filmmaker James Balog. He's describing the largest iceberg calving ever filmed, as featured in his movie, Chasing Ice. After weeks of waiting, the filmakers witnessed 7.4 cubic km of ice crashing off the Ilulissat glacier in Greenland. Chasing Ice, released in the UK on Friday, follows Balog's mission to document Arctic ice being melted by climate change. Watch our second clip from the documentary to see the filmmakers abseil down Survey Canyon on the Greenland ice sheet to capture some startling images of meltwater rushing down a moulin Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Your memories of the 1952 great smog

The Guardian - Thu, 2012-12-06 21:35
On Wednesday we marked the 60th anniversary of London's 'great smog' with dramatic photographs. Here, we've rounded up your memories of the smog, and others in the years after

I remember as a nine year old in 1959 living in South Ealing barely being able to see to catch the bus to school and my dad having to be guided home by a policeman with a torch – he was on our road at the time but had become completely disorientated. The policeman had a torch and used that to read the road name and house number.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

How to buy a 'green' Christmas tree

The Guardian - Wed, 2012-12-05 19:43
Brighten up your living room with a Christmas tree without creating a huge environmental footprint

Leo Hickman writes:

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

60 years since the great smog of London - in pictures

The Guardian - Wed, 2012-12-05 16:00
On Friday 5 December 1952, a thick yellow smog brought the capital to a standstill for four days and is estimated to have killed more than 4,000 people. London's air may appear much cleaner today, but is still dangerously polluted. The coal pollution that caused the infamous 'pea soupers' has been replaced by invisible pollution – mainly from traffic fumes – resulting in 13,000 early deaths each year in the UK and 4,300 in London

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Pitcairn Islands' underwater treasures revealed - in pictures

The Guardian - Thu, 2012-11-29 00:13
The Pew Environment Group and National Geographic have uncovered a spectacular underwater habitat around the Pitcairn Islands, a British Overseas Territory that is home to the Bounty mutineers and their descendents. The two groups, along with the islanders, are calling on the UK government to make Pitcairn into the world's largest no-take marine reserve Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Norway's plan to kill wolves explodes myth of environmental virtue | George Monbiot

The Guardian - Tue, 2012-11-20 23:53
A proposed cull is indicative of the brutal treatment predators receive in Scandinavian countries

One of the biggest political shocks of the past decade has been the transformation of Canada. Under the influence of the tar barons of Alberta, it has mutated from a country dominated by liberal, pacific, outward-looking values to a thuggish petro-state, ripping up both international treaties and the fabric of its own nation.

Prepare to be shocked again. Another country, whose green and humanitarian principles were just as well-established as Canada's, is undergoing a similar transformation. Again, it is not the people of the nation who have changed – in both cases they remain, as far as I can tell, as delightful as ever – but the dominant political class and its destruction of both national values and international image.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

SSEE ACT Chapter News

Newsletters ACT - Tue, 2012-11-20 04:21
SSEE ACT Chapter News
Categories: Newsletters ACT

World's most expensive coffee tainted by 'horrific' civet abuse

The Guardian - Tue, 2012-11-20 00:36
Asian palm civets are force-fed a debilitating diet of coffee berries to create Kopi Luwak, say animal welfare groups

It's the world's most expensive coffee and is made from faeces, but connoisseur drinkers should feel most squeamish about the "horrific" abuse that mars its production process, animal welfare groups have claimed.

Kopi Luwak, or civet coffee, is created mainly in Indonesia from beans of coffee berries that are fed to Asian palm civets – small, cat-like creatures found in south-east Asia.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

SSEE Victoria update

Newsletters VIC - Sun, 2012-11-11 11:01
SSEE Victoria update
Categories: Newsletters VIC

The week in wildlife – in pictures

The Guardian - Sat, 2012-11-10 01:34
Sensitive crocodiles, playing elephants and a Brazilian armadillo feature in this week's pick of images from the natural world Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

'Humane' fishing net wins Dyson award

The Guardian - Fri, 2012-11-09 02:16
Dan Watson has devised a system based on a series of escape rings for fish, which can be fitted to a fisherman's trawler net

A young British designer has won a prestigious international award for creating a "humane" net to make fishing more sustainable by preventing small fish from being trapped.

Dan Watson devised a system based on a series of escape rings for fish – which can be fitted to a fisherman's trawler net – in response to the problem of overfishing and the controversial and wasteful practice of throwing away healthy and edible fish or other creatures as so-called bycatch.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

World's rarest whale seen for first time after New Zealand beaching

The Guardian - Tue, 2012-11-06 20:01
Two skeletons now known to be spade-toothed beaked whales were misidentified by conservationists in 2010

The spade-toothed beaked whale is so rare that nobody has seen one alive, but scientists have proof the species still exists.

Two skeletons were identified as belonging to the species after a 17-foot whale and her calf beached themselves in New Zealand in 2010. Scientists hope the discovery will provide insights into the species and into ocean ecosystems.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Involved with Environmental Approvals in QLD? – Read more about our must see presentation

Newsletters QLD - Mon, 2012-11-05 07:26
Involved with Environmental Approvals in QLD? – Read more about our must see presentation
Categories: Newsletters QLD

How can you get rid of clothes moths?

The Guardian - Sat, 2012-11-03 09:00
Mothballs, lavender bags, cedar wood… what weaponry can help you win the war against moths?

When you look at the size of a clothes moth – and sometimes I look at the size of a clothes moth five times a day prior to mashing it violently against a wall/carpet/treasured coat – it seems extraordinary how useless the human race is at killing this most destructive of pests. Without difficulty, people wipe out badgers, cats, other human beings. How hard can it be to kill a scrap of animated dust that lives on old sweat and cardigans?

True, weaponry has advanced, a little, since I was first infested. Two decades ago, when a soft Nicole Farhi cardigan emerged for its first outing with ragged holes already dotting the moth-favoured breast region, the best on offer was mothballs and those bits of amusingly-shaped cedar that are as effective at combating moths as, say, snowballs would be at wiping out the Taliban.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Why wet wipes are wreaking havoc on sewers

The Guardian - Fri, 2012-10-26 22:27
Increasingly fussy bathroom habits are directly to blame for clogged pipes and human waste bubbling up into our streets and homes. Plus 10 things you should never flush down your toilet

Time was when British bottoms were built to withstand the crinkliest, shiniest toilet paper available, and in some cases even to enjoy it. But there has been a fundamental softening in recent years, seen in a growing preference not only for quilted loo roll, but now for wet wipes. The musician Will.i.Am is one leading exponent of damp bottom-wiping. The consequences for our drains, though, are disastrous.

"If you swill a piece of toilet roll around in some water, it takes seconds for it to disintegrate," explains Simon Evans from Thames Water. "Wet wipes should never be put down drains, because they don't break down – even if the packaging says they are 'biodegradable' or 'flushable'. Only human waste and loo roll should go down our sewers."

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

Talking beluga whale named Noc is revealed

The Guardian - Tue, 2012-10-23 18:00
Beluga whale kept at US research foundation learned how to make human sounds that fooled divers, according to study

A Beluga whale named Noc learned to warble in a human voice that was so convincing it fooled a diver into thinking someone was shouting at him to get out of the water, US researchers have revealed.

Continue reading...
Categories: Around The Web

SSEE Victoria update

Newsletters VIC - Mon, 2012-10-22 01:16
SSEE Victoria update
Categories: Newsletters VIC

Climate Science seminar October 4th

Newsletters VIC - Wed, 2012-09-26 01:30
Climate Science seminar October 4th
Categories: Newsletters VIC

Pages

Subscribe to Sustainable Engineering Society aggregator