zaphod
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Post by zaphod on Jan 19, 2013 21:45:48 GMT
I agree, sig.
Over the years working and living in various places I have regularly commuted to work by train, car, or even bus and bicycle. Fairly recently I was driving a 150 mile daily round trip into outer London (different ballgame to central London!). I have always been struck by the fact that local radio weather reports exaggerate how "bad" things are (TRAVEL CHAOS!!!) and generally there was no real problem with exercise of care and commonsense. Met Office weather reports are generally helpful, but their warnings can usually be ignored or put in perspective again with some commonsense precautions.
What is really concerning is the media manipulation of what are normal winter conditions here! The newspapers work hard to find a photo that seems to show some snow, but if you looked at many you would be hard pressed to find anything evidencing severe weather!
If the media behave this way over normal weather, how can anyone trust their treatment of climate?
I think in either Imperial or Metric measure. Both are used despite our supposed "metrication" back in the 70's!
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zaphod
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Post by zaphod on Jan 19, 2013 20:34:21 GMT
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 19, 2013 2:09:00 GMT
The key expression which the media love here is "TRAVEL CHAOS"! If they can't have actual Travel Chaos, they will headline "FEAR OF TRAVEL CHAOS" or "THREAT OF TRAVEL CHAOS"! If caused by snow all the better, but anything will do as long as it is TRAVEL CHAOS. We are used to snow, but dealing with snow is something we seemingly cannot adequately do. Schools close at sight of a snowflake. Panic buying from shops. Typical news report: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/snow-travel-chaos-with-flights-and-trains-cancelled-roads-closed-36-hours-of-blizzards-and-10000-without-electricity-across-britain-8453159.htmlThere was a Met Office Red Warning for part of Wales, a triangle to the north and northwest of Cardiff. I texted a friend in Cardiff who says they are a bit snowed in but fine. That warning appears to have expired. Here in the east of England we had a little snow, mostly fine powder. Temperature here presently between 0C and -1C. Although to be fair it has been -4C to -8C in parts of this region. There is a slipping hazard on paths and minor roads although the major routes are well treated. De-icing ungaraged cars is a major hassle. Basically this is normal weather here for the time of year. It was very mild over Christmas. The internet has slowed to a crawling snail at the same time as the snow and cold. Frozen broadband and snowed-in servers. Took ages to get the Met Office site to open so that I can post another link! www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/cold-weather-alert/#?tab=coldWeatherAlert
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 16, 2013 21:42:52 GMT
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 15, 2013 17:48:58 GMT
Makes me wonder what the hunter:wildlife ratio is!! What is hunted? How many are there? Why aren't they extinct?
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 14, 2013 12:13:29 GMT
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 13, 2013 17:18:03 GMT
Agreed, nautonnier! I have always felt that an honest audit would result in a finding that there is no energy advantage in these mercury capsules once production and recycling energy costs are taken in to account. Plus the cost of scrapping stocks of incandescent bulbs and their manufacturing plant. Meanwhile, here is a discussion on a Guardian Online page which may be worth a look with regard to the Met Office graphs: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/jan/09/global-warming-met-office-paused
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zaphod
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Post by zaphod on Jan 13, 2013 14:05:13 GMT
Well done, duwayne!
Does this mean we can chuck out these environmentally unfriendly mini fluorescent bulbs we've been forced to use and dig out the friendly (recyclable and light spectrum) incandescent ones again?
I suggested a thread entitled "Global Cooling Temperature Predictions" in an earlier post. Maybe I will start it now!
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 13, 2013 1:42:31 GMT
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 11, 2013 19:22:34 GMT
Here is a partially tongue in cheek suggestion for sigidur's excess potatoes: www.miniscience.com/projects/PotatoElectricity/With the world facing many possible catastrophes, any environmentally sensible lateral thinking could be a good idea. I am a great follower of the baked potato, or jacket potato. I notice in supermarkets that so-called baking potatoes are usually fist sized at the most, and all of a uniform size. When I grab a larger one (the proper size my mother gave us as a full meal when I was that age many years ago) I find a "defect" - a hole or cut from harvesting equipment, a bit of a scaly area, and so on. The thing is, the big ones hardly ever reach a supermarket. They are big enough to cut out anything unsavoury and have plenty left. Only standard size and appearance reach the shelves, they are so small that customers reject any with bits they would want to cut out. Why can't supermarkets sell "Grade B" at a discount? "Two-for-one" offers (unlikely to be a real offer!) are okay to a point, but two-person or single-person families soon run out of freezer space. I have no problem buying reduced items the day before or on the Best Before date and so on, but the reduction in price is seldom significant and again there are limits on storage space. Some significant change in thinking is needed to best use what we have. The supermarkets play with their pricing but the end result is that the consumer gets less or pays more when we all need to budget.
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zaphod
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Post by zaphod on Jan 10, 2013 19:19:55 GMT
Very interesting, sigurdur. Some reputations are going to be stained one day. Looking at the various graphs, I find it easy to see cyclical patterns in them all - at school (long ago) we were taught to draw smooth curves when joining plotted points on graphs, unless the relationship was obviously linear.
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zaphod
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Post by zaphod on Jan 10, 2013 15:41:07 GMT
Thought I would have a stab at starting a relevant thread. From the self-righteous side of the UK press: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2259942/The-crazy-climate-change-obsession-thats-Met-Office-menace.html"The crazy climate change obsession that's made the Met Office a menace The £200 million-a-year official weather forecaster often gets it wrong This week it has admitted there is no evidence that ‘global warming’ is happening The Met Office quietly readjusted its temperature projections on its website on Christmas Eve " The Daily Mail has very wide readership in the UK. These points have appeared on other threads but I thought it may be helpful to pull stuff about the Met Office together.
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zaphod
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Posts: 210
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Post by zaphod on Jan 10, 2013 14:35:39 GMT
This is just reaching UK mainstream press: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/10/half-world-food-waste"As much as half of all the food produced in the world – equivalent to 2bn tonnes – ends up as waste every year, engineers warned in a report published on Thursday. The UK's Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) blames the "staggering" new figures in its analysis on unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free and Western consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, along with "poor engineering and agricultural practices", inadequate infrastructure and poor storage facilities. In the face of United Nations predictions that there could be about an extra 3 billion people to feed by the end of the century and growing pressure on the resources needed to produce food, including land, water and energy, the IME is calling for urgent action to tackle this waste." Seems the world is not well equipped for any catastrophe, let alone climatic.
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zaphod
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SSW
Jan 10, 2013 2:03:29 GMT
Post by zaphod on Jan 10, 2013 2:03:29 GMT
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zaphod
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Post by zaphod on Jan 10, 2013 1:43:05 GMT
Thanks, nautonnier. I thought things were not so simple, although I do look for simple explanations as a starting point for further study in anything. I've downloaded the .pdf you kindly posted the link for, and will study in due course. I have little knowledge in the specialist field of climate science, and there appears to be an awful lot of scientific explanation out there that does not tell the full story or incorporate all relevant factors.
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