George Monbiot, the journalist, says that we are all killers and we will continue to kill until we stop flying.
The aviation industry takes the predominant blame for climate change as the fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions. The total effect of aircraft emissions is 2.7 times as great as the effect of carbon dioxide alone. The water vapour they produce forms ice crystals in the upper troposphere which trap the earth's heat.
The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, if y
According to Noam Chomsky - Hegemony or Survival, the great biologist, Ernst Mayr of Harvard reflected on the search for extra terrestial intelligence and whether there was any chance of it existing some years ago. He decided the chances were effectively zero.
His view was based on the adaptive value of higher intelligence such as that which humans have and which is peculiar to our intellectual organisation as a species.
Mayr estimated that there had been about 50 billion species since
We are now in the depths of the winter's weather. Snow, sleet, cold are biting into our bodies. But it is not only humans who feel the cold and have a bit of discomfort, cold weather is lethal for many small birds who need their daily bread to survive.
It is one of our duties to feed them if we care for nature. Feeding and protecting them are necessities. Cats are a constant problem in our garden. We have a cat scan but it offers limited protection. Also we have thick evergreen shrubs wit
It happened last Wednesday. The thing we all fear. I switched my laptop on to be informed there was a hitch. Windows xp could not be accessed. Please find your original CD firing up disc and reinstall the program said the message.
Of course I have no original disc. If I ever did have it has long disappeared into some black hole.
I took the computer off to PC Solutions and was told it wouldn't be ready till Monday at the earliest. This was the nightmare scenario as I had to complet
Can knowledge be bad? Or does all knowledge have neutral value?
What is your answer? Probably it will be the latter.
This a question which is particularly relevant these days as scientists expand the frontier of what is known.
They are increasingly likely to go into ethically questionable areas and discover things which could destroy us all.
But is knowledge inherently bad or value-neutral?
How to commit crime, murder , maim. Producing weapons of mass destruction, mutating
A major political event happened on Sunday. The Postive Action Group went public announcing its arrival on the Island's political scene. The aim is to restore trust in the workings of our Parliamentary democracy I believe. I know some of the individuals but I do not have any more information on how they formed and what their aims are other than that which has been sent out by them through the media. Open transparent Government, rigorous financial controls and a system which is fair to all th
50years ago only about 10%-15% of young people in the developed world went to university whereas now it is about 50% although both these figures were and are rather less in the UK. Most of this great expansion has been due to the needs of the economy and the need to compete in a world wide market.
There are those who feel this expansion has been at the expense of standards and the pursuit of excellence. More means less goes their argument. Others reject this and point to better teaching an
Not had the sporty number more than 10 days and it snows - remember you heard the prediction here first. i dread to think what might happen should i decide to wear a thong this summer - a sudden ice age perchance?!! At the very least, yeah yeah. Does my bum look big in this - HELL YEAAAH! Woohooo!
I'm still going to the gym, but am putting on muscle - its scarey when all you want are ankles! More repetitions less weights, or is it the other way round? I'm due a visit with the coach and i
These days the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is looked upon with suspicion. It is seen as elitist. How times have changed. Years ago ideas, culture were held up as something to strive for and academics were held in high esteem. Bertrand Russell, C.M.Joad, Julian Huxley, Freddie Ayer were regulars on programmes such as the Brains Trust which had high audience figures.
Today such people are almost ignored. Unless the knowledge acquired has an obvious economic value to the community
Reading the Forums makes you realise that there is a fair amount of election campaigning going on. Anonymous Forum members are getting particularly shirty with each other. You can tell they are potential opponents as the ones who are fighting obviously live in the same area and have expressed an interest in the "Keys". They are enmeshed in "rape and pillage" politics because that is their style - destructive rather than constructive, negative rather than positive. You know the type only to
I spent most of the day at a workshop organised by DOLGE on Climate Change - and how it will affect the IOM. Some 50 individuals representing a wide cross section of the Manx community were present including the Minister for the DOLGE, John Rimmington and also Mrs Clare Christian MLC from the Department.
The meeting was organised by consultants, ACCLIMATISE. The website UKCIP will supply anyone who is interested with details of similar seminars in the UK and the DOLGE website has updates on
I have had a little feed back from yesterday with people enquiring about the history and meaning of Lent so as it is Ash Wednesday I thought I would put a few thoughts down for those of you who want to know more.
Lent is the fast of 40 days before Easter. The first mention of 40 days probably associated with Lent, occurs in the Canons of Nicaea (AD 325). It is thought the custom originated in the prescribed fast of baptismal candidates, and the number 40 was evidently suggested by the 40
As I am writing this it is about to be Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day. On Wednesday - Ash Wednesday - fasting during the 40 days of Lent begins.
Shrove Tuesday comes from the Middle England word "shriven" meaning receiving absolution from sins.
For Anglicans there is a three fold practice for Lent:
give something up
take something up
and read a Lent book.
This year's Lent book recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury is "Free of Charge" by Miroslav Volf.
Shrove Tuesday
Life works in weird ways - take this for example:
I usually park my little Rover at the house - there's a few spaces down here, and with a bit of luck (depending on when the participants of the daily rat race return), I usually get a spot slap-bang in front of my house.
Well, yesterday - for the first time in months - did I not park on my usual spot. Had a few drinks in town, and left the car in Atholl Street, with the plan to collect it today. It really hardly ever happens that I leave
There are many comments these days about the facts that students are taking "easy" subjects at University rather than physics, chemistry, mathematics. Now what is easy to one could be very difficult for someone else. But certainly the figures show a decline in the number of applicants for traditional academic subjects which I believe is serious.
Science is exciting. There are great discoveries to be made. For instance it is expected that biotechnology will produce this century organisms
Are you aware:
If you die tomorrow, the company that you are working for could easily replace you in a matter of days?
But the family you have left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.
We give more of ourselves to work than to our family.
An unwise investment indeed!
Someone else has been diagnosed with Hodgkins, older than my daughter, just as angry, just as lost and the Island being so small, they found us. We are thinking of starting a support group, not that we know anything but just to be there if and when. I'm looking at doing a website of just a few pages giving links and contacts and whats where sort of stuff. Perhaps it might help.
Miss my 4x4 terribly AND it hailed on Friday! I just KNOW its gonna snow, dammit! Learning to drive differentl
Since the Budget I have been giving a few thoughts to our apparent rush for economic success. There is no doubt we are at the mercy of economic forces. We appear to have got ourselves on to a tread mill where there is only one thought - we must have growth to finance the various schemes which this Island has become involved in over the last few years.
We are more than before at the mercy of forces outside our control on the world stage. We have to increase our wealth to maintain living st
Silence is golden and offers a new dimension to those who take advantage of it in this busy world.
James Carroll the writer says: "We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things... but there are times when we stop. We sit still. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper."
When was the last time you simply stopped and sat still taking in the stillness and enjoying the silence? Or at least the silence that
I have just attended a Fairtrade Initiative meeting. For any who are interested in buying Fairtrade products and getting major companies, Governments, schools etc to use Fairtrade products and in so doing helping Third World producers - giving them a fair price for their goods and a living wage, the IOM will have a principle one day event on Friday, March 10th - 10.00 a.m.-3.30 p.m.- during Fairtrade Fortnight at 44 Duke St., Douglas when a number of traders will be displaying their products. T
Today I read this about Billy Graham, the great Baptist preacher of our time. He is now over 85 years old and he has a message to us on faithfulness which I believe is relevant to all of us whether we are Christians or not.
He said:
"God I want to be faithful.
I want to be faithful to You.
I want to be faithful to my family.
I want to be faithful to my future family.
I want to be faithful to every friendship.
I want to be faithful to the calling on my life.
I want to be faithful a
A black day. I've decided to leave the ranks of 4x4 drivers and join the mid-life crisis brigade. Yes, you've guessed it correctly, I'm going to buy a sports car! I know, I know, you're worried about me... but I've only so much time in the desperate housewife set in my training programme to become an awld biddie!
One of the car places in Ramsey has a 240z hidden in the back which i got nostalgic for over the weekend - explaining to No 1 son that this was the vehicle of choice for my boyfr
Hurrah! I've bought myself a new car! Well, not new exactly, 2nd hand, but new to me anyway. I had an absolute blast at the auctions. I walked around and looked at a few cars and took a couple for a test drive, but ended up bidding for only one car, the one that seemed to scream BUY ME everytime i walked by. It's a VW Golf CLI, 1997, 1.8ltr and only 84,000kms on the clock. The mechanical report looked sound so what the heck i thought, and sat down ready for the lots to start. Mine was no.
