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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Turning up the heat

This study from Grist is fascinating and will have me searching out the thermostat at the Council retreat later this week where climate change is on the agenda.

"We found that ambient temperature significantly predicted the belief in the validity of global warming, with participants reporting greater belief on warmer days," Risen and Critcher report. "In fact, the effect of temperature was as strong as ideology, and was not qualified by it. Thus, outside temperature influenced liberals and conservatives similarly."

10 comments:

Shunda barunda said...

Well the globe is warming, has been for ages, it's whether people are causing it that has been contentious.

So the trick would be to test on a warm day with few people in the room and then test with it packed out with stinky arm pits.

Will you spare the deodorant for the planet Robert?

robertguyton said...

Tuck a sprig of rosemary under your armpit Shunda and get real!
We are cooking the place up.

Shunda barunda said...

Well we had better stop it then.

Time to plant trees, and lots of em!

robertguyton said...

Yes.
You are already well ahead of the common bloke on that count Shunda but as you have the skill and the resources, you're obliged to ramp up your planting even more and on it goes...

...til you win!

Shunda barunda said...

Well I do love trees, so OK then!

Did I tell you that I managed to successfully clone my favourite Northern Rata tree? absolutely glorious display of deep red flowers, and a beautiful semi conical habit.

Every day I carfully check the we clonelings, 3 survived out of 125, yus!!

robertguyton said...

Clone?
How on earth did you do that?
Not 'propagate from cuttings'?
Wowsers!
Well done!

Shunda barunda said...

Same thing Robert (I think?), cutting/clone, it's all good.

Perhaps I could have added some sort of DNA into it to protect it from West Coast fire wood collectors.

What would repel them?

robertguyton said...

Or make a club with a heavy branch from one of the rata they've already felled.
Go directly to the source of the problem Shunda.

Farmer Baby Boomer said...

Don't known how an intelligent bloke like you can accept climate change is man made RG. OK lets plant trees, make sure the citizens of Edendale are not showered with soot and Solid Energy doesn't gas us and our livestock. There are good reasons for doing these things that have nothing to do with ABW.
On the political front you should be thinking about how we can deal with that other junk science - genetic engineering. Because the 'heat' is going to come on to accept that as Free trade aggreement negotiations proceed.

robertguyton said...

FarmerBB - you are right, there are good reasons for doing those things and us tree-huggers have been pushing that kind of action forever. That you don't accept the claim that human activities of the industrial kind are changing the make-up of the atmosphere, it's overall temperature and the behaviour of the weather doesn't matter at all, if you are busy cleaning up those things you describe.
As to GE, I can't think of any reasons at all, bar genuinely needed pharmaceutical research, for the development of genetically engineered organisms, especially plants. There is a long established system, tried and true, of plants growing sucessfully in this planet's atmosphere and a zillion ways in which they can be adapted for new situations and new purposes without messing with their genes. I just don't accept the need, when the natural resource is so vast. I believe the motivation behind ge research is not need, but greed.