‘Coimhtioch Gan Cuireadh’ have Irish in a Dander

5 09 2008

Posted by John Goetz

My lovely wife is Irish. She loves to talk, drink Guinness, and adores her motherland. I have to admit I love the place as well. We spent some time there just a few years ago and did not want to come home. The narrow country roads lined with stone walls on both sides were thrilling, especially when a truck was approaching from the other direction. We never got tired of hanging out in the local pubs, no matter where we were. The people were absolutely wonderful to us wherever we went and treated us like locals.

Thus, I was stunned and saddened when I saw that Ireland was under attack due to global warming. With the natterjack toad, slipper lobster, and Chinese mitten crab having established beachheads around the Emerald Isle, I fear that the country we only recently visited has been lost forever.

From the Independent.ie
By Paul Melia
Friday September 05 2008

Aliens have landed – and they’re thriving

An emperor dragonfly

ALMOST three dozen alien species are thriving in Ireland because of global warming and record rainfall levels.

Among species that have become a common feature of Irish wildlife are the Chinese mitten crab, bank vole, mourning dove, emperor dragonfly, natterjack toad, trigger fish and slipper lobster.

A TG4 documentary series, ‘Coimhtioch Gan Cuireadh’ or ‘Alien Invaders’, will show how some of the species arrived here only recently while others turned up generations ago.

John Murphy, of Waxwing Wildlife Productions which made the six-part series, said one new arrival was the greater white-toothed shrew, which had probably arrived in the roots of imported trees and were now thriving in counties Tipperary and Limerick.

The collared dove, cattle egrets and blackcap are new examples of birds; and slow worms, which are only found on the reclaimed meadow fringes of the Burren, were reportedly brought over by British hippies in the early 1970s. Alien fish species are appearing in greater numbers, including the grey triggerfish which hails from the tropical Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Perhaps some will falsley blame British hippies from the 1970s for the chaos that is now Ireland. In reality, however, they can only be blamed for replacing the famed Irish sprint worm with the inferior slow worm. Such narrow-mindedness obscures reality, for only global warming could deliver the trigger fish and collard dove to these shores.


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Categories : Uncategorized

A note to longtime readers of this blog – the demise of an old friend

5 09 2008

Many of you who have been with me from the start will recall fondly the day I was annointed to “holy” status by our local alternate weekly, The Chico Beat.

Hey, I’m a reverend!

This came about because they had a ghost writer named “green man” who made a hilarious editorial about me and the www.surfacestations.org project in which he wrote the famous line: “The Reverend Anthony WTF Watts and his screeching mercury monkeys…” in response to surveying the weather stations nationwide.

This is why Evan Jones (and others) refer to me as “The Rev”. It wasn’t the first time the Chico Beat published articles telling my town how wrong and misguided I am for doing this work. See also Beat Up

At the time, Surfacestations.org volunteer Gary Boden took the Chico Beat Green Man’s editorial concept and turned it into an emblem patch.

mercury_monkey_station.jpg

Note that Green Man’s “screeching mercury monkeys” concept isnt far off the Chico Beat’s original angry monkey logo, seen below. Personally, I thought it scared away advertisers. They once printed a newspaper in their first year, then changed to online only in the last 8 months.

Chico Beat logo

Today however, I’m sorry to report that the website of www.chicobeat.com is showing this: Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Announcements, local_issues

NOAA: China to Warm U.S. Heartland

5 09 2008

Posted by John Goetz

CNN had the following AP article on their website today. NOAA says that shorter-term pollutants from Asia may raise U.S. heartland temperatures by three degrees in about 50 years.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.

These overlooked, shorter-term pollutants — mostly from burning wood and kerosene and from driving trucks and cars — cause more localized warming than once thought, the authors of the report say.

They contend there should be a greater effort to attack this type of pollution for faster results.

For decades, scientists have concentrated on carbon dioxide, the most damaging greenhouse gas because it lingers in the atmosphere for decades. Past studies have barely paid attention to global warming pollution that stays in the air merely for days.

The new report, written by scientists with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, makes a case for tackling the short-term pollutants, while acknowledging that carbon dioxide is still the chief cause of warming.
Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : climate_change, politics

Public Invited to Submit Essays, Photos for Online Global Warming Book

5 09 2008

Posted by John Goetz

I ran across the following announcement this morning:

September 4, 2008
at The Union of Concerned Scientists website:

Penguin Classics Joins the Union of Concerned Scientists in Call for a New Generation of Environmental Writers

Penguin Classics has partnered with the Union of Concerned Scientists to carry the legacy of classic environmental writers Emerson and Thoreau into the 21st century. The literary publisher and science group are inviting aspiring writers and photographers to submit their personal stories and images about global warming for a new online book, Thoreau’s Legacy: American Stories about Global Warming, to be published by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2009.

“From Henry David Thoreau to Rachel Carson, writers have played a profound role in drawing attention to our natural environment and inspiring people to protect it,” said Elda Rotor, executive editor of Penguin Classics, publisher of some of the greatest environmental works ever written. “We believe the readers of our classic literature are concerned about global warming and will be interested in sharing their voices, photos and inspiration for this project.”

A light bulb (CFL, of course) went off in my head, and I could not resist spreading the message.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Announcements, climate_change, fun_stuff