mike Meehan

It stands to reason that crap emitted from the motor vehicles is going to have an effect - my house is on a fairly busy main road and being built in the 30's it did not have roof felt until we replaced the roof last year - the amount of crap that had collected in the attic over the years was astounding - there was a fairly thick layer of black dust, yet the holier than thou health barons sought to ban tobacco smoking in an almost hysterical manner when, in my view, these kind of particulates are just as bad. I would not have thought that it would have taken so much to develop a filter system for motor vehicle exhausts without it affecting their economy, though it would be more difficult for jet engines but there are not so many of these around in comparison.

I can't see how that can be an indicator of global warming, more an indicator of local conditions - it is quite conceivable, as in this case that the eastern coast of the USA has an early and mild spring whilst in Western Europe we have a cold spring, such as we had this year, where the flowering of the cherry trees will be delayed. So much can depend on where the jet streams get stuck.

They have a good side though - the boffins tell us that they were responsible for a good part of the water on our planet, so without them we probably would not be here.

I think there is a difference between importing flora/fauna which is not altogether indigenous, though in the case of flora this is being done by a multitude of gardening centres, but in the case of the wolf, this was originally a indigenous species to our islands - the rabbits were not, they were imported by the Normans and they became so widespread that in the 50's the dreadful disease myxomatosis was introduced causing the foxes to concentrate more on our poultry. By the very nature of our world today different species do get transported around the world - a typical examples are your Spanish slugs, no doubt brought in through imported flora, foreign crayfish decimating our local varieties, the upsurge of the grey squirrel against the red squirrel. Yes it all does need very careful management to try and keep a balance in nature, which left to its own after countless ages manages to find a niche for most species but modern transport methods can upset the balance - nasty mosquitos can hitch a ride on an airliner and if arriving at Heathrow for example in the summer they could no doubt survive for long enough to develop a reproduction cycle and where you get species without natural predators their populations run riot - fortunately in the case of insects, especially the tropical varieties, our climate will kill them off after a time but it is certainly food for thought and does show the need for research with joined up thinking.

I recall seeing a program on the Yellowstone Park in the USA - the wolves there were hunted to extinction but this resulted in the natural prey of the wolf building up its numbers so much so that an imbalance in the local eco system developed leading to unforeseen results - if my memory serves me correctly, it was the beavers who expanded leading to increased damage to the forests. In more recent years the wolves were re-introduced - they appear happy and this has led to a better balanced eco system for both the flora and fauna. Wolves are not the fearsome creatures related to in fairy tales and apart from taking occasional livestock they do little harm to man and in the Scottish Highlands there should be plenty of their natural prey - deer, which I understand has to be culled from time to time to prevent over grazing and plenty of rabbits and hare and suchlike - I do not see the co-habitation of these areas with man a problem. Very often we interfere at our peril.

It's strange in a way because quite often I travel via the A75 in France across the Massif Central where a good part of the road is 800 to 1000 metre, rising to 1125 metres at its highest point.When travelling over there in the summer it is often quite warm and even hot at times - I wonder if the effect of travelling over a plateau makes any difference to the local lapse rates.On the the hand travelling over in the winter when the sun has less of a warming effect the differences in temperature with altitude are much more pronounced.

Knocker I would have expected better than that from you.

From my personal viewpoint I believe that there is such a thing as a supreme intelligence controlling our universe and the contents therein, though I would suggest that the various religions know very little more than the rest of us which is virtually 'zilch' - for them, especially in former times and even today in the less enlightened areas of the world these religions were a very good tool in controlling the masses and through the ages 'the message' was distorted to for political reasons - however, I believe that contained within them is a kernel of truth, so in my view we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The same also goes for many of these so called psychics, who for a fee will get in touch with a bereaved's departed relations or and - or with their help and magic rituals people will be able to win countless millions on games of chance and live happily ever after - there appears to be no limit to the depths of cynicism some people will go - but just as there are a lot of bad uns about, it is my belief that there are some genuine 'seers' about - although there is no proof per se, there are anecdotal stories around which tend to lend some credence to their activities. We speak of afterlife and thought immediately to heaven and hell but my own thoughts are that there is no such thing as described in the religious texts - our heaven's and hell's are what we make personally through our conduct and behaviour in this world. As I explained in an earlier post, I believe that our earthly lives are to enable us to learn and by degrees, sometimes 3 steps forwards and 2 steps backwards and sometimes the reverse, we gradually evolve into more rounded and better beings. In this context I will mention the eastern belief of 'Karma' - this is a sort of balancing act where good activities make for advancement and bad activities the opposite - being human it is impossible for us to remain good all the time, so many lives will contain good and bad karma and we will also learn be being put into 'deprived' situations, perhaps with disabilities to learn how to experience and handle them. This is where the cycle of re-birth comes in because it will enable people who have suffered in a former life to have more empathy with those less fortunate and thereby progress, whilst those who have led lives of selfishness, cruelty and greed etc will end up in a future life of being on the other side in their former victims shoes so to speak, so that in the end this would turn out to be a universal justice where in the long term nobody would be able to get away with anything and it also gives an explanation for the suffering we see in the world today. Maybe I think this way because my initial experiences of this life were as a Catholic, then when my parents divorced I was sent to live with my grand parents, who were Methodist and on Sundays was required to attend that church and Sunday school, whilst during the week I attended a C of E junior school, where we had lessons according to that discipline, therefore my thinking overall was not restricted to one creed or discipline. Strangely enough I do see atheists welded to their thoughts to such an extent that this could be a religion in its own right. For myself I will freely admit that I am agnostic - I do not know but just formulate ideas from reading and my experiences of life. I do see 'thought' as a form of energy which cannot be destroyed and it certainly affects us in my experience and may well be the reason why, say some buildings have a more soothing and happy atmosphere than others and why the old pubs appear to have a pleasant congenial atmosphere, whilst more recently built pubs appear to have no atmosphere at all. Let's face it, everybody has a dream and who's to say which dreams are right and which are wrong, so long as they do not infringe on other peoples' wellbeing? I along with, most probably everyone else on the planet, have very little knowledge, which to date is virtually unknowable but I am an optimist and believe that by degrees with our increasing research into hitherto unknown fields mankind will slowly start to uncover answers to the questions we have been asking since the dawn of time.

As one of the old uns on this forum I am probably nearer finding the answer than most - now if the E-Mail were to work on the same system in the afterlife I would post the result on this here but somehow I suspect the systems may be incompatible.

As for me it's Jameson's

If it were the case of there being an infinite number of multiverse a surely the moving from one to another as we progress would have the same effect of an eternal life.

Sorry ABNS, But as I mentioned in a previous post there are so many things we do not know about such as dark matter and dark energy - apart from the indications given through the effects of gravity we haven't really got the foggiest what they are or what they consist of. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that two items - I will say 'matter' for want of a better description - operating of different wave lengths to occupy the same space at the same time - after all there are some very strange happenings in quantum physics. The days have moved on since we looked at everything in the strict physical sense and quite literally we are finding out that the more we know the more there is to know, so in my view subjects such as these are best approached with a little humility and an open mind - after all this is the best approach for a scientific investigation and who knows, one day our scientists and brilliant minds may achieve a method of investigating this subject scientifically - I just hope I am able to come back and see it all happen.

Knocker, how can you possibly know that the rest is a load of twoddle? - as a previous poller has said, 'Prove it'.

As far as I aware nobody really knows one way or the other - some will say it is the end and there is nothing afterwards and they will get credit from their fellows for thinking realistically. On the other hand there are some who reportably experience such things as out of body and/or near death experiences but do the rest of us know whether this is some sort of hallucination as many medics would have us believe, or is it a real experience? I take the view that there is so much which is unexplained - mathematical theories postulate dark matter and dark energy and something of that ilk can be shown to exist in equations and observations to the extent that there appears to be more gravity around than what we can account for. Other theories suggest parallel and multi universes, or should I say multiverses. In short there is so much that we do not know, so I will take the view that it could be quite probable. I also believe that there is a point to life and that is to develop and progress as nature is doing all around us and that is man's destiny also. In fact we could look at as our earthly lives being a training school to learn and develop. It may be that the eastern religions are right in their view that we go through several cycles of life through which we develop and learn further lessons. Like most I do not have any experience of things supernatural but I believe it is highly unlikely that a species of being on a fairly insignificant planet in the corner of the universe could term themselves as the most advanced beings in this universe - the likelihood amongst the probable billions of other planets able to support life is that far more advanced beings than us could exist. As it is we are all made from the remnants of past stars anyway, so who knows for sure?

Reckon they should apply the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act to these points then after a period of time they will get wiped off automically but if you misbehave before they get 'spent' you keep 'em all until you reach the next expiry date

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/david-attenborough-dont-large-families-060753792.html#QJmTSU7 Though I can see that advice of not having large families is good for the world in general since these would cause too much strain on available resources, I'm not altogether sure we have stopped evolving - records continue to be broken in sport and we continue to make advances in science and technology, although with a bigger majority of our offspring surviving birth and early childhood it does diminish the theory 'Survival of the Fittest' to an extent. Comments please.

Not half - yesterday I was at Beziers Airport sweltering in a 23c with high humidity and thunderstorms - today it is 15c in Watford and freezing my goolies off. yes I have turned into a southern softie - so what.

Perhaps it is because things, looking back appear to be so much better but the summer/indian summer of 1959 rank as the best ever in my book - no actual record breaking temps as I recall but an endless stream of beautiful clear days which lasted until the middle of October before it finally broke down. In the September I travelled with the Air Cadets from Grimsby to Liverpool and thence to RAF Aldergrove where we spent our annual camp - on the mainland the grass was brown and we passed, I think the 'Lady Bower' reservoir, which had shrunk to a fraction of its normal size to be greeted by the surprisingly green of the Emerald Isle, the other side. The ideal passing of summer through to winter would be with a dry clear autumn with an Indian summer gradually cooling so that eventually we get the night frosts and the hues of the leaves turning are contrasted against a beautiful azure sky.

Certainly an improvement over the past few years, especially July, August rather less so and what part I saw of June, somewhat indifferent, though that was on the back of a cold spring. For May and the first part of June we were in South France and particularly May was unseasonably cool for that part of the world. We are down there again now since 24.08.2013 and the weather started reasonably ok but again slightly cooler than what I expected, though the last two days it has warmed up nicely to the upper 20's. I haven't kept details or made a specific calculation but my impression is that most of Europe has been a little below par for most of the summer, though a hot spot did develop in parts of the Med region during August. It would be interesting to see what the anomalies are, if any for this summer season.

When the weather plays ball and we have a lovely warm settled spell with wall to wall sunshine I love June most of all when we have the long light evenings and there is that dark blue afterglow until well into the night. The best I can recall was in 1976 - unfortunately Junes like that are few and far between. The worst months for me are November and December - normally in this country they are damp and murky, though I agree with others that December 2010 was a welcome exception. By the time January and February come along, usually the air is starting to dry out, even though it can be as cold or even colder but it also leads to lengthening days - we have more chance of an interesting snowfall and spring is not too far away.

Looks like it could be quite pleasant winter weather, cold but with lots of sunshine, then let's hope it develops into a really cracking summer - we all have our dreams

Bit better than the last few years though, but some way to catch up with some of our former years - forget 1976, that ended on 26th of August, though that was excellent while it lasted but I thinking more of 1959 when the fine weather lasted right through until the middle of October.

My not very accurate garden thermometer hit 34.1C today - mostly clear all but looking out to the north now seeing the formation of alto-cumulus castellanus which are generally thought of as a precursor to thunderstorms. My hydrometer isn't working properly but I think we are still in the drier air section, pressure dropping steadily. I'll miss it when it has gone

To add to my post above, on Monday night on Beeb 1 there was a program relating to food and part of it consisted of a system by the Norwegians of line fishing - it consisted of baiting thousands of hooks on a line with herring, then chucking it over the side for a few hours, then dragging it in. This system, though partly mechanised to an extent, was labour intensive to an extent but it is surely an improvement over the trawling method since it is more selective - it was mostly cod which took the bait - and it does not disturb the sea bed.