mike Meehan

When a were't lad I really did sleep with a chamber pot under't bed and I always had my bedroom window open - house heating then was by means of a fire in the lounge which went out at night, the windows were single glazed and there was a layer of frost on the insides on the colder nights and one morning I got up to find there was a layer of ice in the chamber pot. By - yer tell 'em now 'an they won't believe yer. Sinced then I moved south and during the course of the years have developed into a southern softie with central heating and double glazing to the extent that I find 21C is an ideal slumber temperature.

As far as I am aware most of the public are aware of the potential of global warming but to be fair I do get the impression that some of the information put foward has been tweaked a little and this does tend to discredit the argument which is not helped by goverments charging carbon tax, which many people, including myself view this as unjust, especially when multi nationals appear to be taking the lion's share of any profits in this respect. I believe that the best way to go forward is to give incentives to the ordinary householder to encourage them to fit such things as solar heating and pv panels, heat pumps and other methods of sustainable energy. This could be done by more grants and the costs of such items and fuel bills where these items are fitted could be zero rated. Even at 5%, te VAT costs add up over the course of year. Over the past few years the costs of energy for domestic use have far exceeded the rate of inflation. Also if the demand were to be increased further, economies of scale would reduce the installation costs, so a snowball effect could be generated. With the proper encouragement I would estimate that the domestic use of energy could be reduced by say, 30% which would lead us well on the way towards meeting our targets as a nation. There is also the question that with the right R & D we could develop more systems as a country and who knows, break into the export market and help improve the parlous state of our economy. For myself I am having an air to air heat pump fitted for supplementary heating and cooling and waiting for a 4 kilowatt pv system also to be fitted. Looking into my crystal ball, energy prices are only going to go in one direction and that is up and this could happen to such an extent where ordinary people would find it difficult to make the initial outlay even though over time they would be better off in the long term. As it is, climate change is a low priority to our people at the moment when such things as keeping a roof over their head and ensuring they have food on the table take priority.

It appears, despite what they say there was an inbalance in between the amount of matter and anti matter, or that one was quicker than the other at breaking down - I can't imagine that the the two sides would have been absolutely even, since I had always thought that matter and anti matter would cancel each other out but we are here and this is a testament to some slight imbalance. As to what happened to the rest - could this be the elusive dark matter and dark energy? However it does enable the Starship Enterprise to achieve some amazing warp speeds

I kept getting an empty post on my lap top but I pressed F5 a couple of times and this seems to have cured it

I can't see how a meaningful debate can ensue if we split the climate debate into 'fors', 'againsts' and 'undecided's'. In order to get the best benefit us lower orders need to hear both sides of the argument and by that way learn and possible come to s decision if and when the evidence is there to support it. From my point of view I fall into two camps - the first being that of natural cycles with the second being that the activities of man, especially as far as deforestation, together with some pollution of the atmosphere must have some effect but the evidence is not totally compelling either way otherwise these arguments would not occur as they do at present. What we really need is for people to take the emotion out of this argument and look at it objectively which is the proper way to investigate anything. I believe that there are too many people who decide on which path to follow, then cherry pick evidence to support whichever theory they support - that is not science.

Alto cumulus Lenticularis

An interesting program on the box the other night explored the possibility of insects and suchlike for public consumption - apparently this is quite common in Thailand and neigbouring countries. They contain more protien than normal meats and are more efficient in producing this at much less cost and do not take up anything like the land area needed to produce conventional meat. As such they could be the answer to possible world food shortages. However our western taste is not acclimatised to eating such things as fried grasshoppers so such food would need to be processed to appeal to our delicate sensitivities - on the other hand we think nothing of eating crabs, lobsters, langoustine, prawns and shrimps which are the really marine versions of which we describe as the insect variety of food - in fact they are sought after as quite a delicacy. Grasshopper cocktail anybody?

That's not really very well thought through - yes the world and some of the wild life and crops still survive a cold spring and winter but often at quite some cost to their populations. It also means extra heating costs and eventually extra food costs in the delay to the growing cycle and if by any chance the bees got killed off altogether we would be up Sierra Hotel India Tango creek because a lot of crops would not get pollinated leading to a food shortage. Like a lot of people on this forum, I love cold and snow but at the right time of year just as in the summer I love the warmth and blue skies. I have spent many a time out in the cold and in all weathers working.

If only

Right now I am gagging for a significant rise in temperature and really hoping that this year we can have a decent summer. It hasn't esaped me that this, so far, very cold spring is likely to have a significant impact on agriculture - I wonder whether there will be sufficient bees around for pollination and will late frosts adversely affect the fruit trees, On the other hand with a relatively slow thaw in the worst affected parts will mean that the chances of flooding could be diminished.

Am I right in thinking that this area was originally tropical rain forest which was cleared to create pasture for cattle? - if so it is little wonder that the area has become drier - as far as I am aware forested areas are quite a big player in climate -not only do they take in a lot of CO2 but during respiration the leaves of these forest trees put a good deal of water vapour back into the atmosphere which increases overall rainfall over a wider area. Turn it into pasture and there is nothing like the same feedback and not only that cattle fart putting more greenhouse gas into the atmospere in the form of methane which is more effective at keeping the heat in than the CO2.

Not forgetting that it appears that the Earth along with the other planets of the Solar system were pretty well bombarded during their early life and current theories maintain that a good part of the water on Earth today was delivered by comets with icy cores, though they are finding now that some of the asteroids are of ice rather than rock. Either way, whether it be a collision or a near miss, it should present great opportunities for study.

I suppose the good news is that if the northern block decides to become a lasting feature, eventually as the northern latitudes heat up, as they will with the progression of the seasons, it will eventually bring most of us us into quite a pleasant easterly air stream, except for some parts of the east coast which are likely to experience the North Sea Stratus from time to time. I recall some of this when I was living in Lincolnshire when we had some dull misty cool days in June during 1959, though that summer turned out to be quite exceptional overall.

It does remind me of 04.04.1964, the day I got married, when we had snow showers at Berkhamsted, then we flew to Jersey where we had a marvellous week of blue skies and we able to sit out on the beach. Spring is very often a battle ground with winter still fighting a rear guard action whilst warmer weather tries to encroach - I just hope the warmer weather comes sooner rather than later.

Disappointing - although it snowed on a number of days it was mostly the wet variety at Watford. Roll on spring now with some warm sunny weather - can't wait.

But it's not so pretty

Is that a Thames streamer we are getting or the remnants of that old front?

It's very marginal and height and location are going to make a difference - we left our daughter's place in Bedmond about 1830 hours yesterday and more had settled there than Watford where it was only just beginning to get white - often her place is about 1C cooler than us - it is surprising in some ways because the NW forecast shows a thickness of some 532 dam, an 850 temp of -2c for my address and it is still snowing.

Probably about 2 to 3cms at Watford, slightly above freezing, still snowing but not so heavy as it has been - the problem is that with it being so sticky it has gunged up the tv satellite dish which is facing into wind and can't get any programs on it. A bit more to come according to the satellite.

How about interning him in Lancaster - chuckle chuckle

0 - +0.8 - +2.4

Thanks for you replies - as a basic philosphy, my glass is normally half full, rather than half empty. Thinking about it futther led me to wonder also whether gravity has a speed - I'm not talking of the normal 32 feet per sec per sec which we have here. The best way I can describe imy question is. 'imagine a hypethical case where say a star suddenly materialises at a mid point between our soar system proxima centura. Would the effect of this star's gravity be felt immediately by our solar system, or would it take time for the gravity to travel and if so would the speed depend on this star's mass?' It is obviously impossible for such a star to materialise this way but I am just using this as an example to illustrate my question.

This evening Prof Brian Cox gave a talk on atoms on beeb 2 at 10pm and mainly the electrons within them - not sure if I got it right totally but my understaning of what he said was that all the electrons throughout the universe were interconnected and that no one electron can be exactly the same as another. To demonstrate his point he rubbed a fairly large diamond so that its temperature would rise and in so doing said that there would be some change in the electrons and that this change would echo throughout the universe and would affect other electrons where necessary whereever they are and I had the impression that this was instantaneous to ensure that no two electrons are exactly the same. Now if this were to be the case I find it absolutely staggering since I always thought the the speed of light was the limiting factor on all sorts of communication and travel. However if this were to be the case I am wondering whether it would be possible to modify certain electrons to such an extent that we could use them to carry communication anywhere in the universe in an instant. It is not altogether without precedent because our TV's, computers, radar screens etc work by projecting electrons onto a screen - I don't know too much about it and it all means dealing with the strange world of quantam mechanics but I just wonder whether it may be possible for some future boffin to come up with a way of getting electrons to do our bidding in this manner. Or did I misunderstand the whole concept.

With regards the crop circle enthusiasts, I believe that some research is being made into the way that the wearing of anoraks affects the brain - it is well known that the wearing of these garments has the effect of diminishing one's critical facitities and making one highly credulous. The 'anorak brigade' are the most fervent supporters in believing that the crop circles are formed during the night by little green men from outer space, so scientists are trying to establish exactly how this happens. In fact they are most commonly formed after the local pub has closd in the evening when some of the local lads get together some basic utensils to flatten the corn into wierd and wonderful shapes. Sometimes this is done with the co-operation of the farmer, so that he can charge the credulous £2 a head to come onto his land to take a closer look and some may even hire out anoraks for an extra fee. It is also possible for these to be formed naturally by a wind vortex near the ground in certain weather conditions.

Just imagine that instead of walking on the surface of this place we were deep ocean creatures and our known universe would consist mostly of darkness, cold and the general conditions which prevail at the bottom of the sea with perhaps an odd view of a hyperthermal vent with very hot temperatures, then just every so often a ship sinks to the bottom which is quite unlike anything we have ever seen and every so often you might have a mate who is gathered up in a trawl net but these are no more than hints to say that something other than the deep ocean depths exist. Yet if you were able to come to the surface and even leave it so you could fly around the world you would see a mulitude of different life on this planet and in fact you would enter a different dimension - not only that you would see the multitudes of stars, planets and galaxies etc. So just as the deep sea creature have no knowlege really of things out of its sphere, neither do we of the vastness of space and the universe - as in the sinking ships and the trawl nets we just get hints from time to time of something more out there and from these hints work out out something which may be there but our knowledge is so incomplete that we can only work out the minutest fraction of what there is to know. The different theories relating to other universes, other dimensions, superior beings or a god cannot be proved but neither can they be disproved - I believe we have to keep our minds open to all possibilities in order that we can remain alert enough to investigate them.