And on the seventh day, He lit a fire

Conditions: Summer-y.

U.S still in denial, without paddle.

In the face of the damning report out recently from the world's top climate scientists, almost begging the world to start doing something, the U.S is quick to point out how it doesn't want to know:

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" - including job losses - that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

Yes, because of course if we don't do anything about carbon emissions, then the world economies will be absolutely fine, the woodland creatures will frolic happily upon the meadows, and our grandchildren will all live healthy, normal lives, free to pursue careers in Art-History.

But surely the U.S would do it's part in any world-wide effort?

"Even if we were successful in accomplishing some kind of debate and discussion about what caps might be here in the United States, we are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world. And so it's really got to be a global solution," Bodman said.

The United States each year contributes about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases

I see, so it's the old 'stick head in sand, hope everything works out' play once again, eh Unca' Sam? Well that's just swell. Wake me when the apocalypse gets here.




Orbital Crisis. (Aka: The Kessler Syndrome)

First of all, The Kessler Syndrome so needs to be a Hollywood blockbuster movie, starring Ben Affleck's chin as the heroic pilot, and Rachael Wiesz as a rocket scientist. Anyway, the crisis of orbit in question concerns the idea, put forward by this dude Kessler, that as more junk orbits the planet, the more collisions between the junk occur. And then at some point (in history...) the amount of junk starts increasing, because of the amount of new bits of junk that is being constantly produced by the collisions between the existing junk. Pretty soon, any ship trying to get out of orbit will either be battered like a coke can at a firing range, or will have to be as armoured as President Bush's kitchen window. Armour costs money, as would the amount of extra fuel need to lift the armour, so pretty soon it becomes uneconomical to go into space anymore, for any reason.

Ordinarily, that wouldn't bother me too much, as space flight is for the rich, or the Americans, and they can have it. But I saw a historical documentary the other day where there was this big rock hurtling towards our planet, and NASA sent up this team of oil drillers in a pair of shuttles who landed on it, and well I don't want to spoil the ending, but it was quite inspiring. So we need to keep the debris out of the orbital zone, not because corporations with sattellite services need it, but because someday we may have to go kick some big rock's ass.

Read more here. About Kessler. Not the Oil Drillers. Sniff.


Car Issues!

Finally. Over the last few months, I've noticed the temperature gauge moving slowly higher during any given trip. Not overheating, per se, but just sitting a bit higher than normal. Like any normal person, I ignored it and hoped it would fix itself, like the gearbox did. But this weekend, it decided that being subtle wasn't getting the job done, and so started overheating - the needle travelling past N (for 'Nothing to see here') and toward the H (for 'Holy shit it's hot up here'). Still oblivious (in that I had other things to worry about) I finally got the message when I exited the car after the trip home only to hear what sounded like a far-distant lawnmower. No, more like a waterfall. Or perhaps, a large tea-kettle? Ruh-roh, it's coming from the front of the car. Sure enough, wisps of steam could be seen emerging from the engine compartment. Blast.

So this morning, after filling the radiator back up with water I carefully drove to work, then consulted the trusty yellow pages in search of a professional within walking distance. Happily, there's about five within a block. Why is it that car repair outfits cluster together, like weeds in a garden? Are they camped out around breakdown hotspots? Is there some kind of Fung Shway thing regarding the location of radiator repairs in a city? Anyway, I drive there, and the manager (complete with a cool beard) comes out to have a look. He hums and hahs, plugs in a pump testing thing, hums some more, and then tells me everything looks ok. Well, that's odd. The car's kinda old, I figured he'd chuckle and start talking about recoring and new pipes, and to pick it up in a week. Instead he says it all looks in pretty good condition. Great, except for all the steam I saw last night. Maybe it was a dream?

So he shrugs apologetically, and bends over to pick up my radiator cap. 'Hmmm', he says, beard twitching concernedly. He squints at the cap a bit more, then mutters something about finding an old one out back, and walks off. Sure enough, he comes back with another one, which he gives me, free of charge. The man is a saint. Five minutes later I'm driving back to work. Hopefully that's all it was, and all that worry was for nothing. These are the adventures of owning an old car.



Update: Car still running hot. And not in the good way. Have decided to take rash action by buying a NEW radiator cap. Gasp.

End transmission.