Cow-abunga

In my head, earlier, this was REALLY funny. Oh well.
Farmers successfully lower the methane emissions of cattle by the judicial addition of fibre. It doesn't address the big livestock issues but it's to be welcomed nonetheless.
Elsewhere there is much joy at finding a source of methane to burn - to provide a massive 5% of our energy for one whole year! Perhaps there are some points being missed here in the rush to fill up bank accounts.

Elecro-Smog

I don't know how sound the science is on this, but a German lecturer has gathered evidence to support the oft made case that it is a pollution of electro-smog made up of the various wavelengths of our everyday electronic chatter that is behind colony collapse disorder and the tribulations of migrating birds. Not foxes, you say? Well - Zorro appears in his capacity as convenor of the Revolutionary Wldlife Alliance, and has the full backing of conference (although apparrently the wasps abstained)

Meanwhile the UN finally cuts to the chase and talks about behaviour modification (ie - cut back on the meat) and the Germans begin burying CO2 with the first fully working Carbon Capture and Storage system. Thank God nothing EVER goes wrong with human technology and there are NEVER any unexpected consequences over the long term and Geologists/seismologists are so famously accurate at predicting earthquakes and other tectonic inconveniences. It'll all work out fine.

Here comes the flood

New estimates in the journal Science put climate change induced sea level rise by 2100 at between 80 - 200 cm, and don't rule out the upper limit. The discussions on this at RealClimate fly over my head, but the figures speak for themselves.


And another version for our transatlantic readers, who may not be au fait with parochial English snobberies.



And the warming Carribbean throws up ever worse consequences for those least prepared

The comfort of strangeness

To commit an illegal act in order to prevent a greater harm is legitimate. James Hansen goes to Maidstone

Growing Problems

If you've been reading your New Internationalist (and if you haven't, go out and get one now) you'll now be pretty well primed on the wonderful world of plastic. We at Throbgoblins International were unaware of the scale of Bio -plastic expansion (that's Genetically Modified foodstuffs grown for cellusose and starch to replace oil as a staple of the plastics industry) and are now suitably depressed by the implications of a doubling of capacity during a food shortage. We would cheer ourselves up with a flagon of ginger beer if we didn't now have a working overview of plastic bottle production. It's a pickle.

Throbgoblin's place of residence was long ago overwhelmed by a great, looming Gargantumart, which has finally chased the last living shopkeeper out of town as a proposed rejuvenation plan collapsed when developers pulled out prematurely (leaving the council embarrassed and unsatisfied.) This has been compounded by the collapse of the local (hugely inflated) housing market, which has left many residents reeling at the awful realisation that they may have to stay here. Our neighbours are consoling themselves with strong lager and scuffles, but there's no hiding the hurt.

And, of course, climate change advances apace, with ice shelves collapsing left right and centre and only the US Republican party - and Sarah Palin in particular - left in any doubt.

on The Perfect Customer

This one didn't quite work out, but after tinkering with it for far too long I'm damned if I'm going to bin it now.


It was supposed to be a deep and meaningful riff on the disparity between the perfect customer - narcissistic, impatient and selfish - and the perfect citizen - socially engaged, self disciplined and altruistic. But it turned into a straightforward chunder gag. Needs sound effects.

Bad Science

James Lovelock warns that we may have no option but to let the great cull roll over us, because we're far too stupid and venal to change ..... whilst journalistic opinion is split on the good judgement of letting a bunch of Kwik-Fit cowboys loose on the engine of life.
Fortunately we have an educated, culturally sophisticated and scientifically literate media that is deeply committed to covering every aspect of this great debate down to the most minute detail - so we'll all be kept up to date.

On an entirely irrelevant subject...

Throbgoblins International accidentally channel-hopped into about two of the endless minutes of cruelty and cloning that make up the UK X-factor. Two minutes seemed to cover pretty much everything it has to offer, and it duly nudged us further towards the Lovelockian stance. We may start the cull ourselves.
Maybe we dropped in on a bad two minutes - a peculiar and unrepresentatively horrific parade of hypnotised, clockwork fashion-parrots spewing identi-kit memorexed whines at some souless money-grubbing prick. Maybe the rest of it was brilliant. Maybe if we'd stuck with it we would have become joyously uplifted by the desperate hope of these cut-and-paste wannabes. We might have become deeply involved in their quest to transcend the ghastly ordinariness that we poor fame-starved nobodies must endure. We might have picked and championed one to become a star, a diva, a God, a flashing comet of wonderfulness blinding the long tail of us piddling working mortals in his/her fabulous wake . But a thousand bollocks to that. It's an awful, fuck-witted arse-wipe of a programme, and a perfect example of the brain deadened, idolotrous toddlerism that's fucking everything up.
A pox on it.
Now where's my guitar...
.