All around the mainstream media and the blogosphere there is news about the weird (and scary) things the weather is doing around the world. I was talking to my grandmother in Australia this morning and in the small NSW country town where she lives it was 41C today. (Not that one day of that is remarkable, but there’ve been a lot more of those days than usual.)

But I think this photo definitely wins the prize for the weirdest and wackiest example of the phenomenon. (And it is a flower that can even keep itself warm, it seems, should the weather turn…)

That’s the entertainment, now the bad news:

A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms – like the ones that battered Britain last week – will increase dramatically. Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent….
The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document – that’s what makes it so scary,’ said one senior UK climate expert.

And more bad news from another study:

This evening Sir David Attenborough will explain what that means, showing in detail the alarming consequences for Britain — how climate change will affect us all. Specifically, Attenborough presents three snapshots, from 2020, 2050 and 2080. One key point is the increased likelihood of heatwaves. The murderously hot summer of 2003 is 25 times more likely to recur by 2020.
It will be regarded as a normal summer by 2050 — and might even seem cool by 2080.

Plans for a wind farm to power 25% of the houses in Scotland were announced yesterday.

The project, which is still subject to planning permission from the Scottish Executive, will be run in conjunction with the Shetland Islands’ council, who will own a 50 per cent stake in the site through their subsidiary Viking Energy. The council will plough all profits from the venture back into the local community.
The farm will have approximately 300 wind turbines, covering 90 square kilometres of landand producing around 600 megawatts of power. The plan is to connect the farm to the Scottish mainland using a cable which will run underneath the sea.

No doubt we need this on one level, but it is more “big power” – rather than the small local generation schemes that would attach people to their power and think about its usage…

Yes, I am in favour, but with reservations.

One of the last great rainforests of Southeast Asian, in the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Sumatra, is being felled, to grow coffee. Bad, low-value coffee.

The low-grade robusta beans grown in the area are used to make instant and packet coffee and energy drinks by some of the biggest names in the business, including Kraft Foods, Nestlé and ED&F Man.

So the last refuge for the greatly endangered hairy rhino, and the Sumatra tiger, and the home of wild elephants, goes for a few cans of Red Bull….

Good piece in the Sunday Times today about Britain’s hideous record on waste – particularly silly when you think what a small island we live on.

According to the LGA, the average British household produces half a ton of rubbish a year. In total, we send 7m tons more rubbish to landfill than any other country in Europe. One country in particular puts us to shame: Germany has 25% more people but produces less than half as much trash.
And now we’re running out of space to bury it all. Within nine years there’ll be no landfill sites left.

It is often claimed that environmental measures are “too hard”, “impractical”, “uneconomic”, but on this subject at least it is clear it is simply a matter of political will.

The Mexican President has promised to intervene to cut the price of maize flour after the price of the tortilla, staple food of the Mexican poor, jumped dramatically.

Radio 4 was reporting this morning that this was being attributed to increased direction of maize to the production of ethanol … one more reason why this isn’t really a “green” answer for transport, except perhaps on a local scale with otherwise unused materials.