Sheaf Saint

According to the weather reports last night, Greenland is currently experiencing record high temperatures for this time of year. This is due to the disruption of the jertstream which is pushing the warmer atlantic air currents north towards Greenland instead of towards the UK as it normally does. This is also why we are now getting the cold weather fronts in from the north east instead of the westerly winds that we normally get.

It wasn't intended to be an uplifting film to be fair.

It's been brewing for two months and I cracked it open today.... Oh My God! This stuff is amaaaaaazing! I'm going to make ten bottles next year and plant a blackthorn tree in my garden :-)

Really looking forward to this release. I'm a massive fan of the Coen Brothers' work - they have never made a bad film IMO - so it will be interesting to see how they handle a re-make of a true classic.

In all likelihood, the more frequent severe weather that is predicted will have an effect on that front. We may see a lot more events such as hurricane Katrina or the floods in the Indus valley in Pakistan - nature's very own version of population control.

For crying out loud dune. Do you ever actually read these threads before posting such drivel? How many times do you need to be told that CLIMATE AND WEATHER ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS! You know what, I bet they're not dune. I bet that the world's leading climatologists, who actually study the data and have a lifetime of experience to draw on, could not give the slightest toss about what some snidey, ignorant cretins like you post on internet messageboards. I think I know who I would rather listen to thanks.

I honestly don't know the answer to that. But if you ask anybody who used to be a miner who they blame for the collapse of the industry then a huge majority would say Thatcher.

Not so much a "speech" that Redbul, but certainly an outstanding scene from an outstanding movie. Paddy Considine was absolutely superb in that. I fear you may have just ruined the surprise ending for anybody who hasn't seen it though.

But we're not overdue an ice age. we're still technically coming out of the last one. What is overdue, however, is an eruption of the super-volcano at Yellowstone in the US, the results of which could be catastrophic for the entire planet... http://www.nasca.org.uk/supervolcano/supervolcano.html

In that case, can you lend me twenty quid?

Dune, you really, really don't get it do you. I must confess that I do not have a degree in climate science, or anything close to that, but the long and short of the whole argument can be summed up with two basic facts.... Fact 1. Air with an increased CO2 content retains more heat. This is scientifically observable and cannot be disproved. Fact 2. Human activity is pumping MILLIONS OF TONNES of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Even someone as narrow-minded as you, who just loves to take every opportunity he can to sidetrack any important issue into a rant about socialism, cannot in all conscience try and claim that carrying on as we are is anything other than a very bad idea. Something tells me that you are going to try though.

There is still a hell of a lot of ill feeling towards her in the former mining villages of South Yorkshire. There will actually be street parties around these parts when she dies, mark my words.

I think that depends by which measure you define her 'success'. Come up to here and ask people from Barnsley and Rotherham if they agree with you and you'll probably end up with a black eye or two.

There are loads that I could suggest, and I'm sure others will, but personally I'm going for this one...

Indeed. It is usually the most vociferous deniers, such as St George, who refuse to answer difficult questions about their position and have extreme difficulty accepting reason and logic. It is a scientifically observable fact that the higher the concentration of CO2 in air, the more heat that air retains, and there can be no doubt that the level of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere has risen sharply since the times of the industrial revolution. The only question appears to be whether or not that has made or is making a contribution to the current changes to the global climate. It is true that the Earth goes through natural changes to the climate and it is also true that we are still, technically, not out of the last ice age yet. However, I firmly believe that been if there is just the slightest chance that human activity is contributing to the environmental changes then we should do everything we can to minimise any effect that might have. The other major aspect of this debate that often gets forgotten, is the fact that there is only a finite amount of fossil fuels available that we can burn, so at some point ion the future we will be forced to switch to other forms of renewable energy anyway. With that being the case, why not invest in it now instead of in the future when the need becomes much more desperate. The benefits of this will be that we can slowly wean ourselves off our need for fossil fuels and we will be much better prepared when the day comes that there is no more oil or coal to burn. I was very pleased to see on the news yesterday that EDF have announced they will be building two new nuclear plants in Somerset and Suffolk. Nuclear power may not be 100% clean, but it is far more efficient and environmentally friendly than coal or oil-fired power and I believe we should be putting more focus into this kind of energy while we develop more renewable sources.

Can you be a bit more specific dune? what has gone big? Is it your icons on your desktop or is it the size of the displayed pages on your browser?

Blimey. It must be the time of goodwill to all men. For once I find myself in (almost) complete agreement with dune!!!

Perhaps he was not part of the riot and was engaged in peaceful protest?

Yes, they showed the clip on the BBC news earlier. A 20-year-old man with cerebral palsy was dragged from his wheelchair and thrown to the ground by a group of 4 or 5 police officers.

It was Badger that you challenged to name some, not me. I was just interested to know how you measure success, that's all.

Again, at the risk of repeating myself, by what measure do you define successful?

By what measure do you define successful?

Somebody who I have discovered only fairly recently is Ludovico Einaudi. A contemporary pianist / composer without compare IMO. Some of his music was used on the soundtrack to This is England 86 to amazing effect as the it captured the emotion of the film perfectly.

It was soooo predictable that you would, at some point, make this connection dune; seeing as you can't resist the opportunity to turn any thread into a personal rant about the far left and your belief in western christian values (I suggest you read about the origins of Christianity to appreciate the contradiction here) but I would be interested to know how you know this. I respectfully request that you present some evidence to back up your claim that the violence we saw on thursday was organised by the UAF.

I agree to an extent, but it's not like the LDs are actually 'in power' as they are effectively just the Tories' lapdogs. The other alternative in this situation is that they could have all voted against the bill. The knock-on effect of that would have been the break-up of the coalition, meaning a new general election would have to be held. If that happened, A lot of people who voted Lib dem would choose not to do so again, and with Labour being lead by Miliband we would surely end up with a tory majority. What the Lib dems have done is go against their principles in order to cling to the little amount of power they have.