"The time has come," the walrus said...

..."to speak of many things;
of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings."
And today, that behemoth of controversy, global warming.
Now, you all know that I love this earth and I try to live as lightly upon its beautiful surface as I can. I think it behooves all of us to produce as little waste as we can and to live efficiently. But I have to say, and I hope none of my lovely readers will be offended, that this global warming crap is making me grumpy.
Jeff is a statistician. He has spent many hours poring over his computer, entering climate data into charts. He understands, as does any statistician worth his scatter plot, that numbers can be skewed in infinite ways to "prove" the story you choose to tell. Growing numbers of scientists are speaking out on the subject of climate change, not denying that it exists but showing scientifically that is not new and corresponds more to solar events than to anything man-made. Not that I want to downplay the effects of our behavior on the larger picture.
But....
I have a couple of websites that I want you to look at.
Icecap.us and CO2Science are two very sensible (no hysteria) and informative sites that are chock full of fascinating material.


Icecap has some great satellite photos of the UK, which is currently in the grip of an unprecedented cold snap. The whole country is white. It also has an FAQ and Myths' page which is well worth the read. The videos above are representative of those found on CO2.
I personally will be spending too much time on these websites in the next few days.
Meanwhile, I will still be recycling and conserving as if my life depended on it.
I suggest you do both of the same.