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juha riissanen's List: Technology and Environment

  • Lateline - 06/04/2009: Antarctic ice bridge collapses

    • An ice bridge tethering the Wilkins ice shelf to Antarctica has shattered as a
      new report warns up to a third of all Antarctic sea ice is likely to melt by the
      end of this century.

  • The collapse of manufacturing | The Economist

    • sectoral aid does not address the underlying cause of the crisis—a fall in
      demand, not just for manufactured goods, but for everything. Because there is
      too much capacity (far too much in the car industry), some businesses must close
      however much aid the government pumps in
    • As a rule, suppliers with several customers, and customers with several
      suppliers, should be more resilient than if they were a dependent captive of a
      large group. The evidence from China is that today’s lack of demand creates the
      spare capacity that allows customers to find a new supplier quickly if theirs
      goes out of business. When that is hard, because a parts supplier is highly
      specialised, say, good management is likely to be more effective than state aid
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  • 1709: The year that Europe froze - environment - 07 February 2009 - New Scientist

    • People across Europe awoke on 6 January 1709 to find the temperature had
      plummeted. A three-week freeze was followed by a brief thaw - and then the
      mercury plunged again and stayed there. From Scandinavia in the north to Italy
      in the south, and from Czechoslovakia in the east to the west coast of France,
      everything turned to ice. The sea froze. Lakes and rivers froze, and the soil
      froze to a depth of a metre or more. Livestock died from cold in their barns,
      chicken's combs froze and fell off, trees exploded and travellers froze to death
      on the roads. It was the coldest winter in 500 years.
    • Derham was the Rector of Upminster, a short ride north-east of London. He had
      been checking his thermometer and barometer three times a day since 1697.
      Similarly dedicated observers scattered across Europe did much the same and
      their records tally remarkably closely. On the night of 5 January, the
      temperature fell dramatically and kept on falling. On 10 January, Derham logged
      -12 °C, the lowest temperature he had ever measured. In France, the temperature
      dipped lower still. In Paris, it sank to -15 °C on 14 January and stayed there
      for 11 days. After a brief thaw at the end of that month the cold returned with
      a vengeance and stayed until mid-March.
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  • Taiwan, South Korea muzzle pessimistic brokers | Bye bye sell | The Economist

    • Consider it a sign of the times that governments in South Korea and Taiwan
      are now quietly encouraging brokers to accentuate only the positive.


      The methods may differ, but if you have something critical to say and it
      somehow becomes public knowledge, you should brace yourself for unpleasant
      consequences. In December the Taiwan Securities Association, a trade body,
      reminded brokers, on behalf of the government, that the press must receive the
      firm’s approval before quoting research.

    • When critical brokers’ opinions are cited in newspapers, regulators now want
      “explanations”.

  • Toxic Gases Caused World's Worst Extinction: Discovery News

    • Feb. 4, 2009 -- An ancient killer is hiding in the remote
      forests of Siberia. Scientists are starting to uncover the remnants of a supervolcano, that was walled off from western eyes during the
      Soviet era and that rained Hell on Earth 250 million years ago, killing 90
      percent of all life.


      Researchers have known about the volcano -- the Siberian Traps, for years.
      And they've speculated that the volcanic rocks, which cover an area about the
      size of Alaska, played a role in runaway global warming that led to the end --
      Permian mass extinction, the worst dying
      the planet has ever seen.

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