I was looking up the value of debating the other day, apparently debating is good for us because it fosters critical thinking, persuasive communication, and the ability to analyse complex topics from multiple perspectives. It empowers individuals to articulate their thoughts clearly, defend their viewpoints, and challenge opposing ideas respectfully. Most everyone can tell me […]
I am two dives behind, in explaining the collapse of some of the fields of Acropora spp. across the bay, at the Keppel Islands. And I am off again today, diving. There have been phone calls, some about the Underwater Megafauna Competition, and others from those complaining about what I write – though they have […]
I am planning to go scuba diving this weekend across the bay from Yeppoon, to see how the corals are faring at Great Keppel Island – after the very significant coral bleaching this last summer. I shall be wearing a thicker wetsuit than I was in April, because daily mean temperatures have dropped by about […]
There has been a lot in the press about the recent spike in global temperatures, and claims have followed about how this has caused the oceans to warm and the corals to bleach. There has been a spike in global temperatures as measured by the satellites since 1979, and there remains much regional and seasonal […]
I was born in Darwin, and raised in the Tropics, knowing the sound of monsoon rains on a tin roof – so loud, like a heard of buffalo galloping overhead. Always wondering, as I lay in bed when it would end, whether it would flood. Caused by deep convection this is also how the Earth […]
A fellow phoned me yesterday, he had just returned home from a holiday in Greece. He has holidayed there off and on for the last 20 years. It had never been so cold, he told me. There were one or two days when it was hot, he said. But swimming in the Aegean, it was […]
It is all over the news, another climate change report from the IPCC – the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Of course, it tells us that the end is nigh unless we do something to prevent temperatures exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, not one of the contributors has any proven capacity to accurately […]
I’ve been assured over the last few years, including by the director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Andrew Johnson, that the change from mercury thermometer to platinum resistance probe is not the cause of, nor a contribution to, global warming as reported on the nightly television news. If it was, this would be evident […]
On 11th November 2011, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology replaced the probe in the automatic weather station measuring temperatures at the Alice Springs airport and the number of days with temperatures recorded above 40 degrees Celsius increased dramatically. This is likely to have everything to do with the change of equipment and nothing to do […]
