Believe It or Not
“Climategate”
December 10, 2009
Summary
In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded:
* The messages, which span 13 years, show a few scientists in a bad light, being rude or dismissive. An investigation is underway, but there’s still plenty of evidence that the earth is getting warmer and that humans are largely responsible.
* Some critics say the e-mails negate the conclusions of a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but the IPCC report relied on data from a large number of sources, of which CRU was only one.
* E-mails being cited as “smoking guns” have been misrepresented. For instance, one e-mail that refers to “hiding the decline” isn’t talking about a decline in actual temperatures as measured at weather stations. These have continued to rise, and 2009 may turn out to be the fifth warmest year ever recorded. The “decline” actually refers to a problem with recent data from tree rings.
Note: This is a summary only. The full article with analysis, images and citations may be viewed on our Web site:
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This aerial photograph of the ‘Paradise City’ area of San Paulo, Brazil, illustrates the division between rich and poor in the world in a way rarely seen so starkly in photographs – compare the sizes, shades and textures of what you see – could anything be more different? Click here for even more incredible rich/poor divides.
This aerial photograph of the ‘Paradise City’ area of San Paulo, Brazil, illustrates the division between rich and poor in the world in a way rarely seen so starkly in photographs – compare the sizes, shades and textures of what you see – could anything be more different? Click here for even more incredible rich/poor divides.
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Cactus Courageous
Claim: A damaged saguaro cactus fell onto the man who had harmed it and killed him. Snopes Says : TRUE
The Story:
In southern Arizona they have the sorts of cacti that have great arms like you see on old westerns, called saguaros. They’re quite protected by various laws and live to be hundreds of years old.
The story goes that some guy was out with his shotgun shooting signs and such. Well, he decided to blast some cacti too. As he stood within a few feet, perhaps 10, of a giant old cactus, he blasted a few holes in its giant trunk. It gave way and fell right on top of him, crushing and impaling him with nail-like spikes. He died, being alone and unable to crawl away.
Origins: People sometimes do foolish, unthinking things. Most of the time, they get away with them, but not always.
In 1982, roommates David Grundman and James Joseph Suchochi decided pack up their guns and go wandering in the desert two miles north of Arizona 74, just west of Lake Pleasant. One or both of them was struck with the brilliant notion of taking pot shots at saguaro they found growing there. Maybe it was the devil in them. Maybe it had to do with the eerily manlike shapes these monstrous plants can grow into.
Grundman shot a small saguaro in the trunk so many times that it thudded to the ground. “The first one was easy!” he cried, according to Suchochi. He next chose a specimen which stood 26 feet high and was estimated to be a hundred years old. Before the ringing in his ears had stopped, a four-foot spiny arm, severed by the blast, fell on Grundman and crushed him.
Saguaros are tall cactuses that can reach heights of 60 feet and grow only in the Sonoran Desert, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border in the southwestern United States. For the first 75 years of their lives, they have only huge central trunks; their distinctive outstretched and upwards-bent arms develop later, if at all. Their usual lifespan is 150 to 200 years, though some have lived to be 300.
Oh, one other fact about saguaros; they can weigh up to eight tons. As Grundman found out.
