Seems like there are a lot of people following a lot of other people on Twitter these days.

So a big hello to anyone who gets updates of this blog via Twitter.

And now back to our normal broadcast....

Climate warming is expected to increase the amount of ice melt this northern summer according to scientists.

All the evidence points toward human-made changes at both poles, she said, a conclusion that "further depletes the arsenals of those who insist that human-caused climate change is nothing to worry about."

Climatologist Gareth Marshall of the British Antarctic Survey said that while the term global warming is widely used, things are more complicated at the regional level.

In the Antarctic, he explained, climate change strengthened winds blowing around the continent, helping trap colder air. But that will decrease in the future, allowing warmer conditions to begin, he said.

And, Marshall added, all studies now show that human activities are the drivers of climate change in the Antarctic.

Asked if this summer will match last year's record low sea ice in the North, Overland that is likely.

"The tea leaves point to a minimal amount of sea ice next September, that would be the same as we had last summer, 40 percent loss compared to 20 years ago," he said. Overland added that the winter freeze got a late start last fall.

Looks like the price of putting solar into your home is about to get a whole lot cheaper... The shortage in the kind of silicon used in solar panels is coming to an end.

Now all we need is for the governments - state and federal - to do what should have been done years ago - to put a premium on home generated solar energy that goes into the grid, so that home owners are encouraged to install solar. If this was done instead of a subsidy payment for the installation there would be a lot more investment in solar in this country.

There is apparently growing demand for camels in India according to a report in the Financial Times.

Its all based on the rising price of oil.... Apparently feeding camels is cheaper than paying for petrol!

Well, I moved to Berry in January, and I thought that I was going to be part of a beautiful small community where life just meanders on blissfully...

How was I to know that a proposed by pass to the town would change that...

The problem is that some residents on one side of town don't like the decision that the RTA has made about the building of a by pass road to take the trucking traffic away from the town. It seems like this is being driven by several people who are mainly from Sydney and who have weekend houses and are concerned about the proximity of the new road impacting their real estate values. One of the people is apparently connected to the Labour Party in Sydney and is trying to stir up discontent in the town and then motivate his buddies in Sydney.

Here is a video that was shown on State Line putting forward the views of the people who want the RTA study to stand.

A UK survey has found that people there aren't prepared to pay extra by way of taxes on four wheel drives, plastic bags, etc that are designed to discourage people from those same pursuits....

Nor a surprise really. If you asked smokers whether they would be prepared to pay an extra tax on cigarettes to help fight lung cancer, they would almost certainly argue that it isn't proven that tobacco causes cancer.

It makes sobering reading.... How do you get people on side to support something that is going to cost them more at a time when everything is costing more because of increased oil prices...

Here is some of the article:

The public's climate-change scepticism extends to the recent floods which inundated much of the West Country, and reported signs of changes in the cycle of the seasons. Just over a third of respondents (34 per cent) believe that extreme weather is becoming more common but has nothing to do with global warming. One in 10 said that they believed that climate change is totally natural.

The over-55s are most cynical about the effects of global warming with 43 per cent believing that extreme weather and global warming are unconnected.

Three in 10 (29 per cent) of all respondents would oppose any more legislation in support of green policies, while close to a third of citizens (31 per cent) believe that green taxes will have no discernible effect on the environment since people will still take long-haul flights regularly and drive carbon-heavy vehicles.

I was on the phone this morning with an old friend from the music biz.

I was trying to find out what rumours he had heard about a particular company that I am doing some research on, and also trying to find out whether my friend would be interested in getting involved in the company if the opportunity presented itself...

He told me that he wasn't particularly excited by the music business anymore. He is investigating getting involved in organic farming instead... which is actually pretty reasonable. After all most of the people who were successful entrepreneurs in the music business didn't just have good ears. They were prescient about how culture works.

And my friend is no exception. He signed some pretty big acts over the years - both in the UK and in Australia. His real talent was understanding what the public was going to do next, but about 18 - 24 months before they decided to do it.

And when you think about it, in a $200 a barrel-of-oil-world there are going to have to be some big changes to the way we live.

It may be imperceptible to many, but the signal are all there for us to read: This morning in the Sydney Morning Herald hidden in plane view in the story about "rail cheats" was the following quote: "However, with soaring patronage on the rail and bus networks, the Government is under pressure to solve the ticketing problems that have plagued the network for decades."

Why do you think there is soaring patronage? Easy, because of the increased fuel prices. You don't have to be Einstein to figure that out. And this is just the beginning. As oil prices continue to rise, people will be moving out of the car and into the train/bus. And when they get there, they are going to find that the systems are broken. And meanwhile the NSW government is still going to be deliberating over how to spend another billion on improving a road system....

But back to organics. The other thing that is going to happen is declining availability of food and increasing price.

The only solution is going to be "to eat local".

That will mean not just eating foods that are grown nearby, but eating produce that is in season. We are going to have to relearn what dishes to eat in the various seasons. Restaurants and grocery stores that get this will be able to clean up. The opportunity is in making a necessity of life into something that is cool, something that is good for the planet, and something that tastes good. And real food that is from the right season really does taste better too!

Some call them muckrakers, others call them investigative reporters....

Nieman Reports have an issue that is devoted to the subject... got some interesting insights there...

Here is some of the essay by Stuart Watson on TV....

My Fuji Xerox printer has been on the fritz over the last couple of weeks. I needed to print a letter so I went to the Office Works in the local town to print it. I saved the letter onto a memory stick to make it easy.

OfficeWorks wanted to charge me $5.50 to download the letter from the memory stick to one of their PC's! And then charge me for the printing on top of that! What a total rip off!

Instead I went to an internet cafe a couple of blocks away and got the two page letter printed for fifty cents...

Back to the printer - this is another rip off. I have had the Xerox laser printer for a couple of years. It cost originally about $600 which was a pretty competitive price at the time. So now it appears that the ink cartridges need to be replaced. And boy are they expensive! About $170 per cartridge. And there are four cartridges...

The moral of the story seems to be that it is substantially cheaper to buy a new printer when the first cartridge gives up the ghost. This is why we have landfill overflowing with e-pollution in this country....

Where is the climate going? Is it getting warmer? Or are we heading for a mini ice age as some people believe?

I wonder whether what we are getting to is neither one or the other, but more a matter of chaotic weather.

I saw a story that in Scotland they are having the best snow season in ten years. But I think what is more disturbing is the news that climate scientists have found that there is a significant change in the salinity in the antarctic region and that this may have "profound effects on the earth's currents".

"So-called Antarctic bottom water helps power the great ocean conveyor belt, a system of currents spanning the Southern, Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans that shifts heat around the globe.

"The main reason we're paying attention to this is because it is one of the switches in the climate system and we need to know if we are about to flip that switch or not," said Rintoul of Australia's government-backed research arm the CSIRO.

"If that freshening trend continues for long enough, eventually the water near Antarctica would be too light, too buoyant to sink and that limb of the global-scale circulation would shut down," he said on Friday.

Cold, salty water also sinks to the depths in the far north Atlantic Ocean near Greenland and, together with the vast amount of water that sinks off Antarctica, this drives the ocean conveyor belt."