The BBC News service is reporting that the Maldives may disappear as a nation due to global warming.

Sea rise there is just under 1cm a year and: "Since 80% of its 1,200 islands are no more than 1m above sea level, within 100 years the Maldives could become uninhabitable".

The Maldives was the first country to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol and has since written to President Bush in an attempt to get the US to sign up (as they’re a major source of greenhouse gases), but the US hasn’t even bothered to reply.

What makes this more disturbing is growing evidence (as reported in New Scientist magazine of 24th July) that the effects of clouds have probably been underestimated in global warming as a feedback mechanism. The latest moves by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to weed out poor models that fail to predict climate change seems to be removing those that predict lower increases in temperature and do not take good account of cloud change.

The remaining models which do take better account of clouds are generally predicting higher temperatures, some predicting up to a 10C rise in global temperature for a doubling in carbon dioxide, rather than the currently accepted 3C rise. Now this can only make the future even more bleak for the Maldives and other low lying countries.

The BBC report doesn’t address the rather obvious question of what happens to the population of a country that disappears under the waves, through no fault of their own. Do the major polluters have a moral responsibility to take them in, and/or to make reparations ?

The Guardian is reporting that the UK will get its own "anti-terror pack" which leads me to wonder will they follow the lead of the Australian government and ship everyone an anti-terrorist fridge magnet ?

The ABC’s 7:30 Report has a regular (and very good) political comedy sketch on Thursdays done by John Clarke and Brian Dawe, sort of "Monty Python meets Yes Minister".

In February 2003 they they took a hilarious look at this pack, including this snip:

INTERVIEWER: Could you tell me what this is?

JOHN HOWARD: This is just a letter, Bryan, to Australians explaining the geopolitical position and counselling them not to worry too much, not to panic.

INTERVIEWER: Not to worry unnecessarily.

JOHN HOWARD: No, don’t be too alarmed.

INTERVIEWER: And what’s it called again?

JOHN HOWARD: You can see what it’s called.

It’s called “Look out! There’s A Terrorist Behind You With An Axe”.

INTERVIEWER: And this is a fridge magnet?

JOHN HOWARD: It’s a fridge magnet, Bryan, yes.

INTERVIEWER: And what’s it for?

JOHN HOWARD: For sticking on the fridge.

INTERVIEWER: But why?

JOHN HOWARD: So you don’t get attacked by terrorists.

Oh, we sent our pack back, return to sender..

Here’s a neat idea, take Tom Lehrer’s classic “The Elements”, and create a cute flash animation to go with it (with his permission by the look of the site).

Donna and I went over to have dinner at some friends on Saturday night, so whilst shopping in our local organic shop that morning I came across a beer called Hightail Ale from a company called Mountain Goat Beer, a small microbrewery in Richmond in Melbourne.

They describe Hightail as "a traditional English style ‘real ale’" and they’re not kidding. It was a lovely taste of home, even if the heathens were keeping it in the fridge! 🙂

A very nice suprise to find, and I think it’s going to be well worth exploring their other brews!