Environment: Snippets

Map of the world from MIT

Snow fell in Baghdad today, according to residents of that benighted city a thing that has not happened for nearly 80 years. The nyuk-nyuk crowd will, of course, as we previously opined, nyuk most energetically about the ridiculousness of snowfall in a time of supposed global warming.

The rest of us, who have successfully extricated our noggins from our arses (or never had them there in the first place) sigh and look to the signs around us that tell us global warming proceeds apace.

This is how rare snow is in Baghdad: the people do not have the language for snowfall.

An Iraqi who works for The Associated Press said he woke his wife and children shortly after 7 a.m. to "have a look at this strange thing." He then called his brother and sister and found them awake, also watching the "cotton-like snow drops covering the trees."

Meanwhile, in Australia, the long drought has been somewhat relieved by ... flooding.

A study by the University of Adelaide in partnership with Charles Sturt University, published in the Australian Journal of Rural Health., stated, in part:

"Australian society, especially rural regions, is becoming more vulnerable to natural disasters, at least in terms of economic costs, and these disasters are primarily climate-related."

One side-effect of the drought is that deadly snakes are being forced from the desert into the cities, and Australia has some of the deadliest snakes in the world.

Meanwhile, Japan is looking at a possibility of a five-degree rise in average temperatures as well as fluctuations in rainfall ranging from a decline of 2.4 per cent to an increase of 16.4 per cent over recorded levels since 1970. The article states, in part:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that global warming at current rates could cause more powerful storms, droughts and floods and eventually threaten hunger and homelessness for millions.

And for those who took some comfort in a British weather experts' finding that the world will cool slightly this year, hold the champagne. It'll still be one of the ten hottest years on record.

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