Thursday 27 September 2007

Sleep - or lack thereof - and climate change

Yikes - I've not done too well on the keeping the momentum-going-on-the-blog-front these days.!
Truth be told this week has been somewhat of a blur :o| I worked pretty intense hours over the weekend trying to get an updated draft of my UNEP report in -- which I did... albeit at 5 am on Monday. 3 hours of sleep later I had to be at school ... the last couple of days have been filled with running all sorts of errands that need to be taken care of and trying to get back up to speed on the PhD front. My second chapter is coming together slowly ... though will still require quite a substantial amount of work before it's ready for publication... which is ok, but on some days the light at the end of the tunnel seems incredibly dim :o| and I just want to hide under the covers and make it all go away.
Give me a few days and extra sleep and the light will come back shining bright and clear I know it ;o)

In the mean time here's an interesting story from this week's nature, written by Lovelock and Rapley, about how our planet could be helped to heal in the face of climate change by setting up a pipe system that would be "say, 100 to 200 metres long, 10 metres in diameter and with a one-way flap valve at the lower end for pumping by wave movement. [This nutrient rich water] would fertilize algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom. This would pump down carbon dioxide and produce dimethyl sulphide, the precursor of nuclei that form sunlight-reflecting clouds."

Let the tongues go wild!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

oh Lovejoy... missing the big issue (on purpose I'm sure)

Reminds me of the Ozone pumps that were proposed two decades ago to help reduce the Ozone layer depletion in the Antarctic circle.

All these solutions are analogous to treating a drug addicted patient with monthly blood changes. Not that it isn't a worthy measure, but on its own the treatment has no value, because the patient will not lessen its addiction on stimulants.
Now, if the illness were to be diagnosed as chronic, than we have little choice but to prolong the patients life and burden but no cure will be in sight.
Are we chronically ill? Have we not found the culprit (the patogen)? What will it take for society to act upon it?