The ABC reports on their local variety: Death threats sent to top climate scientists

Several of Australia’s top climate change scientists at the Australian National University have been subjected to a campaign of death threats, forcing the university to tighten security.

Several of the scientists in Canberra have been moved to a more secure location after receiving the threats over their research.

Vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young says the scientists have received large numbers of emails, including death threats and abusive phone calls, threatening to attack the academics in the street if they continue their research.

He says it has been happening for the past six months and the situation has worsened significantly in recent weeks.

Anything that disturbs the belief system of these lowlifes is met with violence. They don’t have any other response to challenges to their weltanschauung, their reality. Climatologists aren’t really equipped to deal with this crap. Trust me, martial arts is not a core requirement for the degree.

Given what has been happening recently in Australia, how can anyone doubt that things are seriously screwed up, and something needs to be done.

My response to anyone who complains about the cost is simple – how do we afford the disasters if we continue to do nothing? We have had seven weather events so far this year in the US that have each cost more than a billion dollars. Even with inflation, that is some serious money.

Reuters has the outline of the problem: Residents evacuate flood-threatened Missouri River areas.

Same reasons as the other floods: higher than normal snowfall, heavier than normal spring rains, coming together to produce a 100-year flood. The Army Corps of Engineers has been keeping a lid on it because it flows into the Mississippi system, but they have to release water from the flood control dams or risk them.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri will be affected. The effect on the Mississippi system will be to keep the water high throughout the summer. This means that one good tropical storm heading up the Mississippi Valley will raise hell and water levels for the rest of the year.

Now that they have been plowed under, it turns out that they probably weren’t the source of the E. coli in Germany.

The BBC reports that the Outbreak is new form of E. coli

The Health Protection Agency said it was likely to be a new variant of the rare strain O104 – possibly with a newly acquired ability to infect large numbers of people.

In a statement it said: “While there is a lot more that we need to learn about this bacterium, the evidence that is already available tells us that the German authorities have been dealing with something new.”

Professor Gad Frankel, from Imperial College London, the Sanger Institute and the Medical Research Council, said: “This is a new combination and a deadly combination.

“It has a gene which produces a toxin and another which helps the bacterium colonise the gut more efficiently, which effectively means even more toxin is produced.

“Research we published last year showed this same factor mediates attachment to the human gut and the surface of salad leaves.”

[Read more →]

Chillin’

Hot enough for you?

[Editor: CC finds some shade under an ornamental palm during another triple-digit afternoon. {That’s not actually a palm, but a Cycas revoluta.}]

Friday Ark