Ignoramus is a fun word, use it in a sentence today!

My friend Deirdre sent me this article from the BBC by George Meyer. Loved it!

Too lazy to click on the link? *sigh*DO IT!

Some people see ‘environmentalists’ as looking down their noses at you as you pass with your disposable coffee cup or idling your engine while you wait for someone (please, please, please just turn it off! it’s like nails down a chalkboard). Which some of them are. I’ve done it too. But we need everyone to jump on to the ‘save the planet’ wagon. We need to extend the olive branch to hummer drivers everywhere.

So if you consider yourself an ‘environmentalist’, stop preaching and instead lovingly plant the thought of organic vegetables into the minds of your friends. Hummer drivers, chat to your hippie friends about small changes you can make without having to move to a commune in Vermont. Bridge the gaps!

Basically that’s what this article is about, you have to read it, it’s hilarious. I love the ending:

“If you are not currently choking a panda, welcome aboard!”

If we end up with giant spiders I will never forgive you

And by “you” I mean humans. Me included.

I’m sure many of you saw that amazing movie with the star-studded cast; John Voight, J-Lo, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson. That’s right, I’m talking about Anaconda. Why am I bringing up this mid 90s gem you ask?

Because of this. Or this if you don’t get a Nature subscription.

Eep! The world’s largest snake….13m long. 13! This snake lived when the average temperature of the tropics was around 33C, about 3 or 4 degrees hotter than today. This hot temperature allowed the snake’s body size to reach these giant proportions. In a cooler climate it just doesn’t work as well when you’re a giant ectotherm. Phew.

Phew? Phew nothing! Remember global warming? We’re setting the stage for more giant snakes! And, as the title suggests, giant insects and spiders. Oh humans. What have we done???

Joking aside, this discovery shows that the climate of the tropics was once warmer than previously thought. This means the tropics may survive global warming. However, I’m still skeptical, as these changes in the past are over loooong periods of time. Climate change is happening so fast that snakes may go extinct before they get massive. And all the other animals and plants might go a long with them.

We may not even have to worry about the heat, humans are chopping down the tropics at a rate that is just not sustainable. Boo.

So the message? Nature is awesome because you find things like giant snakes. This is the stuff of sci-fi movies in real life! So make that little extra effort to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions today by carpooling it to the movies tonight. Buy a second hand table or recycled TP to save a few tropical trees. Maybe you can help slow warming a little bit and we can live to see giant snakes again (well, maybe a few generations down the road…by then we’ll have learned to teach them to be vegetarians I’m sure. “Nice snake, no biting”).

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!

Biking on French Island

The hottest week in a hundred years. At least that’s what 7 News said. But they kinda seem like Fox News. Nonetheless, it was freakin’ hot last week. Over 40 for 4 days in a row I think. When you walked outside it felt like you were in a slow cooker.

So here I am in Melbourne. Got a flat off Flatmate Finders. Got a mattress and two desks off Gumtree (like Craigslist or Kijiji) and Ebay. These are good resources if you’re moving here on a budget or temporarily, both of which I am. If you try to get your own apartment you have to go through a real estate agent. Things aren’t done directly through landlords. And you need resumes and references…the market is tough here. So if you don’t have any Australia credit history…well it just seemed a bit much for us. We’re sharing with a lovely roomie (I mean flatmate) and I never had to talk to a real estate agent once. It was the first place we looked at, in an awesome neighbourhood just outside the downtown (or CBD – central business district), and it has a dishwasher. I guess we stuck in our thumb and pulled out a plum (I’m pretty sure that was a really lame thing to say, but I like it so it stays).

An interesting note on Australia…no pennies. Everything is rounded up or down to the nearest 5 cents. It’s lovely. Paper money is actually plastic money with a little see-through window, just like the money in Romania I was so impressed with two years ago. They don’t rip, you can wash them in your jeans pockets til the cows come home (what is with me and lame sayings today!), and you can peek through the see-through window. It’s also lovely.

I know there’s been some discussion in Canada about axing the penny. It’s been said that it costs more than a cent to make one penny. Aren’t we looking for ways to cut corners in this economic downturn? Hmm…it seems so logical. But what about the sentiment…find a penny pick it up and all that jazz. Well I think sentiment needs to take a back seat to practicality. *BTW Happy late birthday penny. It turned 100 last year.*

Have fun in the snow/slush/rain Canada. I’ll make sure to keep updating you on the sun and warm in Melbourne.