SIG blames cold snap for fall in sales - Building

Specialist construction products firm SIG has blamed extremely cold weather in Europe in the first quarter of 2009 for a fall in demand for its products.

Sales were down by 7.2% for 1 January to 12 May 2009, compared with the same period in 2008.

Trading in mainland Europe, which accounts for 50% of the group's sales, was particularly hard hit by the inhibiting effect of the cold weather on outside building site activity, said SIG in a trading update.

Climate Change Fundamentalist – The West Australian, Page 2, 13 May 2009. - Windows Live

The debate over climate change can get incandescently heated. The recent release of Professor Ian Plimer ’s book, Global Warming: The Missing Debate, questioning the science behind the accepted theology of climate change, has caused a furore amid charges that the eminent professor is full of, well, hot air. For his part, he says most climate change protagonists are religious fundamentalists with little regard for science, particularly if it doesn’t support their faith.

Now a climate change controversy has erupted in Perth over a planned speech next Monday at a Belmont community group which has greenies rallying to have it shut down. In their sights is geologist David Archibald , whose paper The Past And Future Of Climate is a systematic dismantling of the science and beliefs behind the Greenhouse Effect and global warming. But it’s not the veracity of Archibald’s argument that has piqued IC’s interest — it’s the intensity of a letter-writing campaign to the Belmont Business Enterprise Centre, which is hosting the event, seeking to muzzle Archibald which has IC ’s dander up.

It’s enough to make the Taliban blush, such is their dislike for the expression of views counter to their own.

Car-Free in America? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

The goal should not be car-free, but car-appropriate. The car was a wonderful invention: door-to-door travel, in relative comfort, at the time of one’s choice. The costs of using the car for every type of trip, however, are finally apparent, from their contribution to global climate change, the national obesity epidemic from loss of daily physical activity and the 40,000 deaths per year on the roadways, to the social isolation and neighborhood fragmentation that the roadway system creates. The way forward is not to eliminate cars, but to relegate them to the tasks they do well.

New £36million [eco-]hospital stands empty... because the floors are too HOT to walk on | Mail Online

Leighton Andrews, Welsh Assembly member for the Rhondda Valleys, said: 'This was meant to be one of the most environmentally-friendly hospitals because of the nature of the heating system.

'But the underfloor heating has made the floor too hot to walk on - I understand that temperatures have reached 40C.

'It was meant to be state of the art but we are now well behind the scheduled opening date.'

The NHS-funded hospital was described as being one of the first in the UK to use sustainable resources.

The underfloor heating system was championed as being environmentally-friendly because it recycles heat.
...
'It is a bit of a farce all in all. It doesn't do much for patients faith in the NHS when it is like a bakehouse.'