African drought not tied to climate change - UPI.com

NAIROBI, Kenya, July 13 (UPI) -- The worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in more than 60 years is likely the result of strong seasonal weather phenomenon in the region, scientists say.
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The United Nations' humanitarian news agency IRIN notes, however, that global climate change isn't the likely culprit.

Philip Thornton, a scientist splitting his duties between Kenya's International Livestock Research Institute and Scotland's Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said the idea that parts of Africa are drying up is wrong.

"Some people think that East Africa is drying and has dried over recent years," he told the news agency. "Currently there is no hard, general evidence of this and it is very difficult as yet to see where the statistical trends of rainfall in the region are heading but these will of course become apparent in time."

Believers spout the most incredible nonsense | JunkScience Sidebar

Will our descendants be grateful if we don’t burn coal? Of course not, they’ll be rightly pissed we failed to develop and grow the economy sufficiently to fund their required infrastructure. Hopefully they’ll laugh at the climate superstition of the primitives sacrificing the economy to appease capricious weather gods but more likely they’ll be ashamed of and embarrassed by the moronic actions of their immediate forebears.

And CCS? That really is prize-winning nonsense, of no value to planet or people and shockingly wasteful in energy and finance besides. Worse, atmospheric CO2 abundance is an environmental good to be grateful for, not a hazard to be frightened of.

Let’s get something straight. CO2 is not some dreadful unintended byproduct of industry but the deliberate and desired result of combustion. We mine carbon for the express purpose of combining it with oxygen so that we may harness some of the energy bound in those molecules when atmospheric CO2 was ripped asunder by photosynthesizing green plants long ago. And by happy accident we return some of that depleted resource to availability for contemporary green plants, making us the “greenest” humans this planet has ever known.

Argentina: lemon frost damages ’significant’ | Fresh Fruit Portal

The Argentine coldsnap that has affected lemon crops in the province of Tucumán in recent weeks has started to make its mark on blueberries, website Lagaceta.com.ar reported.

Gillard faces angry public | Finance | BigPond News

The prime minister was confronted in Brisbane by a female protester carrying a banner reading 'Most incompetent government since Whitlam', and a woman in a shop who accused her of breaking her word on the carbon tax.

When Ms Gillard tried to explain the package, the woman continued: 'I've listened to you for months, I've watched you in parliament and you're still lying.'