Obama's Remarks Today to the U.S. Department of Energy: Not a word about global warming/climate/CO2/ saving the planet/stopping the very rising of the seas/etc

Transcript of speech on the role of energy policy in the economic recovery of the United States delivered today at the U.S. Department of Energy by President Barack Obama:

Lots of wild speculation arises from some snake fossil vertebrae

The researchers used a model relating animal body size and ambient temperature to determine how hot the tropics must have been to support the snake. Today's tropics average 26-27 degrees Celsius, and the largest "verifiable" modern anaconda is 7.3 metres long, the study says. Assuming Titanoboa had a similar metabolic rate to today's snakes, the team calculated, the Palaeocene tropics must have been 30-34 degrees Celsius.

"We've taken the snake and turned it into a giant thermometer," says Head.

The finding suggests that as Earth's higher latitudes warmed up during the Palaeocene, the tropics got hotter as well. This goes against the argument that the Earth has a 'thermostat' mechanism that keeps tropical temperatures steady. And while the comparison between the natural global warming of the Palaeocene and modern human-induced global warming is "very tenuous", Head says, it might mean that today's tropics will heat up just as fast as the rest of the world, potentially leading to more extinctions around the equator.

Newswise Science News | At 2,500 Pounds and 43 Feet, Prehistoric Snake Is the Largest on Record

...Polly extrapolated the placement of Titanoboa fossil vertebrae by comparing the fossils' structure to the vertebrae of today's boine snakes. Snake vertebrae get bigger near a snake's midsection, but they are also structured differently than vertebrae closer to a snake's head or tail. Using a computer model he wrote, Polly estimated the fossil vertebrae originate near Titanoboa's middle. That means that if Polly's model is incorrect about the bone's placement, the snake could have been even bigger.