To keep on top of New Zealand news that might affect my Rotary Trip in February 2010, I pay attention to the national newspaper – The New Zealand Herald which is online.

Last week the Herald, quoting the British Meteorological Office, that in 160 years of measurement 2010 is expected to be the warmest on record: article. I don’t need an expert to tell me that 160 years is a short time – I have a degree in Zoology and biosphere changes are slow over millenia.  But several days ago I read the plight of the Polar Bears this year: article. They are cannibalizing each other because there are less ice flows near the North Pole from which  to hunt seals from. The polar bears are starving to death.

As a sailor I also monitor news about the oceans and was please to read that westerly winds were blowing icebergs away from New Zealand where they have not been sighted since 1931: article. These icebergs broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2002, one 650 feet thick and 1250 square miles (about the size of Rhode Island!) and have been breaking up and floating around the Southern Ocean ever since: article. Apparently this kind of event occured in Pliocene Era (5.3 to 1.6 million years ago) when there was a period of 40,000 years of increased temperatures (according to sediment studies by the University of Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand researchers where my son goes to college): article

New Zealand has mixed success with preserving their biology. Inhabited by man for only about 1000 years, they have succeeded in decimating numerous species. But the kiwis (as New Zealanders are called) have jumped into action more recently. 30% of the country is now nature reserves: article

A favored tree species the Kauri, is now protected after forests were decimated for the fine grained timber. However a fungus has become a problem and the oldest (2000 years) has to be treated to be saved: article.I don’t know if the weather has anything to do with it.  They think its more man’s unintentional transport of pathogens.

From my observations, some of them above, I can’t tell if the Global Warming advocates are completely right about the Greenhouse Gas theory as reported by the U.S. Information Administration (article) or if the figures have been manipulated in the recent “Climate Gate” (article)  and there is natural variation going on… or both.

My late Father told me a couple of things. One was “liars can figure and figures can lie” so I suspect the numbers have been played with.   The recent “Climategate” a case in point: article.  My reading about the ice floes and the polar bears relate to another of my Dad’s sayings: “If it quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck, its probably a duck”.  I suspect we need to pay attention to all things that affect the earth’s climate as one of its most damaging citizens. The polar bears can’t speak for themselves.