it's hard to believe.....

yep, hard to believe that some people still don't believe in climate change.... here's just a quick overview from the Australian Conservation Foundation...

"What’s causing the problem?

Humans are causing climate change by adding huge amounts of carbon dioxide (C02) and other greenhouse polluting gases to our atmosphere. The biggest source of greenhouse pollution is burning fossil fuels (like coal and oil) for energy.

Why is the planet warming?

Earth is wrapped in a delicately balanced ‘blanket’ of gases. Like a greenhouse in a garden, this insulating layer traps heat from the sun, and sustains life.

Human activities (like burning coal and oil) are adding huge amounts of greenhouse pollution to the atmosphere. The pollution stays in the atmosphere for many decades. Greenhouse pollution is making Earth’s ‘blanket’ unnaturally thick, and this is heating up the planet. This is commonly called global warming. The heat trap is also causing many unusual and dangerous changes to our climate and weather systems, best described as climate change.

• Temperatures have already risen 0.76°C over the past century and there is more than 90% probability that most of this global warming was caused by humans.

• Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years on record.

• Melting of glaciers and ice caps is already contributing to sea level rise.

• Many long-term changes in climate have already been observed. These include differences in Arctic temperatures and ice and changes in extreme weather events like droughts, heat waves and tropical cyclones."

we've had the worst heat wave and bushfires in recorded her/his-story this year...

we've got drought and heat-stressed animals... some country towns would actually ask "what's rain???"...

flooding and tropical storms aplenty...

glaciers melting at a fast rate... such beautiful creatures as the polar bear will no longer exist...

humans need to stop adapting the environment to themselves, fix what they've damaged, and start learning to adapt themselves to the environment before it's too late... 'we' are the most destructive species... when will 'we' learn to live in harmony with the world and all the creatures that inhabit it??? 'we' aren't superior in the least... inferior maybe!!!!

I'm going to spend some time with my old girl Allie now... she's 17 (and that's 119 if you take the literal 7 canine years to every 1 human year!!!)... she's been slowly losing her sight over the last few years, but has rapidly lost the tiny bit of vision she had left over the last week and gets disoriented really easily... no doubt old age is catching up with her... but I'm not enamoured of the vet we went to (worse than useless - I won't go into the incompetence, the inability to listen, the lack of empathy, the lack of any physical check - heart, eyes(!), ears, kidneys, etc. etc. - all things affected by, guess what, age!!! - even had to hassle for eye drops and an anti-inflammatory injection - and her eyes were really red - an indication something was going on!!!!)... she seems comfortable enough, but gets a bit distressed when she can't work out where she is - and she walks into things - and she fell off my bed a couple of nights in a row so I dismantled it and we're sleeping on the mattress on the floor at the moment - and she's sleeping a lot more... who knows how much her poor wee old body is deteriorating - heart, brain, everything) - watching her deterioration over the last week I doubt my babe will be with me for much longer... and there's her quality of life to think about - got some sedatives if she gets really distressed (haven't used them yet though)... i can only hope she'll drift off peacefully in her sleep when her time has come - she deserves that... and just thinking about that makes me weep....

Melting moments...

Did your world feel like this the last few days???

I know I felt like this after 3 days of 42+ degrees!!!!

far out, let's hope no more melting temperatures... I don't cope very well... neither does me old girl Allie!!!! and that sort of heat can wreak havoc on a person's thermoregulation...

on the relaxing, leisure side of life....

I've been reading a few biographies lately...


Cups with no handles : memoirs of a grassroots activist by Carolyn Landon

The true story of Bette Boyanton, born in St. Kilda in 1921, feminist and activist -she tried to organise the Commonwealth Match Factory women (girls would probably be more apt for that era) into the union in the late 30s - a fighter against social injustice all her life - in her later life, having, for health and family reasons, moved to the country and, having been inspired by the women's liberation movement’s campaign for women’s learning houses where "under-educated women organised their own classes in craft, drama, creative writing, first aid, nutrition, cooking, history, art, politics, health and other issues" - she was instrumental in setting up the first rural neighbourhood house - the Warragul Neighbourhood House, now called Warragul Community House.

I loved reading about her life and nominated this as my favourite summer read on the SLV voting site!!!

Connie's secret : the true story of a shocking murder and a family mystery at a time when appearances were everything by Anne Lovell

It was February 1939 when Connie Sommerlad was butchered and her brother left for dead in their family farmhouse in rural Tenterfield. The murder was brutal... Jack Kelly, a worker on the Sommerlad property, found guilty of the murder, was to become the last person to be hanged in New South Wales... but there's more to Connie's life than her death!!!!

There's a secret involved - but I'm not going to tell it here!!!! This is a real family-saga-mystery-thriller... let's not forget - it's 1939 Australia - women's place in society was that of 'damned whore or god's police' - so it's a really big secret - so read the book and find out about Connie's life - it's interesting, and very, very sad!!!!

The Lucy Family Alphabet by Judith Lucy

What more can I say??? It's Judith Lucy...

I love her dry (and dark) sense of humour. She says in her postscript that someone said to her after seeing her perform and telling jokes about her parents that she "must hate her family"... she was horrified - she loves them but has no problems seeing them as a bit weird - don't we all feel that way about our families - at least some of the time????

I think my family's weird - but it's weird in a good way - I'm sure there's a lot of comedy that could be found in most family situations... anyway, I got quite a few laughs and some nostalgic flashbacks from her memories...

if only I could stay at home all summer and read... oooh, and maybe watch dvds tooooo....

I watched a documentary - Taxi to the dark side - about the inhumanity and brutality of the torture and interrogation policies and practices of the american "intelligence" agencies (a misnomer if ever I've heard one!!!) and the military (heavily 'encouraged' by a conservative Bush administration!!!) perpetrated against those considered 'terrorist threats' by christian zealots - from Bagram to Abu Ghraib, to Guantanamo Bay detention camp... it's disgusting... it's powerful - I highly recommend it...

I was reminded of a book I read some time ago... "The men who stare at goats" by Ron Jonson - it's along the same theme... and I just discovered while googling that it's being made into a movie, 'in production now', with George Clooney, Ewen McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and a cast of 1000s apparently (not really - but there's a helluva lot of names in the credits on imdb... now that will be interesting - due out in December 2009!!!

all I need to do now is decide what to read...

just finished The keepsake by Tess Gerritsen for a quick, edge of seat mystery...

Sailor 'Lil has recommended Poppy Z. Brite... her writing is described as 'dark fantasy' and 'vampiric erotica'... one of my favourite books has been "The witching hour" from the Mayfair Witches series by Anne Rice... I'd call that dark fantasy - it was definitely erotic... so if she writes in a similar vein (huh!!!) to that, I think I might like her... anyway I've decided to read "Love in vein" - edited by Poppy with a few fantasy writer's I like (but never saw as writers of erotica) in the mix... so I'll let you know what I think...