By LISA BELKIN
Published: November 29, 2007
WHEN Sean Aiken was a boy, he thought he might like to be a professional basketball player once he grew up. Now he is 25, and he is decidedly less certain.
In that way he is like so many of his millennial generation — new workers wavering on the threshold of real life, determined to get it right, they say, and fearful that they might get it wrong.
“They’ve grown up in a world where their parents always told them to explore all their options, and they are entering the work force at a time when they can explore and explore and explore,” says Mary Crane, a business consultant whose expertise is bridging the generation gap at Fortune 500 companies. “In addition to that, they see their parents as stuck in thankless jobs, and they don’t want to end up that way.”
Or, as Mr. Aiken puts it: “We have been told our whole life that anything is possible. Well, our parents did a great job, because now we actually believe it.”
In the spirit of his generation — the one that brought us extreme sports, and made a mini celebrity out of a blogger who traded a paper clip for a house, and a mega celebrity out of a socialite who went on reality TV to move from job to job in “The Simple Life” — Mr. Aiken has begun a most unusual search. He will try a different job every week for a year. Depending on your point of view, his extreme job hunt either typifies or parodies his age group.
It all began at the dinner table last year, a few months after Mr. Aiken graduated from Capilano College in North Vancouver, British Columbia, with a degree in business administration. The son was telling the father (who took a job as an accountant 30 years ago in the Aiken family’s hometown of Port Moody, British Columbia) about wanting to find work about which he was passionate. “My father looked at me,” Mr. Aiken recalled, “and said, ‘I’ve been around 60 years and I’ve yet to find something I’m passionate about except your mother.’” Sobered by that thought, Mr. Aiken hatched his plan to work at 52 jobs in a year and to chronicle the search on a Web site, oneweekjob.com. He would take no salary for the work, but would encourage his “employers” to make a donation to charity. He spread the word through a mass e-mail message to friends and family and eventually through word of Web.
When offers came in that were far from home, he found a sponsor(nicejob.ca, a job search Web site) to pay for his travel, and he slept on the couches of “co-workers” and blog readers. As traffic to his Web site increased, he started taking along his best friend, a filmmaker, to create videos for the site.
The 20-somethings who turn to One Week Job find in Mr. Aiken “an ideal of the unstable life,” says Penelope Trunk, the author of “The Brazen Careerist” (Business Plus, 2007), who blogs and lectures on the transformation of the workplace. “He sends the message ‘job-hopping is O.K.,’ ‘moving around is O.K.’”
That is a comforting message, she says, because while Gen Y talks of seeking passion and embracing what is new, that is just brave cover for a less comfortable truth. “The reality is they might prefer one job that would last forever and end with retirement, but that kind of job doesn’t exist anymore,” Ms. Trunk says. “The alternative, the instability, terrifies them. Sean Aiken is an example of how uncertainty and constant change can be O.K.”
Mr. Aiken is on Week 36 of his journey now (he spent it at the studio of a Manhattan filmmaker). Since his first one-week-job, as a bungee-jumping instructor back in March, he has done practically everything, including teaching yoga, exterminating insects, trading stocks and baking apple pies.
He was surprised by how fond he was of some jobs. “The dairy farm was cool,” he says. “It’s all about milking cows, feeding cows, shoveling manure. I really enjoyed it.”
Others were not as fun. “Selling T-shirts at the Toronto film festival, I had three separate bosses,” he says. “I didn’t really know what was expected of me. I was always not doing the right thing for one of them.”
Mr. Aiken’s whirlwind schedule raises the question: can an understanding of real work be had in five-day snapshots? Or is this all just an example of other qualities often attributed to Gen Y — a short attention span and a tendency toward laziness?
Alex Frankel, for one, believes that the essence of a job can be learned in a week. Or three. A freelance business journalist, he is the author of “Punching In: The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee” (Collins, 2007). Published this month, the book tells of Mr. Frankel’s search through the workplace, one employer at a time, at places like Gap, Enterprise-Rent-a-Car and Apple.
His goal was to learn how corporations create “rah rah” employee cultures, but along the way he discovered much about himself.
“I don’t do well when I have to be part of a team all the time,” he says. “I’m better when I can be out on my own, my own boss of my part of the job.”
For that reason, he says, his work at Starbucks felt confining while his work delivering packages for UPS felt liberating. “There were passing thoughts when I was out in the truck, that I could see doing this full time,” he says. “A few weeks is certainly enough time to get a feel for whether or not a work culture is a good fit.”
Mr. Aiken started out hoping he would have a eureka moment, a cinematic swell of music heralding the epiphany that “this was what I was meant to do.”
But now that he has only 17 weeks left, he has toned down his expectations. “I was looking for the one perfect career that would make me happy,” he says. “Now I am using all the jobs together to see what I need to be happy, what works for me and what doesn’t.”
Like Mr. Frankel, he is realizing that he does not like the regimentation of an office. Also, he says, “I like changing tasks. I enjoy continual change. And it should be something interactive. With people.”
If he had to sign on for any of the positions he has held so far this year, he says, it would be the one raising funds for cancer research or the one in an advertising agency. But talking to him, and scrolling through his Web site, one can’t help but conclude that he has in fact already found his job, one not available to his parents’ generation, but which his will refine and perfect.
Mr. Aiken’s life work might well turn out to be the marketing of Sean Aiken.
As a French psychologist wrote on Mr. Aiken’s blog: “He has in effect created a new business, he is a ‘Sean — the-vocation-searcher.’ It is a job that only one applicant can fit and is made up of all the skills and talents of Sean. The best way to involve all your skills in your job is to create a job made of all your skills — instead of trying to fit in an existing and traditional one. Sean is now the hero of a quest turned into an adventure.”
One can already envision the book. And the reality show. And the Sean Aiken line of luggage.
Friday, November 30, 2007
AIDS infection estimate drops 40%Radical revision: U.N. figures indicate number of new cases peaked in 1998, deaths in 2005.
By Jia-Rui Chong, Thomas H. Maugh IiLos Angeles TimesPublished on: 11/21/07
The United Nations on Monday radically lowered years of estimates of the number of people worldwide infected by the AIDS virus, revealing that the AIDS pandemic is waning for the first time since HIV was discovered 26 years ago.
The revised figures, the result of much more sophisticated sampling techniques, indicate the number of new infections peaked in 1998 and the number of deaths peaked in 2005.
The new analysis shows the total number of people living with HIV has been gradually increasing but at a slower rate than in the past.
UNAIDS estimated about 2.5 million people will be infected with the virus this year —- a 40 percent drop from the 2006 estimate, in a report to be issued today.
The report also says about 33 million people worldwide are infected with the virus, compared with last year's almost 40 million estimate.
Reports have portrayed a pandemic spiraling out of control, but improved methods of counting AIDS victims have unveiled a different picture.
The new estimates also reflect improved treatment rates and changes in sexual behavior in some affected regions of the world.
"For the first time, we are seeing a decline in global AIDS deaths," said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the AIDS department at the World Health Organization.
The numbers have been highly politicized because they are used to govern the distribution of the aid being poured into the problem by industrialized countries —- about $10 billion this year.
Dr. James Chin of the University of California at Berkeley, a former WHO AIDS expert who has been tracking the AIDS epidemic since it first emerged in California in the 1980s, has been arguing for years that the UNAIDS figures have been inflated. He estimated the total number of cases worldwide at between 20 million to 30 million.
UNAIDS has "been overemphasizing and exaggerating numbers in an effort to get more and more money," Chin said.
Funding could change, based on the new estimates, said Dr. Roger Detels, a UCLA epidemiologist. "Funding for any public health issue is basically a political issue."
He cautioned the reduced numbers should not be used as an excuse to dismiss concerns about the pandemic.
"Even though the estimates are lower than we had previously thought, they're still pretty significant," he said. "You're still talking about prevalences in sub-Saharan Africa where you've got over 20 percent of adults infected with HIV."
Detels noted that getting accurate numbers is difficult in any epidemic.
"You want to raise public concern enough so they'll do something," he said. "On the other hand, you don't want to overestimate because people get fatalistic about the possibility of doing something."
Health officials say the rate of new infections has declined in several countries in both eastern and western Africa due to widespread changes in sexual behavior.
The bulk of the apparent decrease comes from improved techniques for counting cases.
The new prevalence numbers, in contrast, were based on data obtained in house-to-house surveys in 30 high-prevalence countries. The surveys included both extensive questionnaires and the drawing of blood samples.
Results from one such study in India, released earlier this year, cut the estimated number of cases there from 5.7 million to 2.5 million. Researchers previously said India had the most cases in the world.
The revision affects past prevalence numbers as well. A 2002 UNAIDS report, for example, estimated a worldwide total of 42 million cases. The new report says the actual number that year was only 30 million.
The United Nations on Monday radically lowered years of estimates of the number of people worldwide infected by the AIDS virus, revealing that the AIDS pandemic is waning for the first time since HIV was discovered 26 years ago.
The revised figures, the result of much more sophisticated sampling techniques, indicate the number of new infections peaked in 1998 and the number of deaths peaked in 2005.
The new analysis shows the total number of people living with HIV has been gradually increasing but at a slower rate than in the past.
UNAIDS estimated about 2.5 million people will be infected with the virus this year —- a 40 percent drop from the 2006 estimate, in a report to be issued today.
The report also says about 33 million people worldwide are infected with the virus, compared with last year's almost 40 million estimate.
Reports have portrayed a pandemic spiraling out of control, but improved methods of counting AIDS victims have unveiled a different picture.
The new estimates also reflect improved treatment rates and changes in sexual behavior in some affected regions of the world.
"For the first time, we are seeing a decline in global AIDS deaths," said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of the AIDS department at the World Health Organization.
The numbers have been highly politicized because they are used to govern the distribution of the aid being poured into the problem by industrialized countries —- about $10 billion this year.
Dr. James Chin of the University of California at Berkeley, a former WHO AIDS expert who has been tracking the AIDS epidemic since it first emerged in California in the 1980s, has been arguing for years that the UNAIDS figures have been inflated. He estimated the total number of cases worldwide at between 20 million to 30 million.
UNAIDS has "been overemphasizing and exaggerating numbers in an effort to get more and more money," Chin said.
Funding could change, based on the new estimates, said Dr. Roger Detels, a UCLA epidemiologist. "Funding for any public health issue is basically a political issue."
He cautioned the reduced numbers should not be used as an excuse to dismiss concerns about the pandemic.
"Even though the estimates are lower than we had previously thought, they're still pretty significant," he said. "You're still talking about prevalences in sub-Saharan Africa where you've got over 20 percent of adults infected with HIV."
Detels noted that getting accurate numbers is difficult in any epidemic.
"You want to raise public concern enough so they'll do something," he said. "On the other hand, you don't want to overestimate because people get fatalistic about the possibility of doing something."
Health officials say the rate of new infections has declined in several countries in both eastern and western Africa due to widespread changes in sexual behavior.
The bulk of the apparent decrease comes from improved techniques for counting cases.
The new prevalence numbers, in contrast, were based on data obtained in house-to-house surveys in 30 high-prevalence countries. The surveys included both extensive questionnaires and the drawing of blood samples.
Results from one such study in India, released earlier this year, cut the estimated number of cases there from 5.7 million to 2.5 million. Researchers previously said India had the most cases in the world.
The revision affects past prevalence numbers as well. A 2002 UNAIDS report, for example, estimated a worldwide total of 42 million cases. The new report says the actual number that year was only 30 million.
60th Anniversary of the Partitioning of the Holy Land
It was one of the most dramatic moments in the modern history of the Middle East — the world’s nations voting one by one in the U.N. General Assembly to partition the Holy Land into separate Jewish and Arab states. Exactly 60 years later, the concept remains at the heart of renewed attempts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At this week’s U.S.-sponsored peace conference outside Washington, Israel and the Palestinians again pledged efforts to wrap up a peace treaty that would set up the two states envisioned in 1947. Three full-scale wars and two bloody Palestinian uprisings have failed either to change the two-state formula or bring it much closer to reality.
Violence has marked the process from the outset. When the General Assembly voted to partition the land on Nov. 29, 1947, it was clear it would set off a war between Jews and Arabs.
The day of the vote is legendary in Israel. Its 600,000 Jewish inhabitants huddled around their radios to listen to the live broadcast from the United Nations. Many kept score nervously in “yes” and “no” columns as the representatives called out their votes on the partition resolution.
It was no done deal, participants recalled in an Israel TV documentary that aired Wednesday. Israeli delegates scampered from room to room trying to garner enough support, while avoiding the British, who considered their very presence in the building illegal as long as they ruled Palestine under a U.N. mandate.
Suzy Eban, widow of legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, Israel’s first ambassador to the U.N., described the tension. With a two-thirds vote required, the key, she said, was persuading France to back the partition — swaying the votes of its allies in Africa and elsewhere.
In the end, the partition was approved, 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.
Celebrations ahead of war preparationsThat set off wild Jewish celebrations in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, though their leaders were preparing for the war they knew would follow. With the end of the British mandate on May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence, and Arab armies invaded from three directions.
The two-year war that followed cost Israel 10 percent of its population in war dead, but its ragtag forces beat back the invaders, expanding the territory allotted to it under the U.N. partition plan. The 1949 cease-fire lines held until the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured additional territory — the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Sinai desert, which was returned to Egypt under a 1979 peace treaty.
Local Arabs, charging that the Zionists stole their land, responded to the 1947 vote with violence, launching a series of attacks that left dozens of Jews dead. Nov. 29 is considered a day of sadness by Palestinians, and they mark May 14 as the “day of catastrophe,” because about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the war that followed.
Today, some regret the Arab rejection of the partition. "If they had accepted the partition plan, it seems to me that long ago there would have been two states for two peoples,” an unidentified resident of the Israeli Arab town of Um el-Fahm told Israel Army Radio. “We would have been spared all the wars and the mess since then.” Today about 1 million Arabs are Israeli citizens, another 4 million live under Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza, and hundreds of thousands still languish in refugee camps in neighboring countries.
Political progress over the decades has been painfully slow. Forty years passed before the main Palestinian organization, the PLO, recognized Israel and abandoned its stated goal of destroying the Jewish state. In 1993, Israel and the Palestinians signed their first interim accord, setting out a formula for peace talks to resolve the conflict.
But since then, mediation efforts by the United States, Europe, United Nations and others have failed to nudge the two sides toward a solution of their key disagreements: borders, Jerusalem and refugees.
Even so, Israeli historian Tom Segev said the process is moving glacially in the direction of a settlement. Once Palestinians refused to talk to Israelis, Israel refused to consider a Palestinian state and Palestinians rejected Israel, Segev wrote in the Haaretz daily. “All that is behind us. Most Israelis and most Palestinians agree in principle to dividing the country between them.”
Violence has marked the process from the outset. When the General Assembly voted to partition the land on Nov. 29, 1947, it was clear it would set off a war between Jews and Arabs.
The day of the vote is legendary in Israel. Its 600,000 Jewish inhabitants huddled around their radios to listen to the live broadcast from the United Nations. Many kept score nervously in “yes” and “no” columns as the representatives called out their votes on the partition resolution.
It was no done deal, participants recalled in an Israel TV documentary that aired Wednesday. Israeli delegates scampered from room to room trying to garner enough support, while avoiding the British, who considered their very presence in the building illegal as long as they ruled Palestine under a U.N. mandate.
Suzy Eban, widow of legendary Israeli diplomat Abba Eban, Israel’s first ambassador to the U.N., described the tension. With a two-thirds vote required, the key, she said, was persuading France to back the partition — swaying the votes of its allies in Africa and elsewhere.
In the end, the partition was approved, 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions.
Celebrations ahead of war preparationsThat set off wild Jewish celebrations in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, though their leaders were preparing for the war they knew would follow. With the end of the British mandate on May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence, and Arab armies invaded from three directions.
The two-year war that followed cost Israel 10 percent of its population in war dead, but its ragtag forces beat back the invaders, expanding the territory allotted to it under the U.N. partition plan. The 1949 cease-fire lines held until the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured additional territory — the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and Sinai desert, which was returned to Egypt under a 1979 peace treaty.
Local Arabs, charging that the Zionists stole their land, responded to the 1947 vote with violence, launching a series of attacks that left dozens of Jews dead. Nov. 29 is considered a day of sadness by Palestinians, and they mark May 14 as the “day of catastrophe,” because about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the war that followed.
Today, some regret the Arab rejection of the partition. "If they had accepted the partition plan, it seems to me that long ago there would have been two states for two peoples,” an unidentified resident of the Israeli Arab town of Um el-Fahm told Israel Army Radio. “We would have been spared all the wars and the mess since then.” Today about 1 million Arabs are Israeli citizens, another 4 million live under Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza, and hundreds of thousands still languish in refugee camps in neighboring countries.
Political progress over the decades has been painfully slow. Forty years passed before the main Palestinian organization, the PLO, recognized Israel and abandoned its stated goal of destroying the Jewish state. In 1993, Israel and the Palestinians signed their first interim accord, setting out a formula for peace talks to resolve the conflict.
But since then, mediation efforts by the United States, Europe, United Nations and others have failed to nudge the two sides toward a solution of their key disagreements: borders, Jerusalem and refugees.
Even so, Israeli historian Tom Segev said the process is moving glacially in the direction of a settlement. Once Palestinians refused to talk to Israelis, Israel refused to consider a Palestinian state and Palestinians rejected Israel, Segev wrote in the Haaretz daily. “All that is behind us. Most Israelis and most Palestinians agree in principle to dividing the country between them.”
Everything is Caused by Global Warming
The following describes one of the best websites I've encountered in quite some time. It's funny, true and extremely well researched. Reading any of the 600+ links will highlight (in the words of one global warming evangelist) "the signs of potentially worrisome consequences that scientists can't accurately predict".
Originally posted on "The American Thinker" by Christopher Alleva
Dr. John Brignell, a British engineering professor, runs a website called numberwatch. He has compiled what has to be the most complete collection of links to media stories ascribing the cause of everything under the sun to global warming. He has already posted more than six-hundred links.
The site's stated mission is to expose all the "scares, scams, junk, panics and flummery cooked up by the media, politicians, bureaucrats and so-called scientists and others that try to confuse the public with wrong numbers" Professor Brignell's motto is "Working to Combat Math Hysteria."
This exercise is not merely a lark to show the abject absurdity of this global warming nonsense. Brignell wrote a great book titled Sorry Wrong Number, The Abuse of Measurement on this very subject.
Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, Africa hit hardest, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic lakes disappear, asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, beetle infestation, bet for $10,000, better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, bird visitors drop, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, bluetongue, boredom, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain Siberian, British gardens change, brothels struggle, bubonic plague, budget increases, Buddhist temple threatened, building collapse, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, cancer deaths in England, cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, childhood insomnia, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cockroach migration, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, cougar attacks, cremation to end, crime increase, crocodile sex, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Darfur, Dartford Warbler plague, death rate increase (US), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early marriages, early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El Niño intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, equality threatened, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, not polar bears, barrier reef, leaches), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, fading fall foliage, famine, farmers go under, fashion disaster, fever,figurehead sacked, fir cone bonanza, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks at risk, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, flesh eating disease, flood patterns change, floods, floods of beaches and cities, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frostbite, frosts, fungi fruitful, fungi invasion, games change, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, gingerbread houses collapse, glacial earthquakes, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, god melts, golf Masters wrecked, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Grey whales lose weight, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached, health of children harmed, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, homeless 50 million, hornets, high court debates, human development faces unprecedented reversal, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hurricane reduction, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, illness and death, inclement weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insurance premium rises, invasion of cats, invasion of herons, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, kitten boom, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, lake shrinking and growing, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers' income increased (surprise surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere, lush growth in rain forests, Lyme disease, Malaria, malnutrition, mammoth dung melt, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, monkeys on the move, Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, more bad air days, more research needed, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountains break up, mountains taller, mortality lower, mudslides, National security implications, new islands, next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened, nuclear plants bloom, oaks move north, ocean acidification, ocean waves speed up, opera house to be destroyed, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant viruses, plants march north, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears drowning, polar bears starve, polar tours scrapped, porpoise astray, profits collapse, psychosocial disturbances, puffin decline, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, rape wave, refugees, reindeer larger, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice threatened, rice yields crash, riches, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers dry up, river flow impacted, rivers raised, roads wear out, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, Ross river disease, ruins ruined, salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, salmon stronger, satellites accelerate, school closures, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, seals mating more, sewer bills rise, sex change, sharks booming, sharks moving north, sheep shrink, shop closures, shrinking ponds, shrinking shrine, ski resorts threatened, slow death, smaller brains, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall heavy, snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, space problem, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular orchids, stormwater drains stressed, street crime to increase, suicide, taxes, tectonic plate movement, teenage drinking, terrorism, threat to peace, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tourism increase, trade barriers, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees in trouble, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, trees lush, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles crash, turtles lay earlier, UK Katrina, Vampire moths, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions, walrus displaced, walrus pups orphaned, war, wars over water, wars threaten billions, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine -German boon, wine - no more French , winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, World in flames, Yellow fever
Originally posted on "The American Thinker" by Christopher Alleva
Dr. John Brignell, a British engineering professor, runs a website called numberwatch. He has compiled what has to be the most complete collection of links to media stories ascribing the cause of everything under the sun to global warming. He has already posted more than six-hundred links.
The site's stated mission is to expose all the "scares, scams, junk, panics and flummery cooked up by the media, politicians, bureaucrats and so-called scientists and others that try to confuse the public with wrong numbers" Professor Brignell's motto is "Working to Combat Math Hysteria."
This exercise is not merely a lark to show the abject absurdity of this global warming nonsense. Brignell wrote a great book titled Sorry Wrong Number, The Abuse of Measurement on this very subject.
Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, Africa hit hardest, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic lakes disappear, asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, beetle infestation, bet for $10,000, better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, bird visitors drop, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, bluetongue, boredom, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain Siberian, British gardens change, brothels struggle, bubonic plague, budget increases, Buddhist temple threatened, building collapse, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, cancer deaths in England, cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, childhood insomnia, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cockroach migration, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, cougar attacks, cremation to end, crime increase, crocodile sex, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Darfur, Dartford Warbler plague, death rate increase (US), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early marriages, early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El Niño intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, equality threatened, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, not polar bears, barrier reef, leaches), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, fading fall foliage, famine, farmers go under, fashion disaster, fever,figurehead sacked, fir cone bonanza, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks at risk, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, flesh eating disease, flood patterns change, floods, floods of beaches and cities, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frostbite, frosts, fungi fruitful, fungi invasion, games change, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, gingerbread houses collapse, glacial earthquakes, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, god melts, golf Masters wrecked, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Grey whales lose weight, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached, health of children harmed, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, homeless 50 million, hornets, high court debates, human development faces unprecedented reversal, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hurricane reduction, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, illness and death, inclement weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insurance premium rises, invasion of cats, invasion of herons, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, kitten boom, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, lake shrinking and growing, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers' income increased (surprise surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere, lush growth in rain forests, Lyme disease, Malaria, malnutrition, mammoth dung melt, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, monkeys on the move, Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, more bad air days, more research needed, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountains break up, mountains taller, mortality lower, mudslides, National security implications, new islands, next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened, nuclear plants bloom, oaks move north, ocean acidification, ocean waves speed up, opera house to be destroyed, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant viruses, plants march north, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears drowning, polar bears starve, polar tours scrapped, porpoise astray, profits collapse, psychosocial disturbances, puffin decline, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, rape wave, refugees, reindeer larger, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice threatened, rice yields crash, riches, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers dry up, river flow impacted, rivers raised, roads wear out, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, Ross river disease, ruins ruined, salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, salmon stronger, satellites accelerate, school closures, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, seals mating more, sewer bills rise, sex change, sharks booming, sharks moving north, sheep shrink, shop closures, shrinking ponds, shrinking shrine, ski resorts threatened, slow death, smaller brains, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall heavy, snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, space problem, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular orchids, stormwater drains stressed, street crime to increase, suicide, taxes, tectonic plate movement, teenage drinking, terrorism, threat to peace, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tourism increase, trade barriers, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees in trouble, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, trees lush, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles crash, turtles lay earlier, UK Katrina, Vampire moths, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions, walrus displaced, walrus pups orphaned, war, wars over water, wars threaten billions, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine -German boon, wine - no more French , winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, World in flames, Yellow fever
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