NorthWest Passage Image Courtesy
NASA
Around the planet 2007 has been a year of extremes with records
for wetness, dryness or excessive temperatures being experienced.
The Hadley Cells are expanding affecting adjacent latitudes causing
increasing droughts while the rising ocean temperatures are loading
up the atmosphere in the temperate zones with more moisture. At
the poles further reductions of sea ice are being recorded. In
northern Canada the search through the legendary North West Passage
is about to be achieved. For five hundred years explorers have
sought in vain to find a more direct route to the Pacific. Always
frustrated by the blocking sea ice August 2007 saw the last remnants
in the process of disappearing. Images from Nasa's satellite Aqua
show what little remains in the way of achieving that long held
ambition. Short term the more efficient transportation of goods
from Asia to Europe will benefit us all, but the long term implications
of what we are doing to our vulnerable world must make us change
our ways before it is too late.
Grain
Markets Explode as the Great Dry Extends
23.10.06
Donald Burfitt-Dons, GWA
The
striped shirted traders in the Grain Pits of Chicago are generally
first to get the message on what is likely to move the prices
of soybeans, corn or wheat. But last week the commodity markets
were shocked when Australia announced a massive reduction in the
country’s projected wheat crop. Read
more
