h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to Vancouver in a few weeks. I'll scout out a good location for the Atelier.

I was a Smokey the Bear Forest Ranger when I was a kid. I took it very seriously. I wore my badge and stamped out all my fathers cigarettes, sometimes before he had smoked them.

FG by that view there really would be nowhere to live. Just about everywhere has some form of mother nature's anger directed at it. Earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, draughts, blizzards, ice storms, tornados, floods etc. are a part of nature. Things like oh the 1909 earthquake and hurricane Andrew are much more the exception than the rule. Out of twenty years (off and on) in Florida that was the only cat 5 hurricane to hit. Yes, these things are part of nature and something we should prepare for hence homeowner's insurance and FEMA. Also knowing the possiblity does not make it any less of a disaster when it happens to someone.

Although, I will grant you there should be a limit on what gets to be called a disaster. For instance whilst melting in the perfectly normal afternoon temperature of 66 degrees C last summer I just couldn't findmyself feeling any sympathy for the Londoners who were over the nasty heat have of 30 degrees...

Agreed, the population everywhere is too large. Period.

Amen to that Lil. The problem is getting 3 or 4 billion people to sign up for space colonization....

Or maybe if we could just convince a few people to stop having so many kids....

I could think of a few groups that could do with less kids. Every single one of them won't stop because "God said to be fruitful and multiply".

*snoopy dances around the room then stops at the butler's hatch and grabs a bottle of *

I just sold a watercolor! I just made the rent!

That's great Lil, rent is a good thing... Wanna pay mine too, am a little short this month....

Congrats, Lil!

Congratulations on the sale, Lil! May your talents become even more widely recognized and may you live comfortably hereafter.

B4yourstockshootsthrutheroof

Oh, that's great! It's more about selling the piece than about making the money, I think... Although money is nice too.

Very cool, Lil!

Lentilla made the point about forest fires that I was going to make. The century or so of fire suppression in the West has made things really, really bad. Outside of Flagstaff, AZ, the forest service and the forestry school at NAU have been thinning trees and trying to restore the forest to it's pre-1900 state. A couple of years ago, a forest fire went thru. In the parts of the forest that had been restored, a few trees burnt, and some pines opened their cones, but nothing catastophic happened. In the parts that were still overgrown from suppression, nearly every tree burnt, and there's little "forest" left.

Excellent work there, Lil!

Deary me, though. If the oceans do arise then we in Britain are going to squashed together on the top of Mt Snowdon awating rescue. Never mind moving to Canada, we might have to turn French!!

This odd thing happened to a colleague yesterday. She showed us this bit of apaper which had been put through everyone in her block of flat's doors. It said something like: 'I used to go out with [name] at flat [number]. He split up with me, but I'm still in love. Please could you tell me if he is seeing anyone or any other news and information about him. [email addy] [telephone number]'

Unrequited love does make you do stupid things!

Tamberlaine, what you need to bear in mind about us Ukians is that air conditioning has only been installed routinely in new buildings over the last 10 years, most of the buildings in London are covered by draconian listed building regulations that doesn't allow air con and the humidity is always high when temperatures soar, not to mention air pollution. Most of the pollution isn't even ours, but drifts over from east of us. But there is nothing like a good moan about the weather

I can remember as a child my Mother saying what a marvelously hot summer we were having when the temperature got to 20ºC (71ºF approx)!

H and I were stunned to see air conditioning vents in Paul Revere's house, even though buildings of that age are ten a penny here, there is absolutely no way the fabric of the building could have been altered so much.

I'll have to get an electric fan for our flat, it's very very hot in the summer and it's starting to get that way here.

I'm coming along on some very remote house calls later this morning .

Climate change scares me I have to admit, especially now we can start to see it happening. A conservation group here are oppossing a wind farm on the basis that it would ruin their enviroment as they're only about 10 feet above see level that seems a very shortsighted thing to do!

See=sea

Forest fires are terrible. Living in a small country we don't have such big forests. For us the main problem is burning moors. Some year those burn for months.
Global warming is supposed to give us milder winters and colder summers. In reality it looks quite the opposite. Just the spring doesn't know what to do.

[Amy]

We're in an interglacial period. The climate will fluctuate up and down but because we haven't been around for long enough recording what goes on we don't really know what the trends are. Some are saying that with enough global warming we're in for a lot colder and more extreme weather (the gulf stream switches off is the basis of this hypothesis).

That kind of note is very scary Sol!

Oh and well done Lil. What was the picture of that you sold (if it was 'of' anything, have you gone into abstract expressionism without telling us )

Great news Lil!