Newsflash: Belief in AGW helps you score with naked chicks!

Climate alarmism suddenly makes sense.



I really have no adequate comeback for this. Lets face it, a naked Ian Plimer isn't really going to float anybody's boat in a hurry. (So many unintentional puns in that last sentence. Don't blame me, its not my fault your minds are clearly in the gutter.)

Something must be done about this immediately. Young, hot female skeptics of the world unite! The world needs you to get your kit off in the name of science, the fate of the globe may depend on it.

As the utilitarians (Or was it Spock?) would say: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

PS: I am actually going to post something health science related, but I couldn't let this one go by uncommented. I'm sure you understand.

Me: An endangered species

The other day I took part in the examiner.com first annual survey of global warming, and the results are in.

Of the many skeptics who took part in the survey (who mostly came from Wattsupwiththat readers):

92% of skeptics in the survey were male.
50% are aged 55 or older

Oh, dear. Looks like hot, young (ish) female skeptics who like a bit o' science are few and far between. (Since I can't post a photo due to enforced anonymity, you will just have to take my word for it that I'm hot (ish). At least, if you like girls with glasses, and seriously, who doesn't secretly dig the whole "naughty librarian" look.)

So I'm not sure if I'm going to alienate or titilate (har har) my potential readership with what I'm going to say next.

I've been thinking about bras lately. Mostly because I'm on the small side up top these days and can't find anything that fits. When I found myself in the tween section of a department store looking at day-glo pink Hannah Montana training bras, I thought "Oh, sod it" and decided to go commando, much to the delight of dirty old men everywhere. (And FYI: leering at me and saying "You left your head-lights on, love" as an oh-so-subtle way of telling me you're looking at my nipples is not as droll as you might think.)

Thats when I discovered this fabulous number from the Japanese division of underwear giant Triumph, and started re-thinking my decision. Behold! The solar powered bra:

If peak oil isn't enough of a reason, thats enough to make me hurdle the fence into the alarmist camp! I particuarly like the fact that the photovoltaic cells are embedded in what appears to be fake-lawn, because I don't know about you, but I regularly aspire to making my scantily clad body look like a golf course.

If you look closely (and if you aren't I'd like to know whats wrong with you), you may notice the gel cups hanging from the, er, lady bits. Apparently they're for storing water and have a drinking straw attachment, although I hope I'm not the only one who wonders about the practicality of keeping liquids suspended above a photovoltaic cell.

If all this doesn't float your boat, then rest assurred that you can get your nerd on by using this to charge your ipod or mobile 'phone.

The only thing that concerns me here (apart from, well...EVERYTHING) is that you can't wear anything over the top of it. I'm not much of a fashionista, but I thought the whole "underwear as outerwear" thing was so, like 1995.

A tangent of epic proportions...

Since I've managed to get through another day without putting my children up for sale on e-bay and / or convincing one of my large, Polynesian relatives to dropkick their father across the patio a few times, I think a glass of wine and a celebratory blog-post are in order. (If you think I'm possibly setting the bar of fun pretty low with a blog-post, just remember that while some of you have lives, I have basic misanthropy. Whatever gets you through the day.) Anyway, I may have to recant everything I've said re: anthropogenic global warming, because I have just been emailed definitive proof of it's existence:

You may laugh (I freakin' did), but others have taken this seriously, and had some deep and meaningful thoughts of how climate change may force us all into bamboo knickers. Polyester undies seem to be on the out, with some people suggesting we ban the slippery stuff in all its forms, due to (wait, I bet you can't guess) the percieved carbon footprint.
The AGW crowd aren't the only ones to have privately wondered about the knock-on (no pun intended) fertility effects of your tighty whities. So did my personal research hero, Dr. Ahmed Shafik:

The fearless Egyptian sex researcher, who asked the important and oft-wondered question: Does wearing polyester pants stop you getting laid? He answered this question (it was "Yes", in case you're wondering), by dressing lab rats in pants of various textiles.

Which is possibly the cutest (and yet vaguely disturbing) thing I have seen in a long while. Dr. Shafik, I salute you! (And the rat that took one for the team, too).

Now compare the quality research of Dr. Shafik, who represents one of the last bastions of pure scientific inquiry unsullied by crass politics, with that of these bandwagon jumpers:

The relationship of long term global temperature change and human fertility

Who somehow got research funding to point out that in 19 industrialised nations:

"In general, birth rates declined markedly throughout the century except during the baby boom period of approximately 1940 to 1964."

Well, duh. Naturally, (probably because they missed the lecture in Statistics 101 on confounding factors) they correlate this with increasing surface temperatures and conveniently limit their sample to those years between 1900 and 1994, even though the paper was published in 2003, thus neatly excising those years after 1994 where global surface temperatures actually declined.

Somehow, it never occurred to them that the contraceptive pill was invented and rolled out to the masses in the 1960's in the aforementioned industrialised nations, which may account for some of that decline in fertility. Or that possibly the two World Wars might have been a bit of a procreative downer. Or, and bear with me on this, it wasn't the contraceptive pill at all that decreased fertility rates, but the fact that polyester budgy smuggler's became widely available at around the same time.

A note on layout: Sorry about the dodgy formatting, everyone. I tend to hasty postings, dodgy (and yet very fast) typing and am generally a bit of a neo-luddite when it comes to all things digital. My toddler had to show me what that little scrolling wheel thingy on the mouse does. One day I dream of a nice guy telling me I give good html, but until then it's lines through the middle of text and links to nowhere, I'm afraid.