This might sound zany, but I have such a craving for oysters with lemon, tabasco and black pepper. So far I have yet to come across a restaurant that serves them....

So... my question... I have seen them at Tesco, but I have not the faintest idea how to open and clean them or do whatever needs to be done to them.... I know I am showing how little I know, but I'd rather ask now, than panic later when I buy them...

Any suggestions or help???

Looking for accommation in December, my hubby, son and i!

Do you guys know of any hotels or somewhere we can try...
we have tried our timeshare, but they are useless, we tried on the internet last night but either the hotels are full or asking some ridiculous prices - some small places even want up to R1500-00 a day.....we trying to keep costs down, but we need somewhere we can get access with a wheelchair and a pool for our son...

Do u have any links we can try????

Quote:Originally posted by Persephone
I have not seen the movie as it never appealed to me but have just started reading the book...

I dont know if it's just me but I'm finding it really difficult to get into it - mostly because of the writers style of writing. Reading this book - although interesting - really hard work!

Anyone else find this?

My question is, what can we as a virtual community do to become more responsible citizens of this planet?

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=868

New evidence of rapid global warming

Posted: 10 Mar 2001

by Jeremy Hamand

The scientific basis for rapid global warming is clearer than ever before, a comprehensive new United Nations report reveals. The new assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in three parts between January and March, warns of a "potentially devastating" global warming of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius over the coming century. This upper forecast is for higher temperatures than an assessment by the same panel five years ago.

Delegates from 99 governments met in Shanghai in January to consider the new evidence contained in the first part of the latest IPCC Report, "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis." They unanimously accepted it.

New analyses of data from tree rings, corals, ice cores and historical records for the northern hemisphere show that the increase in temperature in the 20th century is the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years. Globally, the 1990s were the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year in the instrumental record since 1861, the scientists found.

Global Atmosphere Watch weather monitoring station at Barrow, Alaska (Credit: World Meteorological Organization)

"The scientific consensus presented in this comprehensive report about human induced climate change should sound alarm bells in every national capital and in every local community, said Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP. "We must move ahead boldly with clean energy technologies, and we should start preparing ourselves now for the rising sea levels, changing rain patterns, and other impacts of global warming," he urged.

Key findings of the report include new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities. Since the IPCCÂ’s 1995 Report, confidence in the ability of models to project future climate has increased. There is now a longer and more closely scrutinized temperature record. Reconstructions of climate data for the past 1,000 years, as well as model estimates of natural climate variations, suggest that the observed warming over the past 100 years was unusual and is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin.

In the mid-latitudes and high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, it is very likely that snow cover has decreased by about 10 per cent since the late 1960s, and the annual duration of lake and river ice cover has shortened by about two weeks over the 20th century, the climate scientists agree. In recent decades, there has been about a 40 per cent decline in Arctic sea ice thickness during late summer to early autumn, the researchers found.

Impacts
In February, the IPCC released a second part of its report analysing how this general warming will affect Africa, Asia, Europe and other regions over the coming decades. While highlighting remaining uncertainties, it details expected changes in weather patterns, water resources, the cycling of the seasons, ecosystems, extreme climate events, and much more. The report suggests that:

Coral reefs in most regions could be wiped out within 30-50 years by warming oceans as temperatures reach levels at which coral bleaching becomes an annual event.

Three-quarters of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, in India and Bangladesh, could be inundated by a sea-level rise of 45 cm, putting the Bengal tiger at risk of extinction.

The Cape Floral Kingdom, in South Africa, which is exceptionally rich in species that occur nowhere else, could be wiped out as a result of temperature changes expected this century.

Also under threat is the polar ice edge ecosystem that provides habitat for polar bears, walrus, seals and penguins.

Other species under threat from climate change are forest birds in Tanzania, the mountain gorilla in Africa, the spectacled bear of the Andes, and the quetzal in Central America.

The report shows that the worst impacts will hit developing countries, which have the least capacity to adapt. Africa is "highly vulnerable" to climate change affecting water resources, food production, the expansion of deserts and causing more frequent outbreaks of diseases of cholera.

The report lists a string of small island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans and the Caribbean, threatened by climate change and where unique cultural and conservation sites have already been destroyed. Glaciers in tropical regions such as the Himalayas are particularly threatened by climate change, according to the IPCC. Himalayan glaciers are the major source of water for the rivers Ganges and Indus on which 500 million people, just under one-tenth of the world's population, depend.

Industrialized nations can also expect significant impacts. The United States, Canada and Australia could well see an expansion in diseases such as malaria, tick-borne Lyme disease, Ross River virus and Murray Valley encephalitis respectively. Many regions of the world will experience heat waves that will compound the effects on health in polluted cities. Much of Europe will have to endure increased hazards of floods.

Burning forests such as this one in Brazil release heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroy the trees\' potential to absorb existing carbon dioxide. (Credit: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR))

"Climate change is a stress that will be superimposed over expected population and other environmental stresses," said Professor G O P Obasi, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which, together with UNEP, launched the IPCC in 1988. "Life as we know it today on the planet will be forced to respond to the shift to a warmer world. We have to use mitigation and adaptation strategies to face the changes while not forgetting to improve our knowledge basis. Every natural and socio-economic system appears to be vulnerable to climate change. However, it is the least developed countries that are the most vulnerable."

Options
The last of three major reports by the IPCC was adopted by climate change experts and officials from some 100 governments meeting in Accra, Ghana from February 28 to March 3. They believe that global warming can be conquered, but development paths leading to low greenhouse gas emissions "depend on a wide range of policy choices and require major policy changes in areas other than climate change."

Technological options for emission reduction include improved efficiency of end use devices and energy conversion technologies, shift to low carbon and renewable biomass fuels, zero emissions technologies, improved energy management, reduction of industrial byproduct and process gas emissions, and carbon removal and storage, the IPCC report says.

In the period 2010 to 2020, the scientists conclude, hundreds of technologies and practices for more efficient energy use in buildings, transportation and manufacturing can deliver over half the total potential emission reductions.

The three IPCC reports set the stage for the next round of international climate negotiations for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol set to start this July in Bonn.

Jeremy Hamand is a freelance journalist and former Associate Editor of People & the Planet.

© People & the Planet 2000 - 2004

For those with a taste for the unusual and with the lust for culinary exploration an delight....try some of the African recipes on this site...they are truly amazing
http://www.congocookbook.com

who watched hells kitchen last night?
i missed the beginning and was trying to work out he point of teh program
didnt enjoy it half as much as kitchen nigthmares

Alternatively this thread could be called the 'lesser of two weevils', or 'it's grown hyacinth yesterday'.

At: http://www.guardian.co.uk/internati...1223065,00.html

It shows what happens went you try to manage one ecological cock-up by eco-friendly means, but only succeed in setting off another mess.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Malawi's beetle 'cure' triggers new weed

Attempts to halt the choking spread of water hyacinth have spawned even more aggressive vegetation

Rory Carroll in Mangochi
Monday May 24, 2004
The Guardian

Malawi was not picturesque enough for the anonymous European settler suspected of importing water hyacinth a century ago. Now the legacy of that decision is all too clear as power cuts ravage the economy.
As mats of weed flow down the Shire River, Malawi's electricity stops, crippling industry and costing the country half a million pounds a day.

Stretched in bunches more than 100 miles upstream from the Nkula hydro-electric station, was one such culprit, floating vegetation never meant for Africa. It is not hyacinth, but a highly invasive plant spawned by the battle against the hyacinth.

"The vegetation is getting worse. It's blocked the whole barrage," said Wales Kalombola, a technician from the Electricity Supply Corporation.

He stood on a dam in Liwonde, known locally as a barrage, which regulates the river for the Nkula plant. But the weeds block the flow.

Every day a crane hauls out tonnes of the gunk, and four trucks shuttle it to a site for burning. A second crane is due this month, said Mr Kalombola, as are a further six trucks.

The authorities are considering buying a floating bulldozer and harvester from Aquarius Systems, a US firm which battles the super weeds.

"They're struggling. It's coming down river faster than they can remove it," said Jane Dauffenbach, the firm's president.

Disruptions of hydro-electric power, which account for most of Malawi's 355MW, cost £188m a year, a third of GDP, says the energy ministry.

Soil erosion and silt clogs the rivers, as does hyacinth - a bitter twist because for a time the evil weed seemed vanquished.

The floating mass which can double in size in a fortnight, proliferated across the Shire until the mid-1990s. Blocking sunlight and sucking oxygen and nitrogen from the water, the plant increased acidity and damaged algae and plankton.

Unchecked it would have been an ecological disaster for Lake Malawi, the third biggest in Africa. Fishing villages with no alternative source of income faced ruin.

"In some areas 60% of the beach was no longer accessible," said Alexander Bulirani, deputy director of fisheries. "And crocodiles hide in the hyacinth, so it wasn't safe for women to collect water."

The weed came from Brazil and so, with help from Britain's department for international development, did its nemesis: Neochetina aerchornae and Neochetina bruchi, two beetles which eat only hyacinth.

Some 500,000 were released but although the hyacinth stood no chance, Malawi has found a malign side to the weevil solution.

Feeding on the decaying leaves and branches has come a new breed of hippo grass and papyrus, more aggressive than traditional vegetation, said Patrick Phiri, a district fisheries officer in Mangochi.

"Just as we were winning the battle against hyacinth we realised this problem of secondary growth," he said.

Back in Liwonde, Mr Kalombola confirmed that the weeds which snagged the turbines had become worse since hyacinth largely disappeared.

Malawi's only option was a combination of biological, chemical and mechanical means to control the hyacinth's revenge. "This will be a long-term programme, probably forever."

Well, I have just finished this book, and I really enjoyed it. I have never read a book by Pratchett before, but I will proababaly get a few more now.

It is written very well, with a lot of humour in it. I really do dnot know what else to say other than I would definitley recommend it!

This is probably a book my girls coud read in a few years time...

A 71/2 out of 10 (Maybe 8 )

I am looking to purchase the first Volume of the 330 CD's from 330 in Durban. If someone is looking to get rid of any please let me know. or if you know of how I can get one please let me know

Aargh! Its the invasion of the Ants again! I'm starting to realise it's not my housekeeping that's attracting them, but it seems that at this time of year they are just everywhere inside the house. Usually I put out ant traps to try get rid of them, but this year I have a little Princess Toddling around, scanning the place for anything tasty - the more dangerous the better
Does anyone have suggestions as to how I can at least keep these creatures under control?