Coal Mining Causing Earthquakes


The most damaging earthquake in Australia’s history was caused by humans, new research says. The magnitude-5.6 quake that struck Newcastle, in New South Wales, on December 28, 1989, killed 13 people, injured 160, and caused 3.5 billion U.S. dollars worth of damage. [National Geographic]

The article goes on to talk about carbon sequestration and the potential impacts associated with that. As a species, we’re certainly having an impact on our home planet…

The Sky at Night enters 50th year


Sir Patrick Moore is to present the 650th episode of BBC One’s astronomy programme The Sky at Night, nearly 50 years after the show first aired. ... The Sky at Night: BBC One 0155 GMT, Monday 8 January. [BBC News]

Surely such an influential programme, that has been going for 50 years with the same presenter, deserves a better timeslot than 2am! Anyway, I’ve set it up to record, so it’s not too much of an issue.

Update: it looks like I’m not the only one upset by the schedules…

‘Dustbin’ UK tops landfill table


The UK dumps more household waste into landfill than any other EU state, according to figures.
It disposes of more than 27m tonnes of waste in this way each year. [BBC News again]

We really need to think up a solution to this, but taxing waste collection won’t work, it will only lead to an increase in fly tipping. We need instead to try and educate people, and persuade them to reduce waste at source. Companies should do their utmost to reduce packaging, and shop assistants should only give out bags if you ask. I regularly get comments like “are you sure?” when I mention that I’ve got my own bag, and so don’t need another plastic bag.

This entry was posted on Sunday 7th January 2007 in Engineering, Politics, Science and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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