PR FROM THE BEACH

The Ice-Melt Cometh

If you haven't caught the ice shelf melt in Antarctica, then check out this report from the BBC. Winter draws on here in the South, but things are definitely warming up where they shouldn't be. For a flyover of the shelf, look here and the 'collapse' report is recorded here. Magnificent indicators of things to come?

All eyes on the skies as the hunt for a 'New Earth' begins

In case you've missed it, the Kepler Mission is scheduled to launch today. And in case that is lost on you as well, Kepler is on the hunt for habitable planets. Much has been made of the possibility that a new 'Earth' will be discovered as this first ever mission capable of unearthing 'Earth' size planets takes off for the great beyond.

I will never cease to marvel that humans have the ability to remove themselves from this planet and head off looking for new ones. As Orion wheels overhead through our long summer here and Betelgeuse blinks its way into the evening, I find myself regularly watching for the space station to pass by - awestruck that someone is up there, possibly having a cup of space tea and a ship's biscuit after a hard day at the control panel.

People can do such great things. Our collective human tragedy is that we can't seem to harness the brilliance and ingenuity we possess to bring peace and prosperity to this Earth, which, for the moment at least, is the only one we've got.

Conning the consumer - is today's petrol hike simply unjustified profiteering?

I am stunned to see that the petrol companies have hiked the price of petrol in New Zealand yet again today - making a 10c rise in less than 48 hours. Yesterday's reason was apparently an increase in the cost of refined petrol. At the time of writing nobody has offered a reason for today's lift.  Given that the price of oil is still lower than it has been for some time and is approximately US$10 less than it was a month ago, I can't help thinking that the petrol companies are taking us for a ride (no pun intended).

When the barrel price lifts, the pump price rise is instant.  When the barrel price falls, the pump price fall either doesn't happen or follows quite some time after.  Now the barrel price falls still, but the prices go higher. As for explanations of this behaviour, they are few, far between and sketchy at best. Hardly the transparent and trustworthy environment that large and small businesses are encouraged to adopt if they wish to survive in these trouble times. Most of us are simply left with the feeling that it is all a remarkably successful con trick. Someone, somewhere is making a sharp buck, that's for sure. Either they are oblivious to the reported conditions that we all face and are happy to profiteer at our expense or there is something very wrong with the management of these companies if they are so cavalier with their customers. I'd love to know which it is.

Selling hot air - should we believe everything the physicist says about Google?

I was taken by the digibabble about an alarmist piece published by Times Online, centred on the observations of physicist  Alex Wissner-Gross who suggests that a single Google search generates 7g of CO2, versus around 15g for a tea kettle. He also, as pointed out in a thoughtful piece in the Washington Post by Jason Kincaid, was the co-founder of CO2Stats, which sells software that will help you make your website 'greener'.

Personally, I think all forms of CO2 trading are deeply suspect and everytime I read about a new phase in its history I am again reminded of 'The Emperor's New Clothes'.  Generally, is CO2 trading undertaken for profit? Yes. Does someone somewhere take 'commission' on the trades made? Yes. Does CO2 trading allow a quick fix rather than change behaviours? Yes.

But this company doesn't do CO2 trading and in fact is quite clear about what it does - and doesn't - do.  In its FAQ it states:

"CO2Stats is software that (1) helps to make your site more energy-efficient, and (2) provides your site with automatically-purchased renewable energy (from audited wind and solar farms) each month. CO2Stats software meters the energy used by your servers, visitors' computers and the networks that connect them in order to calculate how much energy is required to make your site green. You can monitor these calculations in real time by clicking on your Green Certified Site™ badge. "

It goes on to explain that they only from audited wind and solar farms and everything is all green and ethically lovely - but it is still a 'for profit' enterprise that will set you back between US$4.95 to US99.95.  Obviously there is a sliding scale of green-ness and it would seem you can be 'a bit green' at $4.95 or 'super green' at just under $100.

This sort of programme seems very similar in nature to the convoluted 'financial products' dreamed up over recent years which have recently come crashing down to earth as stocks have fallen, trust undermined and promises left unfulfilled.

I think what we have here is a very clever use of mainstream media designed to prick the conscience of your average net user, driving them to the good physicist's site in order to prompt them into believing they should be buying this software if they want to stay green and clean. After all, why change your actual behaviour when $4.95 will see you right?

I don't often have much sympathy with Google, but in this case I feel they have been used to grab headlines which in turn are being used to drive traffic - the very thing the esteemed young scientist was supposedly warning against. Or maybe I missed something?

I don't doubt the statistics reproduced in the articles (which I believe were generated from his research) but I do find myself wondering about the transparency and motivation behind the piece.  Attacking Google by combining some credible looking stats, the words 'green' and 'environment' plus a scientist's title and 'new research' and you have a sure-fire way of stirring up mainstream and online media conversation and driving traffic - not to mention the profits of a relatively new start up.

Dropping a clanger in space - as non-recoverable as the US CEOs' Congress blunder

My heart went out to the astronaut who dropped her toolbag during a spacewalk earlier this week - see it drift away here. Definitely a non-recoverable position for anyone, but a genuine mistake nonetheless.

The same cannot be said for the CEOs who turned up in their corporate jets in order to beg for cash from an already over-committed US government. What were they thinking?  The Star, among many others, calls it a 'PR storm' and undertaking a rough count up, I unearthed from the last fifteen hours  around 9000 mainstream media articles condemning their rather shortsighted and dim actions - and that is without counting any blog discussions.

Good public relations starts with appropriate action tempered with an understanding of the situation and operating environment. It is also underpinned by a willingness to change behaviour and do the right thing for the communities and publics that provide you with your licence to operate. Fail to do so and that licence to operate, the trust in the organisation, is withdrawn.

You would imagine that these three autocrats would have the wit - or at least the advisors - to enable them realise that what you do has to come before the things you say. These are clever people after all, who hold the fate of millions in their hands.  Yet when they were quizzed as to whether they would sell their jets and take an economy flight home all the hands which should have been immediately visible were nowhere to be seen - instead an embarrassed silence ensued.

Realistically, the money 'saved' by such an action would probably be a drop in the ocean, given that General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner informed the committee that they were burning through "$5 billion each month."  But - and as always, it is a big but - the CEOs looked like the other CEOs trotted before committees last month; eager to protect their own positions as demonstrated by their actions, rather than the industries and communities they say they are keen to protect.  The US needs its auto industry right now and all is not lost. It has its eye firmly on the emerging markets - Brazil, India, China to name but a few - places where new car ownership has far more potential than existing markets which are saturated and in decline.

Sadly, I suspect the car workers in Detroit will be scraping around for bus fare long before the CEOs in question tumble from the top and hand in their executive gate pass. 

The disgruntled question I am hearing time and again at worker level is why should our tax dollars bail out the corporates who will be axing our jobs and leaving us with nothing anytime soon, while those who make the decision to send us to the streets walk away with enough money to keep a town full of families comfortable over several years?

Pundits suggest that the best route for the carmakers to take would be a Chapter 11 arrangement - think of it as a kind of organised bankruptcy that allows continuance of trade.  Such a continuance of trade that would allow the manufacturers to buy time and buy into the markets that could save their collective futures. A purchase of time in which they might also consider rethinking their business model, the impact on the environment and the ethics of sustainable automotive development allowing the tax dollars to go elsewhere. However, Chapter 11 is resisted apparently because 'it doesn't look good' and 'affects the brand'. 

But probably not as much as a corporate jet fiasco or three million unemployed workers and their families.

But Hadron Collider hits the skids with a £14m repair bill

Replicating the Big Bang doesn't come cheap, but at least those who were worried it might just trigger the end of the world will be relieved.  Scientists now say, according to the BBC, that the repair bill is huge and  the Collider will be out of action for much longer than they thought. It occurs to me they may well be thinking on the quiet that playing Creator of the Known Universe is a bit harder than they thought it would be - but it will still be interesting to see what they come up with when it is operational again, possibly sometime next year.

First planet pictured outside our solar system - Hubble does it again

I've been a big fan of the Hubble space telescope since its launch and avidly followed its adventures since it first began looking out into space.  Late last week while I was zipping around, I came across this story from Hubble.

"Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet orbiting another star. The images show the planet, named Fomalhaut b, as a tiny point source of light orbiting the nearby, bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis. An immense debris disk about 21.5 billion miles across surrounds the star. Fomalhaut b is orbiting 1.8 billion miles inside the disk's sharp inner edge."

Won't be too long I reckon until we are having tea with ET.  There is a brilliant photo gallery, of which the pic below is one.  Definitely worth checking out - if only as a reminder that there are bigger things to think about than the credit crunch.

Here's the beach...

This is one of two beaches behind (or beneath?) PR from the Beach.  I can never understand how city beaches like this - Cheltenham Beach, North Shore - can be empty in this way, coming as I do from a UK background where the minute the sun hits, the beach teems with people, ice cream and umbrellas.  The above picture reflects a busy Wednesday morning.  If you think it looks empty, you should see some of the New Zealand beaches on the South Island that look out to the Pacific or cast your eye West into the waves of the Tasman Sea.

At Asian food market, a sign of lost confidence - The Boston Globe

At Asian food market, a sign of lost confidence - The Boston Globe

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Food Shortages: One leader calls for help, another executes those who call

Contrasting approaches to critical food shortages are apparent today. Neither needs much comment from me.
On the one hand, according to Malaysian news agency Bernama: "Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has called for global political will to address severe food shortages and help developing countries reduce hunger and poverty as the situation becomes more critical with the international financial turmoil". 
On the other hand, in North Korea, The Times (London) reports: "North Korea is clamping down on mobile phones and long distance telephone calls to prevent the spread of news about a worsening food crisis, according to the United Nations investigator on human rights for the isolated communist country."  The investigator goes on to say that public executions have been used as a means to intimidate the public.
Perhaps we could make that call on behalf of those who are unable to do so themselves - or at least respond to the Malaysian plea and add our voices to their call for action, hopefully driving a global political will that will address this situation before it is too late for another million or so people - simply trying to feed their families, just like us.