Electronic money is a recent invention which means that currency with real value can be exchanged for traditional cash; it is instead entirely virtual or digital. It is a new invention in the history of money and commerce. Electronic money only exists in digital format and is primarily based on the internet or smart cards that have a record of their stored value. The transactions which are electronically done are known as electronic money. Similar names for electronic money are electronic cash, e-money, digital money, digital currency or digital cash.

The computer age has made the creation of money possible. It began back in the 1960s when IBM and American Airlines created a system called SABRE (Semi-Automatic Busines Research Environment), this allowed offices of American Airlines fitted with terminals connected to telephone lines and helped agencies to check flight times, seat availability, and then make reservations electronically that could be paid by using a system of credits.

Banks in America and Europe has started using mainframe computers by the 1970s, it helped them track transactions. It was a system that proved to be a success internationally when currency exchange was needed.

Consumer uptake of electronic money was first noticed in France in 1982 with the introduction of the Minitel service. The US and UK had developed basic tele text service that helped televisions to display text directly onto the television screen like news, program guides, game show results or weather update. The teletext was a very useful and simple one way service.

The French Minitel service used a dumb terminal with built-in modem, the service operated over standard telephone lines and the terminals were equipped with full AZERTY keyboards. The subscribers typed messages or searched queries. These Minitel terminals were given for free to more than 9 million households to encourage business entrepreneurs. Payment could be made through credit card or charged to the telephone account. This marked the first use of electronic money in the consumer market.

In 1979, a slightly similar service was launched in the UK named Prestel. It supported equipment was costly and it required customers to call and arrange payment over the phone. A service known as Homelink started in 1983 with the support of the Bank of Scotland and Nottingham Building Society. The account holders could subscribe to a special Prestel service that allowed online banking. This marked the first recorded use of electronic money.

The year 1991 saw the introduction of internet in consumer market and the disbanding of the Arpanet network. It wasn’t long until 1992 when America Online took advantage of the new Internet and started offering retail services directly to their subscribers who could pay using a credit card.

The year 1994 took a leap of faith that internet would help businesses. Pizza Hut adopted a same model that was used by Peapod for allowing online pizza ordering with the choice of payments like credit card via internet or in cash on delivery.

Late 1990s proved to be an essential moment for electronic money. Amazon.com was launched in 1995 and PayPal was formed in 1998. This made convenient and easy payment of money online without any risk of credit card number theft. The innovation of PayPal was to offer virtual account to the customers that could be topped up using credit card or wire transfer. Then email addresses were used to receive and send money. The services of PayPal marked a unique beginning of electronic money which was different from traditional phone and online credit card transactions.

Furthermore, the model of PayPal was copied by other providers with new ideas for securing customer funds using gold standard, silver, platinum or palladium. However sending and receiving payments with an email address was flexible.

Virtual currency backed by precious metals can be exchanged for any supported currency. eLibertyReserve, e-gold and Webmoney have become the biggest gold backed electronic money providers.

Private currencies had also proliferated encouraged by the demand for some form or marketplace within networked games like World of Warcraft and Second Life. Since then, private currencies have developed in many forums and webmaster services as a means of offering advertising amongst members.

The most successful electronic money has been facilitated with stored value cards that are denominated in local currency. The US military designed a stored value card called Eagle Cash that provided an advance on soldier’s earnings. Hong Kong also designed a stored value card for making quick purchase of subway tickets also accepted as a defacto cash card by many retailers in the city.

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Radio is a technology that transmits data to a remote point where a receiver detects the simple without the use of wire. Radio is thought to be AM or FM stations in terms of common glossary. In fact, radio waves are also used for receiving and sending data waves like satellite broadcasts, Bluetooth devices and wifi networks.

The history of radio dates back to the mid 1800s. It involved theory related to electricity and magnetism. Telegraph was the first available technology developed from this discovery although it required wire cables.

James Maxwell had developed his own theories related to electromagnetism in 1865. This led to the first true experiments of wireless. Many physicists like Thomas Edison, Mahlon Loomis and William Henry Ward patented methods of sending and receiving a wireless telegraph system but a working system was never demonstrated by them.
In 1884, Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti invented a device which was subsequently refined. Edouard Branly later named it coherer in 1886. It was a glass tube filled with metal filings connected to electrical current producing an audible click in a sounder while receiving the signal. The coherer became the enabling technology allowing early radio signals to be received.

In 1887, Heinrich Hertz was the first person who had refined a system that allowed him to experiment with sending wireless signals to a wireless receiver. He was honored in 1933. In 1892, a Serbian-Croatian immigrant to the US, Nikola Tesla demonstrated the first complete radio transmitter and receiver system and became the first successful person invent radio. Unfortunately, there was a fire in his laboratory in 1895 and he could not demonstrate his radio. However in 1898, Tesla demonstrated the first radio later and filed patents for radio in early 1900s.

An Italian, Guglielmo Marconi was fascinated by the idea of wirelessly transmitting a telegraph signal. In 1894, he successfully invented a spark transmitter with an antenna. Unfortunately, the Italian Postal Service which controlled telegraph services were not interested in his experiment. He moved to England in 1896 where he successfully demonstrated his technology to the English Post Office who immediately recognized his services. Queen Victoria was also impressed by his invention. Marconi was related to British nobility who were powerful investors in his companies and in the emerging US markets.

In 1900, another American Reginald Fessenden demonstrated his new technology which was used by the weather department for sending information to ships at sea. He invented the Barretter detector allowing him to develop amplitude modulation (AM).
The 1920s was the true birth years of modern radio and almost every home owned a radio. Television started to catch up during the 1960s and it was a preferred medium of entertainment for Americans. However radio firmly held on in the car and by 1990s, many Americans listened to radio in their car or at work. Wirelessly broadcasting traffic reports, music and news to radio receivers still prevails despite the arrival of internet and satellite radio.

The island of Mauritius finds itself as one of the most accessible islands in the Indian Ocean. Situated amid Reunion island and Rodrigues island, the island of Mauritius has gained the reputation, through the course of time of that of the ‘key and star’ of the Indian Ocean. Three major factors found in the island of Mauritius serve as attraction for many tourists. These are the sea, sun and sand.

Many tourists visit Mauritius during the summer. Tourists come to Mauritius from England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. to benefit from the enjoyable, hot and sunny climate of the summer. Five star hotels such as Le Saint Gerant and Indian Resort among others offer a remarkable welcome and service to these tourists. Tour operators in Mauritius such as the White Sand Tours and Summertimes deliver an unmistakable hassle free journey to tourists from the Airport to their respective hotels.

Once in Mauritius, tourists have a broad range of activities within their reach. Water sports such as swimming, surfing, beach combing, deep sea fishing and diving are all available for tourists to enjoy their stay in Mauritius. Other water activities such as undersea walk and submarine ventures also exist. These provide tourists visiting Mauritius with an immense opportunity to discover the wonderful undersea world of Mauritius. With around 140 km of white sand beaches in Mauritius, most tourists enjoy their stay better than ever in the island.

Let’s now have a brief look at the history of Mauritius.

French immigrants came to Mauritius in the year 1715. They came after the Dutch had made a brief settlement. The French then named Mauritius as ile de france. Afterwards they made the first road and harbour infrastructure. Gradually, the French also established the sugar industry under Governor Mahe de Labourdonnais. Then, slaves were brought from Madagascar and Africa to work in these sugarcane fields. Furthermore, in the year 1810, the British captured the island and by the year 1814 were given full rights on Mauritius by the Treaty of Paris.

Afterwards, Indian immigrants arrived in Mauritius and the abolition of slavery followed in the year 1835. Mauritius then started to progress as more extensive sugar cane plantation were developed. More events succeeded as the economic instability of the price of sugar raised a lot of questions. It is important to remember that sugar cane had been the main crop throughout the first half of the 20th century. Therefore, political, administrative and economic reforms were created in Mauritius. As a matter of fact, Mauritius gained independence on the 12th of March 1968. Sir Seewoosagar Ramgoolam became the first Prime Minister of Mauritius and was called ‘father of the nation’.

Moreover, the tropical island of Mauritius was often exposed to cyclones. The first most powerful cyclone that struck the island was Claudette in the year 1979. Most sugar cane fields were destroyed. In the year 1980, sugar prices fell and the government had no alternative than to step up for agricultural diversification. Emphasis was also put on the import and export market. Then in the year 1992, the relationship with Mauritius and Britain was formally terminated as Mauritius became a republic within the Commonwealth.

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What is Natal Chart?

If you look at the words ‘natal chart’ you could read them another way ‘birth map’ – this may help you understand what is being talked about. Basically, the natal chartis a map of the sky including the positions of the planets for the time that you were born. Where you are born has an impact on what is seen in the sky, e.g., if two people were born on the same day and at the same time but in a different city and country, what is seen overhead would be different. This would mean that their natal charts showing planetary placements would be different from each other.

So, the first step in using astrology is to draw a map of the sky for the moment a person is born. This map includes all the planets, plus a few other points of interest such as the horizon and the middle of the sky directly over the birthplace. The time of birth is important for detailed work because it affects the position of the various parts of the chart, in particular the zodiac sign on the eastern horizon (this gives the Rising Sign/Ascendant) and position of the point over the birthplace (this gives the position of the Midheaven).

If the time of birth is unknown it can be worked out through major life events by an experienced astrologer who specializes in this branch of astrology: this is known as rectification. To do this you would need to give the astrologer as many major life events as possible such as: marriage; birth of children; major moves; divorce; death; new business ventures or jobs; and/or any other significant changes to your life.

Another way of finding out what time you were born is to contact the hospital you were born in. In the majority of cases they have this information recorded on the mother’s file. I know this is the case in Australia but I’m not sure about other countries but it is still worth a try!

Interpretation of Natal Chart

Once the natal chart has been prepared, the positions of the planets in different zodiac signs (ie, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, etc) can be ‘interpreted’. This is an area that people interested in astrology usually become a little skeptical about the validity of astrology because the interpretations can vary greatly from one astrologer to another. One way to understand these differences in interpretation is to understand that the planets and other points in the natal chart are used as symbols: as such, they have quite a broad ability to represent different qualities depending on the age, sex, marital status, belief system, etc of the person whose natal chart is being interpreted.

Interpretation is also affected by the particular areas of interest of the individual astrologer. For example, some of the areas of specialization include psychological, past-life, medical, child-based, and the list goes on!

The type of information gained from the natal chart includes understanding the early home life, relationship with parents and how these affect adult relationships. There are many others areas that can be looked at in quite a comprehensive way such as how you are perceived by the people around you, emotional needs, how you express love and affection, etc.

The information found in the natal chart can also provide an insight into what talents a person may possess that have not yet been realized or used to full potential.

Natal charts offer the benefit of self-understanding which may give a person a whole new perception of themselves, direction in life and open up possibilities for new directions in life; both in the physical and psychological sense.

Forecasting

One way to understand what type of information forecasting can provide is to think of weather forecasting: looking at the general conditions in a person’s life at various times – sunny, cloudy, windy, etc. Basically, if you knew it was going to be raining on a particular day, you probably would organize a picnic for another time. The same applies to using astrology for everyday life.

There are various ways to use prepare a forecast, the simplest being transits. Another word for transits would be movements – this refers to the movement or transit of planets. If you think of the natal chart, this is a map of the sky showing the planetary placements at the time, date and place of birth and does not change or move. In reality the planets do not stop moving, but continue their journey around the Sun – these continual movements of the planets are what are being referred to when an astrologer talks about transits. The transiting planets are then looked at in relation to the natal chart.

Forecasting can be a valuable aid in understanding and making the most of opportunities coming your way and also in dealing with some of the difficulties that life can bring.

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The Canal Boat – A Brief History

A canal boat (also known as a narrowboat or narrow boat) is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of England and Wales.

Narrowboats at Calcutt Boats marina

In the context of British Inland Waterways, “narrow boat” refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals (where locks and bridge holes would have a minimum width of 7 feet (2.1 m)). The term is extended to modern “narrowboats” used for recreation and occasionally as homes, whose design is an interpretation of the

Canal Boat Terminology

Purists tend to use the term with a space (narrow boat) when referring to an original boat or a replica, and to omit the space when referring to a modern boat used for leisure or as a residence – but this is not a hard and fast rule.[citation needed] The single word ‘narrowboat’ has been adopted by authorities such as British Waterways and the magazine Waterways World to refer to all boats built in the style and tradition of the narrow canal locks.

Although some canal boats were built to a design based on river barges, it is incorrect to refer to a narrowboat (or narrow boat) as a barge. In the context of the British inland waterways, a barge is usually a much wider, cargo-carrying boat or a modern boat modelled on one, certainly more than 7 feet (2.1 m) wide.

It is also incorrect (or at least incongruous) to refer to a narrowboat as a longboat, although this name was sometimes used in the Midlands in working-boat days.

Usage has not quite settled down as regards (a) boats based on narrowboat design, but too wide for narrow canals; or (b) boats the same width as narrowboats but based on other types of boat.

Canal Boat Size

The key distinguishing feature of a narrowboat is its width: it must be no more than 7 feet (2.13 m) wide to navigate the British narrow canals. Some old boats are very close to this limit (often built 7 feet 1½ inches/2.17 metres or slightly wider), and can have trouble using locks that are not quite as wide as they should be because of subsidence. Modern boats are usually 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 m) wide to guarantee easy passage everywhere.

Because of their slenderness, some narrowboats seem very long. The maximum length is about 70 feet (21 m), the length of most locks on the narrow canals. However, modern narrowboats tend to be shorter than this, so that they can cruise anywhere on the connected network of British canals – including on the “wide” canals (built for wider, but shorter, boats). The shortest lock on the main network is Salterhebble Middle Lock on the Calder and Hebble Navigation, at about 56 feet (17 m) long. However, the C&H is a wide canal, so the lock is about 14 feet 2 inches (4.32 m) wide. This makes the largest “go-anywhere-on-the-network” narrowboat slightly longer (about 60 feet) than the straight length of the lock, because it can (with a certain amount of “shoehorning”) lie diagonally. Some locks on isolated waterways are as short as 40 feet (12.2 m).

Hire fleets on British canals can contain narrowboats of many lengths from about 30 feet (9.1 m) upwards, to allow parties of different sizes or different budgets to hire a boat.

Development – traditional working canal boats

The first working canal boats played a key part in the economic changes accompanying the British Industrial Revolution. They were wooden boats drawn by a horse walking on the canal towpath led by a crew member, often a child. Narrowboats were chiefly designed for carrying cargo, though there were some packet boats, carrying passengers, letters, and parcels.

Boatmen’s families originally lived ashore, but in the 1830s as canals started to feel competition from the new railways, families (especially of owner/skippers of independent single boats) started to take up home afloat. This was partly because they could no longer afford rents, partly to provide extra hands to work the boats harder, faster and further, and partly to keep families together. However, as late as 1858, a “Household Words” article states that the Grand Junction Canal company did not allow the boatmen’s families on board – and the crew of the non-stopping (“fly”) boat in the article (the skipper, two crewmen, and a ‘youth’) is said to be typical.

Historic working narrowboats on the Macclesfield Canal in Cheshire, England. The motor boat at the front “Forget Me Not” is pulling along an unpowered butty “Lilith”. This was the traditional working style used on working boats after motor boats became common.

The rear portion of the boat became the cosy “boatman’s cabin”, familiar from picture postcards and museums, famous for its space-saving ingenuity and for its interior made attractive by a warm stove, a steaming kettle, gleaming brass, fancy lace, painted housewares, and decorated plates. Although such descriptions rarely consider the actual comfort of a large family working an extremely hard and long day, and sleeping in the one tiny cabin, it is no doubt true that at the time there were many workers in harder, indoor, trades with less healthy conditions and worse accommodation where the family were separated for long hours rather than being together all day. Nonetheless it was impossible for such mobile families to send their children to school, and most boat people remained illiterate and ostracised by those living ‘on the bank’.

As diesel and steam replaced the tow horse in the early twentieth century, it became possible to move more cargo with the same manpower by towing a second unpowered boat, commonly referred to as a “butty”, “buttyboat” or “butty boat”. There was now no horse to look after, but someone had to steer the butty, unless on a wide canal such as the Grand Union Canal where the two boats could be roped side-to-side or ‘breasted up’, and handled as one while working locks.

Cargo-carrying by narrow boat was almost extinguished as a way of life between 1945 and the last regular long distance traffic finishing in 1970. However some traffics continued into the 1980s and beyond including over 2 million tonnes of aggregate carried on the Grand Union (River Soar) from 1976 to 1996, latterly using wide beam barges however, and aggregate currently carried by narrow boats (and wide barges) between Denham and West Drayton on the Grand Union Canal. A few people are doing their best to keep the tradition alive, mostly by “one-off” deliveries rather than regular runs, or by selling goods such as coal to other boaters.

There are many enthusiasts dedicated to restoring the remaining old boats, often members of the Historic Narrow Boat owners Club and there are also many replicas ornately painted with the same traditional designs, usually of roses and castles. If the boat is not horse-drawn, it may have a refurbished, slow-revving, vintage diesel engine, and there are even some steam-driven narrow boats such as the ex-Fellows Morton and Clayton steamer President.

Painted decoration on canal boats

Decoration on a traditional English canal boat: roses on the water can (top) and castles on the open doors to the cabin

By the latter part of the 19th century it was common practice to paint roses and castles on both narrow boats themselves and their fixtures and fittings. Common sites include the doors to the cabin, the water can or barrel and the side of the boat along with ornate lettering giving the boat’s name and owner.

The origin of the roses and castles found on canal boats is unclear. The first written reference to them appears to be in an 1858 edition of the magazine Household Words in one of a series of articles titled “On the Canal” but while this shows that the art form must have existed by this date it doesn’t provide us with an origin. For some time, a popular suggestion was that it had some form of Gypsy origin, however there does not appear to be a significant link between the Gypsy and boating communities. Other suggestions include transfer of styles from the clock-making industry (in particular the decoration on the face), the japanning industry or the pottery industry. There is certainly a similarity in style and a geographical overlap, but no solid proof of a link. There are similar styles of folk art in Scandinavia, Germany, Turkey and Bangladesh.

In the eighteenth century, the similar Dutch “Hinderloopen” paintwork would only have been a sailing barge journey away from the Thames. There is also an article in the Midland Daily Telegraph of 22 July 1914 that credits the practice painting of water cans, at least, to a Mr Arthur Atkins. The date of the events make the claim possible, but would require the Household Words article to be reporting on the very start of a phenomenon, rather than – as its tone suggests – something that had existed for some time. Until further evidence comes to light, it is impossible to support or deny the claim that Arthur Atkins was responsible for the start of the practice and thus the origin of the paintings remains uncertain.

While the practice declined as commercial use of the canals dwindled, it has seen something of a revival in recent times with the emergence of leisure boating. Narrowboat decoration with roses and castle themes are a reasonably common sight on today’s canals, although these may utilise cheaper computer-printed vinyl transfers in place of the traditional craft of hand-painted designs.

Modern canal boats

The number of licensed boats on canals and rivers managed by British Waterways (BW), a government organisation, was estimated at about 27,000 in 2006. There are perhaps another 5,000 unlicensed boats kept in private moorings or on other waterways. Most of the boats on BW waterways are steel cruisers popularly referred to as narrowboats.

Modern narrowboats are used for annual holidays, weekend breaks or as permanent residences. Usually, they have steel hulls and a steel superstructure, but when they were first being developed for leisure use in the 1970s glass re-inforced plastic (fibre-glass) or timber was often used for the superstructures. They are usually powered by modern diesel engines, and are fitted inside to a high standard. There will be at least 6 feet (1.8 m) internal headroom, and similar domestic facilities as a small landward home: central heating, flush toilets, shower or even bath, four-ring hobs, oven, grill, microwave oven, and refrigerator; quite a few also have satellite television and mobile broadband via the use of 3G broadband technology. Externally, their resemblance to traditional boats can vary from a faithful imitation (false “rivets”, and copies of traditional paintwork) through “interpretation” (clean lines and simplified paintwork) through to a free-style approach which does not try to pretend in any way that this is a traditional boat.

They are owned by individuals, shared by a group of friends (or by a more formally organised syndicate), rented out by holiday firms, or used as cruising hotels. A few boats are lived on permanently: either based in one place (though long-term moorings for residential narrowboats are currently very difficult to find) or continuously moving around the network (perhaps with a fixed location for the coldest months, when many stretches of canal are closed by repair works or “stoppages”).

Modern canal boat types

On most narrowboats steering is by a tiller, as it was on all working narrow boats, and the steerer stands at the stern of the boat, aft of where a person emerges from the hatchway and rear doors at the top of the steps up from the cabin. The steering area comes in three basic types, each meeting different needs in terms of maximising internal space; having a more traditional appearance; having a big enough rear deck for everyone to enjoy summer weather or long evenings; or protection for the steerer in bad weather. Each type has its strong advocates. However, the boundaries are not fixed, and some boats blur the categories as designers try out slightly different arrangements and combinations.

Canal boats with traditional stern

Many modern canal boats retain the traditional layout of a small open, unguarded “counter” or deck behind the rear doors from which the crew can step onto land. It is possible to steer from the counter, but this is not very safe, with the propeller churning below only one misstep away. The length of the “tiller extension” allows the steerer to stand more safely on the top step, forward of the rear doors (on a working boat, this step would have been over the top of the coal box). On cold days, the steerer can even close the rear doors behind them, and be in relative comfort, their lower body in the warmth of the cabin, and only their upper body emerging from the hatchway and exposed to the elements. In good weather, many trad-stern steerers sit up on the hatchway edge, a high vantage point giving good all-round visibility. On trad boats, the bow “well-deck” forms the main outside viewing area, because the traditional stern is not large enough for anyone other than the steerer to stand on safely.

Canal boats with cruiser stern

Cruiser stern narrowboats are designed to allow more people to be on deck during the reasonably good weather of the British summer holiday season. The hatch and rear doors are farther forward than on a traditional boat, creating a large open deck between counter and rear doors, protected by a rail (perhaps with seats) around the back and sides. At the rear, a “cruiser” narrowboat looks very different from traditional boats. The large rear deck provides a good social space or al fresco dining area, but in the winter (or the occasionally less than perfect weather of the British Summer) the steerer is quite unprotected from wind and rain. The lack of an enclosed engine room means that engine heat does not contribute to keeping the boat warm and there is wasted space above the deck area. The name for this style arises because the large open rear deck resembles that of the large rear cockpits common on glass-fibre (GRP) river cruisers. The “cruiser” stern also allows the engine to be located under the deck and not in the cabin as it is in a traditional-stern boat. Although this then makes access to the engine for maintenance more difficult,[citation needed] it does have the advantage that the engine is not located in the cabin and the ensuing noise and smell are not as much of an issue.

Canal boats with semi-traditional stern

A semi-traditional stern is a compromise to gain some of the “social” benefits of a cruiser stern, while retaining a more traditional design and providing some protection for the steerer in bad weather or in cooler seasons. As with the cruiser stern, the deck is extended back from the hatch and rear doors, but in this case most of the deck is protected at the sides by walls which extend back from the cabin sides – giving a more sheltered area for the steerer and companions, usually with lockers to sit on. The engine is located under the deck, much like a cruiser, again allowing a separation between the cabin and the engine bay, with the steps down to the cabin being located past the false sides of the “semi-trad” social area.

Canal boats with a butty stern

A butty boat is an un-powered boat traditionally with a larger rudder with (usually) a wooden tiller (known as an elum, a corruption of helm as the steering does not benefit from the force of water generated by the propeller. The tiller is usually removed and reversed in the rudder-post socket to get it out of the way when moored. A few butty boats have been converted into powered narrowboats like NB Sirius. The term butty is thought to have originated from the French, bateau, meaning boat.

Centre cockpit canal boats

A small number of steel narrowboats dispense with the need for a rear steering deck entirely, by imitating some river cruisers in providing wheel steering from a central cockpit.

Source: Wikipedia

Narrowboats – A Brief History

A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of England and Wales.

In the context of British Inland Waterways, “narrow boat” refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals (where locks and bridge holes would have a minimum width of 7 feet (2.1 m)). The term is extended to modern “narrowboats” used for recreation and occasionally as homes, whose design is an interpretation of the

Narrowboats Terminology

Purists tend to use the term with a space (narrow boat) when referring to an original boat or a replica, and to omit the space when referring to a modern boat used for leisure or as a residence – but this is not a hard and fast rule.[citation needed] The single word ‘narrowboat’ has been adopted by authorities such as British Waterways and the magazine Waterways World to refer to all boats built in the style and tradition of the narrow canal locks.

Although some narrow boats were built to a design based on river barges, it is incorrect to refer to a narrowboat (or narrow boat) as a barge. In the context of the British inland waterways, a barge is usually a much wider, cargo-carrying boat or a modern boat modelled on one, certainly more than 7 feet (2.1 m) wide.

It is also incorrect (or at least incongruous) to refer to a narrowboat as a longboat, although this name was sometimes used in the Midlands in working-boat days.

Usage has not quite settled down as regards (a) boats based on narrowboat design, but too wide for narrow canals; or (b) boats the same width as narrowboats but based on other types of boat.

Narrowboats Size

The key distinguishing feature of a narrowboat is its width: it must be no more than 7 feet (2.13 m) wide to navigate the British narrow canals. Some old boats are very close to this limit (often built 7 feet 1½ inches/2.17 metres or slightly wider), and can have trouble using locks that are not quite as wide as they should be because of subsidence. Modern boats are usually 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 m) wide to guarantee easy passage everywhere.

Because of their slenderness, some narrowboats seem very long. The maximum length is about 70 feet (21 m), the length of most locks on the narrow canals. However, modern narrowboats tend to be shorter than this, so that they can cruise anywhere on the connected network of British canals – including on the “wide” canals (built for wider, but shorter, boats). The shortest lock on the main network is Salterhebble Middle Lock on the Calder and Hebble Navigation, at about 56 feet (17 m) long. However, the C&H is a wide canal, so the lock is about 14 feet 2 inches (4.32 m) wide. This makes the largest “go-anywhere-on-the-network” narrowboat slightly longer (about 60 feet) than the straight length of the lock, because it can (with a certain amount of “shoehorning”) lie diagonally. Some locks on isolated waterways are as short as 40 feet (12.2 m).

Hire fleets on British canals can contain narrowboats of many lengths from about 30 feet (9.1 m) upwards, to allow parties of different sizes or different budgets to hire a boat.

Development – traditional working boats

The first working narrow boats played a key part in the economic changes accompanying the British Industrial Revolution. They were wooden boats drawn by a horse walking on the canal towpath led by a crew member, often a child. Narrowboats were chiefly designed for carrying cargo, though there were some packet boats, carrying passengers, letters, and parcels.

Boatmen’s families originally lived ashore, but in the 1830s as canals started to feel competition from the new railways, families (especially of owner/skippers of independent single boats) started to take up home afloat. This was partly because they could no longer afford rents, partly to provide extra hands to work the boats harder, faster and further, and partly to keep families together. However, as late as 1858, a “Household Words” article states that the Grand Junction Canal company did not allow the boatmen’s families on board – and the crew of the non-stopping (“fly”) boat in the article (the skipper, two crewmen, and a ‘youth’) is said to be typical.

Historic working narrowboats on the Macclesfield Canal in Cheshire, England. The motor boat at the front “Forget Me Not” is pulling along an unpowered butty “Lilith”. This was the traditional working style used on working boats after motor boats became common.

The rear portion of the boat became the cosy “boatman’s cabin”, familiar from picture postcards and museums, famous for its space-saving ingenuity and for its interior made attractive by a warm stove, a steaming kettle, gleaming brass, fancy lace, painted housewares, and decorated plates. Although such descriptions rarely consider the actual comfort of a large family working an extremely hard and long day, and sleeping in the one tiny cabin, it is no doubt true that at the time there were many workers in harder, indoor, trades with less healthy conditions and worse accommodation where the family were separated for long hours rather than being together all day. Nonetheless it was impossible for such mobile families to send their children to school, and most boat people remained illiterate and ostracised by those living ‘on the bank’.

As diesel and steam replaced the tow horse in the early twentieth century, it became possible to move more cargo with the same manpower by towing a second unpowered boat, commonly referred to as a “butty”, “buttyboat” or “butty boat”. There was now no horse to look after, but someone had to steer the butty, unless on a wide canal such as the Grand Union Canal where the two boats could be roped side-to-side or ‘breasted up’, and handled as one while working locks.

Cargo-carrying by narrow boat was almost extinguished as a way of life between 1945 and the last regular long distance traffic finishing in 1970. However some traffics continued into the 1980s and beyond including over 2 million tonnes of aggregate carried on the Grand Union (River Soar) from 1976 to 1996, latterly using wide beam barges however, and aggregate currently carried by narrow boats (and wide barges) between Denham and West Drayton on the Grand Union Canal. A few people are doing their best to keep the tradition alive, mostly by “one-off” deliveries rather than regular runs, or by selling goods such as coal to other boaters.

There are many enthusiasts dedicated to restoring the remaining old boats, often members of the Historic Narrow Boat owners Club and there are also many replicas ornately painted with the same traditional designs, usually of roses and castles. If the boat is not horse-drawn, it may have a refurbished, slow-revving, vintage diesel engine, and there are even some steam-driven narrow boats such as the ex-Fellows Morton and Clayton steamer President.

Painted decoration on narrowboats

Decoration on a traditional English narrowboat: roses on the water can (top) and castles on the open doors to the cabin

By the latter part of the 19th century it was common practice to paint roses and castles on both narrow boats themselves and their fixtures and fittings. Common sites include the doors to the cabin, the water can or barrel and the side of the boat along with ornate lettering giving the boat’s name and owner.

The origin of the roses and castles found on canal boats is unclear. The first written reference to them appears to be in an 1858 edition of the magazine Household Words in one of a series of articles titled “On the Canal” but while this shows that the art form must have existed by this date it doesn’t provide us with an origin. For some time, a popular suggestion was that it had some form of Gypsy origin, however there does not appear to be a significant link between the Gypsy and boating communities. Other suggestions include transfer of styles from the clock-making industry (in particular the decoration on the face), the japanning industry or the pottery industry. There is certainly a similarity in style and a geographical overlap, but no solid proof of a link. There are similar styles of folk art in Scandinavia, Germany, Turkey and Bangladesh.

In the eighteenth century, the similar Dutch “Hinderloopen” paintwork would only have been a sailing barge journey away from the Thames. There is also an article in the Midland Daily Telegraph of 22 July 1914 that credits the practice painting of water cans, at least, to a Mr Arthur Atkins. The date of the events make the claim possible, but would require the Household Words article to be reporting on the very start of a phenomenon, rather than – as its tone suggests – something that had existed for some time. Until further evidence comes to light, it is impossible to support or deny the claim that Arthur Atkins was responsible for the start of the practice and thus the origin of the paintings remains uncertain.

While the practice declined as commercial use of the canals dwindled, it has seen something of a revival in recent times with the emergence of leisure boating. Narrowboat decoration with roses and castle themes are a reasonably common sight on today’s canals, although these may utilise cheaper computer-printed vinyl transfers in place of the traditional craft of hand-painted designs.

Modern narrowboats

The number of licensed boats on canals and rivers managed by British Waterways (BW), a government organisation, was estimated at about 27,000 in 2006. There are perhaps another 5,000 unlicensed boats kept in private moorings or on other waterways. Most of the boats on BW waterways are steel cruisers popularly referred to as narrowboats.

Modern narrowboats are used for annual holidays, weekend breaks or as permanent residences. Usually, they have steel hulls and a steel superstructure, but when they were first being developed for leisure use in the 1970s glass re-inforced plastic (fibre-glass) or timber was often used for the superstructures. They are usually powered by modern diesel engines, and are fitted inside to a high standard. There will be at least 6 feet (1.8 m) internal headroom, and similar domestic facilities as a small landward home: central heating, flush toilets, shower or even bath, four-ring hobs, oven, grill, microwave oven, and refrigerator; quite a few also have satellite television and mobile broadband via the use of 3G broadband technology. Externally, their resemblance to traditional boats can vary from a faithful imitation (false “rivets”, and copies of traditional paintwork) through “interpretation” (clean lines and simplified paintwork) through to a free-style approach which does not try to pretend in any way that this is a traditional boat.

They are owned by individuals, shared by a group of friends (or by a more formally organised syndicate), rented out by holiday firms, or used as cruising hotels. A few boats are lived on permanently: either based in one place (though long-term moorings for residential narrowboats are currently very difficult to find) or continuously moving around the network (perhaps with a fixed location for the coldest months, when many stretches of canal are closed by repair works or “stoppages”).

Modern narrowboat types

On most narrowboats steering is by a tiller, as it was on all working narrow boats, and the steerer stands at the stern of the boat, aft of where a person emerges from the hatchway and rear doors at the top of the steps up from the cabin. The steering area comes in three basic types, each meeting different needs in terms of maximising internal space; having a more traditional appearance; having a big enough rear deck for everyone to enjoy summer weather or long evenings; or protection for the steerer in bad weather. Each type has its strong advocates. However, the boundaries are not fixed, and some boats blur the categories as designers try out slightly different arrangements and combinations.

Narrowboats with traditional stern

Many modern canal boats retain the traditional layout of a small open, unguarded “counter” or deck behind the rear doors from which the crew can step onto land. It is possible to steer from the counter, but this is not very safe, with the propeller churning below only one misstep away. The length of the “tiller extension” allows the steerer to stand more safely on the top step, forward of the rear doors (on a working boat, this step would have been over the top of the coal box). On cold days, the steerer can even close the rear doors behind them, and be in relative comfort, their lower body in the warmth of the cabin, and only their upper body emerging from the hatchway and exposed to the elements. In good weather, many trad-stern steerers sit up on the hatchway edge, a high vantage point giving good all-round visibility. On trad boats, the bow “well-deck” forms the main outside viewing area, because the traditional stern is not large enough for anyone other than the steerer to stand on safely.

Narrowboats with cruiser stern

Cruiser stern narrowboats are designed to allow more people to be on deck during the reasonably good weather of the British summer holiday season. The hatch and rear doors are farther forward than on a traditional boat, creating a large open deck between counter and rear doors, protected by a rail (perhaps with seats) around the back and sides. At the rear, a “cruiser” narrowboat looks very different from traditional boats. The large rear deck provides a good social space or al fresco dining area, but in the winter (or the occasionally less than perfect weather of the British Summer) the steerer is quite unprotected from wind and rain. The lack of an enclosed engine room means that engine heat does not contribute to keeping the boat warm and there is wasted space above the deck area. The name for this style arises because the large open rear deck resembles that of the large rear cockpits common on glass-fibre (GRP) river cruisers. The “cruiser” stern also allows the engine to be located under the deck and not in the cabin as it is in a traditional-stern boat. Although this then makes access to the engine for maintenance more difficult,[citation needed] it does have the advantage that the engine is not located in the cabin and the ensuing noise and smell are not as much of an issue.

Narrowboats with semi-traditional stern

A semi-traditional stern is a compromise to gain some of the “social” benefits of a cruiser stern, while retaining a more traditional design and providing some protection for the steerer in bad weather or in cooler seasons. As with the cruiser stern, the deck is extended back from the hatch and rear doors, but in this case most of the deck is protected at the sides by walls which extend back from the cabin sides – giving a more sheltered area for the steerer and companions, usually with lockers to sit on. The engine is located under the deck, much like a cruiser, again allowing a separation between the cabin and the engine bay, with the steps down to the cabin being located past the false sides of the “semi-trad” social area.

Narrowboats with a butty stern

A butty boat is an un-powered boat traditionally with a larger rudder with (usually) a wooden tiller (known as an elum, a corruption of helm as the steering does not benefit from the force of water generated by the propeller. The tiller is usually removed and reversed in the rudder-post socket to get it out of the way when moored. A few butty boats have been converted into powered narrowboats like NB Sirius. The term butty is thought to have originated from the French, bateau, meaning boat.

Centre cockpit narrowboats

A small number of steel narrowboats dispense with the need for a rear steering deck entirely, by imitating some river cruisers in providing wheel steering from a central cockpit.

Source: Wikipedia

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These online news sites aggregate local news from thousands and hundreds of vernacular as well national news sources and present platform for enlightening discussion on local issues.

A latest analysis of the market has revealed that readers choose to read local news covered by local journalists in contrast to the news content created for their market by a distant source. Today there are a number of news sites, which have for this purpose engaged a team of local journalists.

The news sites endeavor to deliver information as per the expectation of the readers and attempt to reach out to millions of others by providing informative news content. The primary focus of all these sites is on the Rajasthan local news. Be it about Rajasthan Lok Sabha elections, Gujjar agitation, performance of the Rajasthan Royals, ONGC’s bid to gas exploration in Jaisalmer basin, Welfare schemes in Rajasthan, Omaxe deal, or death of peacocks in the in Ajmer, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh and the Shekhawati belt. The detail demands attention by virtue of its wholesomeness and purity of news.

The feature stories are continuously updated. These sites also make available searchable archives of news stories and provide political insights.

They are led by teams of qualified and proficient journalists. The teams comprise of editors, designers, news writers, photographers, producers, technologists and others as well as scholastic associates and members from the civil societies of Rajasthan.

Besides Rajasthan local news, theses sites also bring the most up-to-date breaking news articles and information about weather, business, entertainment, politics, and more. The editorials of these news sites provide articulate discussions on the current local issues. Many of these portals carry along complementary sections containing entertainment and sports news and analysis, besides book and film reviews.

In this essay we will explore some of the major trends in the study of climate change. As far as we know the Earth is a unique planet in that  it is the only one in our solar system that has an atmosphere and oceans of water. Currents in these carry heat and moisture around the globe so that life is basically widespread. These currents also create the weather. The pattern of weather in a particular place is its climate and climates vary slowly over time forcing life to adapt to new conditions. However, recently the rate of change has increased.

In the 1890s the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius claimed that past ice ages might have been caused by fewer volcanic eruptions pumping gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These gases maintain heat so reducing them would make Earth cool down. He then wondered what would happen if intense industrial activity produced more of these gases by burning fuels such as coal. He really discovered the factor that linked industrialization and fuel use with changing global temperatures. For a really clear exposoition of the basic theories in climate change please read the DK guide to Climate Change 2008.

The most important greenhouse gases are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. Like all gases they exist as clusters of atoms called molecules. A molecule of carbon dioxide is made up of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms. A methane molecule has one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. Not all greenhouse gases contain carbon e.g. nitrous oxide. However, of the main atmospheric greenhouse gases carbon dioxide is one of the most important. It absorbs a lot less energy per molecule than other greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane but there is much more of it.

Measurements of carbon dioxide in the air by US scientist Charles Keeling show its concentration has been increasing every year since 1958. This brings us to a brief description of the carbon cycle itself. Basically carbon is constantly being absorbed and released by living things. Plants and other photosynthesizers absorb carbon dioxide and use some of the carbon to build their tissues. The carbon is released as carbon dioxide or methane when plants die and decay. If animals eat the plants they use some of the carbon to build their own tissues but eventually die too. Meanwhile both plants and animals release carbon dioxide when they turn sugar into energy by respiration. In fact carbon uptake is one of the main checks on the greenhouse effect involving plants and marine plankton, as the more carbon dioxide there is the more they absorb.

There are a number of checks and balances that work for climate stability. These may be either via negative or positive feedbacks. Some natural processes resist change. For example when intense sunlight warms the ocean surface water evaporates and rises into the air as invisible water vapour. As it rises it cools and forms clouds which shade the ocean so it cools down. Eventually evaporation and cloud formation stops so sunlight can warm the ocean again. This is an example of negative feedback. When ice forms and snow falls the white surface acts like a mirror. It reflects solar energy so that less heat is absorbed by the ground and more ice forms. This is called the albedo effect and is an example of a positive feedback which promotes change rather than resisting it.

 The British scientist James Lovelock is famous for his theory that living things regulate the climate and the chemistry of the atmosphere in their own interest. Over the long term a web of negative feedbacks ensures that life survives despite catastrophes that cause mass extinctions. The theory is named after Gaia, the Greek goddess of the Earth.

Natural Causes of Climate Change

Before considering the human impact on global climate change let us first briefly examine some of the factors in natural climate change. Climate changes have occurred on Earth many times before humans came on the scene. These shifts were caused by natural cycles that affect the Earth’s orbit around the sun, by changes in solar radiation levels and by catastrophic natural events such as massive volcanic eruptions. Some of these changes seem to have triggered positive feedback events that dramatically increased their effect. We know for example that the Earth has passed through several ice ages that were caused at least partly by orbital cycles. We are now living in a warm phase of an ice age that peaked 20,000 years ago. In a much longer view evidence from rocks, fossils and other sources show how Earth’s average temperature has changed since it was formed 4,600 million years ago. During most of geological time it has been warmer than it is now but with ice ages during the Pre-Cambrian and Palaeozoic eras.

The Mesozoic age of dinosaurs was a warm period but temperatures fell during the Cenozoic era until they reached the coldest phases of the current ice age. In addition to the Earth’s orbit we should also consider variations in tilt of the Earth, Axis drift, sunspots and plages, effects of continental drift, volcanic eruptions and mini ice ages in a full discussion of natural climate change. For example from the 1300s to around 1850 the Northern hemisphere suffered a little ice age which reached its coldest point in the mid 15th century.

Henry Kamen wrote and excellent book about this period and  Braudel’s works in history show the link between climate and short term events. In Europe harvests failed and people starved and the bitterly cold winters created the frozen landscapes portrayed in many paintings of the period such as the work of Dutch artist Hendrick Avercamp in the early 1600s. The cause of this particular little ice age is still not clearly understood but may have resulted from volcanic activity.

 Human Impact

Now we move on to the human impact on global climate change. The last century has seen an average global air temperature rise of nearly 0.8 degrees C measured at ground level. This does represent a relatively sharp upturn in the rate of warming since in the 20,000 years since the peak of the last ice age the temperature has risen only by 4 degrees C. Most of man’s advances have been made using fuel that when burned releases carbon dioxide. This has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air and this closely matches the rise in global air temperature so it is very likely that accelerated global warming is being caused by our modern energy hungry way of life. From ice core samples we know that in the 1700s the level of carbon dioxide was roughly 280 parts per million of air. Today it is 380 ppm. Let us now consider some of the ways in which humans are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. We will look at two major aspects of this – the burning of forests and the use of fossil fuels. We will then conclude this section with a note on the production of other greenhouse gases.

Burning the Forests

The most basic of all fuels is wood which people have been burning for thousands of years. Huge increases in human population have greatly increased the amount of wood that is burned and at the same time vast forests are being felled for farming, ranching and road building – this also contributes to climate change by releasing all the carbon that the forest trees have absorbed in their lifetimes. Brazil has lost more than 423,000 square kilometers of forest. Indonesia has lost nearly 300,000 square kilometers. It is true that wildfires are part of the natural carbon cycle and that the carbon dioxide they release is soon absorbed by young trees but if a forest is felled, burned and not allowed to regrow all the carbon is turned into carbon dioxide that increases the greenhouse effect.

 Fossil Fuels

Coal fueled the rise of modern industry as well as the steamships and railways of the 1800s. In the 20th century oil and natural gas have been developed into fuels for road vehicles and aircraft. The world’s first oil wells were sunk at Baku on the Caspian shore in 1847 but the oil industry really took off in the early 20th century when refined forms of oil could be used as fuel for cars.  All these are carbon rich fossils fuels created from long dead organisms by processes that take millions of years. They are being burned far more quickly than they were formed thus releasing carbon back into the atmosphere and adding to the greenhouse effect.  

Different fossil fuels release different quantities of carbon dioxide. Coal is the worst, followed by oil then gas. Coal contains other pollutants such as soot and sulphur dioxide which can combine with water vapour to form smog and acid rain. For a more detailed discussion please read Harding and Starzynska’s 2008 work on a comparison of fuel types.

Other aspects of modern life

 Other aspects of modern life also add to the problem . Methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are released in much smaller quantities than carbon dioxide but they have a serious impact because they are much more powerful. A molecule of methane for example has the same effect as 25 molecules of carbon dioxide. We will look at several aspects of modern life that add to the problem of greenhouse gases and global climate change.

 Some of these are obvious but some less well known. Firstly there is the landfill problem. Developed countries produce huge amounts of waste  - a lot is burned releasing carbon dioxide and noxious gases but a lot is also buried where it is broken down by bacteria which produce methane – a very potent greenhouse gas as we have seen. Therefore even burying rubbish can increase global warming. Perhaps a less well known issue concerns the production of cement. Cement is made from limestone in a process that turns the rock into calcium oxide and carbon dioxide. Pulverizing and heating uses a lot of fuel. Cement is also heavy so transportation also uses a lot of fuel. Cement production releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide in total for every bag of cement made. Harding and Starzynska will release a more detailed study of the impact of the construction and cement manufacturing industries on world climate change.

Thirdly artificial fertilizers also release nitrous oxide and this is 300 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide ! In fact food production can cause problems. Our taste for beef encourages cattle ranching yet cows produce a lot of methane. Rice growing also produces relatively high levels of methane.

Results

Therefore by burning , felling,  excessive use of fossil fuels, cement production, transportation, intensive agriculture, use of fertilizers, and CFC gases humans accelerate the greenhouse effect.

Lets us now turn to an examination of some of the major results of climate change. We can broadly divide these into topics such as heatwaves and droughts, melting ice, warming oceans, and effects on wildlife. Scientists can record temperature rise but to many people the evidence of climate change is much more obvious in the form of heatwaves, shrinking lakes, desertification, droughts, famine and wildfires. Higher extreme temperatures are becoming more common. These are not always he highest temperatures recorded but they are sustained periods of exceptional heat such as the European heatwave of August 2003.

Irrigation projects make the problems of shrinking lakes worse. One classic example of this the dramatic shrinking of Lake Chad – now one twentieth of its original size. Desertification is also taking place. The Gobi and Sahara deserts are both expanding with the Sahel region of Africa most influenced. Many people who live on the dry fringes of deserts rely on seasonal rain to make crops grow and provide water for livestock. If the rains fail owing to climate change disaster follows as in Ethiopia in 2006.

Wildfires are also becoming more common in Australia, California and other regions as the land becomes drier – there are even wildfires in parts of Amazonia – a region unused to wildfires generally. Just as dramatic is the phenomenon of melting ice in the world’s polar regions. Arctic pack ice is shrinking and vast Antarctic ice shelves are collapsing and mountain glaciers everywhere retreating. On the polar fringes higher temperatures are also melting ice that lies beneath the ground , transforming tundra landscapes.

Since 1979 the size of the summer Arctic ice sheet has dwindled by about 1.5 million square kilometers. In the 1990s its thickness also decreased by 1m. We see other effects on the 3km thick Greenland ice sheet with the fringes melting more each summer and ice berg formations breaking away faster. This phenomenon will cause a rise in sea level. About a quarter of the land in the Northern hemisphere is so cold that it is permanently frozen beneath the surface. This permafrost is covered by a surface layer that is frozen in winter but thaws in summer creating vast areas of swampland. In many areas of the lower Arctic the active surface layer is getting deeper each year, melting ancient ice.

Glacial retreat in highland areas is also dramatic as examples such as the retreat of the Upsala glacier in Upper Patagonia show. In Antarctica the ice is melting fastest on the Antarctic Peninsula where temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else on Earth with a 3 degree C rise since 1951. The collapse of the Larsen Ice shelf in 2002 shows the power of global climate change. Warming Oceans The effects of global warming on land are therefore obvious in terms if wildfires, desertification, heatwaves etc but the impact on the ocean is less obvious. However, warming oceans mean rising sea levels and meltwater adds to this problem.

In addition warmer water at the ocean surface reduces plankton growth and carbon dioxide absorption. In fact rising sea levels are already causing serious flooding e.g. on the coral island nation of Tuvalu in the Pacific where most of the land lies just 2-3 meters above sea level. Since sea levels will continue to rise for a time even if global warming slows down it seems inevitable that such areas will be destroyed. The Maldives are also particularly vulnerable. Just as serious is the phenomenon of current slowdown.

 Dense salty water at the surface of the northern Atlantic sinks and pushes currents through the deeper parts of the world’s oceans but melting icebergs, glaciers and permafrost adds fresh water to the oceans reducing salinity and this effects the driving of deepwater currents. Finally we are seeing more intense storms caused by warmer oceans. In the temperate north we see rainfall increasing by 5-10% causing floods like those that hit England in 2007 or Mumbai in 2005.  

Effects on wildlife

 In the long term wildlife evolves to cope with both warmer and cooler climates but the process of evolution can be harsh and recent wildlife losses may be signalling that we are at the beginning of a time of extinctions. We will look at the effects of global climate change on wildlife with respect to acidified oceans, disruptions to the food webs, altered patterns of migrations and expansions, early losses of species, overheated reefs and disappearing wetlands. When rain dissolves atmospheric carbon dioxide it forms weak carbonic acid and the same process is effecting the oceans as they absorb extra carbon dioxide from the air. This is making the oceans less alkaline and this can make life more difficult for more marine animals such as corals, clams and lobsters that need alkaline materials for shell formation.. We also see disruptions in marine food webs. The oceanic food chain relies on the drifting micro-life of the plankton feeding fish and finally seabirds.

Warmer oceans are changing the distribution of plankton so fish move away from seabird nesting sites. We see this in falling numbers within Guillemot communities in the north Atlantic for example. Our chapter on the Deepwater Environment also provides examples of how global warming may effect marine life. We also see altered patterns of migrations and expansions. Some animals seem to be adapting to climate change. For example, insects have short life spans and rapid breeding rates enabling them to evolve quickly and move into habitats easily.

These include disease carrying mosquitoes which are spreading diseases such as malaria and West Nile virus to areas that were once too cold for the insects. In fact climate change may already have made some animals extinct. The golden toad was discovered in the Monteverde cloud forests of Costa Rica in 1966. By 1991 it was deemed to be extinct because the toads’ young were attacked by a fungal disease that flourished as nights became warmer. As the tropical oceans get warmer coral reefs also start to suffer with coral bleaching occurring. Rising ocean temperatures will probably cause more bleaching events thus threatening vulnerable corals with extinction.

Finally as droughts become more common and human populations grow  and use more water wetlands such as marshes and lakes are starting to dry up. These wetlands are vital to many animals as places to live and drink so their shrinkage or disappearance can be disastrous for wildlife. Perhaps the more famous examples of global climate change on wildlife are to be found in the Arctic. The ice is shrinking each year and summer ice may disappear altogether by 2070 or even earlier.

 The most vulnerable species is the one at the top of the food chain – the polar bear. If the food webs are disrupted by global warming they will be severely effected. In addition polar bears are adapted to hunting on the ice shelf. If this disappears the bears may disappear too. Rising temperatures mean that large areas of ocean that once stayed frozen throughout the year now become open water. Polar bears may have to swim long distances in order to hunt.The ice also melts earlier in summer and forces bears ashore before they have built up fat reserves.

Conclusion

This chapter has given the briefest outline of some of the issues and results of global warming . We will look at some of the possible solutions in the next chapter. However, it should be noted that some climate change scientists believe we may already have advanced beyond a tipping event and there are simply no quick solutions now.

Dr Simon Harding

www.biblon.com

www.chronosconsulting.com

Exclusive News Portal covering Rajasthan and MadhyaPradesh Local News – a brief
These online news sites aggregate local news from thousands and hundreds of regional as well national news sources and present platform for enlightening discussion on local issues.

A latest analysis of the market has revealed that readers choose to read local news covered by local journalists in contrast to the news content created for their market by a distant source. Today there are a number of news sites, which have for this purpose engaged a team of local journalists.

The news sites endeavor to deliver information as per the expectation of the readers and attempt to reach out to millions of others by providing informative news content. The primary focus of all these sites is on the Rajasthan and M.P local news. Be it about Rajasthan and MadhyaPradesh Lok Sabha elections, Gujjar agitation, performance of the Rajasthan Royals, ONGC’s bid to gas exploration in Jaisalmer basin, Welfare schemes in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, Omaxe deal, death of peacocks in the in Ajmer, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh and the Shekhawati belt or the Education scenerio in cities like Bhopal and Indore and Social Events of great Scale such as “Amritam jalam”- for water conservation, organised by Patrika group in Rajasthan and MadhyaPradesh. The detail demands attention by virtue of its wholesomeness and purity of news.

The feature stories are continuously updated. These sites also make available searchable archives of news stories and provide political insights.

They are led by teams of qualified and proficient journalists. The teams comprise of editors, designers, news writers, photographers, producers, technologists and others as well as scholastic associates and members from the civil societies of Rajasthan.

Besides Rajasthan local news, theses sites also bring the most up-to-date breaking news articles and information about weather, business, entertainment, politics, and more. The editorials of these news sites provide articulate discussions on the current local issues. Many of these portals carry along complementary sections containing entertainment and sports news and analysis, besides book and film reviews.

 

Patrika.com is the best one stop web destination to get Latest and rich Hindi News and India News Content . You can also directly check out Rajasthan and MadhyaPradesh Local News by clicking www.patrika.com.

Indore is considered as the commercial capital of central India. It has a very colorful history that people may learn from. Numerous infrastructures in the city paved the way for a stable economy.

Indore is the commercial capital of the Madhya Pradesh state in India. It is also the largest city within the district. This city is just located along the plateau of Malwa on the northern part of the Vindhya Mountain range. Moreover, the city is the home of the administrative headquarters in the whole area of the Indore district and of the Indore division. It was even the former capital of the Indore princely state. It is also the summer capital of the state of erstwhile Central India.

Indore City has a very transitional climate ranging from the tropical dry and wet as well as the humid sub-tropical atmosphere. There are three distinct seasons observed in this city, namely the monsoon, winter and summer.

Summer usually starts in mid march, wherein, the city is extremely hot. Beaches and other recreational stuff are very popular in summer. During this season, temperatures are approximately 32 degrees Celsius or 90 degrees Fahrenheit even in times of very low humidity. Due to the city’s strategic location on the southern portion of the plateau called “Maldwa”, a soothing and cool breeze in the nighttime makes up for the summer discomforts in daytime. The soothing and cool breezes during summer nights are often referred to as the “Shab-e-Malwa.

During the monsoon season, temperatures range from 26 degrees Celsius or 78 degrees Fahrenheit along with high humidity and sustained heavy rainfall. This particular season typically starts on the last week of June.

The winter season usually starts on the 2nd week of November and are mild, dry and sunny. The temperatures drop from 26 degrees Celsius to 18 or 20 degrees Celsius or 65 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. On some nights, the temperatures may fall very close to the freezing point.

Indore City gets a moderate amount of rainfall which ranges from 35 to 38 inches or 890 up to 965 millimeters. Rain typically starts to pour down on July to September due to the monsoon on the southwest region.

In terms of transportation, Indore is well-connected to every neighboring city via road, air and rail transportation. For about some time now, this city has been the road and rail transportation hub within the state of Madhya Pradesh. If you are a visitor in Indore, do not fret for there are numerous dharamshalas and hotels scattered along the city boundaries and are near the vicinity of bus stations as well as railway stations. The Gangawal and Sarwate Bus Terminals are among the two popular bus stations near the most popular hotels in the city. Aside from this, Indore has its very own floor for disable persons which always come under the GPS navigation system. If you are looking for comfortable and faster journey, you may want to consider riding the region’s radio taxis or cabs.

The city of Indore had been considered as the fastest growing Tier 2 cities in the whole of India according to reliable sources. Indore is in fact central India’s commercial capital already. It is the preferential test market for various industries due to its diverse population. There are undergoing plans about a software park to be launched soon. A number of shopping malls was constructed during 2004 and had contributed to shifting the sober feel of Indore.

Indore is a member of the parliament Sumitra Mahajan. The main languages spoken are Hindi, English and Marwadi. The name Indore originated from the Indreshwar temple constructed in 1741 by local landowners.

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