Crikey intern Olly Perkins writes:
News from planet earth:
A tale of two cities. Cyclists in Melbourne and Sydney stripped down yesterday for World Naked Bike Ride to protest society’s reliance on automobiles and highlight the vulnerability of cyclists on our city roads.
Of the two groups, the Melbourne riders far outdid those from Sydney. The Australian reports some 50 riders took part in the hour long ride thought the CBD. While The Sydney Morning Herald reports only 14 protesters took part in the ride from Sydney Park in St Peters to Bicentennial Park in Glebe.
And the ones in Sydney weren’t naked long, forced to makeshift Eden-esque coverings from gaffer tape and bark after the local police put an end to such egregious fashion faux-pars.
“Sorry to be the fashion police,” one officer blushed, according to the SMH. “We don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, but we have a level we need to maintain.”
Check out some more saucy cyclists at the World Naked Bike Ride website.
Bruised and battered. The Great barrier Reef is feeling the affects of the recent extreme weather in what the marine parks authority is calling the ’summer of hard knocks’ , reports the ABC and The Canberra Times.
Sun bleaching in December, flooding in January and February and the fury of tropical cyclone Hamish have inflicted damage scientists believe could take up to two decades to mend.
Each event on its own is nothing new, but authority chairman, Dr Russel Riechart told The Canberra Times that all three hitting in consecutive months is unrecorded.
”The worry … isn’t the sudden demise of the Great Barrier Reef, it’ll be a steady degradation of the reef’s capacity to bounce back,” he said.
Murky waters. Victorian water catchments areas affected by the recent bushfires are in danger of becoming contaminated by polluted run off for years to come, reports the ABC.
Speaking to the ABC, forest hydrologist Patrick Lane of the University of Melbourne explains the vegetation found in forested areas intercepts rain and reduces run-off and soil erosion providing a high quality of water.
But, he says, lacking that natural filter, heavy rains can lead to massive erosion, and even “debris flows” that “gouges out large gullies.”
“They’ll dump a lot of sediment and nutrients and rocks and all sorts of stuff into streams,” he said.
