Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 152 posts

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#121

Post by GJim »

pvaldes wrote: post #57
forinti wrote: post #50

In South America there's a very aggressive spider that lives on the bananas (genus Phoneutria). Spiders usually shy away from humans but these attack and have a very nasty venom. I wonder if the heat will take nasty critters to Europe.

Phoneutria are interesting animals. Needed to evolve defenses against the gluttony of monkeys. It must be a tasty spider. It happens that we are monkeys also, so the venom is carefully designed against us. There is a registered case of a Phoneutria bite in UK at least, and the chef was sent directly to an hospital. To be fair, they dislike the cold so the spider had its reasons to be upset when he opened the fridge t…

> opened the fridge to grab a banana.

A chef should know better than to keep bananas in a fridge!

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#122

Post by notahacker »

vixen99 wrote: post #110
notahacker wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, got you. Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway or in heat islands (which we definitely haven't had for decades) or in someone's garden, whereas all the historical benchmarks exceeded were flawless. The UK recording a temperature of over 40 celsius was actually an anomaly because of the first time a jet ever landed at a British airport. Also the lack of rain wa…

Moreover with 78% of UK Met Office temperature measuring sites failing to meet Class 1 or 2 standards ex FOI request), the reported temperatures are all spot on! Might add that the ~ 2 trillion tons of concrete associated with energy-producing-humans which we've taken from under the earth and dumped on top since 1900 has had zero effect on any local temperatures. As we all know, the storage heater principle only work…

And if a few dozen weather stations records temperatures a couple of degrees higher than any of them recorded in their previous decades of operation, only an idiot would conclude that the day was actually warmer than previous days, when it could be because those weather stations were within 100m of bodies of water or not as exposed to the wind as parts of the surrounding environment, just like they always had been.

As we all know, meteorologists know nothing about heat islands, which actually work by saving up all the heat from urban areas built last century and discharging it in comparatively rural areas in the 2020s.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#123

Post by markdown »

gwerbin wrote: post #100
culi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really transformed Europe too. Europe's basically a story of famine after famine until they got access to the potato. I don't know if any other technology has saved as many European lives as the potato Pacific island cultures are a bit unique in their relationship to the New World though. Chickens which come from SE Asian jungles have been in South America since at least 1300 AD. And sweet potatoes were grown in P…

1300 AD?! Did the Polynesians bring chickens with them? I knew about the sweet potatoes, but the chickens are a whole different manner.

Ask a 5yr old. They've watched Moana a dozen times and can name a chicken character.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#124

Post by ragazzina »

mike_hearn wrote: post #37
inigyou wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've seen someone blame immigration for climate change.

Because you never looked. What he's saying is a true and well known problem in climatology. Population increases create an appearance of warming in the dataset. There are two sources of corruption. The first is the urban heat island effect. Many weather stations are corrupted because although they were once in fields or other natural sites, over time cities expanded to meet the needs of the growing population and end…

>a true and well known problem in climatology. Population increases create an appearance of warming in the dataset.

How does this explain the increasing excess deaths?

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#125

Post by leoedin »

roysting wrote: post #24
sinuhe69 wrote: post #16

With these heatwaves, many cities in France, Italy and England are at times *hotter* than cities in the tropical SEA! No wonder the bananas are starting to fruit.

> He added that growing banana plants in the UK is not new for a "geek in the plant world", but perhaps still niche to the average person. Also, do you think that it may have something to do with being cities with stone and steel that absorbs and radiates heat, and that cities are no longer as filled with trees due to urbanization and immigration filling them with people? For context, London, Rome, and Paris have res…

The population of London isn't much more today than it was in 1930. And the population density is more or less the same too. I think it's unlikely that people's bodies are the cause of heating. Greater London for example would receive about 1572 MW of solar irradiance on a sunny day.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#126

Post by fransje26 »

riffraff wrote: post #117
TabTwo wrote: post #45

Last year ours bloomed, too. The problem is that it happens to late in the year and I can’t wrap that 5m high “tree” to protect from the cold. So the bananas were the size of your pinky. Next problem, once they bloom, they die. So yes, climate change is real. For comparison, we are located in south Germany near Stuttgart and we also have a fig tree and an olive tree in our garden.

Are figs rare in central europe climates? I live in Hungary and they seem to be relatively widespread, if not as much as in southern Europe.

The climate in Hungary is really not quite the same as in Stuttgart...

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#127

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

fritzo wrote: post #102
PaulRobinson wrote: post #71

The UK straddles the 55th parallel North. Due to the jet streams (and formerly, trade winds) carrying warm air from the Caribbean, it has often benefitted from a milder climate than other regions at similar latitudes: Alaska, Siberia, the Baltic states. But this is wild. I am only in my 40s but I've seen the climate change significantly and it having a major impact on flora and fauna. When I was a kid, English wine w…

Just wait till the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation halts, then you can grow icicles!

Hopefully we've got at least 10 years until that happens

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#128

Post by inglor_cz »

culi wrote: post #74
rdedev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite is the history of chili pepper. It's something so fundamental to indian cuisine that I assumed chillies were native to India for a long time. His video shows the true history of how that spice travelled from the Americas to all over the globe

Potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, sweet potatoes, pumpkins/zucchinis/most squashes, cassava, the common bean (including pinto, black, kidney, etc), cassava, sunflowers, avocado, etc all didn't exist in European kitchens until the 1500s (and not really widespread until at least the 1600s). Also, most of these crops were specifically domesticated in the Andes. If you go to the Andes today you can still find tradi…

Most of that I knew, but I was surprised at the beans. I thought beans were a standard medieval fare.

It turned out that these were fava beans, which stem from the Old World.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#130

Post by account42 »

fransje26 wrote: post #126
riffraff wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are figs rare in central europe climates? I live in Hungary and they seem to be relatively widespread, if not as much as in southern Europe.

The climate in Hungary is really not quite the same as in Stuttgart...

We have had figs in southern Germany for decades. Not all varieties grow well here of course but just having figs growing doesn't really tell you much.
Post reply on HN