IT'S OFFICIAL: Triathlons can leave massive carbon footprint according to Council for Responsible Sport

The Council for Responsible Sport estimates that the athletes participating in the 2007 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii produced greenhouse gases equivalent to the yearly carbon footprint of 972 average U.S. homes.

Despite our concern that climate change might not be quite so directly influenced by our actions as we egotistically want to believe in our latest twist to the Doomsday yawn yarn, the Council for Responsible Sport’s declaration of danger does sound like an important warning to avoid participation in these despicable and excessively athletic events.

In further news you can use, those extremely sad low energy lightbulbs are causing illness and are potentially extremely dangerous.

The Daily Express in London reports:

Doctors say scores of people are coming forward with skin complaints after being exposed to the ultra-violet light emitted by the new-style bulbs. And the mercury powder inside them makes handling a broken bulb extremely dangerous.

Exposure to high levels of mercury can cause itching, burning, skin inflammation, kidney problems and insomnia.

Alarming guidelines issued by the Government warn that anyone breaking a low-energy bulb should leave the room immediately.

The guidelines, published on the Defra website, say: “Vacate the room and ventilate it for at least 15 minutes.

Old school lightbulbs will be banned in Europe by 2012 but switching over to the sad low-energy ones could have a massive environmental backlash releasing mercury into the food chain causing serious illness:

Exposure to high levels of mercury can cause itching, burning, skin inflammation, kidney problems and insomnia.

In further environmental news, a militant group Rising Tide supported by the NSW Greens political party has encouraged its disciples to attack 4WD vehicles, assault nominated political enemies, illegally paint different lanes on roads and blockade power plants and petrol stations. Joe Hildebrand at his best.

DOUBTFUL: RMIT Islamic group claims its women members are being sexually abused while praying on campus

Providing prayer rooms and similar facilities to mainstreams religions seems a perfectly reasonable thing for higher education institutions to do.

But those advocating for them ought beware of flicking the switch to hysterical in making their case.

The jihadist’s favourite daily newspaper in Melbourne, The Age faithfully reports an RMIT Muslim activist making a very big and unsubstantiated claim:

Some women had been sexually abused and harassed while praying, Mr Elrafihi said.

Unless Sheik Hilaly is in town, that does seem rather unlikely.

There are plenty of enthusiasts for causes inclined to gild the lily and it seems Mr Elrafihi of the RMIT Islamic Society is no exception.

Repeating that hysterical and patently absurd claim without any attempt to obtain proof of it is highly irresponsible behaviour. It’s amazing to think some – not all – look down their nose at tabloid newspapers and say their standards are lower than The Age. If that was ever true, it is certainly no longer.

Certainly if it was true it seems highly unlikely this sexually abused and harassed minority would be gathered:

prostrated under posters proclaiming “Virgins wanted” while students and workmen bustled around them.

Unless it was a reference to subscribers to the Virgin mobile phone network, you’d like to think that the RMIT Islamic Society that draws on funding at least in part from taxpayers would not be discriminating against non-virgins or anyone else nor needlessly making reference to sex in a totally inappropriate context.

So hopefully the leaders of this group will get their prayer room and they can reflect on their religion’s mandate not to lie and to treat all equally. It sounds like they’ll have plenty to pray about.