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Did Australia's obsession with global warming contribute to the Brisbane floods?

Brendan O'Neill
Telegraph UK
Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:33 UTC
Image
© Getty
A man paddles down a street in a Brisbane suburb
Who, if anyone, is to blame for the terrible flooding in Brisbane? Commentators are pointing their collective finger at the usual suspects. For the extreme green magazine Grist, the floods expose mankind's arrogance in believing that he can build settlements anywhere he likes, even on floodplains. Nature is "taking a perverse pleasure in pointing out just where the shiny, might city is weakest", gloats Grist. Others are blaming Aussie property developers, for thoughtlessly throwing up flood-prone buildings, and yet others think Queensland politicians should have done more to improve flood defences.

But might there be another, so far overlooked, contributing factor to the floods? Might the politics of environmentalism itself - the contemporary obsession with global warming as the greatest threat to mankind - have exacerbated the impact of the flooding in Brisbane? It seems possible that Aussie politicians' and officials' deeply held conviction that the main problem we face today is increased heat, droughts and a lack of rainfall caused them to take their eye off the ball in Brisbane, and to be unprepared for something as relatively normal as very heavy rainfall.
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Bizarro Earth

Iran: Mass Fish Death Recorded in Caspian Sea

Azerbaijan, Baku
Trend
Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:02 UTC
dead fish
© na

Mass fish death was recorded in the Iranian sector of the Caspian Sea," Iranian Gulistan Province's Nature Conservation Department Deputy Head Mohsen Jafarnejad said.

Mass death of fish in the Caspian Sea is recorded on the west coast of the Gulistan Province. A large number of dead mullet have washed ashore, Shomalnews.com reported.

"An analysis of samples taken from dead fish was carried out, and now we are waiting for their results," Jafarnejad said.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Philippine Floods Toll Rises to 51; Fishermen Missing


Reuters
Sun, 16 Jan 2011 03:51 UTC
The death toll from more than two weeks of heavy rains in the central and southern Philippines has risen to 51, disaster officials said on Sunday, as authorities stepped up their search for another 16 people missing at sea.

Agriculture and infrastructure damage now exceeds 1.6 billion pesos ($36 million) after floodwaters inundated rural communities in about a third of the country's 80 provinces, said Benito Ramos, head of the government's disaster agency.

Major rice and corn production areas in the north and western parts of the country have been spared from the damaging impact of the persistent rains that began in late December.

Most of the dead either drowned or were buried by mudslides, Ramos said. Nearly 20 people are still missing.

"We're expecting the number of casualties to increase because more people have gone missing," Ramos told Reuters, appealing to fishermen in the central Bicol region to stay onshore until the weather improved.

Search planes and ships are looking for 16 fishermen whose boat capsized in rough seas off the central island of Catanduanes.
      Read More...
Igloo

7,000 Buffalo and Cows Freeze To Death in Vietnam


Tuoitre News
Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:56 UTC
Image
© unk
Freezing Vietnam to enter another cold snap

After enduring a freezing cold with temperatures in mountainous areas dropping to minus four degrees Celsius, northern Vietnam is to undergo another fresh cold snap starting Saturday.

Deputy Director of the National Hydro-meteorological Forecast Center Le Thanh Hai said the new cold bout will drive down temperatures in mountainous provinces to under 10 degrees Celsius and even lower in higher mountainous areas.

Temperature in delta region provinces will dip to 11-12 degrees Celcius.
The Center also predicts an even stronger cold front on January 21 lasting until January 25.
      Read More...
Cow

US: 200 Dead Cows Found on Farm in Stockton, Wisconsin

Cara Spoto
Wausau Daily Herald
Sat, 15 Jan 2011 10:09 UTC
The Portage County Humane Society is trying to figure out what caused 200 cows in the town of Stockton to perish.

Deputies were dispatched to the town just after 1 p.m. on Friday after they were notified of numerous dead cows lying in a field in the 8000 block of Fourth Avenue, according to a Portage County Sheriff's Department news release.

The owner of the cattle reportedly told deputies that he had been working with a local veterinarian and suspected that the animals died from either infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, or IBR, or bovine virus diarrhea, or BVD, the Sheriff's Department said.

According to Cattletoday.info, IBR, aka red nose, is an acute, contagious virus of cattle that usually occurs in the air passages of the cow's head or its windpipe.
      Read More...
Radar

Quake in Chile set off tremors in California-US study


Reuters
Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:05 UTC
Corrected - Quake in Chile set off tremors in California-US study

(Corrects 2nd paragraph to show that 500 people were killed and to show more than one tsunami struck)

A devastating earthquake in Chile last year may have set off a swarm of smaller quakes as far away as California, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.

They found evidence that the magnitude 8.8 quake in Chile, which killed 500 people and set off tsunamis that devastated coastal cities last February, set off a chain of events 10,000 km (6,200 miles) away.
      Read More...
Radar

The California 'Big One' May Be a Flood

Matt Weiser
Sacramento Bee
Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:35 UTC
Image
© U.S. Geological Survey
California has more risk of catastrophic storms than any other region in the country - even the Southern hurricane states, according to a new study released Thursday.

The two-year study by the U.S. Geological Survey is the most thorough effort yet to assess the potential effects of a "worst-case" storm in California.

It builds on a new understanding of so-called atmospheric rivers, a focusing of high-powered winds that drag a fire hose of tropical moisture across the Pacific Ocean, pointed directly at California for days on end. The state got a relatively tame taste of the phenomenon in December.

The team of experts that developed the scenario can't say when it will happen. But they do say it has happened in the past and is virtually certain to strike again.

"This storm, with essentially the same probability as a major earthquake, is potentially four to five times more damaging," said Lucy Jones, USGS chief scientist on the study. "That's not something that is in the public consciousness."

The study aims to fix that.
      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Hundreds dead in Brazil floods


Al jazeera
Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:00 UTC
Rescuers dig through shattered homes for survivors after floods and landslides rip through a mountainous region.

brazil floods serrana region
© EPA
Many residents of the three main towns in Serrana region have been made homeless by the floods
More than 350 people have been killed after floods and landslides devastated towns and villages in a mountainous area near Rio de Janeiro.

Rescue workers were digging desperately on Thursday in an attempt to reach people buried after the equivalent of a month's rain fell on the Serrana region in less 24 hours, toppling houses and buckling roads.

"It's like an earthquake struck some areas," Jorge Mario, the mayor of Teresopolis, where at least 168 people were reported to have died, said.

"There are three or four neighbourhoods that were totally destroyed in rural areas. There are hardly any houses standing there and all the roads and bridges are destroyed."

Television images showed emergency workers going through the ruins of collapsed homes in a search for survivors, but often finding only bodies.
      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Fiji Islands: Flooding in Western and Eastern Division

Shalvin Deo
Figivillage.com
Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:08 UTC
Image
Continuous rain has led to flooding in most parts of the Western and Eastern Division.

The heavy downpour continues in Rakiraki, Tavua, Ba, Lautoka, Korovou and Naqali.

The Department of National Roads said people are still stranded on the main highway to Rakiraki town near Vaileka as the highway is still flooded and closed to traffic.

The FSC road and crossing, the Waimari and Korotale roads are also flooded.
      Read More...
Cloud Lightning

Indonesia: Wild Weather Destroys Homes In 2 Provinces

Eras Poke & Nurfika Osman
Jakarta Globe
Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:44 UTC
Extreme weather in two provinces has damaged hundreds of houses and left scores homeless, officials said on Thursday.

On the East Nusa Tenggara island of Flores on Wednesday, high waves that reached as far as 100 meters inland swept away at least 18 houses in Sikka district's Nangahale village, said Fransiska Palan Bolen, secretary of the province's Natural Disaster Management Agency (BNPD).

No injuries were reported in the incident.

Fransiska said the affected villagers had been evacuated to emergency camps and that her office had sent personnel, supplies and food to help the victims.
      Read More...
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