Earth ChangesS


Alarm Clock

Thousands flee China quake area over flood fears


Associated Press
Sat, 17 May 2008 10:29 UTC
Beichuan, China - Thousands of Chinese earthquake victims fled areas near the epicenter Saturday, fearful of potential floods from a river blocked by landslides.

Soldiers carried older people out of Beichuan town - one of the areas hit hardest by the magnitude 7.9 quake Monday - while survivors cradled babies on a road jammed with vehicles and people. The death toll jumped to near 29,000.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Prince George's residents briefly displaced by sinkhole

Nick Madigan
Baltimore Sun
Mon, 12 May 2008 10:02 UTC
Camp Springs - Residents of a Prince George's County neighborhood were roused this morning by firefighters and told to leave their homes because of a sinkhole that developed overnight in the rain-soaked ground.

prince george sinkhole
©AP
This carport was damaged when a sinkhole formed behind a row of homes in Camp Springs, Md.
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No Entry

Red tide outbreak forces ban on North Shore shellfishing

David Abel
The Boston Globe
Fri, 16 May 2008 12:49 UTC
Red tide has spread from central Maine to Gloucester, making it unsafe to harvest soft shell clams or mussels from those coastal waters, state officials said.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Lightning ignited house

Ken Sury
wacotrib.com
Tue, 13 May 2008 02:10 UTC
Waco, Texas - Fire officials determined that a lightning bolt around 10 a.m. today caused a ranch-style house at 3920 Austin Ave. to catch fire.

Its owner, 63-year-old Dub Allen, is a tugboat operator, who was out-of-town at the time of the fire.

Waco fire investigator Charles Lindorfer said lightning struck a metal chimney near the back of the house. The fire caused extensive water and smoke damage, he said, however, the contents in the home were not a total loss.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Lightning strike causes fire at well site


KTBS
Tue, 13 May 2008 02:21 UTC


Lightning strikes storage tank
©Unknown


(Click here to view video)

A storage tank at an energy well site caught fire in far south Caddo Parish this morning after it was hit by lightning.

The fire began shortly after 8 a.m. at a well site off Louisiana Highway 1 near Bunker Road.
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Cloud Lightning

US: Lightning strike sends wood flying

Jeff Brandt
The Telegraph
Tue, 13 May 2008 02:00 UTC
Alton, Illinois - A bolt from the blue struck a large tree in the 1700 block of Muny Vista Drive, sending charred wood and splinters flying hundreds of feet Tuesday morning.

"It was like a bomb hit it," Paul Woulfe said.



Tree struck by lightning
©The Telegraph/John Badman
A screen, apparently blown from the house, sits about 50 feet from a tree, background, that was struck by lightning Tuesday in the 1700 block of Muny Vista Drive in Alton. One side of the tree exploded, sending debris hundreds of feet.


Woulfe, maintenance man at Hillcrest Apartments on Muny Vista, was among those cleaning up the mess left after the impact from the lightning strike flung chunks of a 40-foot-tall cottonwood tree all over the complex's parking lot, some of them as large as 5 feet long and weighing 40 pounds, he said.
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Cowboy Hat

Al Gore And Climate 'Ka-Ching'


Investor's Business Daily
Thu, 08 May 2008 17:55 UTC
Junk Science: Al Gore blames the Burma tragedy on global warming despite growing evidence to the contrary. Could the hype be related to his financial interests?

Gore's reaction to the death and destruction caused by a cyclone ravaging Burma was to utter an emphatic "I told you so" Tuesday on National Public Radio. In an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" broadcast, the jolly green giant made the charge while talking about the paperback release of his ironically named book, "The Assault on Reason."

Ignoring the fact that the rising death toll is due in part to an incompetent, isolationist and authoritarian government that allows most of its people to live in shanty towns of tin and bamboo, Gore claimed that "we're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."

In other words, people die in Rangoon because of an SUV in Richmond, Va.
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Question

Global Warming or Insanity?

V. Paul Reynolds
Sun-Journal Lewiston
Sun, 11 May 2008 17:43 UTC
Why do intelligent, well-meaning people throw themselves and their organizations money and energies behind causes without first doing their homework?

Back in February, a coalition of Fish and Game Clubs and conservation organizations from around the country petitioned our U.S. Congress to pass climate control legislation. New Hampshire, one of the many states involved, issued a press release that read in part:
Concord, NH (February 19) - More than a dozen of the leading hunting and fishing clubs and wildlife-related businesses in New Hampshire joined forces Tuesday to call on the state's elected leaders in Congress to support strong legislation to confront climate change.
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Life Preserver

China quake boy pulled out after 80 hrs under school rubble


RIA Novosti
Fri, 16 May 2008 15:52 UTC
A school boy was rescued after 80 hours trapped in the rubble of a collapsed school building in southwest China's Sichuan province, hit by a powerful quake Monday, local media said on Friday.

The massive earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale led to the destruction of many school buildings with over 6,000 classrooms destroyed. In one school alone 300 children were killed when a three-storey building collapsed burying over 850 pupils in Qingchuan.

The death toll from the quake could soar to over 50,000, the country's State Council said on Thursday. The official death toll stands at 20,000 with thousands still trapped beneath the debris.
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Bizarro Earth

Estonian bear caught trying to enter Russia


RIA Novosti
Fri, 16 May 2008 15:37 UTC
A brown bear was caught by an Estonian environmental inspector in the Narva River swimming toward the Russian border, the Eesti Paevaleht daily reported on Friday.
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