Earth ChangesS


Light Saber

Ryanair's Michael O'Leary says ash cloud 'was mythical'

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© Getty ImagesMichael O' Leary said the volcanic ash cloud was 'mythical.'
Michael O'Leary has refused to soften his stance on compensation as he admitted the volcanic ash cloud cost the airline around €50m.

Ryanair's chief executive said his airline was gearing up for a legal challenge against "unfair" EU regulations, which forced carriers to cover the costs of refreshments and accommodation for passengers who could not get home.

Mr O'Leary said the firm planned to use the top 20 "most ludicrous" claims as part of a test case in the courts. He said one customer stranded in the Canary Isles, hoping to return to Dublin, put in a claim for €3,000 for a luxury apartment.

The outspoken boss said the "mythical" cloud had left his business with a bill of around €50m so far.

"There was no ash cloud," he told a press conference on Tuesday. "It was mythical. We've not been able to find it." He went on: "It's become evident the airspace closure was completely unnecessary."

Mr O'Leary blamed the "incompetence" of the Met Office for identifying an ash cloud "that just wasn't there".

Bizarro Earth

Quebec forest fires black out skies

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© Unknown
Thick smoke billowed from forest fires in Quebec's backcountry on Monday, sparking smog alerts in Montreal and the US city of Boston, and putting city firefighters in Ottawa on alert, officials said.

Fifty-two blazes burned north of Montreal, eight of them out of control, blackening thousands of hectares of forests in Quebec, the Quebec forest fire protection unit (Sopfeu) said.

In Ottawa, residents awoke to a strong smell of smoke, and fire crews were dispatched to all corners of the capital city to monitor approaching fires.

In Montreal, a smog alert was announced for much of the southern part of the province, along the Saint Lawrence seaway.

South of the border, the US National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for the border states of Maine and New Hampshire, as well as Massachusetts, with the thickest smoke reaching Cape Cod and Nantucket.

"Smoke from a number of large fires in southern Quebec has begun to move over portions of southwest New Hampshire... as well as eastern Massachusetts," the US National Weather Service said.

Bad Guys

Gulf oil spill: White House orders BP to cut use of dispersant by half

Worries escalate over effect of Corexit on marine wildlife

Guardian disperant2
© Stephane Jourdain/AFP/Getty ImagesBP faces criticism over the chemicals it is using to disperse the oil slick.
The White House directed BP to cut its use of chemical dispersants to break up the Louisiana oil slick by as much as 50% yesterday, reflecting concerns that the clean-up of the spill could be worsening the economic disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the Obama administration wanted the oil company to scale back its use of chemicals on the water surface. The order came amid increasing tension between the administration and the oil company about how to manage the oil on the ocean floor, more than a month after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

"I am recommending as strongly as we can that we absolutely minimise the use of dispersants and that we monitor as rigorously as we can," she told a conference call with reporters touring Louisiana marshes contaminated by the oil. She said she thought BP would be able to cut its use of chemicals to break up the spill by half or even 75% by injecting smaller quantities underwater.

The directive is in line with a hardening of administration's rhetoric against BP. With thick brown sheets of crude oil now washing up on shore, the White House - as well as the oil company - is feeling the pressure of not stopping the leak.

Bizarro Earth

Volcano Erupts Near Sarigan Island in Pacific Ocean

Sarigan Volcano
© Worldof22.comSarigan Volcano in Mariana Islands
A submarine volcanic eruption is underway near the uninhabited Sarigan Island in the Northern Mariana Islands 3,800 miles southwest of Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean. Volcanic activity was first detected on Thursday. The Guam Weather Forecast Office reported that recent satellite images indicate that the affected area is about twice the size of Sarigan Island. Successive satellite images indicate that this is a point-source that has dramatically expanded in breadth. The activity appears to be centered about 6-7 miles south of Sarigan, probably on the southern extension of the submarine ridge upon which Sarigan is constructed.

Bizarro Earth

Ireland: Satellite Images Reveal Huge Blooms in Sea Off West Coast

Phytoplankton Blooms
© European Space AgencyA satellite image from the European Space Agency showing the swirls of phytoplankton blooms south of a cloud bank off the coast of Ireland.
A giant bloom photographed by satellite off the west coast of Ireland is "harmless", according to the Marine Institute.

Images of the phytoplankton bloom were captured last week by the European Space Agency and US space agency NASA.

It has caused the sea to turn a milk-white colour, due to the dense accumulation of phytoplankton known as Emiliania huxleyi in response to warm surface water and sunlight.

Billions of microscopic cells have formed the bloom, which tends to occur in summer months.

Marine Institute scientist Joe Silke explained that they "form the base of the marine food chain and are important contributors of atmospheric oxygen and essential components of a healthy oceanic biodiversity".

Mr Silke added: "The presence of this bloom is a good sign that the waters to the west of Ireland are currently in a healthy state."

Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.1 - Costa Rica

CostaRica_310510
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Tuesday, June 01, 2010 at 03:26:18 UTC

Monday, May 31, 2010 at 09:26:18 PM at epicenter

Location:
9.350°N, 84.281°W

Depth:
29.3 km (18.2 miles)

Region:
COSTA RICA

Distances:
74 km (46 miles) SSW (198°) from SAN JOSE, Costa Rica

156 km (97 miles) WSW (243°) from Limon, Costa Rica

194 km (121 miles) SE (138°) from Liberia, Costa Rica

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Is BP trying to cap the Gulf oil well, or keep it flowing?

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© b3ta corporate logos that tell the truth
Today, I spent my time interviewing people on the Gulf Coast from Mississippi to Louisiana. Several of those interviews were conducted on camera, and you'll be seeing those videos as early as tomorrow here on NaturalNews.

Interestingly, it turns out that a lot of the people living on the Gulf Coast have a history of working with oil companies -- and even on oil rigs. I spoke to several people who have a work history with BP, and two of them told me they are certain that British Petroleum is NOT trying to stop the oil coming out of the well. What they are trying to do, I was told, is SAVE the oil well so that they can capture the oil and sell it.

This claim stands in direct contradiction to what BP says. The company insists it's trying to stop the flow of oil from the well. But if you look at BP's actions, what they're really trying to do is siphon off the gushing oil where it can be pumped to a tanker ship and sold as crude. It is a simple matter, by the way, for oil companies to separate water from oil. They do it all the time in oil fields all across America. So if they can siphon off the oil from the Deepwater Horizon well -- even if it's mixed with water -- they can sell it for potentially billions of dollars.

It raises the question: Is the economic promise of captured oil causing BP to avoid using its best effort to cap the well?

Tapping, not capping

Notice that the new device they're lowering onto the well is designed not to close it off but to pump the oil to an awaiting ship. This is a plan to "capture" the oil, not to seal off the well.

Bizarro Earth

Update: Tropical storm leaves more than 115 dead and a huge sinkhole in Central America

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The office of Guatemala's president handed out this aerial view of a crater that opened up after Agatha hit
At least 115 people have died after a tropical storm battered Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador over the weekend, officials in those countries reported.

Guatemala was hit hardest, with at least 92 deaths, 54 people missing and 59 injured, emergency officials said. Nearly 112,000 people have been evacuated and more than 29,000 areliving in temporary shelters, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said in an address to the nation late Sunday.

The devastation has been widespread throughout Guatemala with mudslides destroying homes and buildings and burying some victims. At least nine rivers have dramatically higher levels and 13 bridges have collapsed, the nation's emergency services said.

Extinguisher

Latest climate climbdown: the Royal Society reviews its statements on global warming

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© RockRiverTimesStoryCartoons.com
The latest institutional retreat from uncritical support of the AGW hypothesis is one that will chill warmists to the core: the Royal Society has announced it is to review its public statements on climate change. The Society now believes that its previous communications did not properly distinguish between what was widely agreed on climate science and what is not fully understood. It has appointed a panel to review its statements, assisted by two critical sub-groups, including a number of Fellows who have doubts about the received view on the risks of increasing CO2 levels.

In fact this review has been forced on the Society by 43 of its Fellows who demanded last January that the pamphlet Climate Change Controversies, produced in 2007 and published on its website, should be rewritten to take a less aggressive stance in support of AGW and respect climate change "agnostics". In such partisan activities the Royal Society has form: in 2005 it published "A guide to facts and fictions about climate change", which denounced 12 "misleading arguments" which today, post Climategate and the subsequent emboldening of sceptical scientists to speak out, look far from misleading.

Phoenix

Hundreds die in Indian heatwave

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© Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty ImagesA train passenger quenches his thirst in Allahabad as temperatures in the Indian city soared above 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
Death toll expected to rise as India faces record temperatures of up to 122F in hottest summer on record

Record temperatures in northern India have claimed hundreds of lives in what is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s.

The death toll is expected to rise with experts forecasting temperatures approaching 50C (122F) in coming weeks. More than 100 people are reported to have died in the state of Gujarat where the mercury topped at 48.5C last week. At least 90 died in Maharashtra, 35 in Rajasthan and 34 in Bihar.

Hospitals in Gujarat have been receiving around 300 people a day suffering from food poisoning and heat stroke, ministers said. Officials admit the figures are only a fraction of the total as most of the casualties are found in remote rural villages.

Wildlife and livestock has also suffered with voluntary organisations in Gujarat reporting the deaths of bats and crows and dozens of peacocks reported dead at a forest reserve in Uttar Pradesh.