Earth ChangesS

Better Earth

Volcano gets active in Indonesia


AP
Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:51 UTC
Thousands of mountainside residents were evacuated as activity rose at one of Indonesia's most deadly volcanos Thursday, officials said.

Hundreds of deep volcanic tremors shook Mt. Kelud - tenfold the normal number - and its crater lake was the hottest since the mountain was put on high alert last month, said Surono, a senior government volcanologist who goes by a single name.

©Unknown
Hundreds of deep volcanic tremors shook Mt. Kelud - tenfold the normal number - and its crater lake was the hottest since the mountain was put on high alert last month (indoinside.com)

"Kelud is entering its critical phase," Surono said in a telephone interview, indicating that an eruption could occur at any time.

In 1990, Mt. Kelud killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds. In 1919, a powerful explosion that could be heard hundreds of miles away destroyed dozens of villages and killed at least 5,160.
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Evil Rays

Prepare: Cell phone system not ready for next big earthquake

Mike Antonucci
Mercury News
Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:37 UTC
Many cell phone calls failed to get through, while some land lines were briefly spotty. And in the wake of Tuesday's quake, many people were left trying to determine how they should communicate when the next one hits.

©American Red Cross
Instructional earthquake preparedness leaflet from American Red Cross

Comment: The above article references the following earthquake in California on 30 October 2007:

Moderate earthquake of 5.6 rattles Bay Area

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Bizarro Earth

China: Shrinking glacier threat to rivers


China Daily
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:54 UTC


©Xinhua
Photo taken on September 20, 2007 shows an unidentified man walking past a group of glaciers in Bomi County, Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. A group of 42 glaciers were found in the county with an average altitude of 4,200 meters above sea level in the southeast of the region. It could be the biggest glacier group on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.

The rapid shrinking of the country's most famous glacier is severely threatening oases in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, scientists warned Thursday.
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Cloud Lightning

Noel becomes hurricane, moves away from Bahamas

Michael Christie
Reuters
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:55 UTC
Tropical Storm Noel, whose rains have killed at least 108 people in the Caribbean, strengthened into a hurricane in the Atlantic on Thursday as it moved away from the Bahamas toward Bermuda, U.S. forecasters said.

©REUTERS/Carlos Barria
A resident walks on an empty beach in South Beach, Miami as Tropical Storm Noel moves close to the south of Florida October 30, 2007.
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Bizarro Earth

Forests losing the ability to absorb man-made carbon

Steve Connor
The Independent
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:00 UTC
The sprawling forests of the northern hemisphere which extend from China and Siberia to Canada and Alaska are in danger of becoming a gigantic source of carbon dioxide rather than being a major "sink" that helps to offset man-made emissions of the greenhouse gas.

Studies show the risk of fires in the boreal forests of the north has increased in recent years because of climate change. It shows that the world's temperate woodlands are beginning to lose their ability to be an overall absorber of carbon dioxide.
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Heart

Pygmy hippopotamus born in Athens Zoo

Orestis Panagiotou
eKathimerini
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:08 UTC


©n/a

A newly born rare pygmy hippopotamus takes its first steps away from its mother in the Attica Zoological Park, in the Athens suburb of Spata. The pup belongs to a rare species of hippopotamus living in the tropical forests of Liberia and the Ivory Coast.
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Cloud Lightning

Fears grow for 150,000 people as flood chaos hits Mexico

Jo Tuckman
The Guardian
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:00 UTC


©Unknown

Tens of thousands of people have fled to shelters in south-eastern Mexico after the worst floods in living memory in the area destroyed their homes and harvests. The authorities say the floods are expected to get worse.

Rooftops peeked above the water yesterday in the city of Villahermosa, capital of the state of Tabasco, which has been the worst hit by the catastrophe. Vast swaths of agricultural land throughout the state were under water. Some of the giant nine-metre stone heads carved by America's first great civilisation, the Olmecs, were only half visible at the La Venta archaeological site.
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Better Earth

11 Solutions to Halting the Environmental Crisis

Yifat Susskind
AlterNet
Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:36 UTC
Here are 11 solutions already being put into practice by innovative communities around the world.

You probably don't need to be told that the threat of climate change is real. If you're concerned about the issue, it's fairly easy to conjure the apocalyptic scenes of widespread drought, frequent deadly storms, mass hunger, and wars over natural resources like oil and water. Much harder to come by are examples of positive actions that can avert these disasters and ease the crisis in places where they are already in play. So let's skip the litany of catastrophes that await if global warming is not controlled. Instead, why not focus on some solutions? None are perfect or complete, but each offers a model of positive change that is more than theoretically possible -- it is already happening.

Comment: The author has brought up a lot of excellent solutions that would enable countries to clean up their environment, help the poor and impoverished to a better way of life and implement ways to conserve our natural resources; however we must not forget that in order to do all of this we need to get to the real root of the problem. And that is to remove the psychopaths who are in power throughout the world who do not care about the environment, the land, the natural resources nor the people who inhabit this planet. And then, once removed, to make sure that these types of people do not gain control of the various nations again.

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Cloud Lightning

Tropical Storm Death Toll Rises to 81

JOSE MONEGRO
Associated Press
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:34 UTC
Tropical Storm Noel triggered mudslides and floods in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, pushing the death toll to 81 on Wednesday and forcing some parents to choose which of their children to save from the surging waters.

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Better Earth

Melting Glacier Reveals Ancient Tree Stumps

LiveScience Staff
LiveScience
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:15 UTC
Melting glaciers in Western Canada are revealing tree stumps up to 7,000 years old where the region's rivers of ice have retreated to a historic minimum, a geologist said today.

©Johannes Koch
Overlord Glacier: 7,000 years old. Glacier in background. Stump in foreground at arrow.

Johannes Koch of The College of Wooster in Ohio found the fresh-looking, intact tree stumps beside retreating glaciers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) north of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Radiocarbon dating of the wood from the stumps revealed the wood was far from fresh - some of it dated back to within a few thousand years of the end of the last ice age.

"The stumps were in very good condition, sometimes with bark preserved," said Koch, who conducted the work as part of his doctoral thesis at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Koch will present his results on Oct. 31 at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Denver.
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