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Earth ChangesS
Photo of a waterspout in Gulf Shores this morning from Michael Gardner.
© Reuters/Enrique De La Osa/FilesA man carries buckets of water in Havana
From Cuba's famous cigars to sugar, vegetables, rice, coffee and beans, the drought is damaging crops. It has slowed planting and left one in 10 residents waiting for government tank trucks to survive in record summer heat.
The country's civil defense system said the drought, record heat and water leakage have led to "low levels of available water for the population, agriculture, industry and services."
The farm labourers, who were sowing rice in the field owned by Manohar Inwate, were rushed to primary health centre at Deolapar where Dashwanti and Pushpa were declared dead. The injured were rushed to Mayo hospital where they are recuperating. Deolapar police have registered a case of accidental death. Further investigations are being conducted.
Source: TNN
The deceased are Mohammad Bappi, 12, a Class VI student of Deur High School, and son of Babu Islam of Deur village in the upazila, and Shyamol Chandra Roy, 35, of Jalgaon village.
Witnesses said a thunderbolt hit several students of Deur High School while they were playing football at the school playground in the rain around 1:00pm, leaving Bappi dead and nine others injured.
Shyamol was struck by lightning while he was fishing beside a canal at Jalgaon village, said Habibul Islam Prodhan, officer-in-charge of Bochaganj Police Station.
© USGSEarthquake magnitude 4 felt in San Francisco bay
Residents of San Francisco are pretty accustomed to experiencing tremors.
But even the most jaded of Californians were shaken this morning when a 4.0 tremor rocked through the city, waking many locals.
A weatherman was mid-report when the quake struck and was caught on film reacting as the studio clearly shook.
As he tries to steady himself he can be heard saying: "Oh my goodness! We have an earthquake!"
At first he appears slightly amused but as the tremor continues unabated he starts to look more alarmed and adds:
"This is a good one!"
© Medical Teams InternationalFloodwater in Myanmar
Heavy monsoon rainfall, combined with rain brought in the wake of Cyclone Komen, resulted in widespread flooding during early August 2015, affecting all but a few regions or states of the country.
More heavy rain has fallen since then, and river levels are still high, posing a risk for communities living along river banks. WMO report that Kyaukpyu in Rakhine State saw 86.9 mm of rain in 24 hours to 17 August 2015.
OCHA figures also say that 1,152,490 people have been critically affected by the floods, which have left 15,239 houses destroyed.
During a meeting on relief and resettlement for flood victims of 14 August 2015, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar, Ms. Renata Dessallien said that a precise picture of the flood damage is yet to be determined.
"We know that the impact of the heavy rains, floods and landslides are extensive but we are yet to fully determine the extent. Immediate needs are nation-wide with a particular focus on the hardest hit areas of Chin, Magway, Sagaing and Rakhine. But we also know that the flood waters have moved south and evacuations have occurred in Bago and Ayeyarwaddy."
© Medical Teams International
© ABC News/ Tony KingMore snow fell on the Hobart suburb of Fern Tree
Some Hobart suburbs received a dusting of snow this morning, and a number of schools were closed in the south-east.
The weather bureau's senior forecaster Brooke Oakley said snow was still falling at Scott's Peak in the state's south-west.
"At the moment the snow level is around 200 to 300 metres, and we have showers around the west, south and central areas and only a few light showers getting into the north-east," she said.
"Those showers are going to continue but the snow level is gradually rising to around 500 metres in the evening."
Flooding in Guam
"As you can see the water reached about maybe up the hill about 30 or 40 feet," explained Yigo mayor Rudy Matanane, referring to the wrath of Tropical Storm Goni, which made its way through the Mariana Islands throughout the weekend. Guam may not have been directly hit by the storm, but the island did experience heavy wind and rain resulting in flash flood warnings in the past two days. "This is Miss Sieczka's house. And the house inside is still I think about maybe a foot of water, so we just got to do something here and help the residents here," he said.
© JTWCTwo tropical storms are being observed by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration outside the Philippine area of responsibility.
Typhoon Goni has been upgraded to a category-4 typhoon and is forecast to reach super typhoon strength later on Monday as it moves to the northwest of Guam. That island is reported to have received about 250 millimetres of rain from the event.
The storm is likely to see sustained winds peak at about 150 knots (277 km/h) on Tuesday, with gusts reaching 180 knots (333 km/h), according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre.
© Himawari-8The eye of Typhoon Goni which is predicted to become a super typhoon on Monday.
© twitter.comRunnin' on empty...
Although the battery metaphor made headlines in leading newspapers in China, India and Russia, the paper didn't garner "much immediate attention in North America," admits lead author John Schramski, a mechanical engineer and an ecologist.
And that's a shame, because the paper gives ordinary people an elegant metaphor to understand the globe's stagnating economic and political systems and their close relatives: collapsing ecosystems. It also offers a blunt course of action: "drastic" energy conservation.
It, too, comes with a provocative title: "Human domination of the biosphere: Rapid discharge of the Earth-space battery foretells the future of humankind." The battery metaphor speaks volumes and then some.
Comment: The laws of thermodynamics governing the trickle-charge and rapid discharge of the earth's battery are universal and absolute; the earth is only temporarily poised a quantifiable distance from the thermodynamic equilibrium of outer space. Although this distance from equilibrium is comprised of all energy types, most critical for humans is the store of living biomass. With the rapid depletion of this chemical energy, the earth is shifting back toward the inhospitable equilibrium of outer space with fundamental ramifications for the biosphere and humanity. Because there is no substitute or replacement energy for living biomass, (Editor's note: especially as species extinction is rapidly and critically accelerating), the remaining distance from equilibrium that will be required to support human life is unknown.
Additional factors for earth's changes are described in Pierre Lescaudron's book: Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic Connection. We may well be coming into a period that humanity, consequently, reverts to simpler times and methods of survival. Will you be ready?