Earth ChangesS


Sun

US: Prolonged Heat Wave Heads East, Blamed for 22 Deaths


Reuters
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:33 UTC
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© Reuters/Shannon StapletonChildren cool off in the water from an opened fire hydrant in the Bronx borough of New York July 19, 2011.
At least 22 deaths have been blamed thus far on the heat wave that for weeks has been taking its toll on the central United States and on Wednesday was expanding eastward, according to the National Weather Service.

Hospitals in Wichita, Kansas, treated 25 heat-related illnesses, according to the Weather Service report. In Des Moines, Iowa, 16 people were hospitalized because of the heat.

In Minneapolis dozens of fans at recent Minnesota Twin games have been treated for heat issues, even though the club did take extra precautions such as providing free water stations and having first aid and guest service staff on hand to monitor crowds.

Day after day of high temperatures and humidity with no relief overnight was taxing the region.

"It's just draining, physically draining," said Chris Vaccaro, a Weather Service spokesman.
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People

Casualties Confirmed After Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan Quake

Mark Dunphy
IrishWeather
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:58 UTC
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© Google MapEarthquake epicentre.
At least 13 people have been confirmed killed and more than 70 others injured after a strong earthquake struck the southwestern Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan border area on early Wednesday morning, officials said.

The 6.2-magnitude earthquake at 1.35 a.m. local time (1935 GMT Tuesday) was centered about 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) east of Okhna, a village in the Batken Province of Kyrgyzstan near the border with Uzbekistan. It struck about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the Kazakhstan National Data Center (KNDC).

The United States Geological Survey (USGS), which measured the strength of the earthquake at 6.1 on the Richter scale, estimated that some 50,000 people may have felt 'very strong' shaking, which could result in moderate to heavy damage. It estimated that some 7.6 million others may have felt moderate to strong shaking.
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Arrow Down

US: Three Swept Over Yosemite Waterfall Presumed Dead

Tracie Cone
The Associated Press
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:00 UTC
Officials at Yosemite National Park have identified three visitors who are presumed dead after being swept over a raging waterfall.

The visitors were identified Wednesday as 22-year-old Hormiz David of Modesto, 27-year-old Ninos Yacoub of Turlock, and 21-year-old Ramina Badal of Modesto.

Witnesses saw the group was swept over Vernal Falls after they crossed a barricade to pose for photographs.

Yosemite search and rescue rangers are searching the Merced River downstream for the bodies.
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Butterfly

Farming and the fate of wild nature


PhysOrg
Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:59 UTC
endangered bird agriculture
© Lars HolbechChocolate-backed Kingfisher.
Farming is the greatest extinction threat to birds, mammals, plants and insects, and widespread land clearing, irrigation and chemical treatments have profoundly affected wild species and habitats the world over. But why should we care about biodiversity when the necessity of meeting an expected doubling of global food demand is only decades away?

The stark reality, as conservation scientist Professor Andrew Balmford explained, is that biodiversity is not a luxury, it's a necessity for human life: "As well as being a vital source for many people of food and fuel, wild nature is crucial for every one of us in mitigating climate change, regulating water flows, and buffering people from the impact of storms and floods."

"World agriculture developed and flourished during a period of climate stability," he added. "We don't yet know how our current agricultural systems will be affected by climate change but my guess is that they will be more sensitive than we realise. For me, this uncertainty underscores the importance for the future of farming of agriculture having least possible impact on what remains of nature."

Professor Balmford, who helps lead the Conservation Science Group in the Department of Zoology, advocates thinking smart from the start. "It's vitally important to integrate biodiversity concerns into the inevitable expansion in agriculture, especially in developing countries and regions where crop farming is likely to increase the most," he said, "and to do this at an early stage, not when it's too late to save remaining wild habitats and the species that depend on them."

Comment: Recommended watching:

Lierre Keith on 'The Vegetarian Myth - Food, Justice and Sustainability'

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Vader

Powers That Be preparing for lockdown as Earth Changes increase? UN security council to consider 'climate change peacekeeping force'

Suzanne Goldenberg
The Guardian
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:36 UTC
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Special meeting to discuss 'green helmets' force to intervene in conflicts caused by rising seas levels and shrinking resources

A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change.

Small island states, which could disappear beneath rising seas, are pushing the security council to intervene to combat the threat to their existence.

There has been talk, meanwhile, of a new environmental peacekeeping force - green helmets - which could step into conflicts caused by shrinking resources.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, is expected to address the meeting on Wednesday.

But Germany, which called the meeting, has warned it is premature to expect the council to take the plunge into green peacemaking or even adopt climate change as one of its key areas of concern.

Comment: As Andres Perezalonso pointed out in Climate Change, Food Shortages and Economic Crisis - Coming to a Town Near You, the Pentagon is well aware of the real nature of climate change and is preparing itself accordingly:
In February 2004, The UK Observer reported that a study commissioned by the Pentagon predicted that food riots would result from abrupt climate change. The grim document described how the planet would reach the edge of anarchy and countries would threaten each other with nuclear weapons to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life," the analysis concluded. "Once again, warfare would define human life."

The Pentagon paper is remarkable for several reasons. Through it we see how the United States establishment understands that the real threat we are facing is climate change, not the manufactured threat of 'terrorism'. But a more frank admission is that 'climate change' is an abrupt phenomenon - not relatively gradual as most proponents of man-made global warming insist when they refer to computer models that chart rises in temperatures over a time-frame of several decades. The report specifically states that Britain will plunge into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020.


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Beaker

US: Ohio Tops List of Most Toxic States


Live Science
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:33 UTC
Smokey Chimneys
© Danicek | Dreamstime.comThe chimneys of a coal-fired power plant.

Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida are the states with the most toxic air pollution from coal and oil power plants, according to a new report by an environmental advocacy group.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) used Environmental Protection Agency data to rank the top 20 worst states for air pollution from power plants.

According to the report, half of all air pollution from industrial sources in the United States comes from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

According to the NRDC, here are the 20 most toxic states, from worst to best:
  1. Ohio
  2. Pennsylvania
  3. Florida
  4. Kentucky
  5. Maryland
  6. Indiana
  7. Michigan
  8. West Virginia
  9. Georgia
  10. North Carolina
  11. South Carolina
  12. Alabama
  13. Texas
  14. Virginia
  15. Tennessee
  16. Missouri
  17. Illinois
  18. Wisconsin
  19. New Hampshire
  20. Iowa
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Cloud Lightning

One Dead as Typhoon Ma-On Lashes Japan


Straits Times
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:00 UTC
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© Agence France-PresseDozens of people were injured and more than 100 flights cancelled as strong Typhoon Ma-On lashed southern Japan on Wednesday with torrential downpours and gale-force winds, meteorologists and reports said.
Typhoon Ma-On swerved away from Japan's Pacific coast on Wednesday, leaving one person dead and dozens of others injured and damaging a centuries-old castle in Kyoto, officials and reports said.

The storm system, packing winds of up to 108kmh, was located 140km offshore on Wednesday, slowly heading east and further from the main island of Honshu.

The Japan Meteorogical Agency said Ma-On was still expected to bring downpours overnight in the country's eastern and northern regions including coastal areas hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami which sparked a crisis at a nuclear power plant in the area.

The drowned body of an 84-year-old man was found on the bank of a river on Shikoku Island on Wednesday after he went missing a day earlier while checking his boat, local police said.

The eye of Ma-On, which spanned 1,600km, made landfall on Shikoku in southwestern Japan late Tuesday, bringing up to 120cm of rain since Sunday, the weather agency said.
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Bizarro Earth

Crops Indirectly Deforest Amazon

Tim Wall
Discovery News
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:21 UTC
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© Wikimedia CommonsFarm in Jataí Serra do Caiapó, Brazil.
Increased production of soybeans and sugarcane in Brazil increased deforestation of the Amazon, but not directly.

More crops are being grown on the Brazilian savannah, where ranchers have traditionally raised their cattle. As crops take the place of cattle on the savannah, the ranchers move into the forest.

Marcelus Caldas, an assistant professor of geography at Kansas State University, and his colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin and Michigan State University analyzed land use data from 2003-2008. They examined geographic information systems, maps and statistics to determine how large scale monocultures were indirectly leading to deforestation.

"Our data shows that the Amazon now has 79 million heads of cattle," Caldas said in a press release. "Fifteen years ago, it had less than 10 million. That means that there's a problem with cattle moving inside the forest."
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Cloud Lightning

India: Assam govt sounds flood alert, 2.5 lakh people affected


Rediff News
Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:32 UTC
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© assamspider.com
Assam government on Tuesday sounded an alert across the state after flood waters breached embankments and submerged roads and houses in Lakhimpur, Dhemaji and Sonitpur districts, affecting around 2.5 lakh people, officials said.

Incessant heavy rains in Arunachal Pradesh and the affected districts triggered the first wave of floods with 75,000 people being displaced as their dwellings were washed away, the officials said. The state government, after sounding the alert, directed the National Disaster Management teams and district administrations to provide rescue, medical and relief materials to the affected people, they said.

The road link between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh through Dhemaji district has been severed following the flood waters running over National Highway-52 at Samarajan. The rising waters of the Brahmaputra were also swelling the streams inside the one-horned rhino habitat Kaziranga National Park in Golaghat district, Park sources said.
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Ambulance

Thirteen Dead and 86 Injured in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan 6.1 Earthquake


BBC News
Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:22 UTC
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At least 13 people in Uzbekistan have been killed in a 6.1-magnitude earthquake centred in Kyrgyzstan near the two countries' border.

The Uzbek emergency ministry said the quake, in the Ferghana valley, also injured 86 people.

Kyrgyzstan has so far reported no casualties. The quake struck at 0135 on Wednesday (1935 GMT Tuesday).

It was centred 42km (26 miles) south-west of the city of Ferghana at a depth of 18km, the US Geological Survey said.
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