Several Asian countries reeling under floods after some of wildest weather this summer

A tropical storm barreled toward Vietnam Friday, forcing 20,000 people to be evacuated, as the Philippines braced for a new typhoon and several Asian countries reeled under floods after some of the wildest weather this summer.

Prolonged monsoon flooding, typhoons and storms have wreaked untold havoc in the region, leaving more than 600 people dead or missing in India, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, China, Pakistan and Vietnam in the last four months. In India alone, the damage is estimated to be worth $1 billion, with the worst-hit Orissa state accounting for $726 million.

The state-run Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology said several studies suggest an intensification of the Asian summer monsoon rainfall with increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Still, it is not clear that this is entirely because of climate change, especially in India, it said.

After pummeling the Philippines and China this week, Typhoon Nesat was downgraded to tropical storm as it headed toward Vietnam where it was expected to make landfall later Friday with sustained wind speeds of up to 73 mph, according to the national weather forecasting center.

At least 150 people in Cambodia and southern Vietnam have died in the worst flooding along the Mekong River in 11 years after heavy rain swamped homes, washed away bridges and forced thousands of people to evacuate.

Worse could be in store if Typhoon Nesat, which killed at least 39 people in China this week and plowed into northern Vietnam on Friday, dumps rain deep enough inland to further swell the Mekong.

Flooding across the fertile Mekong Delta helped drive rice prices to a three-year high in Vietnam this week, traders said, which will add to inflation problems. The delta produces more than half of Vietnam's rice and 90 percent of its exportable grain.

In Cambodia, 141 people have died since August 13 due to Mekong flooding and flash floods, the Cambodian National Disaster Management Committee said.

"Now, more than 200,000 hectares (494,200 acres) of our rice paddies are under water but we don't yet know the full extent of the damage," said Keo Vy, deputy information director at the National Disaster Management Committee.

Ahead of a conference on the psychology of climate change denial, Brendan O'Neill says green authoritarians are treating debate as a disorder.

A few months ago, for a joke, I set up a Facebook group called 'Climate change denial is a mental disorder'. It's a satirical campaigning hub for people who think that climate change denial should be recognised as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, and that its sufferers - who probably engage in 'regular chanting and intensive brainwashing sessions in cult-like surroundings' - should be offered 'eco-lobotomies' to remove 'the denying part of their brain'. The group now has 42 members. Yes, some have signed up because they get the joke, but others are serious subscribers to the denial-as-insanity idea. 'Thank God I've found this group', says one new member, who is sick of other Facebook groups being 'hijacked' by unhinged eco-sceptics.

The idea that 'climate change denial' is a psychological disorder - the product of a spiteful, willful or simply in-built neural inability to face up to the catastrophe of global warming - is becoming more and more popular amongst green-leaning activists and academics. And nothing better sums up the elitism and authoritarianism of the environmentalist lobby than its psychologisation of dissent. The labeling of any criticism of the politics of global warming, first as 'denial', and now as evidence of mass psychological instability, is an attempt to write off all critics and sceptics as deranged, and to lay the ground for inevitable authoritarian solutions to the problem of climate change. Historically, only the most illiberal and misanthropic regimes have treated disagreement and debate as signs of mental ill-health.

This weekend, the University of West England is hosting a major conference on climate change denial. Strikingly, it's being organised by the university's Centre for Psycho-Social Studies. It will be a gathering of those from the top of society - 'psychotherapists, social researchers, climate change activists, eco-psychologists' - who will analyse those at the bottom of society, as if we were so many flitting, irrational amoeba under an eco-microscope. The organisers say the conference will explore how 'denial' is a product of both 'addiction and consumption' and is the 'consequence of living in a perverse culture which encourages collusion, complacency and irresponsibility' (1). It is a testament to the dumbed-down, debate-phobic nature of the modern academy that a conference is being held not to explore ideas - to interrogate, analyse and fight over them - but to tag them as perverse.

Okay, this picture is funny, but some take the comparison seriously.

The Wall Street Journal had an article a few months back when Harold Camping predicted the end of the world would occur on May 21, 2011, called Camping the "Christian Al Gore." Why?

Because the former Vice President is more and more being seen as part of a new doomsday cult that has grown out of the Green movement.

While there are environmental issues we should be concerned about, as Marc Morano of Climate Depot pointed out on my radio show this week , some Green devotees are using the movement to promote a radical agenda that includes population control, and exploiting people of color in third world countries, insisting on putting solar panels on grass huts!

Ophelia became the fourth hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season Thursday afternoon.

Hurricane Ophelia was about 770 miles south-southeast of Bermuda at 5 p.m. Maximum sustained winds were 75 mph with higher gusts. Ophelia is a Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Additional strengthening is possible, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Movement was to the north-northwest at about 9 mph. A tropical storm watch is in effect for Bermuda. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 25 miles from the center. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 175 miles.

The NHC says tropical storm force winds are possible in Bermuda starting late Saturday.

Seismologist says 'seismic swarm' should be investigated

B.C.'s energy regulator is investigating a cluster of earthquakes in a busy gas drilling area of the province, CBC News has learned.

Since 2009, more than 30 earthquakes have been registered in the Horn River area, a region that has also seen extensive drilling and a process called hydraulic fracturing used by companies extracting natural gas.

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, involves injecting a pressurized mix of water and other substances into the rock to release trapped natural gas. The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission said it has not identified a direct link between hydraulic fracturing and the seismic activity, but is examining recent data collected from Horn River.

The coincidence of earthquakes and gas exploration warrants further investigation, said University of Calgary seismologist David Eaton.

"This would fall within the descriptor of a seismic swarm," Eaton told CBC News. "I think, you know, any links to hydrocarbon extraction of fluid injection would be really interesting."

Date-Time:
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 22:40:13 UTC

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 06:40:13 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
37.963°S, 73.903°W

Depth:
12.9 km (8.0 miles)

Region:
OFFSHORE BIO-BIO, CHILE

Distances:
43 km (26 miles) SSW of Lebu, Bio-Bio, Chile

42 km (88 miles) NW of Temuco, Araucania, Chile

145 km (90 miles) SSW of Concepcion, Bio-Bio, Chile

580 km (360 miles) SSW of SANTIAGO, Region Metropolitana, Chile

A young whale which died after it beached in the Humber Estuary is probably of a species rarely found stranded on the British coast, conservationists have said.

Experts examining the 33ft (10m) long animal, which died about 875 yards (800m) from the shoreline, say they are 95% sure it is a female sei whale.

The animal was trapped in shallow water near the East Yorkshire village of Skeffling, on the north bank of the River Humber.

Andy Gibson, of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, said Sei whale strandings were very rare.

He said there had only been three strandings of this species in UK waters in the last 20 years.

''It is sad. It was in shallow water of about 1.2m (4ft) to 1.6m (5.25ft), making contact with the bottom,'' Mr Gibson said.

It could be the grim denouement from a science fiction film, as the silhouette of a man solemnly watches a glowing sea, with a child perched atop his shoulders.

But this is not cinema trickery - it's a natural phenomena caused by a chemical reaction called bioluminescence, which happens when a naturally-occurring micro-organism in the water is disturbed, causing a chemical reaction which emits light.

The reaction is similar to the 'glow' that fireflies use to attract prey or mates. Many undersea organisms 'glow', especially creatures that live at depths where light from the surface is less likely to penetrate.

It's not unusual to find professor Nate Onderdonk and his students digging trenches in the dirt at the base of Southern California's San Jacinto Mountains, examining how the layers have been impacted by plate tectonics.

Onderdonk, 37, who teaches at California State University, Long Beach, is an expert when it comes to analyzing how landforms evolve through time and how faults change the landscape.

The professor received a $65,516 grant this year from the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Hazards Fund to continue his research and study the fault history of the San Jacinto Fault Zone, which he said is one of the state's most seismically active areas and poses and threat to the Inland Empire.

Through his research, Onderdonk said he is looking for patterns with the hope that he might be able to predict the next big earthquake in Southern California, which he believes is due to happen anytime now.