Earth ChangesS


Igloo

Russia: Snowstorm Shuts Down Tatar Capital


RFE/RL
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:11 UTC
Snowstorm
© A2ATLIQ (RFE/RL)A snowbound scene from Tatarstan's capital, Kazan.
Kazan -- A heavy snowstorm has paralysed life in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan, causing power outages, traffic jams, airport delays, and schools to close, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.

A severe cold front brought gusty winds and wet snow to the Russian republic over the weekend, resulting in the loss of electricity for some 200,000 people in southeastern Tatarstan. Efforts to restore power continue, and more than 200 rescue teams are involved in operations to help people stranded by the inclement weather.

In Kazan, traffic jams and airport delays were reported, and school classes have been canceled.
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Igloo

Best of the Web: I Keep Telling You It's Getting Colder

Dr. Mark Sircus
Climate Change
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:02 UTC
Image
© Unknown
It's not supposed to be so cold and snowy so early in the winter when the world is thought to be warming. Eminent scientists are not supposed to turn their backs on the lying press and government to tell us it's getting colder, not warmer. The entire discussion has us in the Twilight Zone with the global warmers and coolers still in heated conversation. The press's most recent broadside entitled "World warmer, short-term trends need study: report"stated:
The global average temperature has increased over the past 160 years, but short-term trends in temperature and sea ice seem to be at odds with each other and need more research, the UK Met Office's Hadley Center said. In a report on long- and short-term climate trends, the Hadley Center found several factors that indicate a warming world and said 2010 has been one of the warmest years on record. The report drew on the work of more than 20 institutions worldwide and used a range of measurements from satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ocean buoys, ships, and field surveys.
One of the warmest years on record - are we to believe this? If global warming was such a slam dunk, why are they now tipping their hands mentioning the colder short-term trend? How can they define what is going on as a short-term trend when the future is not written yet?
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Heart - Black

Protected seals clubbed to death at sanctuary

Ray Lilley
Associated Press
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:43 UTC
Image
© AP PhotoThree of the seals clubbed to death in New Zealand.
Wellington, New Zealand - Attackers wielding bats or clubs slaughtered two dozen fur seals, including newborn pups, over several days at one of New Zealand's most popular sanctuaries for watching the animals, officials said Monday.

Government officials condemned the attacks on the protected species as brutal and senseless and vowed to fully prosecute anyone involved.

The Department of Conservation said the bludgeoned bodies of 23 fur seals had been found at the Ohau Point colony, a rocky stretch of coastline near a highway that is a breeding ground for the animals.

Officials said eight pups - some just days old - were among those killed, and there were likely more juveniles that had died or would soon because their mothers were among those slaughtered.

The condition of the carcasses and the wounds indicated the attackers had returned several times to the scene, possibly for as long as two weeks. The site is at the bottom of a steep, 100-foot cliff with no easy access, and the bodies were only just discovered.
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Cloud Lightning

200 Feared Dead in Colombian Landslide


Press TV
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 02:38 UTC
Image
© UnknownColombian emergency workers and residents used spades and rescue dogs to find victims.
At least 200 people are feared to have been buried by a landslide in Colombia's second largest city as rescue workers scramble to save victims of the country's worst floods in decades.

According to Red Cross officials, torrential rains have caused a major landslide in the city of Medellin, leaving at least 200 people missing, state-run BBC reported on Sunday.

"The initial count is that there may be 150-200 people considered missing. So far we have rescued three alive," said Cesar Uruena, a Red Cross official, adding that "We are focused on moving rubble to see if we find survivors. We've never had this many people affected [in Colombia] by the rainy season."

Officials say that at least two million people have been affected by the torrential rains and that over 10,000 homes have been destroyed as the result of the disaster in the country.
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Igloo

'Warmest Year on Record'? The Truth is Global Warming Has Halted

David Rose
Daily Mail, UK
Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:13 UTC
blizzard 2010
© Daily MailWinter's icy grip: Drivers and pedestrians battle through blizzards in Kent last week.
A year ago tomorrow, just before the opening of the UN Copenhagen world climate summit, the British Meteorological Office issued a confident prediction. The mean world temperature for 2010, it announced, 'is expected to be 14.58C, the warmest on record' - a deeply worrying 0.58C above the 1961-1990 average.

World temperatures, it went on, were locked inexorably into an ever rising trend: 'Our experimental decadal forecast confirms previous indications that about half the years 2010-2019 will be warmer than the warmest year observed so far - 1998.'

Met Office officials openly boasted that they hoped by their statements to persuade the Copenhagen gathering to impose new and stringent carbon emission limits - an ambition that was not to be met.

Last week, halfway through yet another giant, 15,000 delegate UN climate jamboree, being held this time in the tropical splendour of Cancun in Mexico, the Met Office was at it again.

Never mind that Britain, just as it was last winter and the winter before, was deep in the grip of a cold snap, which has seen some temperatures plummet to minus 20C, and that here 2010 has been the coolest year since 1996.

Globally, it insisted, 2010 was still on course to be the warmest or second warmest year since current records began.
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Umbrella

Australia: Drought-crippled farmers devastated by flooding

Kerrin Binnie
ABC News
Sun, 05 Dec 2010 04:31 UTC
NSW Floods
© ABC Local Radio : Laurissa SmithIn New South Wales alone an estimated half a million dollars has been wiped off the value of the winter crop
The State and Federal governments are under pressure from farming groups to continue drought funding while farmers recover from the floods.

Recent flooding has devastated farmers also who, after 10 years of drought, have now seen crops lost to rain.

The New South Wales Farmers Association's chairman Charlie Armstrong says farmers are devastated and struggling financially.

"We've got this enormous mental stress that is now following what was a buoyant boom expectations of a bumper crop, followed now by some pretty dire circumstances as to how to even get the next crop in the ground," he said.

In New South Wales alone an estimated half a million dollars has been wiped off the value of the winter crop.
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Snowman

UK: Food Shelves Empty and Petrol Running Out as Icy Roads Make Deliveries Impossible

Sara Nelson
The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:44 UTC
Image
© The Daily Mail

  • Two pensioners die after collapsing in their gardens
  • Milder temperatures expected tomorrow but falling again on Sunday
  • Short-haul flights from Gatwick cancelled until 5pm
  • Petrol forecourts run dry as deliveries are held up
  • Rail networks cancel services for the third day running
    •
Petrol forecourts were today running dry and food stores were struggling to replenish their shelves as icy conditions halted deliveries.

'Critical' shortages of petrol have been reported by the RMI Petrol Retailers Association, with remote areas being particularly badly affected.

Some fuel stations have also been accused of 'cashing in' on the crisis by increasing their prices - with one garage in Surrey putting up the cost of diesel per litre from £1.24 to £1.28 within the past four days.

The news came as snowfalls eased but temperatures plummeted even further, dropping -20.1C in Scotland and -7C in London and Birmingham overnight.
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Phoenix

Tungurahua volcano prompts evacuation in Ecuador


BBC
Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:20 UTC
Tungurahua
© Agence France-PresseView from Cotalo, Ecuador, of the Tungurahua volcano in eruption on 4 December, 2010 Scientists say pyroclastic flow from the volcano could threaten some of the villages on the slopes
The authorities in Ecuador have begun evacuating people from the slopes of the Tungurahua volcano after it started spewing ash.

Scientists say fast-moving currents of extremely hot gas and rock could be seen flowing from the volcano's crater.

Tungurahua, some 135km (85 miles) southeast of the capital, Quito, has been in an active state since 1999.

But experts say there has been a rapid increase in its seismic activity since Saturday morning.

Scientists with the Ecuadorean Institute for Geophysics say the number of explosions has increased. They say the ash cloud has reached 2km (1.2 miles) in height.

People living on the slopes reported the ground and buildings shaking, and a rumbling sound coming from the volcano.
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Sun

Cancun Sun Speeds Decay of Global Warming

Rex Murphy
National Post, Canada
Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:46 UTC
Cancun
© unknownNot a bad place for a climate conference, eh?
This global-warming/climate-change stuff is a great racket.

Over in England right now, they're locked in the jaws of a very early freeze-up. The roads are iced, the plows overworked, and people are angry. But there's a precious subset of the English population that are not enduring the frigid and premature torments of a northern winter. They're the climate-change activists, bureaucrats, politicians, puppeteers and NGOs - the class of professional alarmists who've been banging on about global warming for close on two decades now. This bunch has exempted itself from the rigors of English November, traded their sackcloth and ashes for sun-wear and tropical breezes.

They're toasting their pasty, righteous, caterwauling epidermi on the golden hot sands of Cancun, Mexico, flopped out amid the bikinis and barbeques while they attempt to spell out a future of rationing and want for all the rest of us. Flown there on taxpayer or foundation money, meeting up with all their buddies from the bust that was Cophenhagen, the grim, grey priesthood of "sustainable" living are convening in one of the great sybaritic strips of the entire Western world. The monks are in the cathouse.

But hey, if you're going to do Armageddon - do it in Cancun. The Apocalypse at the All You Can Eat Buffet. Parasailing to Armageddon.
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Bizarro Earth

Australia: Hundreds evacuated in widespread NSW floods


Herald Sun
Sat, 04 Dec 2010 14:01 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Hundreds of flood-hit residents are being evacuated with parts of NSW's natural disaster zones braced for more rain. The Bureau of Meteorology issued flood warnings for swathes of the state's central west as people in Eugowra and Dubbo were forced to flee their homes amid the havoc.

Residents living near all western flowing NSW rivers from the Namoi south to the Murrumbidgee were warned their homes were at risk. With more rain forecast for the remainder of Saturday, additional flooding is expected in the Namoi, Castlereagh, Macquarie and Bogan river catchments.

Parts of NSW were declared disaster zones on Friday, with millions of dollars damage being caused. Residents of the Poplar Caravan Park were being evacuated on Saturday after intense localised rainfall in the Dubbo area.

Evacuation orders were also issued by the State Emergency Service for Eugowra. Residents of 11 properties and six businesses have been forced to pack up and leave.
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