Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Tornado Hits Brooklyn with 135 mph Winds

Most of the New York City subway system was back in service by this evening's rush hour after a fierce morning storm disrupted transit service throughout much of the region and unleashed a rare and destructive tornado that whipped southwestern Brooklyn with winds of up to 135 miles an hour.

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Habitat Loss Threatens Pygmy Elephants

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Satellite tracking of pygmy elephants has found that the endangered animals _ unique to Borneo island _ are under threat due to logging and commercial plantations encroaching on their habitat, conservationists said Thursday.

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Rescue comes too late as Yangtze River dolphin declared extinct

A Freshwater dolphin species has been declared extinct after desperate efforts to rescue it came too late.

One British zoologist yesterday described the loss of the Yangtze River dolphin as a "shocking tragedy". It is the first extinction of a large vertebrate for more than 50 years.

Bizarro Earth

Dramatic tree death increase in California since 1983 linked to warming

Federal scientists have found that tree deaths in the Sierra Nevada increased over the past two decades, coinciding with rising temperatures and drought conditions.

If temperatures continue to rise, temperate forests that receive little rain and snowfall are poised for die-backs, according to findings released Monday by the U.S. Geological Survey's Western Ecological Research Center.

Cloud Lightning

Subway flooding causes chaos for New York commuters

Flooding in New York's subway lines ground the city's morning commute to a halt on Wednesday, angering New Yorkers who are facing rail and utility fee hikes to support an aging infrastructure.

Every subway line into Manhattan was affected by flooding after a severe predawn storm sent roofs flying, toppled trees, submerged cars and inundated subway stations.

©AP/Shahrzad Elghanayan
Residents look at flooding outside their building in the Queens borough of New York early Wednesday.

Cloud Lightning

Tropical storm kills 11 in the Philippines

Tropical Storm Pabuk churned across the Philippines Wednesday, triggering deadly landslides before it moved into southern Taiwan, where it cut power and forced schools and business to close.

The death toll from a separate, unnamed storm in Vietnam rose to 34, with 17 missing and feared dead. The tropical storm, the worst to hit Vietnam this year, was downgraded to a depression on Monday, but heavy rains continued, the national weather center said.

Bizarro Earth

Strong earthquake hits Indonesia

A powerful earthquake has struck Indonesia's main island of Java near the capital, Jakarta.

The magnitude 7.5 quake hit at 0005 on Thursday (1705 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 289km (180 miles).

Calculator

Walking to the shops 'damages planet more than going by car'

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

Bizarro Earth

Early 2007 saw record-breaking extreme weather: U.N.

GENEVA - The world experienced a series of record-breaking weather events in early 2007, from flooding in Asia to heatwaves in Europe and snowfall in South Africa, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said global land surface temperatures in January and April were likely the warmest since records began in 1880, at more than 1 degree Celsius higher than average for those months.

Battery

U.S. sweating from Midwest to East Coast

ST. LOUIS - Much of the nation continued to sweat Tuesday under oppressive heat, made worse by high humidity, that stretched from the Midwest to the East Coast.

Temperatures reached well into the 90s and in some cases above 100 degrees, a trend expected to continue through the weekend in parts of the South and Midwest. The National Weather Service issued excessive-heat warnings in several states, and health officials urged people and pets to stay in air conditioning.

Comment: In contrast the Iraqis have to live in 117 degrees heat without fans, air conditioning, electricity or water due to the wholesale destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure over the last 4 and a half years by Uncle Sam!