Earth ChangesS


Hourglass

Tsunami quake in 2004 may have had a hand in latest disaster

FORCES that triggered the earthquake in China on Monday may have been born in the geological event that triggered the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, killing more than 230,000 people, an Australian seismologist says.

Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.1 quake hits Sichuan, China

WASHINGTON - A 6.1-magnitude earthquake shook Sichuan province in China on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported, five days after a massive tremor killed tens of thousands of people.

USGS reported the latest earthquake, which follows scores of slightly less strong aftershocks during the week, was nearly 50 miles deep and hit 49 miles west of Guangyuan.

Alarm Clock

Thousands flee China quake area over flood fears

Beichuan, China - Thousands of Chinese earthquake victims fled areas near the epicenter Saturday, fearful of potential floods from a river blocked by landslides.

Soldiers carried older people out of Beichuan town - one of the areas hit hardest by the magnitude 7.9 quake Monday - while survivors cradled babies on a road jammed with vehicles and people. The death toll jumped to near 29,000.

Bizarro Earth

US: Prince George's residents briefly displaced by sinkhole

Camp Springs - Residents of a Prince George's County neighborhood were roused this morning by firefighters and told to leave their homes because of a sinkhole that developed overnight in the rain-soaked ground.

prince george sinkhole
©AP
This carport was damaged when a sinkhole formed behind a row of homes in Camp Springs, Md.

No Entry

Red tide outbreak forces ban on North Shore shellfishing

Red tide has spread from central Maine to Gloucester, making it unsafe to harvest soft shell clams or mussels from those coastal waters, state officials said.

Cloud Lightning

US: Lightning ignited house

Waco, Texas - Fire officials determined that a lightning bolt around 10 a.m. today caused a ranch-style house at 3920 Austin Ave. to catch fire.

Its owner, 63-year-old Dub Allen, is a tugboat operator, who was out-of-town at the time of the fire.

Waco fire investigator Charles Lindorfer said lightning struck a metal chimney near the back of the house. The fire caused extensive water and smoke damage, he said, however, the contents in the home were not a total loss.

Cloud Lightning

US: Lightning strike causes fire at well site



Lightning strikes storage tank
©Unknown


(Click here to view video)

A storage tank at an energy well site caught fire in far south Caddo Parish this morning after it was hit by lightning.

The fire began shortly after 8 a.m. at a well site off Louisiana Highway 1 near Bunker Road.

Cloud Lightning

US: Lightning strike sends wood flying

Alton, Illinois - A bolt from the blue struck a large tree in the 1700 block of Muny Vista Drive, sending charred wood and splinters flying hundreds of feet Tuesday morning.

"It was like a bomb hit it," Paul Woulfe said.



Tree struck by lightning
©The Telegraph/John Badman
A screen, apparently blown from the house, sits about 50 feet from a tree, background, that was struck by lightning Tuesday in the 1700 block of Muny Vista Drive in Alton. One side of the tree exploded, sending debris hundreds of feet.


Woulfe, maintenance man at Hillcrest Apartments on Muny Vista, was among those cleaning up the mess left after the impact from the lightning strike flung chunks of a 40-foot-tall cottonwood tree all over the complex's parking lot, some of them as large as 5 feet long and weighing 40 pounds, he said.

Cowboy Hat

Al Gore And Climate 'Ka-Ching'

Junk Science: Al Gore blames the Burma tragedy on global warming despite growing evidence to the contrary. Could the hype be related to his financial interests?

Gore's reaction to the death and destruction caused by a cyclone ravaging Burma was to utter an emphatic "I told you so" Tuesday on National Public Radio. In an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" broadcast, the jolly green giant made the charge while talking about the paperback release of his ironically named book, "The Assault on Reason."

Ignoring the fact that the rising death toll is due in part to an incompetent, isolationist and authoritarian government that allows most of its people to live in shanty towns of tin and bamboo, Gore claimed that "we're seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming."

In other words, people die in Rangoon because of an SUV in Richmond, Va.

Question

Global Warming or Insanity?

Why do intelligent, well-meaning people throw themselves and their organizations money and energies behind causes without first doing their homework?

Back in February, a coalition of Fish and Game Clubs and conservation organizations from around the country petitioned our U.S. Congress to pass climate control legislation. New Hampshire, one of the many states involved, issued a press release that read in part:
Concord, NH (February 19) - More than a dozen of the leading hunting and fishing clubs and wildlife-related businesses in New Hampshire joined forces Tuesday to call on the state's elected leaders in Congress to support strong legislation to confront climate change.