Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Record opening rains for November in South Australia

This week's storms and heavy rains have given parts of South Australia their wettest start to November since records began - but has the River Murray benefited?

Although it is hoped the same tropical system poured into the River Murray's catchment as it flooded parts of eastern Victoria, authorities are yet to determine where any run-off will go.

©Fiona Hamilton
Lyn Craig tends to her stranded sheep in a flooded paddock in Tinamba, Victoria, yesterday.

Cloud Lightning

Hawaii soaked by heavy rains, high surf

The first storm of the season sent boulders crashing into two O'ahu homes yesterday, caused power outages across much of the island and triggered sewage spills totaling nearly 2 million gallons.

And more rain is on the way.

©Deborah Booker / The Honolulu Advertiser
Firefighters push a pump through the floodwater to drain driveways of homes on Kalaheo Avenue in Kailua.

Bizarro Earth

Hundreds of thousands flee ahead of Indonesian volcano eruption

A major evacuation effort is underway in Indonesia amid concerns that the notorious Mount Kelud may erupt.

Cloud Lightning

Colombia's Capital hit by hailstorm

An unusually strong hail storm whipped through Colombia's capital, on Saturday, causing severe flooding and burying dozens of vehicles under the ice. Authorities say it is the strongest ever hailstorm seen in Bogotá, but despite several major roads becoming blanketed in ice, no one was killed by the storm.

Bizarro Earth

Mudslide buries houses in flooded Mexico

A huge wall of mud and water engulfed a remote village in flood-ravaged southern Mexico on Monday and the government said at least 16 people were missing.

©REUTERS/Manuel Lopez
A family makes its way down a flooded street in a canoe in a neighbourhood of Villahermosa November 5, 2007.

Comment: "The United States is donating $300,000 to the affected area and U.S. President George W. Bush called Calderon to express sympathy and offer U.S. help."

Calderon had better think twice about that offer or he might end up with the same kind of help that Bush sent to those whose homes and property were demolished by Hurricane Katrina.


Red Flag

Best of the Web: My Nobel Moment

I've had a lot of fun recently with my tiny (and unofficial) slice of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But, though I was one of thousands of IPCC participants, I don't think I will add "0.0001 Nobel Laureate" to my resume.

Comment: For the record it was Mr. Christy who made a sign error in his satellite temperature analysis using MSU data. This resulted in an erroneously measured "cooling" instead of an actual warming of the lower troposphere. Perhaps it was this humility which he endured that allows him to write from such a perspective.


Bomb

Indonesia volcano eruption imminent despite false alarm: scientist

A day after a false alarm on Indonesia's Mount Kelut led to panic among residents on its slopes, the volcano is showing signs of an imminent eruption, a scientist said Sunday.

"An eruption is now very, very much possible, although so far it has not yet happened," said Agus Budianto, a geologist monitoring the activities of the volcano in the densely populated East Java province.

On Saturday, continuous tremors beneath the volcano became so strong that they could no longer be read on seismological instruments, leading scientists to evacuate their posts and warn an eruption appeared to have occurred.

They could not confirm it visually as the top of the historically deadly mountain was shrouded by clouds but their warning led residents still in the danger zone to flee in fear for their lives.

Cloud Lightning

Floods kill at least 48 people in Vietnam in past week

Floods have killed at least 48 people in central Vietnam in the past week, a disaster management center spokesman said on Monday.

©Unknown

Magnify

The deceit behind global warming

No one can deny that in recent years the need to "save the planet" from global warming has become one of the most pervasive issues of our time. As Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, claimed in 2004, it poses "a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism", warning that by the end of this century the only habitable continent left will be Antarctica.

Inevitably, many people have been bemused by this somewhat one-sided debate, imagining that if so many experts are agreed, then there must be something in it. But if we set the story of how this fear was promoted in the context of other scares before it, the parallels which emerge might leave any honest believer in global warming feeling uncomfortable.

Attention

Media Spin! Hungry Mexico flood victims turn to looting

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - Rescue workers and police were out in force helping flood victims in southern Mexico, as food shortages sent hundreds of hungry people on a looting rampage at a shopping center.

Around 80 percent of the Belgium-sized state of Tabasco was flooded after seven rain-loaded rivers burst their banks in the flat, flood-prone region, in its worst natural disaster in decades.


Comment: Using the word looting is a way of stigmatizing the victims of the disaster. The word looting refers to the act of stealing private property in acts of war or riots and thus a criminal act. In case of disaster where people, who are starving and who feed themselves through taking of food from stores can not be compared to war or riot situations. Especially when the food due to lack of refrigeration would go off anyway. Think about it! What would you do if you were in their place and your family were starving, the place inundated with water and the authorities unable to deliver aid?