Earth ChangesS


Ambulance

Massive Flooding in Memphis - Mississippi at all-time high

Second highest river crest ever expected in Memphis. Massive flooding already occurring. Worse to come.


Radar

Relocation of Taal volcano island residents pushed

Image
© UnknownMap of Cavite showing the location of Tagaytay.
Tagayta City, Philippines - The relocation of residents of Taal Volcano Island will take a long time to happen but this has to be given a priority since they are living in a permanent danger zone, said Celia Alba, the secretary general of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.

Alba said National Housing Authority officials have had initial discussions with municipal leaders of Talisay, Batangas for possible areas on the mainland town where the island villagers could be relocated.

However, she added that the problem with the relocation is the people themselves because the Taal residents, who are mainly fishers and farmers, do not want to leave the volcano island due to their livelihood.

"We are still on social preparation stage but we are readying the possible housing requirements in case they (villagers) are ready to be evacuated," added Alba in an interview Friday at the sideline of the Pabahay Caravan here.

Main requirements

She added that the main requirements in setting up a relocation site are availability of land (the size would depend on how many families are affected), site development, and housing units.

Cloud Lightning

Barbados: Heavy Flood Losses for Farmers

Farmers have been left with flooded fields, damaged crops and profits washed down the drain after heavy rains over the past few weeks.

From St Lucy to St Philip, tonnes of onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and watermelons lay destroyed in the fields as some farmers faced financial crisis and bleak futures.

Cloud Lightning

Torrential Rains Threaten Colombia's Coffee Crop

Colombian coffee grower
Colombia's rainiest April on record drenched Ismael Garcia's hillside coffee farm, causing a landslide that wiped out thousands of his trees in one swoop.

The loss would sting any year but hurts more now that coffee prices hit their highest levels in more than three decades this week.

Damage to farms like Garcia's from months of heavy rains in Colombia, the world's No. 1 producer of top-quality washed arabica beans, may threaten to push coffee prices even higher -- bad news for drinkers around the world.

Cloud Lightning

Nearly 3 Million Colombians Affected by Heavy Rains

Colombia floods
© AFPThe intense rainy season has caused heavy rains to beat down in Colombia for over a year.
Some 3 million Colombians, 6.4% of the population, have been affected by the heavy rains wreaking havoc across Colombia, revealed a study conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (DANE), Semana reported Thursday.

The official figure equates to just under 3 million people, with the greatest concentration of victims in the Caribbean region, where 1,479,434 people are affected, representing 3.2% of the Colombian population.

Cloud Lightning

Propaganda Alert!: Extreme Weather in the United States 2010

The extreme weather of 2010 was record-setting. But it may be the new normal. This year Americans have already suffered through "supercell thunderstorms" in Iowa, severe drought and record wildfires in Texas, and heavy rains across the United States. The recent southeastern storms and tornados took at least 340 lives across eight states. And residents of the Mississippi River Valley only narrowly avoided the most severe, damaging floods there in nearly a century.


Comment: Bad 'science', fear mongering and global warming propaganda to divert attention from the real causes of change - and of course to prompt the public into beliefs and actions that benefit no one but those seeking to make profit from it. For an objective view of the changing reality here on the Big Blue Marble see: Connecting the Dots: Earth Changes Are Upon Us


Monkey Wrench

Changes in the climate are having an effect on crop yields - but not yet a very big one

Crop harvesting
© EPA
The problems climate change looks likely to bring in the future may increasingly be visible in the records of the past. Not just in the far-off ages of surging sea levels following ice-age thaws, spikes in prehistoric temperatures correlated with natural releases of greenhouse gas and ancient civilisations brought low by drought, but in records from living memory - which are based on reliable measurements made at the time. Using such data researchers have now compiled an estimate of global changes in crop yields which can be put down to recent increases in temperature and decreases in rainfall (the world as a whole is getting wetter, but the rain has stayed away from some agricultural plains). The bad news is that they find that climate change has lowered the amount of maize (or corn, if you prefer) and wheat produced in a given area. The good news is that the effect is so far reasonably small.

Attention

Guatemala: Alert in Two Areas for Volcanic Activity

Volcan Santiaguito
© C. Grandpey
Guatemalan departments of Quetzaltenango and Retalhuleu were declared this Friday in yellow alert due to the increased activity of the volcano Santiaguito.

According to the National Institute for Seismology, Vulcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology of Guatemala (Insivumeh), the increase is manifested in the number of explosions per hour.

Cloud Lightning

See a tornado? Don't grab camera

Wilson tornado
© UknownThis still is taken from a video filmed by Steve Hoag of a tornado in Wilson, N.C.

The video Steve Hoag shot of an April tornado bearing down on him in Wilson, N.C., is taking the Internet by storm.

More than 1 million viewers have watched the video and heard his calm narration as an EF2 twister blew up a transformer, exploded a building and then swirled debris around him on April 16.

Gutsy? Idiotic? Crazy?

Accident, Hoag said.

And it's not something amateurs should try, say storm experts - and Hoag himself.

"If I came upon a similar situation today, I'd see if I could turn around and drive the other way," Hoag said in an interview Thursday.

But it's also something that apparently is becoming more common in this digital age, when it seems that just about everyone has a camera as close as a cellphone.

That was apparent again last week when more than 300 tornadoes touched down in six Southern states and killed at least 318 people. Some amateur videos taken during that outbreak have added to concerns being voiced by National Weather Service officials.

Bug

US: Heavy rains raise concerns over wheat scab

wheat scab
© social_buttons

Heavy rain the past month, particularly in Southern Illinois, has wheat growers on high alert for an outbreak of fusarium head blight (FHB), commonly known as scab.

Steve Stallman, a wheat grower from Chester in Randolph County and president of the Illinois Wheat Association, last week contracted for aerial applications of fungicide on his wheat fields.

"We have the perfect conditions for a widespread outbreak of scab and disease problems," Stallman said. "I'm going to do whatever I can to protect my crop."