Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Thank you Dean... for not coming here.

Now we see why the ancient Mayans built their cities inland from the coasts.

Early on the morning of August 21st, 2007, Hurricane Dean slammed the Yucatan peninsula as a still-intensifying Category 5 storm with sustained winds upwards of 165 miles per hour. Dean required some troubling readjustments of our hurricane records, and as a result, we may hear some serious chatter about the relationship between these intense storms and global warming.

Read more on the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-mooney/what-we-can-and-cant-say_b_61229.html

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Safe Energy For the Gulf: Hold the Line on Fish-Killing Machines

After a veto from the Governor of Louisiana, threats from the Governor of Alabama, and multiple projects abandoned by the energy industry (remember that big announcement from Shell a few months back?), you would imagine that the message would be clear: We won't allow open-loop liquefied natural gas (LNG) development in the Gulf of Mexico!

Unfortunately, TORP Technologies (a Norwegian energy corporation) must have missed the memo. They are currently seeking a permit to develop the Bienville Offshore Energy Terminal in Gulf waters off Alabama's coast. While the terminal is pretty far out (63 miles) it is smack-dab in some of the most important off-shore habitat for species like red snapper, groupers, amberjack and other popular recreational species. That makes the 127 million gallons of Gulf seawater that they would like to suck up, chill, chlorinate and dump back into the Gulf every day pretty important, as it is teeming with the highest concentration of grouper larvea you can find in the Gulf.

Send a message to the Maritime Administration, the Coast Guard and Gulf Governors that we can't allow this technology in the Gulf. The comment period for Bienville Draft Environmental Impact Statement closes on August 20th, so please take action today:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/713/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=12351

Monday, August 06, 2007

Hurricane Katrina - Two Years Later

"The most important thing to remember about the drowning of New Orleans is that it wasn't a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, created by lousy engineering, misplaced priorities and pork-barrel politics. Katrina was not the Category 5 killer the Big Easy had always feared; it was a Category 3 storm that missed New Orleans, where it was at worst a weak 2..."

That's how a newly published article in Time magazine on the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina begins.
Read the entire article from the August 13th, 2007 issue:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1646611_1646683_1648904-1,00.html

The above article is also featured in Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog on the Weather Underground's Web site:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=737&tstamp=200708

The two year anniversary of the storm and the region's recovery is also featured in a thoughtful article in National Geographic magazine. Read more From the August 2007 issue:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0708/feature1/

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

The World Clock is in a word - fascinating

When we first saw the World Clock Web site, we were taken aback by how fast most of the statistics being presented are changing. Particularly alarming is the number of deaths versus the number of births. No wonder there are over 6 billion of us.

While the actual numbers cannot be precise the rates of change are what is most interesting.
The data is taken from WHO, UN, Internet World Stats, and other official sources.

http://www.peterrussell.dreamhosters.com/Odds/WorldClock.php