Topic: Around the Globe in Real Time

[Michael]

Is there any discussion of Climate Change in amongst all this mayhem?
Or of a Carbon Tax?

[Nichi]

Is there any discussion of Climate Change in amongst all this mayhem?
Or of a Carbon Tax?

Not in this particular article, though I've seen him address it in his blog before. Not the tax, but the climate change.

[Builder]

Is there any discussion of Climate Change in amongst all this mayhem?
Or of a Carbon Tax?

It is business as usual: developed countries bask in their welfare and bash the "uneducated polluting savages" in developing world. Benefits (cheap goods) go to the "golden billion", costs (pollution and destruction of environment) are those of the manufacturers. It all is nothing but short lived illusion.

Carbon cuts by developed countries cancelled out by imported goods

Kyoto protocol means carbon footprints are calculated for the countries producing goods, not those consuming them

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/25/carbon-cuts-developed-countries-cancelled

Cuts in carbon emissions by developed countries since 1990 have been cancelled out many times over by increases in imported goods from developing countries such as China, according to the most comprehensive global figures ever compiled.

Previous studies have shown the significance of "outsourced" emissions for specific countries, but the latest research, published on Monday, provides the first global view of how international trade altered national carbon footprints during the period of the Kyoto protocol.

Under the protocol, emissions released during production of goods are assigned to the country where production takes place, rather than where goods are consumed.

Campaigners say this allows rich countries unfairly to claim they are reducing or stabilising their emissions when they may be simply sending them offshore – relying increasingly on goods imported from emerging economies that do not have binding emissions targets under Kyoto.

According to standard data, developed countries can claim to have reduced their collective emissions by almost 2% between 1990 and 2008. But once the carbon cost of imports have been added to each country, and exports subtracted – the true change has been an increase of 7%. If Russia and Ukraine – which cut their CO2 emissions rapidly in the 1990s due to economic collapse – are excluded, the rise is 12%.

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "The 7% increase in emissions of developed countries since 1990 is a deviation from what the IPCC fourth assessment report had assessed as the most cost-effective trajectory for limiting emissions … if [that rate] is to continue then not only would we encounter more serious impacts of climate change over time, but mitigation actions undertaken later to reduce emissions would prove far more costly."

Much of the increase in emissions in the developed world is due to the US, which promised a 7% cut under Kyoto but then did not to ratify the protocol. Emissions within its borders increased by 17% between 1990 and 2008 – and by 25% when imports and exports are factored in.

In the same period, UK emissions fell by 28 million tonnes, but when imports and exports are taken into account, the domestic footprint has risen by more than 100 million tonnes. Europe achieved a 6% cut in CO2 emissions, but when outsourcing is considered that is reduced to 1%.

Glen Peters, of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, who was lead researcher on the paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said: "Our study shows for the first time that emissions from increased production of internationally traded products have more than offset the emissions reductions achieved under the Kyoto Protocol … this suggests that the current focus on territorial emissions in a subset of countries may be ineffective at reducing global emissions without some mechanisms to monitor and report emissions from the production of imported goods and services."

The study shows a very different picture for countries that export more carbon-intensive goods than they import. China, whose growth has been driven by export-based industries, is usually described as the world's largest emitter of CO2, but its footprint drops by almost a fifth when its imports and exports are taken into account, putting it firmly behind the US. China alone accounts for a massive 75% of the developed world's offshored emissions, according to the paper.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at LSE's Grantham Institute, said: "It's important to recognise that the countries which have ratified the Kyoto Protocol are roughly on track to hit their targets by the standards it sets out. But, as these figures show, there is a flaw in the accounting, because the rich countries are not held accountable for effectively exporting emissions to the developing world."

Environmental campaigners have long argued that global carbon accounting should be based on consumption rather than production of goods and services. One barrier to implementing such a system is the huge challenge of accurately monitoring the flow of emissions embodied in traded goods. Another barrier is that some policy-makers argue that consumer nations cannot or should not take full responsibility for their imports, both because they have no jurisdiction in foreign territories and because, even if they did, both producer and consumer nations benefit from trade, and therefore responsibility should be shared.

[Michael]

The reason I ask, is because I wonder how bad things have to get before people will begin to demand action.
It appears they will have to get very bad indeed - much worse than the current turmoil.

[Builder]

The reason I ask, is because I wonder how bad things have to get before people will begin to demand action.
It appears they will have to get very bad indeed - much worse than the current turmoil.

It seems to be so as most of the schemes and mechanisms suggested and implemented so far are merely self-deceptions writ international.

[Builder]

Mankind is playing a game called prisoner's dilemma
prisoner's dilemma while refusing to acknowledge that defecting and dumping stuff on others does not pay.

[Nichi]

Disturbance and Fear Rating: Very High

Tuscaloosa, Alabama
They think this was at least an F-4, but it might have been an F-5. The death count so far is "72 people across 4 states".

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" loading="lazy" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/KR5LtyQ_5IM/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KR5LtyQ_5IM"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/KR5LtyQ_5IM?fs=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/KR5LtyQ_5IM?fs=1</a>

[Nichi]

Megan McGlover, in Atlanta, Georgia, is waiting out Atlanta's Tornado Warning in the bathtub, with her dog. 
She says, "President Obama, you don't need to be figuring out where your birth certificate is ..... you need to figure out why Georgia keeps having these storms..." Amen.

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" loading="lazy" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SPL7fsBxIHg/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SPL7fsBxIHg"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/SPL7fsBxIHg?fs=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/SPL7fsBxIHg?fs=1</a>

[Michael]

I see more about this in the news.
I also heard of a research done recently about belief or acceptance in Climate Change, and they made the rather obvious finding that most people don't believe it until they are directly affected. However they did note that flooding was one of the most effective direct events to cause a shift in attitude to Climate Change.

The situation appears to be that the world is continuing to experience more extreme Climate events, and this correlates with the research done by Climate scientists. What we can expect is that as these events intensify and proliferate, more voices will be heard about what can we do or at least try to do.

I also expect to hear more voices calling for law suits against those who are funding the anti-Climate Change movement, as happened with tobacco.

We are up against the 'frog in the gradual warming pot' effect, but nonetheless it seems these destructive events are about to intensify dramatically.

We also need to take cognisance of the consequential effects of these events in every aspect of our lives. Especially the hip-pocket. Already someone in our town Armidale had his home insurance premium raised from $800 per year to $10,000 per year. He was told he was in a flood-prone area, to which he said he lived on top of a hill. Then they said he lived in a coastal town, to which he replied that Armidale was hundreds of miles from the coast on top of a high plateau. Never mind they told him, he was a risk and that's that.

Insurance is sky-rocketing, fuel also, business local and international will be directly affected, share markets will suffer from the unpredictability despite the surge in Asia and South America.

As with wars, the broad public tends to shift away from idealists, mad or sane, during times of crises. I expect once the watershed is passed on the Climate issue, there will be opportunities for responsible and intelligent people to rise to positions of authority across the globe. Differences will exist between nations, and these could degenerate into self-interest wars, but there will be a short space of possibility to respond effectively, or at least within the limits left available. Whether the world will take this possibility or fumble it is yet to be seen.

[Nichi]

The death count from yesterday's tornadoes is now 201, and it's still rising.
Locally we're on "Watch" status, but they're not expecting too much. There is a wicked wind out there, though, I can tell you that.

[Nichi]

Even rescuers hobbled by worst twisters since 1932
AP/The Tuscaloosa News, Dusty Compton
By JAY REEVES and GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writers – 2 hrs 54 mins ago

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Southerners found their emergency safety net shredded Friday as they tried to emerge from the nation's deadliest tornado disaster since the Great Depression.

Emergency buildings are wiped out. Bodies are stored in refrigerated trucks. Authorities are begging for such basics as flashlights. In one neighborhood, the storms even left firefighters to work without a truck.

The death toll from Wednesday's storms reached 329 across seven states, including 238 in Alabama, making it the deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak since March 1932, when another Alabama storm killed 332 people. Tornadoes that swept across the South and Midwest in April 1974 left 315 people dead.

Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured Wednesday — 990 in Tuscaloosa alone — and as many as 1 million Alabama homes and businesses remained without power.

The scale of the disaster astonished President Barack Obama when he arrived in the state Friday.

"I've never seen devastation like this," he said, standing in bright sunshine amid the wreckage in Tuscaloosa, where at least 45 people were killed and entire neighborhoods were flattened.

Mayor Walt Maddox called it "a humanitarian crisis" for his city of more than 83,000.

Maddox said up to 446 people were unaccounted for in the city, though he added that many of those reports probably were from people who have since found their loved ones but have not notified authorities. Cadaver-detecting dogs were deployed in the city Friday but they had not found any remains, Maddox said.

During the mayor's news conference, a man asked him for help getting into his home, and broke down as he told his story.

"You have the right to cry," Maddox told him. "And I can tell you the people of Tuscaloosa are crying with you."

At least one tornado — a 205 mph monster that left at least 13 people dead in Smithville, Miss. — ranked in the National Weather Service's most devastating category, EF-5. Meteorologist Jim LaDue said he expects "many more" of Wednesday's tornadoes to receive that same rating, with winds topping 200 mph.

Tornadoes struck with unexpected speed in several states, and the difference between life and death was hard to fathom. Four people died in Bledsoe County, Tenn., but a family survived being tossed across a road in their modular home, which was destroyed, Mayor Bobby Collier said.

By Friday, residents whose homes were blown to pieces were seeing their losses worsen — not by nature, but by man. In Tuscaloosa and other cities, looters have been picking through the wreckage to steal what little the victims have left.

"The first night they took my jewelry, my watch, my guns," Shirley Long said Friday. "They were out here again last night doing it again."

Overwhelmed Tuscaloosa police imposed a curfew and got help from National Guard troops to try to stop the scavenging.

Along their flattened paths, the twisters blew down police and fire stations and other emergency buildings along with homes, businesses, churches and power infrastructure. The number of buildings lost, damage estimates and number of people left homeless remained unclear two days later, in part because the storm also ravaged communications systems.

Tuscaloosa's emergency management center was destroyed, so officials used space in one of the city's most prominent buildings — the University of Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium — as a substitute before moving operations to the Alabama Fire College. Less than two weeks ago, the stadium hosted more than 90,000 fans for the football team's spring intrasquad Red-White Game.

A fire station was destroyed in nearby Alberta City, one of the city's worst-hit neighborhoods. The firefighters survived, but damage to their equipment forced them to begin rescue operations without a fire truck, city Fire Chief Alan Martin said.

Martin said the department is running normally and has since deployed a backup vehicle to serve the neighborhood. "In reality, it's just an extension of what we do every day," he said.

Also wiped out was a Salvation Army building, costing Tuscaloosa much-needed shelter space. And that's just part of the problem in providing emergency aid, said Sister Carol Ann Gray of the local Catholic Social Services office.

"It has been extremely difficult to coordinate because so many people have been affected — some of the very same people you'd look to for assistance," Gray said.

Emergency services were stretched particularly thin about 90 miles to the north in the demolished town of Hackleburg, Ala., where officials were keeping the dead in a refrigerated truck amid a body bag shortage. At least 27 people were killed there and the search for missing people continued, with FBI agents fanning out to local hospitals to help.

Damage in Hackleburg was catastrophic, said Stanley Webb, chief agent in the county's drug task force.

"When we talk about these homes, they are not damaged. They are gone," he said.

Gail Enlow was in town looking for her aunt, Eunice Cooper, who is in her 70s. She wiped away tears as she pointed to the twisted mess that's left of the housing project where Cooper lived.

"Nobody's seen her," she said, trying to hold back the sobs. "She can just barely get around and she would need help."

But in Hackleburg as in Tuscaloosa, emergency workers had more to do than aid suffering victims. People have looted a demolished Wrangler jeans distribution center, and authorities locked up drugs from a destroyed pharmacy in a bank.

Fire Chief Steve Hood said he desperately wanted flashlights for the town's 1,500 residents because he doesn't want them using candles that could ignite their homes.

In Cullman, a town about 50 miles north of Birmingham, workers have been putting in long hours to clean up debris and exhausted police officers face the same problems as the people they are sworn to protect. Emergency responders have waiting in hourslong lines with other drivers to get gas at stations without power.

False rumors, meanwhile, were sweeping the town. People were pushing debris from their yards into streets because they heard they were supposed to and filling up their bathtubs with water because they heard the city would cut off the supply.

Kathy McDonald glanced around her damaged town and quietly wept. Her family's furniture store, which sold tables and couches for decades, was torn apart.

"I just can't understand this. Are people coming to help us?" she said. "We feel all alone."

Alabama emergency management officials said Friday that the state had 238 confirmed deaths. There were 34 deaths in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia, two in Louisiana and one in Kentucky.

Friday night, Obama declared Mississippi to be a disaster area, qualifying six counties in that state for federal funding.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has responded to all affected areas and has officials on the ground in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee, Director Craig Fugate said. State and local authorities remain in charge of response and recovery efforts, Fugate said.

In the Birmingham suburb of Pleasant Grove, where 10 people died, building contractors used heavy equipment Friday to help clear debris from impassable streets.

Volunteers arrived from as far as Mobile — some 250 miles away — to deliver food, water and fuel and help with search and rescue. The National Guard closed the town to outsiders, trying to keep out gawkers and looters.

Police Chief Robert Knight said perhaps a quarter of the town of 10,000 is wiped out.

"We're having a hard time recovering," he said. But he vowed that residents will rebuild.

"We'll do it. We'll do it," he said. "We just will. People out here are resilient. It's a good city."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110430/ap_on_re_us/us_severe_weather
___

[Michael]

I read it quick - am I right there was no mention in there of why this is happening?

[Taimyr]

hundreds of tornadoes at the same time, wow that sounds weird

[Nichi]

I read it quick - am I right there was no mention in there of why this is happening?

You are right: "why" is not being discussed.

[Nichi]

Miss. River spillway opens, towns await floodwater   

By MARY FOSTER and MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press – 2 hrs 37 mins ago

MORGANZA, La. – Over the next few days, water spewing through a Mississippi River floodgate will crawl through the swamps of Louisiana's Cajun country, chasing people and animals to higher ground while leaving much of the land under 10 to 20 feet of brown muck.

The floodgate was opened Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, shooting out like a waterfall, spraying 6 feet into the air. Fish jumped or were hurled through the white froth and what was dry land soon turned into a raging channel.

The water will flow 20 miles south into the Atchafalaya Basin, and from there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub and a community of 12,000.

In the nearby community of Stephensville, rows of sandbags were piled up outside nearly every home.

Merleen Acosta, 58, waited in line for three hours to get her sandbags filled by prisoners, then returned later in the day for more bags.

Floodwaters inundated Acosta's home when the Morganza spillway was opened in 1973, driving her out for several months. The thought of losing her home again was so stressful she was getting sick.

"I was throwing up at work," she said.

The opening of the spillway diverted water from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi. Shifting the water away from the cities eased the strain on levees and blunts the potential for flooding in New Orleans that could have been much worse than Hurricane Katrina.

C.E. Bourg stopped by a hardware store in the shadow of the Morgan City floodwalls to buy grease for his lawnmower and paint — items on his "honey-do list." Floodwaters came close to overtopping in 1973, but since then, they have been raised to 24 feet and aren't in danger of being overtaken.

Bourg, an attorney, said he represented a worker who was injured on the 70s-era floodwall project and learned a lot about how they were built.

"I got a copy of the plans," he said. "This one's built right, unlike the ones in New Orleans."

The Morganza spillway is part of a system of locks and levees built after the great flood of 1927, which killed hundreds and left many more without homes. When the Morganza opened, it was the first time three flood-control systems have been unlocked at the same time along the Mississippi River, a sign of just how historic the current flooding has been.

Earlier this month, the corps intentionally blew holes into a levee in Missouri to employ a similar cities-first strategy, and it also opened a spillway northwest of New Orleans about a week ago.

Snowmelt and heavy rain swelled the Mississippi, and the river has peaked at levels not seen in 70 years.

In Krotz Springs, La., one of the towns in the Atchafalaya River basin bracing for floodwaters, phones at the local police department rang nonstop as residents sought information on road closings and evacuation routes.

Like so many other residents downstream of the Morganza, Monita Reed, 56, recalled the last time it was opened in 1973.

"We could sit in our yard and hear the water," she said as workers constructed a makeshift levee of sandbags and soil-filled mesh boxes in hopes of protecting the 240 homes in her subdivision.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be affected by the oncoming water, and some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside — an area known for fish camps and a drawling French dialect — have already fled. Reed's family packed her furniture, clothing and pictures in a rental truck and a relative's trailer.

"I'm just going to move and store my stuff. I'm going to stay here until they tell us to leave," she said. "Hopefully, we won't see much water and then I can move back in. "

It took about 15 minutes for the one 28-foot gate to be raised in the middle of the spillway. The corps planned to open one or two more gates Sunday in a painstaking process that gives residents and animals a chance to stay dry.

Michael Grubb, whose home is located just outside the Morgan City floodwalls, hired a contractor this week to raise his house from 2 feet to 8 feet off the ground. It took a crew of 20 workers roughly 17 hours to jack up the house onto wooden blocks.

"I wanted to save this house desperately," said Grubb, 54. "This has tapped us out. This is our life savings here, but it's worth every penny."

Three feet of water flooded Grubb's home the last time the Morganza spillway was opened.

Water from the swollen Atchafalaya River already was creeping into his backyard, but Grubb was confident his home will stay dry. He has a generator and a boat he plans to use for grocery runs. The water from the spillway was expected to reach Morgan City around Tuesday.

"This is our home. How could we leave our home?" he said.

The crest of the Mississippi was still more than a week away from the Morganza spillway, and when it arrives, officials expect it to linger. The bulge has broken river-level records that had held since the 1920s in some places. As the water rolled down the river, the corps took drastic steps to protect lives.

The corps blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off floodwalls protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

The Morganza flooding is more controlled, however, and residents are warned by the corps each year in written letters, reminding them of the possibility of opening the spillway.

At the site of the spillway, water splashed over the gates on one side before a vertical crane hoisted the 10-ton, steel panel. Typically, the spillway is dry on both sides.

This is the second spillway to be opened in Louisiana. The corps used cranes to remove some of the Bonnet Carre's wooden barriers, sending water into the massive Lake Ponchatrain and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

By Sunday, all 350 bays at the 7,000-foot Bonnet Carre structure were to be open. The Morganza, a 4,000-foot long structure built in 1954, was expecting to only open up about a quarter of its 125 gates.

The spillways could be opened for weeks, or perhaps less time, if the river flow starts to subside.

In Vicksburg, Miss., where five neighborhoods were under water, a steady stream of onlookers posed for pictures on a river bluff overlooking a bridge that connects Louisiana and Mississippi. Some people posed for pictures next to a Civil War cannon while others carried Confederate battle flags being given away by a war re-enactor.

Larry and Paulla Dalrymple spent part of the day with a video camera, filming the river roll past a casino and swirl around the giant bridge pilings.

"Wow. It's really running,'" Paulla said. "It's amazing what the water can do — what it's doing to people's lives."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110515/ap_on_re_us/us_mississippi_river_flooding

I confess I don't entirely understand the science of all this. The Mississippi River reached cataclysmic flood levels, and is enacting its 200-year crest. The 'why' I'm not sure about - was it because of the brutal weather which traversed the South during April, or is this something 'routine' for the Mississippi?

In any case, this opening of the spillways is supposed to divert the danger off of two of Louisiana's big cities: Baton Rouge and New Orleans. But I can't imagine how it must feel for the people whose farms, lands, and homes are being sacrificed - deliberately.

*Note to self: never move to the Gulf of Mexico states or anywhere near the Mississippi River.