It’s not hard to imagine the damage weird weather inflicts on our planet. Hurricane Katrina, for example, obliterated coastal communities, wiped out businesses and left hundreds of dead bodies in its wake. Quantifying the cost of such a one-off (we hope) event is pretty easy too: Katrina left us with a bill of $81 billion, …
Disasters
What’s Behind the Southwest Wildfires
Remember that inconvenient truth from half a decade ago? Even if you don’t, it seems like most of modern science, politics, and popular culture does – though they are often wildly divided on the issue. These days it seems like everything is in some way linked to “climate change.” There was the extreme rain that may cause a …
Federal Government: This Spring’s Weather Was Totally Crazy
One of the challenges of understanding weather and climate change in the U.S. involves a simple fact: this country is really big. Huge—and that means there’s almost always significant variety in the weather from sea to shining sea. A heat wave in one part of the country might be matched by unusually cool weather in another part. There …
Putting a Climate Scourge’s Words to Video
Last month, in the wake of the catastrophic Joplin tornadoes, 350.org founder Bill McKibben published a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post mocking those who show caution about linking climate change and extreme weather:
Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots
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Tokyo Offers to Help Compensate Nuclear Victims
Tokyo Electric Power Company’s stock rose 25% after Japan’s cabinet announced it approved a plan to help the nation’s largest utility avoid bankruptcy and pay a huge compensation bill to victims of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crippled in the March 11 tsunami.
For the last three months, the future of TEPCO, which …
Fukushima: New Report Suggests Fuel Burned Through Vessels
Summer has arrived in Japan. The pink cherry blossoms that offered some aesthetic respite from the destruction in the weeks after March 11 are long gone, and the heat —and all of the attendant challenges of living long-term with a nuclear disaster — have arrived. In Tokyo, where the mayor has set an ambitious energy reduction goal of …
Could A 36-Year Drought Push Somalia Over the Edge?
The fleeting moments that Somalia still gets in the international press these days mostly revolve around pirates, and understandably so. Piracy, though it no longer dominates headlines, is still a tremendous problem both inside Somalia and for the crews and owners of ships that must make the trip through the Indian Ocean to get from …
Lessons from Fukushima
In the wake of Fukushima, there have been widespread calls for the safety of nuclear power plants to be enhanced. But how precisely? And, more specifically, what role can the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) play in improving nuclear safety and security?
Japanese PM Says He Will Resign Over Fukushima
Naoto Kan, Japan’s beleaguered prime minister, has acknowledged for the first time since March 11 that he may step down — but not until he’s done doing what he needs to do. Kan has come under increasing pressure from both inside and outside his party to give up his post after his handling of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and …
This Summer’s Hurricane Season Is Looking Nasty. Buckle Up
Perhaps the biggest wild card in the response to last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was the threat of a major hurricane. The Gulf is a locus for major tropical storms (remember a little downpour called Katrina?), and any time a large storm even threatened the area of water near the spill—where complex operations to shut …