sheril | November 27, 2007A look to our sidebar and you'll see a new photograph. Regular readers may notice the style is quite different from the previous image and arguably distinct from what I generally advocate on the blog. Or is it?
Until this weekend, I hadn't realized I'd been feeling pressure to hide...or at least remain somewhat obscure. I had reservations wondering whether a woman can really be taken seriously as a writer for her ideas, if on some level she is first perceived as female. Evolutionary psychologists describe subconscious cues and I've encountered more than a few folks from the fishing…
sheril | November 27, 2007
Next November 4, make an informed decision.
There's no denying this is the kind of stuff the voting public remembers...
cmooney | November 26, 2007In the past three months, I have done three separate events on university campuses that have involved, in some way, panel commentaries upon books. Two of the books were my own; one was Mike Tidwell's (see here and here).
As a result, I have gotten some sense of what I think works in these contexts, and what doesn't. So I have designed this post--which I'd planned to publish much earlier, before Cyclone Sidr and Thanksgiving, but have kept on hold until now--in the hope that it might help professors and administrators across the country who are trying to put together these types of fora.…
sheril | November 26, 2007Earlier this month, 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel poured into San Francisco Bay when the cargo ship Cosco Busan hit the Bay Bridge. What I want to know is--since the actual amount of oil released in the Bay was relatively small compared to scenarios like Exxon Valdez, why are we witnessing a major environmental disaster?
You see, the real tragedy was twofold... yes, the spill was preventable, but equally troubling, the containment and response efforts were inadequate.
As explained in The San Francisco Chronicle:
The spill could have serious long-term consequences for fish, birds and…
sheril | November 22, 2007
Like most of our readers, we're off on vacation over Thanksgiving - Chris to Wisconsin, Sheril to New York - and posting will be very light til we return.
We wish everyone a warm and happy holiday!
sheril | November 21, 2007
On the bookshelf of bad ideas, this one would be an epic:
Developers Plan Massive Water Park in Arizona Desert
Unfortunately, this seemingly absurd story is moving toward full blown project. My post on our freshwater crisis is now up over at Correlations. Here's an excerpt:
Do we, uh, really need a new water park in Arizona? Because the idea just doesn't sit right with this conservation scientist. Actually, it shouldn't really sit right with anyone who has an interest in the future. Sure, water parks are fun for an afternoon - and lucrative for real estate developers. In fact, the one…
cmooney | November 21, 2007It is important to remember--as I note in my latest Daily Green item--that Cyclone Sidr isn't the first staggering storm in the North Indian Ocean basin this year. Indeed, you could argue that 2007 has been the worst year on record for intense North Indian cyclones; and before Sidr came Cyclone Gonu, the first Category 5 ever observed in the Arabian Sea.
Sidr turned out to be the bigger tragedy, but Gonu, pictured above, was certainly in the running for a while. The storm caused some $ 4 billion in damage to Oman, and it could have been worse. If Gonu had stayed intense for longer, and…
sheril | November 20, 2007A Japanese fleet has instructions to kill 50 humpbacks - and 1,000 whales total - under the shroud of 'scientific whaling'.
Why should we care? Well it's estimated that there are about 10,000 humpbacks coursing about the planet now... low numbers considering we had 240,000 in the North Atlantic pre-whaling.
Ever notice how the actual term 'science' often appears in titles where the group may... say... be engaged in activities requiring public justification?
cmooney | November 20, 2007From Baptist Press:
DHAKA, Bangladesh (BP)--In the hours before Cyclone Sidr reached the coastal areas of Bangladesh, Southern Baptists and other Christians began praying -- aware that the Category 4 storm potentially could usher hundreds of thousands into an eternity without Jesus.
...
"Last night a lot of people died and entered an eternity of suffering," Neely said. "Almost none of them has heard a Christian testimony or biblical explanation of who Christ really is. They have never heard the truth about who God really is, who they are in His sight or what God's plan is to save us from our…
sheril | November 20, 2007 ...the world is changing. How will we observe these changes if we're flying blind? That's what Loarie et al. are worried about - and with good reason.
Let me explain... Imagine you're a scientist monitoring the planet from space using satellite imagery. You depend on these pictures to understand climate change, asses deforestation, and track the loss of biodiversity. These images allow you to observe many different processes from shrinking tropical forests to melting icecaps and this information is useful in policy and raising public awareness on critical issues.
If you're that…
cmooney | November 19, 2007[Note: I had originally planned to publish this post last week, but Cyclone Sidr soon began to consume all of our attention--and rightly so. We will continue to track the storm and its consequences; but starting now, I'm also going to leaven things a bit with blogging on other issues. So, here goes...]
My latest Science Progress piece is up--it's about the intriguing new study (PDF) by Max Boykoff showing that the U.S. media is no longer engaging in phony media balance on global warming. Or as I put it, summarizing Boykoff's findings:
The years 2005 and 2006, in particular, saw not only a…
sheril | November 19, 2007Cyclone Sidr has passed, but there is no calm after the storm. The death toll - now reported over 3,000 - continues to rise as we're hearing of devastation throughout the region. I've been touched by readers emails from Bangladesh and elsewhere, sharing experiences and firsthand accounts of what's happening. One individual in the area, Jonathan Munshi, has been following The Intersection and reporting his observations on the ground. Today Jon sent us these photographs taken at Baniashanta across from the port city, Mongla - one of the areas hit hard by Sidr.
The village fared relatively…
cmooney | November 18, 2007Now some estimates suggest the death toll from Sidr may reach 10,000. But how is it possible for a cyclone to unleash destruction on such a scale?
To get a better grasp, one need only look at sea surface temperature anomalies in the Bay of Bengal before and after this storm's passage. These images are courtesy of Remote Sensing Systems.
On November 11, when Sidr was spinning up off the Andaman Islands, the Bay of Bengal was characterized by pretty much uniform warm anomalies, shown in red:
But by November 15, as the storm passed by, the Bay of Bengal had become predominantly characterized by…
cmooney | November 17, 2007Jeff Masters doesn't think Sidr will turn out to have killed as many as the 1998 storm that caused some 11,000 fatalities (or more) in Nicaragua and Honduras. But the Times of London is reporting that the death toll from Sidr may rise as high as 8,000. Whatever the case, this is, just as we feared, a major humanitarian disaster. The Times of London gives a list of links for charitable donations, which we encourage you to follow. And I'm reposting Sheril's much-watched YouTube video, which seems to be inspiring people to give aid:
cmooney | November 16, 2007Via AlertNet, I just saw this missive from the Belgian relief group CARE, which is already on the ground in Bangladesh but realizes the magnitude of the problem is even bigger than expected. This is the best sense I've been able to get yet of conditions where the storm struck, so I'm reproducing in full:
Geneva, November 16, 2007--With Bangladesh reeling in the aftermath of Cyclone Sidr, CARE emergency teams are determining where their relief equipment and supplies can be most effective. CARE responded immediately after the super cyclone struck Bangladesh's coast by moving equipment into the…
cmooney | November 16, 2007Folks, Sheril is busy today and can't post, but for the first time we have tried videoblogging--and what she has to say couldn't be on a more urgent subject, the devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr. Please watch and I hope you're as inspired as I am by her words:
The death toll from Sidr is up to 600 and, unfortunately, still seems to be rising. And of course that doesn't include injured, missing, displaced, newly homeless...Jeff Masters has more on the unfolding news of the disaster--including an amazing graphic depicting the population densities of the areas along the storm's path--and so…
cmooney | November 16, 2007I don't like that if you look at news reports over the past three hours or so, we find differing--but possibly escalating--reports of the casualties in Bangladesh. The highest estimate I've seen yet comes from Reuters Canada: "killed more than 500 people in Bangladesh and left thousands injured or missing." News is still rolling in, though. I don't think we really have any idea yet how bad it was.
Now is the time to think about humanitarian donations--the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies is a good start.
sheril | November 15, 2007It's about time. It's past time. Bay of Bengal cyclones have previously killed tens or even hundreds of thousands from storm surges and flooding. While those of us watching Sidr develop have been sounding alarm, the U.S. media has all but ignored an impending tragedy.
Today the storm made landfall and they've finally noticed. While Chris and I don't understand why it took so long to make top headlines, we're thankful that collective American attention is now focused intently on this catastrophic storm hitting the most vulnerable place on earth.
Now that here in the U.S. we're being…
cmooney | November 15, 2007
It seems 300 fishing boats and 1000 people are already missing in the storm. However, there's good news, too, according to Jeff Masters: The landfall point is a mangrove forest, not very populous. Still, the whole area has to expect a Katrina like storm surge upwards of 20 feet in some places. To quote Masters:
The coast in western Bangladesh has the Sundarbans Forest, the world's largest forest of mangrove trees. This region is the least populated coastal area in the country, and has been part of a major reforestation effort in recent years. The portion of coast likely to receive the…
cmooney | November 15, 2007
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center finally gave in and rated the storm at 135 knots--or 155 mile per hour winds. This is the cutoff for Category 5. There may be some weakening by landfall, but what we're expecting is a borderline Cat 4/Cat 5 striking along the path shown above. You've gotta figure the storm surge is going to be more than 20 feet. There are supposed to be vertical evacuations in Bangladesh, but I just don't know what's happening on the ground....