Archive for October 22nd, 2011

Thai PM calls for unity to defend capital from floods

Reuters: Thailand's government scrambled to protect the capital on Saturday and defend two industrial zones from flooding as water levels crept higher and hundreds of riverside residents prepared to leave their homes. The diversion of floodwater that reached levels as high as three meters on Bangkok's fringe provinces appeared to be working for now, although some spilled into northern districts, forcing hundreds into evacuation centers. Thailand's worst flooding in half a century has affected a third...

United States: Sea levels will rise, washing away climate deniers

Miami Herald: The rising sea will wash across great swaths of South Florida. Salt water will contaminate the well fields. Roads and farmland and low-lying neighborhoods will be inundated. The soil will no longer absorb the kind of heavy rainfalls that drenched South Florida last weekend. Septic tanks will fail. Drainage canals won't drain. Sewers will back up. Intense storms will pummel the beachfront. Mighty rainfalls, in between droughts, will bring more floods. The economic losses and the mitigation costs...

Expert Says Quakes in England May Be Tied to Gas Extraction

New York Times: A British seismologist said Friday that two minor earthquakes in northwestern England "appeared to correlate closely' with the use of hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas from wells that has raised concerns about environmental and seismological risks in the United States. The scientist, Brian Baptie, seismic project team leader with the British Geological Survey, said data from the two quakes near Blackpool -- one of magnitude 2.3 on April 1, the other of magnitude 1.5 on May...