Deadly storms strike the coast, snow blankets the interior, drought cripples rural communities, and flooding inundates the poor. Scientists expect natural disasters such as these — and worse — to grow in magnitude and increase in regularity as global warming takes its toll on the planet, and in many situations there is not much we
For the United States, 2011 has been a costly year when it comes to weather and climate disasters, suffering 12 separate billion dollar disasters in the year alone. The total aggregate damage for the year totals an approximate $52 billion, breaking the previous record of nine separate billion dollar weather/climate disasters in 2008. Sadly, across
This is an excellent video of what was already an excellent piece by Bill McKibben in the Washington Post.
Stephen Thomson of Plonomedia.com apparently decided to read McKibben’s op-ed while adding screenshots and videos of the incidents and information mentioned. It is a must-see…
Hello Planetsavers! I thought I’d start doing a monthly wrap-up of our top 20 posts for people to have a glance at. Many of the top stories this month, as you’ll notice, were clearly tied into major world news events. Google is the main traffic driver for the large majority of sites on the Internet and ours isn’t an exception. Covering environmental news consistently, this often results in the biggest news stories rising to the top.
The AP reported this weekend that 2011 has already had tornadoes kill more people in the U.S. than in any year since 1950.
Aside from the 73 or so stories we’ve covered in the past week, here are 13 more great green news stories I wanted to highlight (but didn’t have the time to…
This is a question that has definitely popped into my mind. And, if you are at all familiar with the fact that climate change is not just about sea levels or heat but is also causing (and going to cause more) much more extreme weather or “global weirding” as some put it, you are probably curious as well.
Joplin, Missouri has been hit with some of the wildest weather this week already. 116 have been found dead after a tornado slammed the city of approximately 50,000. Unfortunately, more tornadoes could be on the way today.
According to the National Weather Service, there’s a 45% chance of another tornado outbreak today, especially between about 4:00pm and midnight. Other than Missouri, this possibility is for parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Nebraska.
This is a reprinted excerpt (with link to full story) from a journalist colleague’s article for the Birmingham Weekly, as he surveys that damage wrought by one of the most severe tornado storms on record.
Posted on May 5, 2011 (The Birmingham Weekly)
Life is Precious – Making Sense of the Storms and What Comes After by Jesse Chambers
As I write this, it has been exactly one week since Alabama was left bruised and bleeding by one of the most vicious clusters of tornadoes ever recorded in the United States.
Tornadoes, floods, wild weather… the world is not the same as it used to be. It’s always seen such “extreme weather events,” but not to the degree that it is seeing them today.
NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite caught tornadoes in action as it flew over the state of Louisiana on March 5. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that seven tornadoes were spotted in Louisiana on that date. Those tornadoes caused at least 15 injuries and, tragically, one death when a tornado hit
