Global Alarm Bells Ring as Signs of El Nino Mount

Nations worldwide are bracing for climatic havoc again in 2002 just five years after a devastating El Nino weather pattern engulfed the globe, killing more than 20,000 people and wreaking some $34 billion in damage.

In recent weeks, the world's top meteorological centers have said that the odds are shortening for a recurrence of El Nino, where unusual warming of Pacific waters off South America triggers far-flung drought, ice storms, floods and fires.

Forecasters at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) kicked off the new year saying El Nino would likely return in spring though its intensity was unclear.
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thanks to DANGEROUSMETA!

Two Thousand Acres

According to my calculations, my work space occupies only a few square inches of office floor. You may find this implausible, but I'm using a well-accepted methodology. Well accepted, that is, among supporters of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Last week Interior Secretary Gale Norton repeated the standard response to concerns about extensive oil development in one of America's last wild places: "The impact will be limited to just 2,000 out of 1.9 million acres of the refuge." That number comes from the House version of the Bush-Cheney energy plan, which promises that "surface acreage covered by production and support facilities" will not exceed 2,000 acres. It's a reassuring picture: a tiny enclave of development, practically lost in the Arctic vastness.

But that picture is a fraud. Development won't be limited to a small enclave: according to the U.S. Geological Survey, oil in ANWR is scattered in many separate pools, so drilling rigs would be spread all across the coastal plain. The roads linking those rigs aren't part of the 2,000 acres: they're not "production and support facilities." And "surface acreage covered" is very narrowly defined: if a pipeline snakes across the terrain on a series of posts, only the ground on which those posts rest counts; bare ground under the pipeline isn't considered "covered."

Now you see how I work in such a small space. By those definitions, my "impact" is limited to floor areas that literally have stuff resting on them: the bottoms of the legs on my desk and chair, and the soles of my shoes. The rest of my office floor is pristine wilderness.
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thanks to SmirkingChimp.com

Nuclear waste on your bumper
Bush’s Yucca Mountain plan is a radioactive nightmare

Putting the nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain is Nevada's problem. Getting it there is ours. There are 131 nuclear plants dotted around the nation, not to mention assorted military facilities, where the really, really bad stuff is stored. So we're taking a 131-plus-point problem and making it a several-hundred-thousand-point problem. They're going to put the really, really bad stuff into trucks and railroad cars, and send it all to Yucca -- so if you're anywhere between a nuclear power plant and Nevada, you have a problem.
(...)

Bush's "best science" campaign promise was pathetic, in retrospect. Yucca Mountain is in an earthquake zone and leaks. Among those who question its desirability as a repository site are the General Accounting Office, Bechtel, SAIC, the Department of Energy contractor on the site, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board and Radioactive Waste Management Associates. (For details, see the website of the Safe Energy Communication Council.)
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thanks to SmirkingChimp.com