talkpolitics | Entries tagged with disaster

Hurricane Milton is moving toward Florida as a powerful and life-threatening Category 5 storm. It is expected to make landfall late Wednesday night or Thursday morning with the threat of devastating storm surge, flash flooding, destructive winds and torrential rains. Officials say time is running out for people to evacuate, and many people are heeding the warnings.

It would be a miracle to survive a direct hit from this. People just don’t realize. Look at what happened during Katrina… if you survived, nobody was coming to rescue you for weeks.. imagine having to survive for weeks afterwards before anyone could come help you. Just evacuate. Do whatever it takes. Your life is more important.

kiaa

Mysterious Lights Flashed in The Sky Before Morocco's Devastating Earthquake

Mysterious lights appear to have been spotted in Morocco before a devastating earthquake hit last week – and scientists still can't figure out what caused them.

nairiporter

The war in Ukraine has shown that the Russian military doesn't even refrain from attacking nuclear power plants. In March, their troops temporarily occupied the restricted area around the Chernobyl reactor. Fears of a new catastrophe are growing. The incident has raised serious concerns. In early March, the Chernobyl reactor suddenly found itself in the middle of the war actions.

In April 1986, the fourth nuclear reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, causing an unprecedented accident. Half of Europe was contaminated. At the site of the reactor buried under a thick concrete sarcophagus, there are three more suspended units of the plant, which need constant technical maintenance.

( Read more... )

airiefairie

Unprecedented drought has dried up the second largest river in South America, the Paraná. Its course begins in Brazil and runs for over 4,800 km through Paraguay and Argentina. The river gives life to huge tropical forests and farms. More than 80% of farmers in Argentina depend on this rier. In addition, Paraná is a key waterway for each of the countries through which it passes.

Currently, the water level in Paraná is the lowest since at least 1944, as a result of a prolonged drought in Southern Brazil, which began in 2019 and has not yet ended. It is not clear when this cycle will end, either.

Government officials in Argentina are now advising citizens to "save water" and catch rain for domestic and commercial use. In these dry conditions, the authorities are also urging people to stop burning waste or lighting fires to secure pastures.

As the level of Paraná continues to decline, thousands of forest fires have raged over the past two years in the region. Dried tropical vegetation is highly flammable, and the low river level dries up the canals, which usually help stop the fires. This is a vicious cycle out of which no exit is to be seen any time soon.

And in the meantime, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been one of the most outspoken climate change deniers.

kiaa

The best places to survive a global societal collapse have been ranked by scientists in a new study.

MAP HERE

This piece of news, courtesy of the highly reputable scientific outlet The Sun.

New Zealand came out on top, followed by Iceland, the island state of Tasmania in Australia, Ireland and the UK.

Is it just me, or the most reliable doomsday sanctuaries are places with more sheep than people??

kiaa

Pun unintended (or is it?)

As the world struggles with another summer with an extreme climate, experts are observing something unusual - this year the effects are more heavily pronounced in areas that used to be spared of this trouble in general.

Wealthy countries such as the US, Canada, Germany and Belgium are joining poorer and more vulnerable nations on a growing list of extreme weather events that scientists say are to a great degree linked to man-made climate change. So this is no longer just a problem for poor countries. It is very obvious that it is now a problem for rich countries as well. If they don't pay attention NOW, I don't know when they will.

( Read more... )

luzribeiro

...She's right.

Record June temperatures point to more 'extraordinary' extremes

Astounding heat obliterates all-time records across the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada in June 2021

Scientists predict more extreme weather events in future

For the more US-centric among the audience (you know who you are), here's the issue, presented as per your local news. West coast: earthquakes, East coast: hurricanes and blizzards, Midwest: tornados and blizzards, South: tornadoes and hurricanes, Arizona: scorching hot. Any questions?

Now for the anecdotal bits. My brother in law works in the water treatment industry. A lot of people don't realize how this will affect them. "Oh, I don't live near the coast, I'll be fine." Wrong. It takes a lot more chemical to remove more dirt from surface water, where a lot of people get their drinking water. More rain, particularly in single events, will cause more runoff. Not only is it dirtier, it also has more contaminants, jeopardizing the quality of the water too. We do our damndest to do it right, but it's going to cost more to treat. Drinking water is going to become more expensive, both due to lack of and overabundance depending on where you live.

And water shortages, as we're well aware, tend to cause political turmoil, economic downturns, border disputes, armed conflict and whatnot.

You know... Trouble.

nairiporter

Prolonged droughts in Madagascar have put at least 400,000 people at risk of starvation, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The situation in the country is dramatic: 14,000 people in South Madagascar are on the verge of death. The island nation off the coast of Africa is currently experiencing the worst drought in 40 years. People in Madagascar suffer en masse from exhaustion due to prolonged starvation, children are just skin and bones.

According to the FAO, the terrible famine in the region is caused by prolonged years of drought and sandstorms that have devastated much of the fields. And this year there has been almost no rain in the country.

In the coming days, the United Nations and the government of Madagascar will formally ask for $ 155 million in financial aid to prevent an even greater catastrophe. Thousands have already left the country's rural regions and headed to the cities in search of food.

Experts estimate that unless urgent action is taken, the number of people at risk of starvation will soon reach half a million. Just for some context, Madagascar is a former French colony. The country is 1.6 times larger than Germany and has 28 million inhabitants.

nairiporter

Piney Point: Emergency crews try to plug Florida toxic wastewater leak

Usual thing. A private landowner who knew all about the environmental risks when he bought the property (Piney Point), is seeking $6M in public money to fix the problem. Standard practice in the US!

So, he has done nothing and now it's somebody else's problem. Good thing for the private landowner. He will be sitting pretty after the taxpayer bailout. As for the environment, well... who cares about that when there is money to be made!

Will the companies who created this problem be billed for the mess? Will they wriggle out of paying and leave the tax-payer with the costs? Privatised profits, socialised losses.

airiefairie

http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/ecological-threat-register/

Last month this report made the headlines. It was full of almost apocalyptic predictions, like a new mass migration on a global scale in result of climate change, and severe water and food shortages throughout Asia and Africa.

The report was done by several international research centers, including the Institute of Economics and Peace. It comes out just at the time of the 5th anniversary of the first migrant wave to Europe. There is an overarching sense of doom and threat hanging over the world and modern civilisation all throughout the report, the issue of migration being closely related to the urgent need of response to environmental change.

( Here are some of the conclusions )

mahnmut

dancesofthelight

Because I have the luxury and the privilege to evacuate for a minimum of a week.

According to this map, my hometown stands on the brink of a Biblical disaster, if it's right and the storm doesn't get a magic shrinking down to Category 3, parts of my hometown are on the edge of literally being swept off the map by a Noachian disaster. Other parts are 'merely' going to be getting very high water.

My house and my street are not on this map, but the furthest east that surge goes is two miles from my house. Everything red is going to drown, if it's lucky, literally be obliterated if it's not.

To call me a nervous wreck right now would be to insult nervous wrecks.

Lake Charles had the devil's luck in 2005. We may be poised to see that luck run out and things go very horribly wrong in a way that I don't think the former restaurant owner turned mayor is remotely adept to deal with.

We survived Rita with a turbine knocked off the house, a cracked pane of glass, and the loss of everything in the fridge and the freezer and that was about it. I highly, highly doubt we'll be as fortunate this time and am simply as resigned to it as I was to my ex-roommates kicking me out into the Ohio snows when my abilities to pay their bills for them ran out.

And with President Biff Tannen in the White House? We're doubly and triply fucked.

https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2020-08-26-hurricane-laura-forecast-rapid-intensification-texas-louisiana

( Cut for size )

airiefairie

A civil war. An economic crisis. Catastrophes of all sorts. Lebanon has had it all. But the massive Beirut explosion surpasses everything in terms of scales and horror. I doubt anyone in Lebanon has seen such a thing even in their worst nightmare. 300 thousand people were left homeless. Thousands more had their hopes of a better life ruined. This is a very dark moment for Lebanon. And this tragedy reflects with particular deepness on the young Lebanese.

And it is all because of the monstrous incompetence of the Lebanese government. That is the worst part: seeing the gargantuan collapse and failure of your country, your society, and the people who are supposed to be your leaders. This is something we shouldn't wish even to our worst enemies.

( Read more... )

luzribeiro

Let me modify the current situation, and imagine how Trump would've handled it if it weren't a pandemic. Suppose it wasn't a pandemic. Suppose it was some different kind of crisis.

In fact, suppose scientists had come to Trump in January of this year, and warned him that they had detected a two-mile-wide asteroid on a collision course with Earth, due to impact in October of this year.

Here is Donald Trump: "No, there's no asteroid! This is just the latest Democratic hoax! It's a witch-hunt! There is nothing bad going to happen! And even if there IS an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, it will veer away, at the last minute, like a miracle! Just wait and see! This is all about the Democrats trying to rig the election! Mail-in voting! Voter fraud! Millions of illegal aliens will vote! It's going to be the biggest political swindle in history! And there's no asteroid! And even if an asteroid DOES hit, it will be very, very minor, and we will have it completely under control, in just a few days. And if it kills a couple million Americans, well, it is what it is. But it'll probably just hit the Chinese. And even if the asteroid totally destroys the Earth... the United States will come out better than any other country..."

Yeah. You pretty much KNOW it would have gone that way.

Democrats: "If we send up a bunch of rockets with controlled explosions, we could deflect it away from us."
Libertarians: "Yes, but how would we pay for it?"
GOP: "What asteroid?"

kiaa

Worms Frozen for 42,000 Years in Siberian Permafrost Wriggle to Life

Climate change sometimes makes itself felt in unexpected ways, doesn't it? And it's already happening. For example, rising temperatures on Russia's Arctic coast are not only causing the ice to melt, but also releasing dangerous bacteria, like anthrax, into the atmosphere that have long been lying dormant in the Siberian permafrost. A 2017 outbreak on the Yamal Peninsula spread from reindeer to humans.

Permafrost covers about 25 percent of all ice-free land in the Northern Hemisphere. For millennia, much of this ground has been a cemented mass of soil, rock and ice, along with bits of organisms preserved from decay in a deep freeze. But this is now changing.

And the worst is yet to come. Organic matter trapped in permafrost — everything from mammoth carcasses to ancient fruit — contains massive stores of carbon, an estimated 1,500 billion tons, or nearly twice the carbon currently in the atmosphere. As the ground warms, the long-frozen material will decay and release the carbon as greenhouse gases. It's a runaway effect that we're talking about here.

And then of course, there are the ancient germs that could make Covid-19 seem like a mere sneeze.

luzribeiro

Clearly, Donnie is not the only cheerleader in the West Wing...

Kushner calls US coronavirus response a 'success story' as cases hit 1 million

Has there ever been a more tone-deaf person? Remember, he is the one who encouraged his father-in-law to ignore the virus as just a media/Democratic hoax cooked up to make him look bad.

He is the one that stood there and justified the federal government grabbing shipments of PPE because "we need it for us". He is the one in charge of deciding what states get, and refuses to tell anyone the criteria.

So he is in effect praising himself as much as he is his father-in-law. This whole goddamned family is fuckin clueless.

There are many in this administration that will go down in infamy, Kushner, Mnuchin, Barr, etc etc. And of course the grandaddy of them all the big orange. Kushner is perhaps the one that epitomizes slime the most. Liars all.

mahnmut

A weird virus suddenly appears and causes a global emergency. A lab that researches weird viruses, in a secretive and oppressive country, is very close indeed to the first reported cases. You see where I'm going with this? Well apparently, others do, too.

US explores possibility that coronavirus started in Chinese lab, not a market

In a nutshell, a shocking report claims officials believe the Wuhan virology lab was the real source of the virus, which was isolated from a bat in a bungled attempt to upstage US scientists, but then escaped after a lab worker became patient zero in some kind of weird-ass lab accident.

Allegedly, China then hurried to blame the Wuhan 'wet market', which in fact did not sell bats (it did sell those crazy-looking armadillo kinda things, though, another possible culprit).

It goes quite predictably from there. The WHO parroted the Chinese government's claim about the market's likely role, to divert attention from the lab.

Trump has now confirmed the US is actively investigating the possible role of the lab, and Pompeo is openly warning China to 'come clean' about the whole thing.

Interestingly, US diplomatic cables in 2018 seem to have warned of risky bat research in the Wuhan lab. And now an army general admits 'we can't be certain' about where the virus really emerged.

I know, it's conspiracy theorist bonanza, now that the actual US government is involved in unwrapping it (if there's an 'it' at all, that is). If true, this whole disaster could go down as the biggest government cover-up of all time, and I'm not sure what consequences it would have for China, but I'm thinking those should be big, no, I mean HUGE. And by that I mean GARGANTUAN.

Thoughts?

fridi

(click on graph to enlarge)

Not exactly on the "historical revisionism" topic, but still very relevant, here are a couple of links to a two-part documentary that investigates the correlation between the 5th century Krakatau volcanic eruption, and the ensuing societal havoc that changed the destiny of entire civilizations worldwide:

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUz5Vjq9-s
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JBdedLx-GI

The second part in particular deals with the consequences of the major eruption in Indonesia, which caused a global climate disruption, crop failure, famine, barbarian invasions, established civilizations collapsing and being substituted with new emerging ones, etc. It even ends up postulating a link between all this turmoil and the emergence of new world religions such as Islam. Highly recommendable.

( More about this, particularly pandemics )

dancesofthelight

But the realities of how low and abysmally out of its way to be evil the Legion of Doom and Dorito Benito are proving themselves to be continues to hit new lows. First, for good news:

The EU shows itself to be the remaining center of what compassion and decency the Western world has. It is helping Iran, Trump is trying to weaponize Beervirus in the dangerous gamble of regime change, having learned sweet fuck all from 2003, or 1979 for that matter.

( EU doing it right )

And the United States is literally stealing masks from other countries that they ordered from factories made on the territory of those countries. The raw reality of the Empire of Bases exposed without any pretense of democracy involved, the price the expectation that people in other countries will get sick and die for this Administration of baboons to seem like it's halfassing trying to deal with a crisis it has made worse globally.

( Link by link )

There are multiple degrees of evil and ambiguity in global geopolitics. The current day USA is going out of its way to meet every single element of the worst it could be expected to do and quite a few of the ones that it shouldn't and couldn't but is managing to do anyway.

The implosion of a social order can bring out the best and the worst in people. For the US regime it is bringing out the worst well before the crisis reaches the point where the singing and optimism stop and the unrest starts to spiral out in a country that has more arms and brawn than it ever has brain or sense. I spend much of my time goofing off on social media because otherwise, the dim shadows of the various elements of onrushing catastrophes would see a paralyzing oscillation between the kind of fear and anger that produce a fatal stress.

My home state is a hot spot with the most consistent cases where catching Beervirus means that it's fatal. New Orleans, fortunately 300 miles from where I live, has one of the highest fatality rates in the USA. 12,496 cases as of today, 409 fatalities. Four in my home parish. with 135 cases. And in the midst of all this, the Feds are literally turning into pirates for a virus they denied existed and if it did, Xi was doing a wonderful job of handling it so there was nothing to fear and that's just.....what is there to be done, here?

luzribeiro

Before the buffoon was conned by Xi regarding the imminent pandemic into looking like an idiot stupidly blurting that he had it "under control!", that it would just "go away!", it was not just the most competent and knowledgeable medical experts he was ignoring. (Falling for the self-serving bs of foreign leaders instead of trusting Americans with expertise is a peculiar trait of Trumpery.)

Trump's enablers were also sounding the alarm. Even Tom "Picky" Cotton could recognize the reality, and tried desperately to get Trump to confront it:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/30/how-coronavirus-shook-congress-complacency-155058
"Cotton, along with a handful of others, was the exception on Capitol Hill when there still might have been a chance to prevent the worst..."

Even though he laer did restrict China travel (over objections of Democrats and much of the media, I should note!), it was too little too late. At a time when the contagion was already sprading across borders, he was still holding mass rallies (helping SPREAD the virus and doing his best to downplay it).

Trump's response has been a comedy of errors and he continues to drop the ball.

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with disaster

Imminent hit

Friday science. Mysterious lights before the earthquake

Chernobyl: danger of another catastrophe?

The Paraná has vanished

Friday off-topic... Run to the caves!

It's backfiring big time

You may mock Greta, but...

Madagascar's tragedy

What a mess!

Global ecological threats report

Friday WTF. US the beautiful

I'm safe in Mississippi:

A tale of a failed state

Just a hypothetical

As if we didn't have enough germ trouble already

So much winning!

We've heard this theory

History-altering natural disasters

Not that denying it was possible before

Trump's own henchmen were warning him

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May 2025

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