Planetary Ruin

As far as we are concerned the following statement by Kirk Douglas is right on the money.  We do not wish to push our beliefs on you as to the direction the world needs to go but we want you to make your own informed decisions on what is best.  If you take the time to learn about the issues facing us today, you are more likely to make responsible decisions later and make an impacting change upon the world.  Read these words and do not take the doom and gloom approach that many media centers are taking.  Look at the hope and desire for a better world that Kirk’s message is all about.  It is up to us, all of us to do what is right. 

My name is Kirk Douglas. You may know me. If you don’t … Google me. I was a movie star and I’m Michael Douglas’ dad, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ father-in-law, and the grandparents of their two children. Today I celebrate my 90th birthday.

I have a message to convey to America’s young people. A 90th birthday is special. In my case, this birthday is not only special but miraculous. I survived World War II, a helicopter crash, a stroke, and two new knees.

It’s a tradition that when a “birthday boy” stands over his cake he makes a silent wish for his life and then blows out the candles. I have followed that tradition for 89 years but on my 90th birthday, I have decided to rebel. Instead of making a silent wish for myself, I want to make a LOUD wish for THE WORLD.

Let’s face it: THE WORLD IS IN A MESS and you are inheriting it. Generation Y, you are on the cusp. You are the group facing many problems: abject poverty, global warming, genocide, AIDS, and suicide bombers to name a few. These problems exist, and the world is silent. We have done very little to solve these problems. Now, we leave it to you. You have to fix it because the situation is intolerable.

You need to rebel, to speak up, write, vote, and care about people and the world you live in. We live in the best country in the world. I know. My parents were Russian immigrants. America is a country where EVERYONE, regardless of race, creed, or age has a chance. I had that chance. You are the generation that is most impacted and the generation that can make a difference.

I love this country because I came from a life of poverty. I was able to work my way through college and go into acting, the field that I love. There is no guarantee in this country that you will be successful. But you always have a chance. Nothing should interfere with it. You have to make sure that nothing stands in the way.

When I blow out my candles — 90! … it will take a long time … but I’ll be thinking of you.

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A small-scale, regional nuclear war could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, researchers have concluded.

The scientists said about 40 countries possess enough plutonium or uranium to construct substantial nuclear arsenals. Setting off a Hiroshima-size weapon could cause as many direct fatalities as all of World War II.

 ”Considering the relatively small number and size of the weapons, the effects are surprisingly large,” said one of the researchers, Richard Turco of the University of California, Los Angeles.  “The potential devastation would be catastrophic and long term.”

The lingering effects could re-shape the environment in ways never conceived. In terms of climate, a nuclear blast could plunge temperatures across large swaths of the globe. “It would be the largest climate change in recorded human history,” Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers’ Cook College and another member of the research team.

The results will be presented here today during the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union.

Blast fatalities

In one study, scientists led by Owen “Brian” Toon of the University of Colorado, Boulder, analyzed potential fatalities based on current nuclear weapons inventories and population densities in large cities around the world.

His team focused on the black smoke generated by a nuclear blast and firestorms—intense and long-lasting fires that create and sustain their own wind systems. 

For a regional conflict, fatalities would range from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country. “A small country is likely to direct its weapons against population centers to maximize damage and achieve the greatest advantage,” Toon said.

Chilled climate

With the information, Robock and colleagues generated a series of computer simulations of potential climate anomalies caused by a small-scale nuclear war.

“We looked at a scenario of a regional nuclear conflict say between India and Pakistan where each of them used 50 weapons on cities in the other country that would generate a lot of smoke,” Robock told LiveScience.

They discovered the smoke emissions would plunge temperatures by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.25 degrees Celsius) over large areas of North America and Eurasia—areas far removed from the countries involved in the conflict.

Typically when sunlight travels through the atmosphere, some rays get absorbed by particles in the air, before reaching Earth’s surface. After a nuclear blast, however, loads of black smoke would settle into the upper atmosphere and absorb sunlight before it reaches our planet’s surface. Like a dark curtain pulled over large parts of the globe, the smoke would cause cool temperatures, darkness, less precipitation and even ozone depletion.

At the end of the 10 years, the simulated climate still hadn’t recovered. 

Global upshot

The study showed it doesn’t take much nuclear power to drive meteoric results. Whereas the scenarios presumed the countries involved would launch their entire nuclear arsenals, that total is just three-hundredths of a percent of the global arsenal.

Will the conclusions result in worldly changes? “We certainly hope there will be a political response because nuclear weapons are the most dangerous potential environmental danger to the planet. They’re much more dangerous than global warming,” Robock said.

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EVERY schoolchild in Scotland is to be offered the chance to see former US vice-president Al Gore’s film about the dangers of global warming under a scheme by energy company ScottishPower.

The firm, a major windfarm developer which also runs the coal-fired Longannet power station, is prepared to commit “tens of thousands of pounds” to the project and is currently in negotiations with the Scottish Executive to secure its backing.

ScottishPower, which has also given copies of Mr Gore’s book of the same name, An Inconvenient Truth, to hundreds of its staff, plans to pay for cinema screenings for older children in primary schools and all secondary pupils. The firm is currently discussing with the Executive how pupils could be bussed to cinemas, and to cinema owners about times for screenings.

The idea came about after Stephen Dunn, the company’s director of human resources and communications, bought the book in the US while visiting a company owned by ScottishPower.

“On the way home, I picked up the book in a bookstore in Oregon. We flew right back to the UK and I basically read the entire book during the night on the flight,” he said.

“The thing that grabbed me about it was it’s actually quite a simple book, telling a simple story about the world and what we are doing to it and how we have the opportunity to improve it. That sort of very personal picture of what we are doing struck home with me. The film is equally powerful.

“We are working with the Scottish Executive to see if we can put together a funding package to get this film viewed by schoolchildren across Scotland.

“We are putting up the cost of the cinemas and the cost of getting the film and we’re just looking for a bit of support from the Executive.”

Mr Dunn said ScottishPower was also looking at biomass generators and wave power in addition to its windfarm programme in an attempt to reduce emissions and the impact of global warming.

“In helping get this film out to schoolchildren, we give them the opportunity to think about what we are doing to this Earth in a very simple way - kids take very complex things and make them very easy much better than adults can.”

David Eaglesham, general-secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association, said: “The film certainly puts across a view about how the environment could be affected in the coming years, and climate change is something that is already being looked at in many areas of the curriculum.”

Ronnie Smith, the general-secretary of the EIS teaching union, said that the film would have to be put in context.

“I entirely accept that the environmental issue is moving up the agenda, but I think it would be preferable that it was used as part of the curriculum, rather than taking an one-off, piece-meal approach,” he said.

James Douglas-Hamilton, the Scottish Conservative’s education spokesman, said he had not seen the film, but added he was in favour of the “principle of greater environmental awareness, provided it is objectively done”.

A Scottish Executive spokesperson said:

“We are aware of the film proposal from ScottishPower and are currently considering this.”

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Rescuers scouring mountain villages buried under mud and boulders loosed by a powerful typhoon discovered more bodies Saturday, raising the death total to more than 300, with another 300 missing.
Officials fear the number of those killed by Typhoon Durian will rise as rescue operations continue in devastated villages on the slopes of the Mayon volcano, 210 miles southeast of Manila in the eastern Philippines.

The national Office of Civil Defense has reported 208 people dead, 261 missing and 90 injured.

But those figures included few of the 120 bodies found in the town of Guinobatan on the slopes of Mayon, where Albay Gov. Fernando Gonzalez said.

“We need food, tents, water, body bags,” Philippine National Red Cross official Andrew Nocon told DZMM radio. “We sent initially 300 bags, but we need more.”

In Padang, a few miles from Guinobatan, houses were buried under mud and debris, with only roofs protruding. Power pylons were toppled, a two-lane highway became a one-lane, debris-strewn road with overturned trucks scattered about and a backhoe half-buried by a massive boulder.

Luis Bello, a mayor’s aide in Padang, said 28 bodies were recovered there and photographed for identification by relatives. Some of the bodies had been washed out to sea and brought back by currents to the shores of an adjacent town.

Ash and boulders had been building on the slopes of the 8,077-foot Mayon — one of 22 active volcanos in the Philippines — which has been coming to life in recent months. Typhoon Durian’s winds of 139 mph and drenching rain on Thursday raked it all down on the deluged villages.

For nearly three hours late Thursday afternoon, mudslides tore through Mayon’s gullies, uprooting trees, flattening houses and engulfing people. Entire hamlets were swamped. Burials of victims were expected to start as soon as Saturday.

Gonzalez, who expected the death toll to rise, said the damage from the typhoon was unprecedented in the region.

“Every corner of this province has been hit. It is a total devastation,” he said. “Never before in the history have we seen water like this. Almost every residential area was flooded.”

Padang residents Benjamin Luga, 70, and his wife Elizabeth, 62, said they escaped the mudslide by tearing down their bathroom ceiling and hiding in the roof. A big boulder halted just two yards from their house.

“First we heard the howling winds, then came the flood. It was water, sand, gravel and boulders,” Elizabeth Luga said.

Looking at her house where the floors were covered in five feet of mud, she said she thought that the home would collapse under the onslaught of mud, water and debris, which felt “like an earthquake.”

Mayon, a popular tourist attraction because of its nearly perfect conical shape, erupted in July, depositing millions of tons of rocks and volcanic ash on its slopes. It has continued to rumble since then. Rains from previous typhoons may have loosened the materials, officials said.

A broken dike also flooded many parts of Albay, the local Red Cross said. It appealed for food, bottled water, blankets, mats and mosquito nets.

Canada donated $876,000, the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department reported, while Japan said it would send $173,000.

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It does not look good for Rosi Schipflinger. The slopes close to her Sonnenberg restaurant in the Austrian resort of Kitzbühel should be white, not a muddy brown.
 
“Where are the queues for the ski lift?” she says with a glance at the skies that have yet to yield a single snowflake. I’m having to put out deckchairs on my terrace.”

Similar stories are emerging from ski communities across the Alps, where the warmest autumn on record is posing a threat to one of the great European traditions: the pre-Christmas downhill season.

At the same time, with the weak dollar, British ski operators are experiencing a surge in demand for skiing holidays to North America, where snow conditions are said to be the best for 15 years.

Marion Telsnig, spokeswoman for Thomson Ski and Crystal Ski, said: “There has been good snow over there for three weeks, so our holidays there have been selling well.”

In most Alpine countries the first weekend of December usually brings a rush of visitors to the slopes. But now, if climate experts are to be believed, aprés-ski may take on a more ominous meaning. “Within the next 15 years or so it will be impossible to find a continuous snow blanket below 1,500m,” Helga Kromp-Kolb, of the University of Natural Resources in Vienna, says. “In 30 to 40 years ski regions below 2,000m will no longer exist.”

The International Ski Federation reports cancelled races in France, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Italy because of a lack of snow. This month’s men’s downhill and Super G races at Val d’Isère, a French resort favoured by British skiers, have been scrapped. Not since Thomas Cook introduced ski tourism in the 19th century has there been so much dismay about the weather.

This November was the warmest in Austria since meteorological data was first gathered in 1775. At Cortina, the Queen of the Italian Dolomites, it is as if spring has arrived. At 1,224m midday temperatures are 15C — normal for May.

Alpine communities have coped with warm winter weather before, but this year there is a sense that it could be the beginning of the end of the European skiing experience.

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