Sometimes, it's hard to start the day off with a bit of sunshine.
Typhoon Fengshen Sinks Princess of Stars,
700-plus Missing, Presumed Dead
Bad news from the Philippines, via Reuters:
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Philippine ferry sinks; 700-plus passengers missing
By Manny Mogato and Rosemarie Francisco, Sun Jun 22, 2008 5:41am EDTMANILA, June 22 (Reuters) - Rescuers braved rough seas on Sunday searching for survivors of a Philippine ferry that capsized with more than 700 passengers and crew during a typhoon that has killed scores and left a trail of destruction.
So far, only four people are known to have survived and they said many passengers did not make it off the MV Princess of Stars in time.
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Click the link before the excerpt for the full story.
"Though the weather outside is frightful..."
The news of the disaster in the Philippines comes right on the back of this piece, which in and of itself isn't exactly full of warmth and promise:
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Extreme floods, storms seen increasing in North America
Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Chris WilsonNEW YORK (Reuters) - Floods, droughts and severe storms are likely to ravage North America more frequently as emissions of planet-warming gases rise, according to a U.S. government study.
Extreme weather events, "could seriously affect" human health, agricultural production, and the availability and quality of water in the future, according to the report, issued by the Climate Change Science Program on Thursday.
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Click the link before the excerpt for the full story.
Looking Back At Prior Dire Predictions and Misconstrued News
With all this hullabaloo, it calls to mind an interesting story from the 2004 timeframe -- two stories, in fact.
- From The Observer:
Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
by Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York, The Observer, Sunday February 22, 2004The piece tells of a March 2003 report commissioned by the Pentagon to study to worst-case potentials of Climate Change / global warming, and created quite a stir when news of the report got out. But the news may have been misconstrued.
- From the The San Francisco Chronicle:
Pentagon-sponsored climate report sparks hullabaloo in Europe
But new ice age unlikely, Bay Area authors of study say
by Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer, Wednesday, February 25, 2004_____
All that Schwartz and Randall did was to investigate the "worst-case" possible events, those that are highly unlikely to happen but, if they did happen, would be catastrophic, especially in their impacts on U.S. military operations -- "low probability, high impact" events, as they are known in the futurological world.
[...snip...]
It isn't even a Pentagon report in the strict sense of the word. It does not constitute an official DOD position paper or policy statement, conducted by scientists and military experts. Rather, all the work was done by Schwartz and Randall -- neither of whom is an atmospheric scientist -- based on their review of what real atmospheric scientists have done.
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Well, it's good thing we got all that settled. We wouldn't want to leave people thinking that things could get much worse.
This is an Open Thread.
