Via CNN,

Haitians in U.S. can apply for protected status

Washington (CNN) -- A temporary protected status for Haitian nationals who were in the United States as of Tuesday has been designated by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, she announced Friday.

"This is a disaster of historic proportions and this designation will allow eligible Haitian nationals in the United States to continue living and working in our country for the next 18 months," she said.

[...More...full story...]

The disaster recovery is ongoing.

This is an Open Thread.

California is one of the largest states in our nation, and is also one of the most diverse: it spans several terrestrial ecoregions, contains everything from mountains to deserts with coastlines and even inland saltwater seas, and has a vast and vibrant smattering of cultural influences.

It's also a state of chaos, which could be ascribed (if you squint a little) the title "State of Apocalypse" because it has major fires, vast floods, devastating earthquakes, mudslides, sinkholes, fiscal disaster, a history of severe weather and it is governed by an actor and businessman most famous for his role as the Terminator.

The "State of Apocalypse" nomenclature occurred to me during an idle chat with our webmistress after I'd pointed out this doozy from CNN:

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L.A. firefighters escape as truck sinks into hole

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Los Angeles firefighters and city crews worked for several hours Tuesday to rescue one of their own: a 22-ton firetruck that was nearly swallowed by a water-logged sinkhole.

[...story continues at link in title...]
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If you click through to the original story, you'll see the firetruck with its nose in the sinkhole, looking eerily reminiscent of a child's Tonka truck abandoned on a playground.

No offense to the folks in CA -- and many of my friends are included over there -- but I think I'll just stay hunkered down in my New England habitat for a much smaller slice of the Disaster Pie.

"Imagined" is apparently the key word with the TVA, btw. This does not surprise me, unfortunately. What DOES surprise me is that there has been no real media coverage on what may be the very worst man-made environmental disaster in this country, ever.

Water testing by Appalachian State University is showing 35-300 ppm more arsenic and 6-60 ppm more lead than the EPA water drinking standards. What has not been discussed is that coal ash is radioactive, and at this point I have not found any evidence that measurements of uranium or thorium are being monitored. Let's try and change that!

From Waterkeepers and Appalachian Voices take water samples at TVA spill

This is worse than the Exxon Valdez, which is still not cleaned up, and I submit this is worse than Katrina, though it doesn't look that way yet, but the health and environmental devastation that will follow from this is not even conceivable at this point. I consider Katrina a man made environmental disaster because we could have saved the levees. Katrina was horrible. But so is this.

I will get to the radioactive issue in a moment, but today a test of the water quality from the Emory River was released from the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry labs at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, by Dr. Shea Tuberty, Associate Professor of Biology, and Dr. Carol Babyak, Assistant Professor of Chemistry.

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 EDT

MANILA, 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 Wilson

NEW 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.

1. 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, 2004

   The 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.

2. 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.

   _____

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.