Category: Archive

The disappearance of the lake in Bernardo O’Higgins National Park was discovered in late May by park rangers, who were stunned to find a 130-foot-deep crater where a large lake had been just two months earlier, when they last visited the area.

Possible causes for the dam to be breached include a sudden input of water into the lake, an earthquake or avalanches of ice or rock. Casassa said the Chilean lake was fed by two glaciers, the Bernardo and the Tempano, "and both are receding."

The water level of the lake could have risen with the increasing flow from the melting glaciers. "At the same time, the increased amount of water opens a tunnel under the ice, emptying the lake," Casassa said.

Another glaciologist, Andres Rivera, said "most glaciers in the region are receding as a result of the global warming." This may both create new lakes or cause others to empty, he said. Casassa said glaciers can recede for other reasons than global warming. It can be the result of the natural dynamic of glaciers, which recede or grow.

"But I am convinced that in this case, it is the result of global warming," he said. The empty lake is about 4,921 feet above sea level. Romero, the head of the forest service, said another theory is that the water disappeared through huge cracks at the bottom of the crater. He said the cracks may have been caused by the strong quake that rocked the region on April 21.

The Australian, 23/6/2007, p. 14

Source: Erisk Net 

Stop utilities from cutting power if house contains children: McSweeney added that she was not saying that the Labor Party did not care – it was probably as horrified as she was – but he made the point that there had to be a better way. McSweeney suggested such a better way: "As soon as people are having trouble with any utility, the utility must cut through the privacy laws and ring up the financial section of the Department for Community Development to see if the people concerned have children. If they have children, there has to be another way. Utilities cannot be cut off when children are in a house".

Reference: Robyn Mary McSweeney MLC, Member for South West Region, Liberal Party, Legislative Council, Western Australia, 5 June 2007.

Erisk Net, 21/6/2007

Reached by phone, Dr. Aaron Gestaltstein, a Council member and psychiatrist with the Michigan Institute for the Study of Individual and Societal Health, said the AMA proposal will help raise awareness and called it “the right thing to do if the United States is ever to regain effective government and equitable public policies.”  “Sick Americans deserve compassionate treatment if our country is to survive – PADD is no joke,” he added.

“I saw a college-educated man last month who was so depressed about the Bush Administration – yet he could no longer read newspapers, watch cable news shows or visit news and commentary websites.  He was spending virtually all of his non-work time visiting pornography websites and eating at Chinese buffets,” Gestaltstein said. “He is a terrible mess and swears he will never vote again.”

The challenge for psychiatrists treating PADD patients, as noted in the Council’s report, is to help Americans fully integrate political attention into their lives.  Their discomfort and hopelessness must be changed into positive behaviors.  Friends and relatives of PADD victims are urged to get them to join public interest groups working for the betterment of American government and society, such as Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org.

[Joel S. Hirschhorn’s new book is Delusional Democracy www.delusionaldemocracy.com; he is a founder of Friends of the Article V Convention www.foavc.org.]

Posted Wed Jun 20, 2007 5:29pm AEST

A group of climate scientists in the United States says a United Nations panel of experts has underestimated a predicted rise in sea levels this century.

The UN panel forecast that global warming would result in a rise of between 18 and 59 centimetres.

One of the scientists who believes this is well short of the mark is James Hansen of NASA, who believes the sea level will rise several metres by the end of this century.

Dr Hansen argues that the UN panel did not take into account melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antartica.

"That’s beginning to lose mass and it is situated on bedrock which is below sea level, so it’s potentially unstable and could give a very large sea-level rise," he said.

Tags: environment, climate-change, science-and-technology, research,

• science-and-technology

By China correspondent Stephen McDonell, posted 3/7/07

Beijing will withdraw one million cars from roads in a trial to reduce pollution.

Authorities in Beijing will withdraw one million cars from the city’s streets next month in a trial to reduce pollution for next year’s Olympics.

Anti-pollution contingencies for next year’s Olympic Games include banning all trucks, reducing private car numbers and prohibiting most Government vehicles from driving.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is concerned that high pollution levels could harm athletes.

In China, 750,000 people reportedly die prematurely every year because of pollution.

According to The Financial Times newspaper, this research was removed from a recent World Bank report, following pressure from the Chinese Government.