Thursday, August 31, 2017
1,200 Die as “Devastating” Climate Change-Linked Floods Submerge Parts of South Asia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVpKA2J1xfE
South Asia floods: India counts cost of severe monsoon season
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lAoM2PGW8c
South Asia floods: Mumbai building collapses as monsoon rains wreak havoc
Flooding across India, Nepal
and Bangladesh leaves parts of cities underwater as storm moves on to Pakistan
At least 21 people are dead
and more than a dozen others trapped after monsoon downpours caused a building
to collapse in Mumbai.
The four-storey residential
building gave way on Thursday morning in the densely populated area of Bhendi
Bazaar, after roads were turned into rivers in India’s financial capital. The
city has been struggling to cope with some of the heaviest rainfall in more
than 15 years.
Rescue workers, police and
residents helped pull 13 people out of the rubble and were looking for those
buried beneath. Authorities have advised people living in an adjacent building
to evacuate after it developed cracks following the collapse.
The death toll could have
been much worse, officials said, because the building, which houses a nursery
school, collapsed half an hour before children were due to arrive at 9am.
Thousands more buildings
that are more than 100 years old are at risk of collapse due in part to
foundations being weakened by flood waters.
Across the region more
than 1,200 people are feared to have died and 40 million are estimated
to have been affected by flooding in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Vast swaths of land are
underwater in the eastern part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where more
than 100 people have reportedly died, 3,097 villages are submerged and almost 3
million villagers have been affected by flooding, according to officials. Army
personnel have joined rescuers to evacuate people from the area.
The storm reached Pakistan on
Thursday, lashing the port city of Karachi, where at least 14 people have died,
and streets have been submerged by water. The country’s meteorological
department forecast that the rains would continue for three days in various
parts of Sindh province, where authorities closed schools as a precaution.
Up to 97mm (3.8in) of rain
has been recorded in some areas of Karachi, filling the streets with muddy
water, sewage and rubbish.
Among the dead was an
eight-year-old boy who was crushed when a building belonging to the Federal
Investigation Agency collapsed. Most of the dead were electrocuted, leading the
city’s energy provider, K-Electric, to cut power to certain areas.
“Some feeders have been
switched off in view of safety concerns in areas with waterlogging, and
restoration work will be expedited in affected areas as soon as standing water
is wiped out,” Sadia Dada, the director of marketing and communication for
K-Electric, told Dawn newspaper.
About 6,000 villagers are
threatened with flooding after the rains breached the Thado dam on the Malir
river. The army has been called in to help with evacuation, and has also
provided Karachi’s city administration with water extraction pumps.
Windstorms and rain are also
expected in the Balochistan and Punjab provinces. The meteorological department
said rains were also expected in the capital, Islamabad, and in Pakistan’s
portion of Kashmir.
One third of Bangladesh was
believed to be underwater and the UN described the situation in Nepal, where
150 people have died, as the worst flooding in a decade.
The floods have also
destroyed or damaged 18,000 schools in the south Asia region, meaning that about
1.8 million children cannot go to classes, Save the Children said on Thursday.
The charity said hundreds of
thousands of children could fall permanently out of the school system if
education was not prioritised in relief efforts.
“We haven’t seen flooding on
this scale in years and it’s putting the long-term education of an enormous
number of children at great risk. From our experience, the importance of
education is often undervalued in humanitarian crises and we simply cannot let
this happen again. We cannot go backwards,” said Rafay Hussain, Save the
Children’s general manager in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
“We know that the longer
children are out of school following a disaster like this the less likely it is
that they’ll ever return. That’s why it’s so important that education is
properly funded in this response, to get children back to the classroom as soon
as it’s safe to do so and to safeguard their futures.”
Floods have caused
devastation in many parts of India. Unprecedented
rainfall in Assam in the north-east has killed more than 150 people. About 600
villages are still underwater even though the torrential rain began earlier
this month.
Rhinos in Assam’s Kaziranga
nature reserve had to flee to higher ground. “We get flooding every year but I
have never seen anything quite like this in my life,” Ashok Baruah, a farmer,
told journalists.
In Bihar, the death toll has
reached 514, with people still living in makeshift huts days after the flooding
started. However, the flood waters, which turned fields into lakes, appear to
be receding.
In Mumbai, the rain forced
nurses and doctors at the busiest hospital in the city to wade through wards
knee-high in filthy water to move patients to the first floor. Outside the King
Edward memorial hospital, a man going to visit his wife who was due to have a
caesarean had to wade through flooded streets to reach her. Children swam or
paddled down the streets lying on planks of wood.
Flood victims in the city
included a doctor who fell down a manhole and another who died after being
trapped in his car while waiting for the water to recede. Others living in the
low-lying areas most affected by the flooding were swept away into the sea or
died when walls collapsed.
As train services ground to
a halt, hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded, unable to go
home.
TV commentators voiced the
anger of those caught in the chaos. The TV personality Suhel Seth lashed out at
the “scoundrels, rogues, villains, rascals, incompetents and useless fools” in
the municipal authority for not being better prepared for the annual monsoon
flooding.
The deluge brought back
memories of the 2005 floods that killed more than 500 people in the city.
“Why does nothing change?
Why are we left to fend for ourselves when they had weather forecasts warning
them of extremely heavy rainfall?” asked the author and columnist Shobhaa De.
Mumbai monsoon flood from National Park flyover boriwali 29th Aug 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbB8xnOZ6xI
Hurricane Harvey, Climate Change Denialists and the Wrath of the Right
AUGUST 31, 2017
by JOSHUA FRANK
Natural disasters that
are exacerbated by industrialization really bring out the best in people.
Especially climate change denialists.
As the Texas-Louisiana Gulf
coast drowned in the floods of Hurricane Harvey, Donald Trump pardoned Sheriff
Joe in hopes of capturing higher ratings and Ann Coulter, who needs no
introduction, took to her Twitter account to express sympathy for the victims.
Okay, of course she didn’t, instead the Queen of Darkness blasted out that
God’s hatred of homosexuality is more credible than climate science.
Follow
More
Ann Coulter Retweeted
POLITICO Magazine
I don't believe Hurricane
Harvey is God's punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that is
more credible than "climate change."
What does Coulter believe
then? That Harvey is nothing new? Actually, it is, no matter what Coulter
tweets. Harvey is now the heaviest rainstorm in US history and was made worse by
our warming climate. There’s little scientific doubt about it. As climate
scientist Katharine Hayhoe and many others point
out, as the world warms, evaporation of water increases, which means
there is more water vapor in storms and more rain to dump compared to 70 years
ago. In basic terms, warmer air is able to hold more water and hence more
rainfall is likely to occur. Hurricane intensity in the future is predictedto increase as our climate warms.
The Gulf of Mexico’s surface
temp increased almost 5 degreesFahrenheit as Harvey was building last
week. These waters, one of the warmest ocean surfaces on the planet at the
time, along with warmer air temps, allowed Harvey to turn from a tropical storm
into a cat 4 hurricane almost overnight. Even Coulter’s God couldn’t stop it.
Coulter and her fans
probably wouldn’t want the floods to dry up anyway, because when crisis hits
there is money to be made and victims to rip off. As
Ken Klippenstein first
reported, a Best Buy in Cypress, an unincorporated suburb of Houston in
Harris County, began selling packs of bottled water for $42.96. Best
Buy later apologized in response to the report, but the Texas AG’s office as of
August 29 had received over 550 consumer complaints of price gouging. It’s safe
to say Best Buy is just the tip of the iceberg.
Unfortunately, disaster
capitalism is the least of concerns for many Houston residents that are losing
everything. Survival is their most pressing struggle. As the flood waters
recede, far more deaths will likely be recorded — more victims of capitalism
and carbon. Sadly it’s a trend that’s going to continue.
No doubt the worse is yet to
come for Houston and the surrounding area, even when the rains end. ExxonMobil
admits that Harvey has caused damage to two of its massive Houston refineries, releasing hazardous pollutants. The company’s Beaumont
refinery, which is the second largest in the country, released at least
1,312.84 pounds of sulfur dioxide after Harvey hit. Many other chemicals also
leaked when the sites were forced to shut down. These refineries sit in largely
poor, minority neighborhoods that have long been victims of environmental racism — injustices
that will continue unabated if Donald Trump has his way and destroys what’s left of the EPA’s Environmental
Justice Program.
“Any release of carcinogens
(like benzene, 1,3-butadiene) adds to the increased cancer risk for those
living near these plants,” said Luke Metzger, director of the group Environment
Texas. “[Nitrogen oxides or sulfur dioxide] and other respiratory irritants
adds to the respiratory problems people in the area suffer from at high rates.”
In short, Harvey is bad for
Houston’s air too, especially for those that reside near these refineries.
There’s more. Harris County
is home to a dozen federal Superfund sites, more than any county in the Lone
Star State. Currently over 30% of the county is flooded and the EPA admits that as water levels rise, risk of
contamination from the sites increase. A chemical plant in Crosby, southeast of
Houston, is in meltdown mode. There have been reports of explosions at the plant that is six feet
underwater. The facility produces peroxides, harsh compounds that are used in
construction and pharmaceutical products. Inhaling fumes from the plant can be
very dangerous and the EPA states that peroxides can cause skin and liver
damage.
While the impacts of
Hurricane Harvey are unprecedented in the US, these types of extreme storms are
becoming the new norm, not only for the Gulf Coast, but for many areas of the
globe. All the climate change skeptics, especially those with the power to
regulate the oil, gas and coal industries, are certainly culpable in the death
and destruction these events bring with them.
Right now in India, Nepal and
Bangladesh, over 41 million people are being affected by massive, uncontrolled flooding. Over 1,200 have died thus
far and millions more have been forced to flee their homes. These monsoon
floods are unlike anything they’ve seen, and similar to Houston, are being made
worse as temperatures around the world continue to rise.
It doesn’t really matter if
Donald Trump believes global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese or if Coulter thinks God’s
wrath is more legitimate than climate science. More and more people are finding
out that shit’s getting very real and will only get worse as carbon and methane
emissions increase in the years ahead.
Perhaps the silver-lining of
the unfolding Texas catastrophe is that it will wake up a few climate change
skeptics and transform them into advocates for a future free of fossil fuels.
One can hope, anyway, but
I’m not holding my breath. I will leave that to all those still underwater in
Houston.
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Mainstream Media Misrepresents Hurricane Harvey's Climate Change Connection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML5kSJeD8os
Bernie Sanders Begins Push for His 'Medicare for All' Bill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Um0-0VJZYM
Top 10 Companies You Probably Never Realized Had Monopolies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U42HKyc4PP0
America's Monopoly Problem
ELIZABETH WARREN IS AGAINST MONOPOLIES, BUT HOW PROGRESSIVE IS SHE, REALLY?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7KZ0M0gc18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7KZ0M0gc18
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Harvey Triggers 'Unbearable' Pollution as Refineries Spew Cancer-Causing Chemicals
"Air pollution is one of
the unseen dangers of the storm."
As the catastrophic
flooding brought about by Hurricane Harvey continues to devastate Texas,
reports of "unbearable"
smells are beginning to emerge from the state, sparking growing concerns of the
long-term health effects that could result from toxic waste and fumes being
spewed from temporarily closed oil refineries.
"At least 10 refineries
on the Texas coast have shut down," notes the Huffington
Post's Ryan Grenoble. "And whenever a refinery has to be closed or
restarted, especially in emergency situations, its emissions far exceed what's
typically allowed."
Environment Texas, a
citizen-based environmental advocacy project of Environment America, said in a statement
on Monday that Houston oil industry is likely "releasing more than 1
million pounds of harmful pollution into the air, according to its initial
reports to Texas regulators."
"Air pollution is one of
the unseen dangers of the storm," Dr. Elena Craft, senior health scientist
at Environmental Defense Fund, told Environment Texas. "Poor air quality
puts the most vulnerable among us, like children and seniors, at risk for
asthma, heart attacks, strokes, and other health problems.”
Long before Harvey made
landfall, environmental groups and scientists had been warning
of the disastrous effects that could result from a massive storm like
Harvey hitting Texas, the heart of the U.S. petrochemical industry. Now,
judging by first-hand reports from the state, some of these concerns are coming
to fruition.
As The New Republic's Emily
Atkin noted
on Monday, "residents of Houston's industrial fence-line communities are reporting strong gas- and
chemical-like smells coming from the many refineries and chemical plants
nearby." On several occasions, as reports late Monday indicated,
Texans have been ordered to "shelter in place" amid reports of
chemical leaks.
One resident—Bryan Parras, an
activist with the environmental justice group TEJAS—told Atkin that he has been
smelling the fumes "all night," and that some Texans are already
experiencing symptoms: "headaches, sore throat, scratchy throat, and itchy
eyes."
In an interview
on Democracy Now! Monday, Parras added that you could see "the black
smoke" emitted by the refineries as "excess chemicals" were
being burnt off.
"Unfortunately,"
Parras concluded, "that adds thousands of pounds of cancer-causing
chemicals to the air."
Houston, the so-called
"energy capital" of the U.S., has been the source of the more
worrying anecdotes.
Nayeli Olmos, a Houston
resident, told
the local Houston Press that she first began noticing the smell Saturday night,
around 24 hours after Hurricane Harvey made landfall. She initially thought the
stench "would go away on its own, but this morning it was still here, and
it feels like whenever it rains the odor gets stronger."
"Our neighbors were all
talking about it and then I saw people from different neighborhoods talking
about it on social media," Olmos added. "That's when I realized it's
not just us this time. It's all over East Houston."
Public Citizen's Stephanie
Thomas corroborated Olmos's experience, describing the "powerful" smell
as "like burnt rubber with a hint of something metallic thrown in."
These reports have been met
with serious alarm by scientists and environmentalists, who have concluded that
the pollution resulting from Hurrican Harvey will have lasting effects.
"This pollution will hurt
public health in Houston," said
Bakeyah Nelson, executive director of Air Alliance Houston. "When petrochemical
plants prepare for storms, they release thousands of pounds of pollutants into
the air...It is a stark reminder of the dangers of living near industry. We
urge everyone to stay safe."
Flouting International Law, Netanyahu Says West Bank Settlements Will Remain 'Forever'
"Israel finally admits it
will never remove illegal settlements from occupied West Bank."
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu declared
in a speech on
Monday that Israel's
settlements in the occupied West Bank will remain "forever," remarks
many critics characterized as an explicit statement of a longstanding
commitment to maintaining and expanding settlements that have been deemed illegal under
international law.
"There will be no more
uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel," Netanyahu said. "We
will deepen our roots, build, strengthen, and settle."
"Israel finally admits it
will never remove illegal settlements from occupied West Bank," wrote AlterNet
reporter Ben Norton in response to Netanyahu's remarks, which were made during an event
"commemorating the 50th anniversary of Israel's occupation of the West
Bank."
Others argued that, given
Netanyahu's public remarks and actions, any hope that a two-state solution is a
viable option is badly misplaced.
"The 'two-state solution'
is a blatant and obvious farce that has no purpose other than to allow liberals
to justify their support for Israel," concluded The
Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, pointing to Netanyahu's speech.
Many reacted to Netanyahu's
comments similarly on social media:
eventually journalists will
have to start using the word apartheid, or they will be abetting endless
occupation http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.809444 …
The 2-state solution is dead.
Time to fight for equal rights for everyone between the Jordan river & the
sea http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.809444 …
What a partner for peace that
Bibi is. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.809444 …
Netanyahu's remarks come as
Israel has in the past two weeks destroyed
or seriously damaged at least three schools for Palestinian children in the
occupied West Bank.
"Just when they were due
to return to the classroom, Palestinian children are discovering that their
schools are being destroyed," said Hanibal Abiy Worku, a director of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC),
an independent humanitarian organization. "What threat do these schools
pose to the Israeli authorities? What are they planning to achieve by denying
thousands of children their fundamental right to education?"
Sami Mruwwah, the Palestinian
director of education, vowed to have the schools rebuilt and to "resist
against the occupation."
"What happened against
the school and its students violates human rights and childhood in
particular," Mruwwah concluded. "It is inconceivable for this world
to remain silent in the face of the crimes of occupiers against education in
Palestine.
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