After burning nearly half a million acres, the devastating wildfires of this past week in Southern California have been brought under control. As the air clears, countless analysts, politicians and experts of all types have come forward with their reactions — some to lead, some to offer insight, and some to smear. The San FranciscoContinue reading “The Fire This Time: Combing Through the Ashes”
Category Archives: disaster
Feedback Loop of the Week
Wish we could report otherwise. Story From the highly-conservative San Diego Union-Tribune (which nonetheless has published a good deal of interesting weather and climate reporting in recent years). The amount of greenhouse gases emitted by last week’s blazes in Southern California equal that of roughly 500,000 cars traveling on the road for one year, accordingContinue reading “Feedback Loop of the Week”
The Fire Approaches
From an big collection of community photographs put up by the Ventura County Star. In this one, the Magic Fire (near Magic Mountain) is seen moving towards the Ventura county line.
How Fires Are Fought Today — by the LA Times
This is just one of a whole series of remarkably informative and well-thought-out graphics run by the Los Angeles Times in the last week. If you want to learn about fire today, take a look. An example:
Ranch Fire Location
Courtesy of the Ventura County Star, at last someone posts a map of the location of the Ranch Fire. It’s east of us, but not all that far north. If the winds continue to blow west, we could be in trouble by the end of the week.(We’re due north of Santa Paula, about eight milesContinue reading “Ranch Fire Location”
Fire in the Sky (Weirdness Edition)
This is what it looked like in downtown Santa Paula yesterday afternoon about 2:30. You’d think we were halfway through the Book of Revelations, but in fact we were a good twenty-five miles (or more) from the Ranch Fire in Castaic. (The weird white spots I can’t identify: perhaps dust seen in the flash?) ButContinue reading “Fire in the Sky (Weirdness Edition)”
The American Southwest: A Disaster in Ultra Slo-Mo
Desertification is a disaster in ultra slo-mo, which is why the drying up of the American Southwest has gotten perhaps 1/25th the coverage of Katrina. The New York Times features the issue in the Sunday magazine, with a superb cover picture by Simon Norfolk. Writer Dan Gertner appears to have spent most of his timeContinue reading “The American Southwest: A Disaster in Ultra Slo-Mo”
Largest Fire Ever on North Slope of Alaska
According to the AP, the largest tundra fire ever recorded in Alaska is currently burning on the North Slope, and will likely continue to burn for several weeks. Just last week, a forestry professor from Juneau testified before Congress on global warming and the changes it is bringing to Alaska, in a story reported inContinue reading “Largest Fire Ever on North Slope of Alaska”
World’s Largest Dam a “Potential Catastrophe,” China Admits
Three Gorges, the world’s largest dam, built over the last decade by China across the Yangtze River, is "a potential catastrophe," Chinese officials now admit. According to [state news agency] Xinhua, the rising volume of water in the reservoir behind the dam has eroded river banks along 91 stretches of the Yangtze, triggering landslides. TheContinue reading “World’s Largest Dam a “Potential Catastrophe,” China Admits”
Moonrise over Felix
If global warming is, as Bill McKibben argues convincingly, "the biggest thing we have ever done" as a species, then it follows, I think, that we’re going to have to start looking for the beauty and the grace of global warming in the inevitable changes that follow…one of them being, apparently, bigger and stronger hurricanes.Continue reading “Moonrise over Felix”
Kit Stolz 