the Netherlands and Global Warming

Nederland, in Dutch, means "low country." A quarter of the country is below sea level, another quarter is below one meter. Most of the country is made up of deltas for some of Europe's biggest rivers. It also is home to Europe's biggest port.

There is a common saying that "God made the earth but the Dutch made the Netherlands." Much of the country is on land that has been reclaimed from the sea. Global warming will bring unprecedented challenges to the country of 16.5 million people.

The starting in the 1950s, the dutch constructed one of the most elaborate flood protection systems in the world. But the thousands of miles of dikes, dams, sluices, and locks may be useless if the seas rises more than a few meters.

the solution? Floating houses

Tornado Levels Kansas Town

Greensburg, Kansas was totally leveled by a F-5 toranado more than a mile across with winds topping over 200 miles an hour. The pictures are simply amazing. A 20-minute warning allow most of the towns 1260 residents to get into storms cellars and basements. twelve people are confrimed dead, while another 13 are hospitalized.
While some have questioned if the the national guard was lacking the resources to effectively deal with the disaster, the response has been quick and clean.

Links
Satelite Images
Pictures from the air
Pictures from the ground
Story on Bush's visit
Story on National Guard ResponseFrom the New York Times
You can sign up for a free NY Times Select online subscriptionhere

Story on the death toll

Tanker, Tanker, Burning Bright...

I'm sure most of you have heard about the tanker fire in the bay area which took down part of the MacArthur Maze, one of the busiest freeway interchanges in the United States. While the destruction was caused by a truck, a lot of the news coverage has compared the damage to that occured in the 1989 Loma Preita quake. The collaspe of the nearbyCypress Street Viaduct in the 1989 quake killed 42 people and disrupted traffic for nearly a decade. The recent accident really points out the vunerability our trasportation infastructure, both the natural disasters but also man made ones.

Steven Pyne's point on the impotance of fire to human culture is also illustrated. The steel for the interchange was forged in fire, and fire brought it down. The fire was caused by fuel, meant to burn iside our engines.

The images of the scene are quite intriguing, and the accident has attracted a large amount of media coverage. [more pictures]

"Not that I enjoy destruction, or the misery of commuters, but these photos are really beautiful. The sight of an instantly recognizable, man-made artifice sort of dissolving back into a vague, earthy blob is very fascinating." (via metafilter)

Chernobyl

Twenty-one years after the worse nuclear diaster in history, we understand how it happened, but not what the long term effects are. Beyond the 50 or so people who died imediatly, no one can say for sure how many people the accident effected. Wikipedia actually gives a pretty good background on the acident and its aftermath, including the contraversy surrounding its death toll. [link] Whatever the numbers are, they ignore the actuall human suffering and the real effect on the built enviroment. Slate profiles the lives of the survivors, including children with rare birth defects. Another site takes you on a trip through the exclusion zone, and shows what was left behind. [link].

Tsunami destroyed Minonaen Civilization on Crete

3500 years ago the Crete was home to one of the most advaced civilization in europe, but the in abruptly disapeared. Recent discoveries sugest that a tsunami was the most likly responsible for the demise of the Minoan civilization. Beach pebbles and shells were found mixed up with shards of pottery over 7 meters above sea level. The tsunami could have been trigger by the euruption of nearby Mt. Santorini. Well the civilzation would not have been totaly wipped out by the wave, they damage would have permently crippled the society, lead to its decline. Most interestingly, the destruction on Crete could possibly explain the myth of atlantis. (link)

One Laptop per Child

The OLPC wiki is a repository of information on the One Laptop per child project.

Meet SD's Chief Weather Watcher

Last Week's U-T had a profile Jim Purpura, the head of the National Weather Service's San Diego office. A native of the midwest who worked for nearly two-decades in "tornado alley," he is quickly to point out that fair weather Southern Califonia is safe from severe weather

Purpura's office covers all of San Diego and Orange counties, plus western Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The area encompasses nine climate zones, including deserts, beaches and mountains.

That varied terrain can play a part in many “low-probability but high-impact” events, including flash floods, fires, severe storms, tsunamis and even tornadoes

read the whole article here.