ZAP!

Generally speaking, we here at Blue Crab Boulevard do not recommend trying what 33-year old Jessica Lynch of Guemes Island, Washington did. That is, hanging out of a second story window while holding on to a metal railing to take video of a thunderstorm. There is a certain inevitability about what happened next.

Jessica Lynch can be heard screaming in fear after the lightning blew a hole in the ground just feet from where she was recording, in astonishing footage posted on the internet.

Mrs Lynch, 33, says an arc from the lightning struck her on her left thumb, before passing up her arm, across her back and out the other arm. Arcs are electric currents that flow through the air, similar to lightning itself.

Ms. Lynch was able to post the "unedited screaming version" of the video she took. She also has admitted that her strategy for filming thunderstorms requires a little fine tuning. We're not pointing fingers at Ms. Lynch, incidentally. We have been known to send the rest of the occupants of the Crabitat to the basement during violent storms while personally standing outside to take pictures. Having seen Ms. Lynch's video, we will take additional precautions when we photograph storms.

We'll wear brown trousers.

Cold, Wet Summer

The Daily Mail is cheerfully explaining why Britons are now going to suffer devastating personal damage due to the cold, wet, dreary summer the country is experiencing.

'A large proportion of us will be suffering from general weather blues and will feel resentful and frustrated. Unless conditions improve or we have an Indian Summer later this autumn, more and more people are going to feel generally down.

'Depression is brought about when we feel we cannot control a situation and that is exactly the situation here  -  unless we go on holiday there is nothing we can do.

'In addition it is fair to say that people will not have ventured outside very much this summer so they will only have been exposed to artificial light which does not provide the same chemical reactions as sunlight. It's very important that we all put on their sou'westers and head out into the rain just to get a small amount of natural light.'

Alison Kelly, spokesman for the mental health charity Mind, said: 'We have recently carried out research that showed there was a direct link between people feeling good about themselves and how much exercise they undertake outside in the sunlight.

'If conditions prevent them from doing this then it is fair to say that more people will be feeling gloomy.

People have had hardly any opportunity to go outside and enjoy barbecues and socialise outdoors so they have been inclined to stay inside and this will reduce their mood.'

The projected high temperatures this week? Less than 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

How Many Orangutans Per Mile?

I have written several posts about the plight of the orangutans. A new study shows just how badly off the great apes are because of the mad rush to produce "biofuels".

New orangutan population estimates revealed in the July issue of Oryx reflect those improvements in assessment methodology – including standardized data collection, island-wide surveys, and better sharing of data among stakeholders – rather than dramatic changes in the number of surviving orangutans.

The experts’ revised estimates put the number of Sumatran orangutans (P. abelii) around 6,600 in 2004. This is lower than previous estimates of 7,501 as a result of new findings that indicate that a large area in Aceh that was previously thought to contain orangutans actually does not. Since forest loss in Aceh has been relatively low from 2004 to 2008, the 2004 estimate is probably not much higher than the actual number in 2008. The 2004 estimate of about 54,000 Bornean orangutans (P. pygmaeus) is probably also higher than the actual number today as there has been a 10 percent orangutan habitat loss in the Indonesian part of Borneo during that period……

…….Although other threats to orangutan survival exist, such as hunting in agricultural areas where human-orangutan conflicts exist, the biggest by far is forest destruction associated with the burgeoning palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia. Together, they are the world’s largest palm oil producers with a combined global market share of 80.5 percent. Rapid expansion of the palm oil industry coupled with poor land-use planning are further pressuring forests and the orangutans who depend on them for survival.

The madness of biofuels. The truth is that biofuels produce more carbon emissions, not less.

Wonder Why Food Prices Are Skyrocketing?

I have pointed out for some time now that so-called biofuels are an environmental and economic disaster. Now The Guardian, of all places, reports on a leaked report they have obtained. The report, from the World Bank, says that the biofuels craze has driven the cost of food up by 75%.

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.

It isn't the White House, really. It is Congress and European governments that have driven this madness. (No, I am not letting the White House off the hook, either.) Biofuels are nothing more than a grossly inefficient energy transfer scheme - and a way for vested interests to make huge profits off the backs of the people.

There have been many voices raised against the insanity of biofuels, but Europe and the United States keep blindly riding the biofuel bandwagon.

"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.

Speculators and special interests are making things worse. It has never been easier to rape the planet than it is today. Just say you're "saving the planet" and you have a license to destroy. The human cost of biofuels is too high. It is time to stop this madness.

Counting Costs

The damage that has been done by flooding in the Midwest is only beginning to be assessed. But damages will certainly run into the billions.

WINFIELD, Mo. - Farmhouses appear to float on lakes, and farmers use boats to get to their barns. Businesses are shuttered as flooded roadways cut off customers. Rail lines, factories, river locks are shut down. Homeowners, who watched and waited and prayed, have seen dreams drowned.

After weeks of flooding through Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana and Wisconsin, billions of dollars in damage are adding up from dozens of flooded towns, shaky bridges, overwhelmed utilities, and thousands of evacuees.

But the misery index from the Great Flood of 2008 has only started to sink in.

The real damage will be done in future months as food prices soar. Where I live there are still cornfields completely underwater - there will be no crops from those fields. Many others that did not flood outright look wrong. The leaves on the corn is yellow, not the deep green it should be and the plants are only inches high - far too small for this time of year. Yields from those fields will be greatly reduced.

Volcano Madness

Scientists were surprised to find that their theories of how undersea volcanoes behave were wrong. It seems that even when the volcanoes are miles deep, they can erupt explosively and spew rock, lava and megatons of hot gases.

Even under the Arctic ice cap.

New evidence deep beneath the Arctic ice suggests that a series of underwater volcanoes have erupted in violent explosions in the past decade.

Hidden 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) beneath the Arctic surface, the volcanoes can range up to more than a mile (2 kilometers) in diameter and a few hundred yards (meters) tall. They formed along the Gakkel Ridge, a lengthy crack in the ocean crust where two rocky plates are spreading apart, pulling new melted rock to the surface.

Until now, scientists thought undersea volcanoes only dribbled lava from cracks in the seafloor. The extreme pressure from the overlying water makes it difficult for gas and magma to blast outward…..

….Robert Reeves-Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and his colleagues discovered jagged, glassy fragments of rock scattered around the volcanoes, suggesting that explosive eruptions occurred between 1999 and 2001.

There is the now standard disclaimer that any of this could possibly have anything to do with the melting of Arctic ice. While much is made by the true believers and the media (yes, that was redundant, wasn't it?) about the melting of Arctic ice, very little is written about the rapidly growing Antarctic ice. And it is growing very rapidly, indeed. See for yourself: North Pole, South Pole. Here's the Southern anomaly. That is not a declining trend, folks.

Misery In Missouri

The town of Winfield, Missouri has been evacuated after a levee holding back the Mississippi River failed. Despite a huge effort by residents, in the end, the river won the battle and roared through a 20 foot wide breech.

Floodwaters surging down the Mississippi River broke through an earthen levee near the eastern Missouri town of Winfield yesterday, overwhelming a massive sandbagging effort and forcing die-hard residents to evacuate their homes.

The Pin Oak agricultural levee gave way shortly before 5:30 a.m. Central time, the latest of dozens of such structures to be breached or overtopped by floodwaters that have poured into the Mississippi after heavy rains in May and June. Officials said muskrat burrows weakened the levee, contributing to the breach.

The National Weather Service subsequently issued a flash-flood warning for eastern Lincoln County, Mo., saying that “water is expected to ultimately inundate the eastern portion of the town of Winfield.” The flooding threatened to swamp about 100 homes and 3,000 acres of farmland.

It may not be over yet for people downriver, either. More water - and other stuff - is heading their way. The Midwest was pounded again by massive storms, including one that wreaked havoc on Omaha, Nebraska. The storm disrupted Olympic swim trials and dropped baseball-sized hail in the city.  

OMAHA — Severe storms with strong winds swept through the Plains on Friday, forcing swimmers practicing for U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha to flee pools and run for cover, killing two people in Iowa, and knocking out power to thousands.

Officials at the Qwest Center near downtown Omaha closed the building to examine it after superstar swimmer Michael Phelps and hundreds of other athletes were herded into hallways because of a tornado warning.

Water poured into the building, down arena steps and onto the deck of the competition pool during the storm. The storm’s winds may have reached 100 mph in some areas, said meteorologist Bryon Miller……

….The Missouri River Wastewater Treatment Plant, which serves the Omaha area, lost power, said Bryan Cook, duty officer for Nebraska Emergency Management.

Untreated wastewater was being discharged into the Missouri River, said Joe Gudenrath, spokesman for Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey. City officials told people to avoid wading or swimming in the water in the stretch of the river that passes by Omaha, and several miles downstream.

Very ugly storms lashed many areas of the Midwest yesterday. At times most of Illinois and a large part of Wisconsin were pretty much all red on the radar.

The Next Misery

As floodwaters recede in many areas of the Midwest, the next wave of misery arrives: mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes annoy inside and out. Celebrating National Mosquito Control Awareness Week can be as simple as changing the water in your birdbath. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, even something as unlikely as a toy dump truck filled with rain from a week ago.

Anything that holds rain water should be turned over or thrown out, such as old tires, unused buckets and trash cans.

Pot saucers on the deck are another potential breeding site; it doesn't take much water for mosquitoes to breed. And don't neglect the gutters; clogged downspouts create wonderful reservoirs for mosquitoes.

If you are among a growing number of homeowners with rain barrels, standing water provides another welcoming breeding ground. Use a natural biological control called Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis; it comes in products such as Mosquito Dunks that kill mosquito larvae before adults hatch.

I can confirm that the mosquitoes are horrendous in my area. It has to be even worse in those areas that really flooded out this year. Here are a few pointers for homeowners on how to deal with mosquitoes. It's a really good idea to do whatever you can to help control the little pests. West Nile virus is in many areas of the country and is nothing to sneer at.

Upper Mississippi Closed To Barge Traffic

The Corps of Engineers has closed 13 locks on the upper Mississippi River since June 12, stranding more than 100 barges.

WINFIELD, Mo. - The flooding in the Midwest has brought freight traffic on the upper Mississippi to a standstill, stranding more than 100 barges loaded with grain, cement, scrap metal, fertilizer and other products while shippers wait for the water to drop on the Big Muddy.

"We're basically experiencing total shutdown," said Larry Daily, president of Alter Barge Line Inc. of Bettendorf, Iowa.

While the bottleneck is costing him and other barge operators tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue per day, June is a slow shipping period on the river compared with the late-summer harvest, the shutdown is expected to last only a few weeks, and it involves primarily non-perishable goods. So no major damage to the economy is expected.

Note to the AP: the Missouri River is nicknamed "The Big Muddy" not the Mississippi. (There's a good picture that shows why.) When I lived in Illinois, the upper Mississippi was closed several times due to flood conditions, but always for very short periods of time. Usually much earlier in the year than this, as I recall. It seems to me that this is about the time barge operators started complaining about low river levels.

The Damage Done

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey is estimating that 10% of the state's corn crop and 20% of the soybean crop is destroyed or was never planted due to soggy conditions. If anything, his estimate might be optimistic. Total projected economic damage: $3 billion.

"Right now, we have about 10 percent of our corn that has either been flooded out or not planted and about 20 percent of our (soy)beans," Bill Northey said Friday on "Iowa Press," a public television show.

"We're seeing some beans go back in the ground, and if we were to lose that, if we weren't able to replant, that would be $2.5 billion, $3 billion — a significant amount of damage," he said.

He added that some of the remaining crops would likely have smaller yields.

Flooding in several Midwestern states has killed two dozen people and injured 148, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and 35,000 to 40,000 people in several states have been displaced.

Around my area there are many fields where the corn is less than a foot tall - and it has yellow leaves, not deep green. The yields will be very low from such fields. (There are still large areas under water, too. In many cases, the fields have been submerged so long that algae is growing in the water.) The beans do not look much better. There has been an enormous amount of damage and we won't know how bad it really is until the harvest comes in.

Don't expect food to get cheaper any time soon, however.

More Rain Hits Iowa

Iowa is getting hit again today with powerful storms.

Today is starting with severe weather-related watches and warnings in effect across the country's midsection. More of these weather alerts will be issued as the day progress from the lower Great Lakes to the Texas panhandle.

A cold front from central Canada is the culprit behind today's severe weather, according to the Midwest Regional News story. Cooler air following the front will slice into warm and humid air flowing northward from the Gulf of Mexico.

A large cell of storms just moved across eastern Iowa with heavy wind and hail reported in several areas. That area was just beginning to dry out a little but they are definitely not out of the woods yet. Interstate 80 remains closed to traffic and many other roads in that part of the state are closed as well.

Iowa Floods

Large areas of central and eastern Iowa are currently experiencing record flooding. A levee broke in Des Moines early this morning, forcing residents to evacuate. Cedar Rapids is badly flooded, with nearly 400 city blocks under water. The Cedar River crested at 32 feet above flood stage - 12 feet higher than the previous all time record set in 1929. Interstate 80 is closed due to flooding. It's a mess out there right now.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A mandatory evacuation was ordered early Saturday for about 270 homes after water from the Des Moines River began pouring through a levee breach north of downtown Des Moines, Iowa.

The 100-foot-wide levee breach occurred about 3:45 a.m. in the city's Birdland Park neighborhood and was threatening A high school.

Many residents of the area already had left after a voluntary evacuation request was issued Friday, but Neil Schultz of the Polk County sheriff's office said officers were going door to door to ensure everyone had left.

In Cedar Rapids, officials guess it will be four days before the Cedar River drops enough for workers to even begin pumping out water that has submerged more than 400 blocks, threatened the city's drinking water supply and forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital.

The city of Cedar Rapids has one of its six wells still functional at this point, drinking water is a real problem. Worse yet, more storms are on the way tonight and tomorrow as yet another cold front slams through the area.

The Severe Weather Center states that residents across the Upper Midwest should stay alert for locally severe thunderstorms this afternoon and evening. The strongest thunderstorms have the potential to produce damaging winds, hail and downpours. An isolated tornado cannot be ruled out.

The storm triggering today's showers and thunderstorms will have a greater impact on the mid-Mississippi Valley Sunday into Sunday night. Clusters of severe and drenching thunderstorms will roll southward across the region.

Most of the severe thunderstorms on Sunday will wait until the afternoon before firing. Daytime heating must first take place and destabilize the atmosphere. Similar to today, the most intense thunderstorms will produce damaging winds and hail. A few tornadoes could spawn.

Plenty of moisture present in the atmosphere will allow the thunderstorms to drop heavy bursts of rain. Progress made by receding swollen rivers will be slowed or reversed. Areas not already under water should be prepared for dangerous flash flooding to quickly ensue.

At least one railroad bridge has collapsed due to the flooding so far. The effects of these floods are going to be felt for quite some time.

Severe Weather

The Midwest is bracing for still more rain while a hiker has died on Mount Ranier - after becoming stranded in a blizzard. In June.

Ranger Sandi Kinzer the three went on a day hike Monday and got caught in a blizzard on the Muir snowfield.

In a recorded message, park spokesman Kevin Bacher said rangers received a call at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday that the three hikers were trapped.

Weather prevented a rescue attempt at that time, but one of the hikers reached Camp Muir at 7:15 a.m. and directed rescuers to the other hikers near Anvil Rock, a large outcropping at the edge of the Muir snowfield. The surviving hiker was brought back to Camp Muir, a staging area for climbers, is at about 10,000 feet elevation on the 14,410-foot mountain.

On the flooding in the Midwest, meanwhile.

GAYS MILLS, Wis. - For nearly a year, this tiny southwestern Wisconsin village has struggled to survive after a devastating flood. A new deluge may have sealed its fate.
 
Flash floods inundated the town of 625 over the weekend, just 10 months after residents worked to rebuild their homes and businesses.

The swollen Kickapoo River engulfed nearly the entire town Monday morning, forcing about 150 people to evacuate. By evening, the village was a grid of canals with cars submerged up to their windows and parking lots looking like lakes, just as it was in August.

The flooding was caused by violent, drenching weekend thunderstorms that displaced thousands of Indiana residents and were blamed for 15 deaths in the Midwest and elsewhere.

The downpours in states like Iowa, Illinois and Indiana flooded corn fields and made it difficult for farmers to plant, pushing corn prices to record highs on commodities exchanges this week.

The corn situation is very bad out my way. Many fields are flooded outright. In those that are not, the corn is yellow - not green. It is also only a few inches high, not thriving at all. It has been a very cold, wet spring and the corn does not respond favorably to those conditions. Here’s a map that shows the current flood warnings in the Midwest. The warnings roughly correspond to much of the corn belt. (Map link may not last.)

Gator Pool

The enormous sinkhole in Texas that opened up last week is rapidly becoming a lake - and it has a new resident: an alligator.

Houston (AP) - The giant Texas sinkhole that formed last week in Liberty County is now a lake big enough to become the home of an alligator.

Area residents believe the reptile was washed into the 600-foot-diameter crater by water from surrounding swamps.

Ground water is seeping into the hole, and its exposed walls are about 30 feet high, the Houston Chronicle reported in its online edition on Friday.

Sightings of an alligator in the sinkhole were confirmed Friday when a Texas Railroad Commission worker snapped photographs for proof.

Danny Diaz, a Texas Parks and Wildlife game warden, said a patch of crude oil floating on the east side of the crater might irritate the alligator's skin, but the reptile is using the water on the other side.

"It's not really safe for anyone to climb down into that hole now to get anything out," said Diaz, pointing to stress cracks in the ground that encircle the hole. "The sinkhole could start growing again, especially if we get a saturating rain."

The hole has claimed everything from vehicles to oil tanks and is somewhere around 900 feet across at its widest point. It is also more than 250 feet deep. A pretty good picture of it is over at Fox News. On the bright side, homeowners in the area now own lakefront property.

Looking Green

As opposed to actually being green. The Washington Post notes that most of the highly publicized ways of "fighting" climate change are completely useless - or very nearly so. Instead they are more of a fashion statement.

In March of last year, the World Wildlife Fund in Australia teamed up with Leo Burnett, the multinational advertising agency that created the Marlboro Man, to come up with a new environmental campaign called Earth Hour. The idea was to get 2 million residents in Sydney to turn off all the lights in their homes for one hour. The campaign generated wide publicity, but the energy saved was small — the equivalent of taking about five cars off the city's roads for a year.

This year, Earth Hour expanded to dozens of cities around the world. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Empire State Building in New York were among the U.S. landmarks that went dark. Many corporations signed on to burnish their green credentials. A bar in Phoenix served a drink called an ecotini — organic vodka, green tea and an edible orchid.

But if everyone who participated in Earth Hour had left their lights on and instead switched to mundane, high-efficiency compact fluorescent bulbs, simple calculations show, it might have saved 1,368 times as much energy, because the bulbs would have saved energy all year…..

….."It is very difficult to get people to invest in home insulation and energy efficiency, which are much more effective than putting solar panels on your roof," he said. "Solar panels are popular because you can see you are doing something — and your neighbors can see it, too."

Greenier than thou rules. Style over substance. Just as Al Gore preaches carbon neutrality while consuming vast quantities of energy. The official in charge of the Earth Hour initiative for the WWF admits that the whole thing is designed to manipulate people:

"You are not going to get people to change what people do by engaging their heads; you have to engage their hearts," she said. "You need symbols to spur action. You are not going to get people to take action unless you get them to care about the issue. You are not going to do that by pulling out the U.N. report on blah, blah, blah."

Very nice. It's really about a political agenda.