Disasters

"Conservation groups working across the Gulf of Mexico are supporting a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would direct to five Gulf states the billions of dollars in fines that may be imposed on BP and other companies found responsible for the last year's oil spill."

"Japan will sack three top energy officials over their handling of the Fukushima atomic disaster and scandals that have fuelled public mistrust in the country's nuclear policy, the government said Thursday."

"Tropical Storm Emily took aim at Haiti on Wednesday, threatening to add to the misery of a chronically poor nation struggling to recover from last year's devastating earthquake."

The good news is that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, expected to be bigger this year because of high runoff and the BP spill, did not set a record for size. The bad news is that oxygen levels in the dead zone that did develop this year are extremely low.

"Partisan bickering erupted in the Senate [Tuesday] over how quickly the federal government should implement a dozen safety recommendations to ensure 104 nuclear plants in the United States are operating safely."

The intertwined problems of climate change, drought, desertification, failed states, terrorism, and insurgency are causing a human catastrophe in the Horn of Africa.

With the Japanese government apparently failing in the task of protecting the public from radiation after the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear station, ordinary Japanese citizens are buying dosimeters -- and making startling discoveries.

"It's official: July was a scorcher. High temperatures in communities across the USA broke or tied records 2,676 times, almost double the number (1,444) of a year ago, the National Weather Service reports."

"More than 15 years after a fertilizer bomb was used to blow up a government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, the federal government is proposing to regulate the sale and transfer of the chemical ammonium nitrate."