Tag: Natural Disasters

A Tour Guide To Hell On Earth, Small Town-Style

“Dixie did far more than take out entire forests. It razed Greenville, my hometown since 1975. It reduced house after house to rubble, leaving only chimneys where children once had hung Christmas stockings, and dead century-old oaks where families, spanning four generations, had not so long ago built tree forts. The fire left our downtown with scorched, bent-over lampposts touching debris-strewn sidewalks. The historic sheriff’s office is just a series of naked half-round windows eerily showcasing devastation. Like natural disasters everywhere, this fire has upended entire communities.”

After Ida, This Louisiana Tribe Is Organizing Its Own Recovery

After the hurricane, the garden took on a new role as a staging ground for the tribe’s disaster response to distribute supplies, coordinate mutual aid groups and help tribal members, who, along with other Native people in south Louisiana, were among the hardest hit. In the long run, Aronson hopes Yakani Ekelanna can combine these functions to become a sort of “laboratory”— a place for building tribal sovereignty and resilience against an uncertain future.

Community organizing Indigenous Activism Mutual Aid Natural Disasters

We Need Public Control Of Our Energy Systems

When natural disasters like Hurricane Ida occur, policymakers often wave away the damage and devastation as an unavoidable “act of god” (to use common insurance language). However, these types of response ignore deep structural deficiencies and inequities in the way critical infrastructure systems are often designed and operated in the United States. Specifically, they obscure the role of private, for-profit ownership and control of these services.

climate crisis Community Control Energy Natural Disasters

Once Again, The Vultures Circle Haiti

During a visit to Haiti in early April, 2010, I traveled with a friend to the Club Indigo Hotel. Club Indigo was located 45 minutes north of Port-au-Prince near the small community of Montrouis. Formerly Club Med Haiti (and currently the Royal Decameron Indigo), the resort was promoted as “a unique residential, leisure and business hotel complex” and a “naturally privileged, protected place.” Set in a large tropical park, Club Indigo was situated between the Côte des Arcadins, one of Haiti’s longest stretches of pure white sand beaches, and a long mountain range.

My trip to Club Indigo occurred just three months after the January 12, 2010, 7.0 magnitude earthquake that killed around 200,000 people and left more than a million people without homes.

Haiti International aid Natural Disasters

The Haiti Earthquake And Its Invisibilities

Eleven years after that fateful January 12, 2010, Haiti once again suffered, last Saturday, August 14, 2021, the tremendous blows of an earthquake that has already claimed the lives of at least 1,400 people, according to the preliminary report released yesterday by the Haitian authorities.

The terrible news spread in real time throughout the world. The call for international solidarity with the Haitian people was not long in coming.

However, in the midst of the pain that the Haitian people are suffering, it is necessary to ask some questions about the actions and responses that are being given and will continue to be given to this difficult situation, from now on. We need to be vigilant, in particular, with the so-called humanitarian actions.

Earthquake Haiti Natural Disasters Solidarity

Hot Again: 2020 Sets Yet Another Global Temperature Record

Earth’s rising fever hit or neared record hot temperature levels in 2020, global weather groups reported Thursday.

While NASA and a couple of other measurement groups said 2020 passed or essentially tied 2016 as the hottest year on record, more agencies, including the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said last year came in a close second or third. The differences in rankings mostly turned on how scientists accounted for data gaps in the Arctic, which is warming faster than the rest of the globe.

“It’s like the film ‘Groundhog Day.’ Another year, same story — record global warmth,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn’t part of the measurement teams.

climate crisis Fossil Fuels Global Warming Natural Disasters

Philadelphia: Stop Denying Disaster Relief To Puerto Rico!

Demonstrators gathered in Philadelphia on Jan. 15 in front of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Mid-Atlantic Region, with signs and Puerto Rican flags. Speaker after speaker criticized the Trump administration for refusing to allow $18 billion in post-hurricane aid to be sent to the U.S. island colony. Without citing a valid reason to deny the Congress-approved aid…

Natural Disasters Philadelphia Puerto Rico

How 2,000 People Of Darker Skin Were Used As Barriers At Gunpoint During The Great Mississippi Flood Of 1927

When Hurricane Katrina pounded the southeast of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, the resultant flooding affected Greater New Orleans and claimed some 1,464 lives leaving damage worth $70 billion. The haunting images of Black babies, mothers and males stuck on roof tops and the support services’ poor handling of the coordination and relief effort where Black people were left to drown, starve or die of dehydration or from lack of medical care exposed the U.S. capitalist government’s disregard for Negroid life and the needs of its people.

History Natural Disasters Racism

Get Ready For Unnatural Disasters This Hurricane Season

Donald Trump discusses immigration as if the benefits of residence in the U.S. are a pie. When immigrants get more, the people who were already here get less. In general, that’s not true. When immigrants come here, they don’t just take some jobs (often low-wage jobs U.S. citizens don’t want), they also create new jobs. They need housing, transportation, food, and clothes, and they buy all of those things, creating more jobs for other people in this country.

Hurricanes Immigration Natural Disasters Undocumented

Why Are Hurricanes Like Dorian Stalling, And Is Global Warming Involved?

Hurricane Dorian’s slow, destructive track through the Bahamas fits a pattern scientists have been seeing over recent decades, and one they expect to continue as the planet warms: hurricanes stalling over coastal areas and bringing extreme rainfall. Dorian made landfall in the northern Bahamas on Sept. 1 as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, then battered the islands for hours on end with heavy rain, a storm surge of up to 23 feet and sustained wind speeds reaching 185 miles per hour.

Global Warming Hurricanes Natural Disasters

Worse US Atlantic Floods Need Planned Retreat

LONDON, 3 September, 2019 − What are now considered once-in-a-hundred-years floods are on the increase in the US. Later this century, they could happen to northern coastal states every year. And even in the more fortunate cities along the south-east Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico coasts, the once-in-a-century floods will happen a lot more often: somewhere between every 30 years and every year. In a second study, a team of distinguished scientists argues that the US should face the inevitable and begin to plan for a managed, strategic retreat from its own coasts.

Flooding Natural Disasters

Woosley Fire: Sampling In The Wake Of Disaster

During 2018, California was racked by the most devastating series of deadly forest fires in its history. While each of these events led to a tragic loss of lives, wildlife, homes, and entire communities, the Woolsey Fire is of particular interest and concern to Fairewinds Energy Education. The Woolsey fire burned nearly one hundred thousand acres across Los Angeles and Ventura counties during the month of November. While the fire is now out, people all over California have contacted us to ask questions and express concerns about the possible migration of radioactivity from the Woolsey Fire.

California Natural Disasters Wildfires

Rising Tide Calls For Call Climate Actions

Time is running out. The climate crisis is at our doorstep. Communities around the world are already being battered by the earliest effects of the changing climate–superstorms, floods, wildfires and droughts. And still not moving any closer to actualizing the dramatic transformation of our energy systems and economy that we all know are needed to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. The situation is bleak, but we are hopeful. Around the world, people are stepping up to take bold direct action to confront the climate crisis.

Activism Climate Change Natural Disasters

Inspiration & Support For Disaster Preparation

Getting ready as a network is a two-fold process – We can prepare ourselves individually and we can also support preparation in the most marginalized communities, those which are not only most adversely affected but also those which government and aid agencies will likely leave behind. Prepare yourself and think creatively about ways to support your larger communities to do the same, whether that’s by sharing information with at-risk neighbors or holding events to make collective disaster plans.

Aid Natural Disasters

According To NYT, ‘Relentless Flooding’ In Midwest Just Happens

The New York Times’ 2,400+ word report (6/3/19) by Julie Bosman, Julie Turkewitz and Timothy Williams on the historic flooding in the Midwest—amidst the wettest 12 months ever since recording began 124 years ago—is an illustrative example of how not to do disaster coverage. Recalling the Great Flood of 1993 and focusing on the four inundated towns of Davenport, Iowa; Valmeyer and Prairie du Rocher, Illinois; and Clarksville, Missouri, along the Mississippi River…

Climate Change Flooding Natural Disasters United States

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