I don’t know about you, but it’s been a good week for me, I’m still grateful that neither my son nor his friend/roommate were injured in the car wreck! Plus the weather here on the central coast has been extraordinary; I’m feeling extra blessed.
Still, my heart aches for those in China and Burma, coping with the devastation of the environment and world as they have known it. I’ve been through my share of earthquakes, though nothing remotely like China is experiencing. The last earthquake in the US that did that kind of damage was the Alaska quake in 1964, called The Great Alaska Earthquake. I was 14 when that happened, I remember talking to a woman about eight or nine years later who had been living in Anchorage at the time. She was still traumatized, said emphatically she would never step foot in Alaska again.
Mt Aetna is erupting, there is a volcano in Columbia called Galeras that erupted in January, and Chaiten in Chile that erupted just a few days ago. I found this amazing photo:
Gaia is volatile, no doubt about it!
Here’s some good news, or quasi-good news …
U.S. Coastal Waters Less Toxic Than 20 Years Ago
SILVER SPRING, Maryland, May 12, 2008 (ENS) – U.S. environmental laws enacted in the 1970s are reducing overall contaminant levels in coastal waters of the United States, finds a 20 year study released today by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. But the study shows continuing elevated levels of toxic metals and oils near urban and industrial areas of the coast.
Oil related compounds from motor vehicles and shipping activities continue to flow into coastal waters daily, NOAA reports. These compounds, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, have been monitored by NOAA scientists for decades so baseline data exist to help define the extent of environmental degradation.
For example, PAH levels following the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay showed concentrations at the monitoring site near the spill were the highest ever recorded.
The Department of Health and Human Services has determined that some PAHs “may reasonably be expected to be carcinogens.”
Rest of the article here:
