A gigantic magnitude-8.1 earthquake in Japan today triggered warnings of a tsunami and a call for limited evacuation, although the waves that hit land only measured tens of centimeters at their highest. A six-foot wave hit the coasts of California later on, forcing limited evacuations and causing mild damage.

The quake struck at 20:14 local time in the Kuril Islands, which stretch northeast from Hokkaido to the Kamchatka peninsula. Earthquakes are extremely common in Japan, but a quake of this size is rare. As this story went to press, there were no reports of major damage from the quake itself.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued an alert at 20:29 calling for people to evacuate the seashore immediately on the Sea of Okhotsk coast and the eastern part of the Pacific coast of Hokkaido — an area that is not densely populated. Waves were at that point forecast to be potentially “up to 2 meters” high.

At roughly the same time the Pacific tsunami warning center similarly issued an alert noting a quake of magnitude 7.7 and warning of the possibility of a tsunami, although at that time no data were available to confirm whether or not a wave had formed, they said. This was updated 45 minutes later when Pacific scientists upgraded the magnitude to 8.1.

November 16th, 2006 | Environment | No comments

I usually try to stay as apolitical as possible in my posts. However, this time, it’s too much for me to pass up.

First of all, the Nairobi conference opens today. This is the 12th set of UN climate talks since the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. The conference opens following publication of many studies. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide rose by about half a percent in 2005 and hit a new record high, the World Meteorological Organization announced last Friday. Also, a study was published in Science, predicting that if we maintain our fishing levels, there will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century. While the study is on the alarmist side, it outlines that something must be done to minimize the impacts of human activities on our planet.

Secondly, we are hearing about the position of Canada a lot in the news (at least, here, in Canada…). We signed the Kyoto protocol when it was adopted. However, since then, there has been a change of government. The Conservative party took power last year and quickly said that they the Kyoto targets were unattainable and after much ado, presented their “Clean Air” plan, aiming to institute a holistic approach that doesn’t treat the related issues of pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions in isolation. The most comical (or sad, rather) about that plan is that its objectives are stretched out until 2050. You can view the press release from the Prime Minister office here. So far, nothing else has emerged from this plan, and it’s not with targets like 2050 that someone will do something about it.

I think that it’s time for a more aggressive approach. We must do something to stop our impact on global warming. Fund mass transit. Develop less polluting technologies for industries and transportation. Put stricter rules on industries and then force everyone to obey the same rules. It does not matter if Liechtenstein or Brunei or Swaziland cut all their Greenhouse gases emission right now if the US, China and India continue to pollute as much as they want.

Call me an utopist, but I think that someday we’ll get there. In the meantime, we have to do something!

Elsewhere on the Web: Nairobi conference website.

November 7th, 2006 | Environment | 1 comment