A mysterious phenomenon is causing four major glaciers in the Antarctic to shrink in unison, causing a significant increase in sea levels, scientists have found.
The U.N. recently announced global warming is leading inexorably to global catastrophe. Al Gore won the "best documentary" Oscar for his disaster film "An Inconvenient Truth." The news media beat the drum of "climate catastrophe" daily, all but ignoring scientists who say the threat is overblown or nonexistent. And across America, school children are frightened to death with tales of rising oceans, monster tornadoes, droughts and millions dying all because of man-made global warming.
At least 2.2 million migrants will arrive in the rich world every year from now until 2050, the United Nations said yesterday. Britain's population will rise from 60 million to approaching 69 million by 2050 - almost entirely because of immigration.
In the first case of its kind in years, a 2-year-old boy is being treated in Chicago for a rare and life-threatening infection that he contracted from his father, a U.S. Army soldier recently vaccinated against smallpox. The Indiana boy is in critical condition with eczema vaccinatum, an unusual side effect of the smallpox vaccine that can affect people who receive the shot or their close contacts.
Three trucks carrying toxic gas have exploded in western Iraq, killing at least two police officers and leaving 350 civilians needing treatment, the US military has said.
Two leading UK climate researchers have criticised those among their peers who they say are "overplaying" the global warming message. Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, are voicing their concern at a conference in Oxford. They say some researchers make claims about possible future impacts that cannot be justified by the science. The pair believe this damages the credibility of all climate scientists.
Guatemala's National Disaster Reduction Coordination (CONRED) office declared an orange alert on Friday after the Fuego Volcano, some 45 km from Guatemala City, erupted and triggered waves of small earthquakes. According to reports reaching here, the eruption spewed ash 500 meters into the air, and triggered 20 to 30 small earthquakes a minute.
The New York City Council recently passed a resolution banning the use of the word "nigger." The resolution, of course, is entirely symbolic, since trying to control language by fiat is like King Canute trying to stop the tide. Language isn't legislated, but grows and changes organically through the people who speak it. That's why the grammar police always fight a losing battle.
Tour guides at the American birthplace of Jamestown, Va., are being prevented from explaining Christian history, and are under orders to refer to items such as the Ten Commandments and Lord's Prayer only as "religious" in nature. That according to California pastor and researcher Todd DuBord who says he was stunned on a recent tour of the historic town when "our guide responded to our inquiry by saying that she was 'unable to speak about the plaques. We are only allowed to say they are religious plaques.'"
If world government is to be achieved by consent, the world must be sold on the idea of world government and its necessity.
Last Sunday, Pastor John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, received a rousing reception at the opening dinner plenary of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference. Hagee warned the crowd that "Iran poses a nuclear threat to the state of Israel that promises nothing less than a nuclear Holocaust." Hagee claimed that the situation is like 1938, only "Iran is Germany and [President Mahmoud] Ahmedinejad is the new Hitler."
Over the past 20 years, the U.S. Christian right has evolved into one of the most powerful grassroots organising forces within the Republican Party, and a host of Christian Zionists have taken a well-earned seat at the foreign policy table. At the same time, their support for Israel is not only growing -- it is also becoming an influential political factor.
The Church's opposition to gay marriage is "non-negotiable" and Catholic politicians have a moral duty to oppose it, as well as laws on abortion and euthanasia, Pope Benedict said in a document issued on Tuesday.
In a 140-page booklet on the workings of a synod that took place at the Vatican in 2005 on the theme of the Eucharist, the 79-year-old German Pope also re-affirmed the Catholic rule of celibacy for priests.
Officials at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Ill., have ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a "gay" indoctrination seminar, after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents.
"This is unbelievable," said Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues for Concerned Women for America. "It's not enough that students at Deerfield High are being exposed to improper and offensive material relative to unhealthy and high-risk homosexual behavior, but they've essentially been told by teachers to lie to their parents about it."
When confronted with the power of a hurricane, a blizzard or the intensity of a heat wave, the idea that humans could control or even influence the elements seems ridiculous, even arrogant. However, thanks to the development of industrial societies and the accompanying use of fossil fuels, that farfetched idea is becoming a reality.
(Gavin Schmidt is a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.)
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this section are not our own, unless specifically stated, but are provided to highlight what may prove to be prophetically relevant material appearing in the media.