We have the biggest forest fires in Russia's history, 2 nuclear research facilities encircled by flames, over 48 people in Moscow dead (death rate twice the normal level, but doctors in the city have been told that it is illegal to put the deaths down to the toxic fumes from the fires encroaching on the city).

On the other hand a little further west, we have torrential rain, broken dams and whole regions flooded (the tidal wave from the broken dam in Poland has now reach Brandenburg, it had flooded Bad Muskua yesterday) and in the Czech Republic, whole villages are disapprearing or are cut off from rescuers - one village now has an air-bridge with helicopters flying in clean water, food and medical supples.

In Karnataka, India has had a major mud slide in the north, over 250 dead, thousands injured and people buried under tonnes of mud, 350 villages cut off of buried... That, as the region suffers from the worst drough in 40 years!

Natural processes by all accounts, blighted and amplified by human intervention.

Yep, pretty much what I think. But the shere size of the forest fires, looking at the maps, is incredible.

Well its a bit early for the Mayan end of the world. Or maybe this is just the beginings?

Or maybe some bad [LIFTED] just happened?

I get this incredible sense that the Earth is saying "Nope, too many people, bog off!"

Yep, I am waiting for the Earth to cleanse itself of the parasites...

I hear the Russian fires are being made worse by the fact that all the natural peat bogs have been systematically drained over the past few years. This has been to increase agricultural land, and so on.

Peat burns nicely once it's dried out. And when it's very hot and dry for a long spell, it doesn't take much for a fire to take hold.

The floods in Pakistan look terrible, too. There's a map the Beeb was showing last night which shows the extent of the flooding. It covered almost the whole of the country.

There have been mud slides in south America and China.

It's the end of the world, I tell you. At least, let's hope it's the beginning of the end of the human species. We're too clever by half, and it's about time we were brought down to size.

Either that or the earth's core has stopped spinning.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, religious leaders in Pakistan said it was the work of Allah teaching the warmongering americans a lesson. It seems Allah's not to happy with them either.

No-one has mentioned global warming. There does seem to be a lot more natural disasters recently or are the media just better at reporting them all these days?

I've given up discussing it with my boyfriend as he's adamant we're killing the planet and global warming will be the end of humankind whereas I'm a bit more laid back about it as I don't think it will happen in my lifetime *shrugs*

Global warming is a factor. Look at it this way - the world as a whole is basically a closed system and as it warms up, that means there is more energy in the system. That doesn't mean we get more or different 'weather events', but it does mean the weather events we get tend to be more violent. For example, because the earth is warmer there is slightly more tectonic activity and therefore if you have an earthquake it's a more powerful one. It also means more clouds (and therefore more rain) because evaporation from the oceans is slightly up. The Earth has more energy and that energy has to go somewhere and do something..

The arguable point isn't whether the Earth is warming up or not - there's plenty of evidence to say that's happening - the argument is whether we're causing it or it would have happened anyway. Personally I'm of the opinion that we're making things slightly worse but the majority of things would have happened anyway.


Oh we're definitely doing that - chewing up the rainforests, making dozens of species extinct every year etc etc. However I don't think we'll end up causing some cataclysm from with only John Cusak can save us. More likely things will just get slowly worse until we get fed up with it and fix it. Or figure out space travel and sod off out of it. Neither of which are likely to happen in our lifetimes, IMO.

John Cusack should never be tasked with saving us. He's much better at being awkward around women and making us laugh. I pray he only ever does that from now on.

What's this? It looks like you've got a case of the Humans.

http://vimeo.com/11119432

I've a suspicion that historically, terrible events happened all the time. We just didn't have the media in place to hear about it. Today, it's easier than ever to hear what's going on from all over the world and draw the conclusion that we live in 'special' times.

Not helped by massive deforrestation which means the rain just slides off the hills and is not absorbed by the forrests

I agree, that it is part of a natural cycle and that events will become worse (longer dry periods, more rain in rainy periods, higher winds etc.). I also think that, due to deforestation and industrialisation, we are accelerating the natural warming period.

I just hope that the current generations can stop being selfish and actually think about future generations, before it is too late, if it isn't already.

Do we need to "turn green", stop eating meat, wear sandals and eat quiche? No. But we do need to act responsibly, reduce the consumerism (building everything in China, then shipping it all over the globe has a larger impact than building things locally, as does the constant depletion of resources and forests.

As a child, we would buy a radio or television and expect it to last 15-20 years, nowadays, the manufacturers are pushing us to buy new versions every year, because the styling has changed. In some areas, such as computers, there has been a real growth in power and features, which meant that regular replacement was "needed", but the replacement cycles need to slow down.

We need to concentrate on energy efficiency and logevity in our devices, not just style and features. And, yes, I am also somewhat guilty, having replaced a working Sony WEGA TV last year, with an LCD TV (although that was because the Sony wouldn't fit on the shelf next to the fire in the new house, after buying the TV, we knocked the fireplace out... ). But I tend to hold onto things for as long as possible, constantly umming and ahhing over replacements, trying to justify them - I finally replaced my 2004 Acer laptop this summer, for example, but the 2006 iMac and 2007 desktop will have to wait another couple of years, before they are replaced.

Germany's commitment to recyclable energy is admirable, I hope they can achieve their targets (25% is already gained from renewable resources).