Posted on 05/25/2007 1:51:51 PM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
Torrential rain in southwest China triggered flash floods and mudslides that have left 21 dead, while a neighbouring region is suffering its worst drought in 60 years, state media reported Friday.
A further 11 people are missing following the rains in Sichuan province and Chongqing municipality, Xinhua news agency said, in the latest extreme weather to ravage the country.
More than 360 people have been hurt and 112,000 evacuated in the disasters in a region that only last year endured its worst drought in half a century.
Meanwhile, more than 1.6 million people in Gansu province to the north face drinking water shortages due to the worst drought there since the 1940s.
The dry spell, which has had no significant rainfall in some areas for more than two months, is endangering crops or delaying planting on 1.46 million hectares (3.6 million acres) of cropland, Xinhua quoted officials with the Gansu provincial flood control and drought relief office as saying.
China last year suffered a range of extreme weather events including exceptionally strong typhoons, floods, and droughts, which meteorological officials have partly attributed to the affects of climate change.
Officials warned recently that similar weather is expected in 2007.
As a recent study demonstrates, there is also nothing unusual about the intensity of modern hurricanes and typhoons -- most important is where they hit.
All of that matters little, because the attitude presented by pundits and politicians around the world is: if it's the least bit anomalous, of course it's due to "climate change".
gwping
They always have that wheat gluten that they make so well, so they shouldn’t go hungry.
Bush’s fault!
< /john kerry>
“China hit by deadly flooding, severe drought”
All that I can say is... good! I don’t like the chicoms!
LLS
Any other country, and you’d have a point. This is China though. They’ve screwed over their environment on a level matched by only the Soviet Union. Might not be climate change of the “greenhouse effect” (which actually doesn’t work like a glass greenhouse in any way whatsoever at all) sort, but they most definitely have altered local climate systems within their country. They’ve polluted all of their water sources, dammed all of their rivers, deforested their forests, drained their swamplands, altered the soil makeup, and covered the land in an inescapable and all-encompassing smog. Local climate change can most definitely occur. The Sahara desert used to be a forest/jungle. Went from a temperate/tropical climate to a desert climate.
Similar sorts of local/regional climate change happen all the time. The people of Haiti have always had hurricanes come through. They’d have some flooding and people would die and suffer, but it was nothing extraordinary. When hurricane Jeanne went over the island in 2004 though, over 3000 people died. It wasn’t from storm surge or levees breaking though, it was from flash floods and mudslides.
Where once the mountains of Haiti were once covered by thick forests that would prevent mudslides and hold rainwater, now the mountains are bare. With no trees to hold the soil in place, entire villages were entombed forever by the massive mudslides. Those that escaped the mud were washed away by flash floods, as there was no soil to soak up the rainwater. Before the island was deforested, only a Major Hurricane (category 3 or higher) could have caused such death. Hurricane Jeanne was barely a Category 1 (it later strengthened after leaving Haiti). It was their own damn fault, just as it is in China.
Algore would never allow this to happen.
I concur there Lib.
To hell with the chi-coms and everything they do.
Wadi this?
“Torrential rain in southwest China triggered flash floods and mudslides that have left 21 dead, while a neighbouring region is suffering its worst drought in 60 years, state media reported Friday.”
You been there sport?
I have hope the masses will someday rise up and throw off the yoke of the chi-coms.
But then I also did leading up to the masacre.
All one can hope for is another boxer rebellion type insurrection. Don’t hold your breath.
Yes I have, several times.
There are plenty of people there who yearn for freedom, but it's virtually impossible to organize an insurrection (1) without any guns, and (2) without being discovered by the people with the guns.
If the Chinese people are individually responsible for their leaders, then you are also personally responsible for the fact that Bill Clinton was president for 8 years.
I’m responsible for the Clintons?
You are delusional.
I fail to understand your logic as there is none.
Amen Joe!
LLS
None taken, Thanks.
I guess I go by the saying, “better to die fighting for freedom then live in chains”.
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