The first days of April 1974 were perfect for thunderstorms. On April 1, a strong low-pressure system settled across the Upper Midwest. On one side of this low pressure dry, very cold air began to descend from the Canadian interior. At the same time, warm moist air surged up from the Gulf of Mexico. As a front built up across the country, the differences between one side and the other were extreme.  For the next two nights, thunderstorms appeared around sunset and people across the Midwest were kept awake by rocketing winds and lightning storms so constant that the pyrotechnic display turned into one continuous pulse of flashing light accompanied by pounding drums.

On April 3, the atmosphere exploded. In a line stretching from Michigan to Alabama, potent "supercell" thunderstorms formed as a strong upper level jet stream finally sent  the cold air crashing through the warm. In storm after storm, whirling mesocyclones developed high in the atmosphere and in storm after storm cold air along the front dragged downward on these vortexes, hurling them to the earth. Just after noon, a tornado was spotted on the ground in central Illinois. More tornadoes were born, sped through towns and farmlands of Illinois and Indiana, and faded to twisting ropes. Quickly the activity spread east and south, and as it did, the tornadoes grew more intense.

Tornadic storms are rated on a scale developed by Dr. Ted Fujita of the University of Chicago. The scale is intended to judge the intensity of the storm based on size and wind speed, but the measurement is almost never made directly. It's made by looking at the damage. There was plenty of damage on April 3, 1974.

Most tornadoes fall in classes F0 and F1.  These storms are still dangerous, with the power to topple light buildings, bring down tree limbs, and push cars into ditches.  About a fifth of all tornadoes are F2 storms, able to uproot large trees, smash windows, and send objects whirling through the air.  Moving upward along Dr. Fujita's scale, the frequency of storms drops quickly once you're past F2. Only about one tornado in twenty reaches F3 – which is a good thing, as these storms are able to level homes, lift cars from the ground, and twist even steel-framed skyscrapers.  One out of a hundred reaches F4, where even the best-built buildings are liable to be leveled, cars aren't just lifted but thrown through the air, and where bricks, boards, and trees become screaming missiles.  About one tornado in a thousand reaches F5. F5 storms can have wind speeds above 300 miles per hour. They can be a mile, even two miles, in width. In an F5 storm, even houses become missiles. F5 storms are erasers.

In a two hour period on the afternoon of April 3, 1974, at least six F5 storms were spawned across the Midwest.  Just before 5PM, one of these storms plowed through the city of Xenia, Ohio.  It struck a high school where students practicing for a play scattered in time to avoid a school bus that was dropped into the middle of the stage. The students survived. Residents of subdivisions along the city's west side were not as lucky. 34 people died as literally half the town was leveled in the space of minutes. When the Xenia storm had faded, there were five more F5 tornadoes on the way. By the afternoon of April 4, 163 confirmed tornadoes had spread out over 13 states and traced out a combined path of destruction over 2,500 miles long. More than 300 people were dead.

The "Super Outbreak" of 1974 is the worst day of tornadoes and thunderstorms on record in the United States, and the United States is the world capitol of tornadoes.  This is about as bad as it gets when it comes to weather over land.

Having watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina blasted through the City of New Orleans, you may think you've seen the worst that storms originating over water can do. In terms of pure dollars of damage, Katrina did $81 billion in direct damage and the total bill topped $100 billion. Much of this damage remains unrepaired. (In other words, it cost about as much as one year of the war in Iraq, and while it may be patriotic and freedom-loving to spend that money causing death and destruction elsewhere, it's traitorous socialism to spend an equal amount creating jobs, helping neighbors, and building homes in America...)  

The power of hurricanes (in the North Atlantic and NE Pacific) is measured on a scale named for engineer Herbert Safir and meteorologist Bob Simpson. Like the Fujita scale for tornadoes (and the Richter Scale for earthquakes) Safir-Simpson was originally based around the amount of damage that could be expected from a storm, though these days it's completely defined by wind speed.

On any scale, Katrina was a particularly erratic storm. One day before it struck Florida, Katrina was still an unnamed tropical depression with winds below 40 mph. It reached tropical storm status on that last day, and crossed the line into hurricane force winds only two hours before striking southern Florida on August 25, 2005. Though the National Hurricane Center had correctly predicted the storm's growth and shelters were opened, many people were taken off guard by the rapid change, which  helps explain why 14 people died in Florida as Katrina passed across the peninsula and entered the Gulf.  The Gulf waters were extremely warm that year, and the energy of those waters quickly returned the storm to hurricane status. At one point in its development, Katrina carried winds of 175 mph – a record that was broken later that same year by Hurricane Rita. At that speed, Katrina was a Category 5 storm.  Fortunately, by the time it reached landfall in Louisiana on the storm had weakened somewhat to a very strong category 3. It reached the coast with winds of 125 mph, pushing a storm surge of 12-16 feet. That surge would go on to break the levees of New Orleans in over 50 places.  In total, over 1800 people would die. Most of them drowned either as a direct result of the storm surge, in areas affected by the broken levees, or from flooding associated with the storm's heavy rains.  The nation looked on in horror.

What may be surprising is that Katrina is not the deadliest hurricane to rise out of the Atlantic. In fact, it's not even in the top ten.  Even if we restrict ourselves to hurricanes that did their damage in the United States, there are storms that caused more damage and took more lives.

In 1928, a storm formed in the Mid-Atlantic, several hundred miles east of the small archipelago of Guadeloupe, and began to move almost directly westward. By the time it reached the islands of the Eastern Caribbean, the storm was carrying winds in excess of 120 mph and pushing a wall of water a dozen feet high that surged over homes and drove ships inland. That would have been bad enough, but as it pressed on it ran into warm currents that gave it more strength and winds that slowed its forward motion. The hurricane slowed almost to a stop. And grew. It reached Puerto Rico on September 13 and by tradition became "Hurricane San Felipe" – named for the saint whose feast day matched the landfall. Saint or no, the winds of the storm were in excess of 160 mph – Category 5.  Creeping along, San Felipe battered the island with hurricane force winds for 18 straight hours, and slashed the island with a twelve foot storm surge and 25 inches of wind driven rain. Because the storm had approached so slowly, there had been time to give many warnings and to evacuate areas near the coast. Fatalities were "only" 312. Then the storm turned toward Florida. Again, the warning time meant that the coasts could be evacuated and causalities there were light. But there was another coast that was not as prepared – the shoreline of Lake Okeechobee. Inland residents had thought themselves safe from the storm, but the hurricane arrived almost perfectly aimed at the Lake and its many vacation homes and fishing lodges.  The storm surge carried across the low ground between ocean and lake, then across dikes, dams, and canals. Twenty feet of water carried homes into the lake and into surrounding forests and fields where they were smashed like kindling. The death toll ran upwards of 3,000 and for weeks afterwards floodwaters carried bodies into the Everglades.

And that still wasn't the worst.  There was no organized system for tracking hurricanes in 1900, but at the end of August ships traveling new the Windward Islands reported difficult weather.  By September 4, officials in Galveston, TX received notice from the weather bureau that a tropical storm was affecting Cuba. There was no way to know which way it would go from there, though the best guess was that it would turn up along the coast of Florida. It didn't. At dawn on September 8, 1900 skies in Galveston were clear, but those looking out at the water – which on that Saturday morning included many visitors to the area -- noticed particularly large swells rolling into the beach. A few hours later, clouds began to scud across the sky. Isaac Cline, the head meteorologist for the US Weather Bureau office in Galveston, had written an article some years earlier saying that the idea of a hurricane striking the city was "ridiculous." The article had been a big factor in halting plans to build a sea wall to protect the city. But on that morning, Cline had his doubts. Increasingly concerned by what he was seeing in the skies over the Gulf and by the heavy, rising chop of the waves, Cline bypassed official channels. At noon, he issued a hurricane warning without waiting for permission from Washington.  At 5pm hurricane force winds reached the city. Cline's office recorded speeds of 100mph, at which point the instruments were destroyed. It's likely that the storm which reached Galveston that Saturday afternoon was a Category 3 storm, with wind speeds matching those of Hurricane Katrina. As darkness fell, the eye of the storm passed over the city and wind direction changed. With that change in winds came a 15' storm surge. The highest point in Galveston was 9'. In the next hour, somewhere around 8,000 people (and possibly as many as 12,000) drowned as the island temporarily vanished beneath the wild sea.

These are all interesting, if terrifying events, but what good does it do us to review and morn these catastrophes? Maybe it would help to review another storm.

In 1915, another hurricane struck Galveston dead on. As with the 1900 storm, this one was a category 3. In fact, the winds of this storm were higher -- 135 mph -- and it also carried with it a storm surge of 12-15 ft.

In May of 2004, another great outbreak of tornadoes occurred. 389 twisters hit over an 11-day period as a series of fronts clashed over the Plains and Midwest. Over the Memorial Day weekend, violent tornadoes cut across Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, and Iowa, including one tornado that was 2.5 miles wide, the largest known.

Why bring these up?

Because of what happened between 1900 and 1915, and what happened between 1974 and 2004. After the almost incomprehensible disaster of 1900, the City of Galveston finally built that sea wall. They also dredged sand from the harbor and raised the elevation of the island by several feet. In addition, the weather service was much more vigilant after 1900. More stations were set up to track storms, and warnings were given earlier and across a wider area. All of these help to shape the reason why the first Galveston hurricane is remembered as a monster and this second storm is all but forgotten. When the second storm struck, the death toll in Galveston wasn't 12,000 or 8000. It was 11.

In the 2004 tornado outbreak, a total of 7 people died. There were twice as many tornadoes as the 1974 event (though fewer F5s) and the property damage was several times greater. Why were the human causalities so much less than in 1974? There were much less knowledge about how tornadoes form and no Doppler radar to spot their incipient appearance. The tornadoes that hit town after town in 1974 might as well have appeared by magic. In most towns (including Xenia) there was no early warning, no system of sirens, no plan for how to respond. On the other hand, when an F5 tornado obliterated the town of Greensburg, KS in 2007 the tornado was literally wider than the town. It didn't take out half the buildings, it took them all. 12 people died, but the number could have been in the hundreds if it hadn't been for a warning system that gave most people in the town a critical 20 minutes to find shelter.

Not every disaster is avoidable. We may never be able to stop a tornado in its tracks or alter the course of a hurricane. But the expenditures we make to research causes, provide warnings, and plan responses are far from wasted. Yes, there are some classes of disaster that may be so enormous, or so unlikely, that addressing them is pointless. No one should put any funds behind a "Stop the Sun from Expanding" committee. But there are a great swath of events in the middle ground where planning and consideration may greatly reduce, if not eliminate, the consequences. Next week I hope to look at some of the possible challenges we may face (from nature this time, not at our own hands) to see which of them might be worth an investment of time and materials.

Oh, and one last quick note. The population of Galveston when the great hurricane swept through in 1900 was around 42,000 -- less than 1/10th that of the City of New Orleans itself (not to mention surrounding communities) in 2005. Over 1800 people died in Katrina (including some who perished in the post-storm chaos), but tragic as that number is it's much smaller than what might have happened if a well-informed National Hurricane Center had not contacted an alert mayor who responded quickly to get most of the city's populace on the road. If New Orleans had suffered losses proportional to those in Galveston, the count could have been in six figures (and if you think that can't happen, look at up the results when Hurricane Mitch dropped 75" of rain on Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua in 1998, or the toll from the 1970 Bhola cyclone).

CBS News

New tropical depression forms in Atlantic MiamiHerald.com AP A new tropical depression has formed in the Atlantic, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Wednesday. The depression has maximum sustained winds ... New Atlantic storm likely, Pacific sees hurricanemsnbc.com TD 7 forms, expected to strengthen as Danielle holds steadyCNN Tropical Depression 7 forms in the eastern AtlanticNOLA.com The Associated Press -Palm Beach Post (blog) -National Underwriter Property And Casualty Insurance News all 2,859 news articles »

Can Africa break its 'resource curse'?

London, England (CNN) -- Many African countries are blessed with oil and mineral wealth that has the potential to transform their economies. But historically, those resources have often been more of a curse than a blessing.

There are numerous examples of African nations where the discovery of natural resources has been followed by economic instability, conflict and environmental damage. So common is the phenomenon that it even has its own name -- the "resource curse."

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, United States, and the author of the books "Resource Wars" and "Blood and Oil."

Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why

CARACAS, Venezuela — Some here joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad. The numbers bear them out.

In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.

Even Mexico’s infamous drug war has claimed fewer lives.

Norway's oil past its prime but still alluring

Norway (Reuters) - Norway's oil and gas production will remain attractive in the years ahead despite declining oil output, especially for smaller oil companies and offshore services looking for drilling and upgrade contracts.

China's nine-day traffic jam stretches 100km

BEIJING (AFP) – Thousands of vehicles were bogged down Monday in a more than 100-kilometre (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted nine days and highlights China's growing road congestion woes.

The Beijing-Tibet expressway slowed to a crawl on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks heading to the capital, and compounded by road maintenance work that began five days later, the Global Times said.

The state-run newspaper said the jam between Beijing and Jining city had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers' predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices.

Hearings into cause of oil spill begin in Houston

HOUSTON — Federal investigators are hearing testimony from BP executives in a joint probe into the cause of the explosion that led to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bjork Takes On Magma in Drive to Give Iceland Voters Final Say

Singer-songwriter Björk Gudmundsdottir is spearheading a push that one poll shows is backed by 85 percent of Icelanders to put foreign energy takeovers to referenda if enough people oppose the deals.

Iran says it will mass produce assault boats

TEHRAN, Iran – State TV says Iran has inaugurated production lines for two types of assault boats. The defense minister describes them as a boost to the country's navy.

Monday's report says one of the boats — dubbed Zolfaghar, after a famed sword — has been equipped with cruise missiles. The second, Seraj or Light, is a high-speed patrol boat with a fiberglass body.

Calls to tackle rising oil imports

BEIJING - China, which is set to import more than 55 percent of its oil needs this year, should seek greater diversification of oil imports, build more stockpiles and improve conservation to enhance energy security, said analysts.

The country will see a continuous increase in oil imports, as domestic production cannot keep pace with the fast growing economy, said Zhou Dadi, a researcher with the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission.

"We should have long-term plans to address oil security," he added.

Oil hovers below $74 amid growth uncertainty

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Oil prices hovered below $74 a barrel Monday in Asia as uncertainty about the global economy's prospects outweighed possible production disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico due to hurricane season.

Hedge Funds Cut Gasoline Bets Most Since 2006

(Bloomberg) -- Hedge funds cut bullish bets on gasoline by the most in almost four years as petroleum stockpiles surpassed the highest level since 1990 and the U.S. vacation season drew to an end.

Hedge funds and other large speculators reduced wagers on rising prices by 74 percent the week ended Aug. 17, the most since October 2006, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission reported on Aug. 20. Gasoline has dropped 21 percent since reaching its 2010 high of $2.4351 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange on May 3.

Kuwait signs oil pact with Iraq

KUWAIT CITY //Kuwait has signed an agreement to share oil from cross-border fields with Iraq and is waiting for its northern neighbour to reciprocate, the emirate’s oil minister has said.

The deal could help to smooth the often thorny relationship between the two countries 20 years after Saddam Hussein’s armies occupied Kuwait – an incursion that sparked the First Gulf War.

OPEC Export Revenues on The Rise

2010 OPEC oil export revenue levels have seen a significant recovery from the previous year-an $181B increase-according to projections from the EIA August 2010 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO).

Kuwait in $35bn oil upgrade

KUWAIT CITY // Kuwait is about to embark on major oil projects worth almost US$35 billion (Dh128.45bn) as part of the government’s four-year development plan, says Sheikh Ahmed Abdullah Al Sabah, the oil minister.

The investments include a fourth refinery, a project that has stalled before in the country’s parliament.

Pakistan Gas Import Plans Delayed by Floods, Iran Sanctions

Pakistan, experiencing its worst- ever flooding, will face increasing shortages of natural gas and electricity because of international sanctions against Iran and a contract dispute with an European energy supplier.

“Pakistan is desperate as it faces huge power shortages,” said Alexis Aik, head of the global gas team at FACTS Global Energy in Singapore. “It was looking to speed up liquefied natural gas imports, which are more viable than pipeline imports.”

Iran Says Turkey May Help Build Two Petrochemical Units in Country's South

Turkey and Iran may jointly build two petrochemical units, state-run Press TV news channel reported, citing Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister.

Iran and Turkey are discussing construction of an urea and an ammonia unit in the industrial hub of Assaluyeh in southern Iran, Press TV said, citing Abdolhossein Bayat, who is also the managing director of National Iranian Petrochemical Co.

SKorea's pension fund eyes US pipeline stake

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's national pension fund says it is interested in buying Chevron's 23.4 percent stake in Colonial Pipeline.

National Pension Service official Kim Hee-seok said on Monday that the fund is in talks with the U.S. oil pipeline operator, but emphasized that nothing has been decided on who will buy the stake.

Nabucco Gas Project Plans Georgian, Iraqi Feeder Pipelines; Avoids Iran

Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH plans to supply the natural-gas transmission route to Europe with links to Turkey’s borders with Georgia and Iraq and has decided against a link to the country’s border with Iran.

China's 1st deep-water drilling vessel being built

DALIAN - Construction of the world's largest deep-water oil drilling vessel has started in northeast China's Liaoning province.

Norway oil fund gives Israeli outfits the boot

Norway has excluded two Israeli companies from its $450 billion oil fund, claiming the outfits' activities in the Palestinian Occupied Territories are in breach of the fourth Geneva Convention.

Green light for Egypt clean fuel plant

Egyptian Refining Company (ERC), the joint venture leading a US$3.7 billion (Dh13.57bn) project to build a petroleum refinery within sight of the pyramids of Giza, has secured $2.6bn from a banking syndicate to finance the development.

“We are delighted to announce the debt package for what we believe stands as one of the largest project finance deals ever assembled in Africa,” said Marwan Elaraby, the managing director of Egypt’s Citadel Capital, which owns 85 per cent of ERC.

Sinopec Margins Set to Extend Slump as Fuel Prices Trail Crude

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, may extend a slump in profit from making gasoline and diesel as government price controls prevent the company from passing on higher crude-oil costs to customers.

Margins from processing oil fell 45 percent in the first six months as crude costs surged 84 percent, the company known as Sinopec said in its earnings statement yesterday. The stock declined the most in almost two months after second-quarter net income dropped 10 percent from a year earlier compared with a 40 percent increase in the preceding three months.

Compensation czar takes charge of $20 billion BP fund

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – A $20 billion compensation fund for economic victims of the BP Gulf oil spill opens for business on Monday amid accusations that the rules established by its administrator are unfair.

Kenneth Feinberg who will run the fund said those who sustained financial loss because of the spill could claim for damages and he promised claimants more generous treatment than they would get if they sued the energy giant for damages.

Gulf claims chief defends no-sue rule

NEW ORLEANS — The new administrator for damage claims from gulf oil spill victims said yesterday that it was his idea, not BP’s, to require that anyone who receives a final settlement from the $20 billion compensation fund give up the right to sue the oil company.

Oil's gone? Dispute's not evaporating

But did the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history really just evaporate? The government says so, but then again, it also reiterated BP's low-ball estimates of the oil flow early on, just as it supported BP's contention that there were no underwater plumes of oil. Now it tells us the oil is mostly gone.

'Cash for clunkers' car dealers investigated

WASHINGTON — The government is investigating at least 20 car dealerships it claims violated the rules of last year's cash-for-clunkers program. Government auditors say up to $94 million in rebates may be ineligible because they lack the proper documentation.

One year after the $3 billion car-buying frenzy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reached an enforcement phase. Nine dealers have paid a total of $71,500 in fines.

Shakeup for Wellington property

In residential areas changes include density restrictions increasing to medium in areas around some housing centres, starting with Johnsonville and Kilbirnie.

“This is an important step in allowing more people to live closer to services and public transport, and to a more sustainable city better equipped to adjust to the threats of climate change and peak oil,” a council spokesman said.

“We have some greenfields development provided for, but it is also important that we don’t rely on sprawl as so many cities have with all the transport problems that brings.”

Proliferation of old-style coal plants increases despite public outcry

WYODAK, WYO. -- Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry's standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come.

Going Green, Without Being Preachy About It

With a white Kangol cap tipped on his shaved head just so on a recent swampy morning, Sean Meenan led a group of girls, ages 11 to 14, around the cobalt blue, lime green and Sunkist orange outdoor patio of Habana Outpost, the ecologically conscious restaurant he owns in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

He showed off the solar panels, a rainwater-collection system that feeds the toilets, a recycling and composting station, wheat-board wall paneling and corn-based plastic cups. There was even a blender powered by a bicycle.

Statoil Chief Says Oil Producer Is Committed to Renewable Energy Projects

Statoil ASA, Norway’s biggest oil and gas producer, is committed to developing its renewable- energy investments, Chief Executive Officer Helge Lund said.

“We plan to develop and deliver on the positions we have taken,” Lund said today at a press conference in Stavanger. “There’s no reason in my view to question our commitment to our strategy. It remains firm and has broad support in the management team and the board of directors.”

South Africa: Renewable Energy 'Will Boost Jobs, Manufacturers'

Johannesburg — ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners want the government to adopt ambitious targets on renewable energy. This would help SA secure global funds for climate mitigation, cut greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs, and create a secure energy supply, say the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Greenpeace.

By 2030, at least half of SA's electricity should come from renewable resources, according to a WWF report released last week.

Nuclear Plant’s Use of River Water Prompts $1.1 Billion Debate With State

BUCHANAN, N.Y. — Just beneath the wind-stippled surface of the Hudson River here, huge pipes suck enough water into the Indian Point nuclear plant every second to fill three Olympic swimming pools. And each second they take in dozens of organisms — fish and crabs, but mostly larvae — that are at the center of a $1.1 billion debate: should the plant have to put in cooling towers that would vastly reduce the intake of water?

Australia Steps Up Renewable Energy Efforts

SYDNEY — Australia has plans to build the biggest wind farm in the southern hemisphere by 2013, part of its scramble to fight climate change and harness its abundance of clean energy sources — wind, solar, waves, geothermal energy and bioenergy.

A mixed result for the environment

On the face of it, the failure of the Labor Party, under the leadership of Julia Gillard, to secure victory in the Australian elections is a setback for those who argue that democratic political systems are capable of meeting the immense challenge of climate change.

Yasuní and the New Economics of Climate Change

(CNN) -- Yasuní is both a place and a metaphor.

The place is a UNESCO Biopshere Reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon where two indigenous communities, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane, live in voluntary isolation. Below the biosphere lie the oil fields Isphingo, Tambococha and Tiputini, abbreviated to ITT.

Yasuní the metaphor is the initiative for paying to keep that oil underground and leave the biological and cultural diversity undisturbed.

Cuts jeopardizing quality of Environment Canada's weather service: report

OTTAWA — Sustained cuts to Environment Canada weather-service programs have compromised the government's ability to assess climate change and left it with a "profoundly disturbing" quality of information in its data network, says a newly released internal government report.

The stinging assessment, obtained through an access-to-information request, suggests that Canada's climate network infrastructure is getting progressively worse and no longer meets international guidelines.

Food crisis threatens Bolivia due to climate change

Persistent drought, cold weather and flooding, all attributed to climate change, are threatening Bolivia with a food crisis, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and experts have recently warned.

FAO coordinator Einstein Tejada said one fifth of Bolivia's territory now suffer from the effects of climate change, causing food prices to rise.

Thomas Homer-Dixon: Disaster at the Top of the World

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and this summer its sea ice is melting at a near-record pace. The sun is heating the newly open water, so it will take longer to refreeze this winter, and the resulting thinner ice will melt more easily next summer.

At the same time, warm Pacific Ocean water is pulsing through the Bering Strait into the Arctic basin, helping melt a large area of sea ice between Alaska and eastern Siberia. Scientists are just beginning to learn how this exposed water has changed the movement of heat energy and major air currents across the Arctic basin, in turn producing winds that push remaining sea ice down the coasts of Greenland into the Atlantic.

Globally, 2010 is on track to be the warmest year on record. In regions around the world, indications abound that earth’s climate is quickly changing, like the devastating mudslides in China and weeks of searing heat in Russia. But in the world’s capitals, movement on climate policy has nearly stopped.

China pumps billions into Canada's oil sands

BEIJING (AFP) – Energy-hungry China, once stung in its efforts to secure access to resources in North America, is making a more subtle push into Canada's oil sands, and the new approach is paying off, experts say.

Chinese firms seeking a toehold in the largest known crude deposit outside the Middle East have opted for joint ventures and partial stakes to avoid the kind of political uproar sparked when CNOOC tried to take over US oil group Unocal in 2005.

"They are tiptoeing around the edge, not challenging anybody, not getting in any American Senators' faces -- just very quietly taking a position," said David Hewitt, regional head of oil and gas research at CLSA in Hong Kong.

Crude Oil Falls for a Seventh Day on Signs of Slowing Economy, Fuel Demand

Crude oil traded near a one-month low in New York as equity markets declined, fanning concern that the economic recovery may falter and impede fuel demand.

Jeff Rubin: The G8: The biggest brake on growth

Of late, the major Western European economies have hardly grown at all, and even those economies that have seen a modest recovery, like the U.S.’s, now show widespread signs of weakness, just as many of President Obama’s stimulus measures are about to run out of gas.

Energy- and resource-rich member states like Russia and Canada are the exceptions, benefitting from the ongoing industrial revolutions in China and India, and the lift they give to commodity prices. (If the OECD still accounted for three quarters of world oil consumption, as it did in the mid-1990s, would oil still be trading at over $70 per barrel?)

Sinopec Cuts Crude Processing at Yangzi Refinery on Losses, Weaker Demand

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the nation’s largest oil refiner, cut crude processing volume at its Yangzi oil refinery in the eastern Jiangsu province on refining losses and weaker demand, a plant official said.

China Plans New Resource Tax on Coal, Oil, Gas in Western Areas

China plans to impose a new tax on coal, oil and gas extraction in western provinces, raising funds to develop its most restive region in a move that will reduce profits for PetroChina Co. and rival resource producers.

Heat Wave Means Natural Gas Rises Most Since '05 in Survey: Energy Markets

The hottest U.S. summer in three years and the start of hurricane season means analysts are forecasting the biggest gains in natural-gas futures since 2005 for the six months ending in September.

Gas may climb 27 percent from the first quarter to $4.90 per million British thermal units, according to the median of 13 analyst forecasts in a Bloomberg survey, extending a 19 percent gain in the three months through June 30. The estimates ranged from $4 to $5.50. August-delivery gas was little changed at $4.682 per million Btu yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Commodities May Extend Drop This Quarter on `Open Gap': Technical Analysis

Commodities may extend the worst slump since 2008 this quarter after an advance in June proved short-lived, Barclays Capital said, citing trading patterns.

Big Oil Firms Accused of Human-Rights Abuses in Burma

To the list of Big Oil companies with p.r. problems add two more: Chevron and French energy giant Total. In a report published on Monday, the NGO EarthRights International accuses the firms of being implicated in human-rights violations in Burma, claiming that soldiers guarding Chevron and Total's natural-gas pipeline in the country have murdered locals and forced others to do backbreaking, unpaid labor in order to keep the gas exports flowing smoothly. The report also holds that the revenues from the operation have been propping up the country's oppressive military government for more than a decade, thus fostering harmful political outcomes that affect the entire country.

Fracas erupts over ‘fracking’ practices

Despite the best intentions of energy icon T. Boone Pickens and regardless of the controversy over deepwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, onshore natural gas operations in the United States face a serious and distracting problem.

Hydraulic fracturing — the now common industry process of injecting water and chemicals into reservoirs to fracture rock and free up gas and oil — is in the cross hairs of shareholders and environmental groups, and is drawing scrutiny from Congress, which is considering increased regulation.

BP gets U.S. demand for notice of asset sales

LONDON — BP PLC confirmed Wednesday that it received a demand from U.S. authorities for advance notice of any asset sales or significant cash transfers.

The Financial Times reported that U.S. Assistant Attorney General Tony West, who heads the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote to Rupert Bondy, BP's general counsel, on June 23. Normally the U.S. Justice Department does not require advance notice of such deals.

BP's Hayward in MidEast talks as relief well advances

ABU DHABI/HOUSTON (Reuters) – BP's boss met officials from an Abu Dhabi state fund on Wednesday as hopes for fresh investment and progress toward closing a leaking U.S. oil well lifted the company's battered shares.

Louisiana and Scientists Spar Over How to Stop Oil

As the gulf oil spill enters its third month, Louisiana officials have grown increasingly enamored of large-scale engineering projects, like sand berms and rock walls, to keep the oil off their coast. But these projects, which demand the swift restructuring of eastern Louisiana’s dynamic and fragile coast, have brought the desires of state and local officials into sharp conflict not only with a complicated federal bureaucracy charged with protecting wetlands and estuaries, but also with an experienced and highly vocal community of local coastal scientists.

U.S. Deep-Water Drill Ban a `Rational' Response to Emergency, Salazar Says

The U.S. government said a ban on deep-water oil drilling is a rational response under emergency circumstances and should be reinstated immediately.

Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar said in documents filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans that his department acted responsibly by implementing the ban in response to “an unprecedented and ongoing disaster.”

Kuwait rules out increasing its stake in BP

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) – Kuwait has ruled out an increase in its stake in British oil giant BP, which is struggling to cap an oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a sovereign wealth fund official told AFP on Wednesday.

"We are not currently considering increasing our stake in this company," the official said when asked about the possibility of new Kuwaiti investments in BP.

Mexican Storm System More Likely to Become Cyclone, Hurricane Center Says

Thunderstorms moving west-northwest off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in the Bay of Campeche have a 40 percent chance of forming into a tropical cyclone in the next day or so, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The system moving at 10 to 15 miles per hour may become a tropical cyclone before it heads inland over Mexico or southern Texas, the hurricane center said on its Web site at 8 a.m. Miami time. The potential of formation rose from 30 percent yesterday.

As power demand soars from hot weather, grid holds up so far

NEW YORK — Electricity demand in the East surged Tuesday near levels not seen since the summer of 2006. The power grid has so far been up to the task.

With temperatures soaring above 100 degrees in cities from New York to Washington, utilities and grid operators saw power output close in on the records set in August 2006. No widespread outages have been reported, although electricity demand typically jumps between 5 and 6 o'clock.

A Blow to Home Retrofits

The federal agency that oversees two government-chartered mortgage finance companies imposed new restrictions Tuesday on homeowners’ ability to take advantage of a program that allows them to repay the cost of installing solar panels and other energy improvements through an annual surcharge on their property taxes.

The new guidelines could also make it more difficult for homeowners to obtain mortgages even if they don’t participate in the programs, called Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, but happen to live in an area where they are offered.

Sudden Surplus Calls for Quick Thinking

Engineers say that if the power grid becomes more reliant on renewable energy, a lot of new transmission lines will have to be built at some point or there will be unhappy consequences. Mostly this problem has been predicted rather than experienced. But the future may have arrived last month, when the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that oversees power transmission in the Pacific Northwest, had more energy than it could comfortably use.

Soybeans, Corn Climb as Higher Crude Oil Prices Increase Biofuels Demand

Soybeans and corn rose in Chicago as gains by crude-oil futures boosted the appeal of crops processed to make biofuels.

The Parking Lot as ‘Solar Grove’

In 2005, Mr. Noble founded Envision Solar, now the country’s leading developer of solar carports. The company’s signature product is “solar groves,” 1,000-square-foot canopies that shade parking lots while generating clean power from an array of photovoltaic panels.

Solar plane sets out on historic flight

PAYERNE, Switzerland (AFP) – An experimental solar-powered aircraft took off from a Swiss airbase here shortly after daybreak on Wednesday in a historic bid to fly around the clock and prove the value of solar energy.

In Congo forest, bushmeat trade threatens Pygmies

Bushmeat — animals like monkeys and especially antelope — has been a staple of the African diet for millennia. But it has never been consumed as much as now: at least 1.1 million tons each year in the Congo basin alone, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Other estimates put the figure at five times that.

The result: the forests still standing are growing emptier by the day.

Some have suffered 90 percent drops in wildlife, stripped so bare, hunters have been reduced to eating their own hunting dogs, says John Hart, an American conservationist who first lived among the Mbuti in the 1970s.

PG&E; opposes CA prop. to halt global warming law

California's largest utility says it will oppose Proposition 23, the initiative that seeks to suspend the state's landmark global warming law.

Pacific Gas & Electric Company Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee said in a statement Tuesday that climate change could cost California's economy tens of billions of dollars a year, with losses to agriculture, tourism and other sectors.

CRU climate scientists 'did not withold data'

Climate scientists at a top UK research unit have emerged from an inquiry with their reputations for honesty intact but with a lack of openness criticised.

The Independent Climate Change Email Review was set up by the University of East Anglia (UEA) after more than 1,000 e-mails were hacked from its servers.

Climate "sceptics" claimed the e-mails showed that UEA scientists manipulated and suppressed key climate data.

But these accusations are largely dismissed by the report.

Iran to stop subsidised petrol sales from September

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran is to halt the sale of subsidised petrol from late September as part of plans to phase out subsidies on energy products, ISNA news agency reported on Monday.

"Based on decisions taken, from the second half of this (Iranian) year (late September), the rationed petrol sales will be stopped," said Mohammad Royanian, head of Iran's fuel transportation organisation, quoted by ISNA.

From September "the rationing of petrol will be scrapped," he added.

Oil Reverses Losses to Trade Above $72 as Dollar Weakens, Equities Rebound

Oil rose for the first time in six days as the dollar weakened and advancing equities reaffirmed confidence the global recovery will stimulate fuel demand.

Crude reversed earlier losses of as much as 1.5 percent as European equity indexes climbed the most in a month. The industry-funded American Petroleum Institute will release its weekly report on fuel supply and demand levels tomorrow, a day later than normal because of yesterday’s Independence Day holiday in the U.S.

China's CNPC eyes 500 mcm shale gas output by 2015

(Reuters) - State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) aims to produce 500 million cubic metres (mcm) of shale gas by 2015, a company executive said in an article published on Sunday.

China does not have any shale gas production and evaluation of the potential resources is only at a preliminary stage, Deputy General Manager Liao Yongyuan said.

India back on track after a day's strike

Life was back on track across India on Tuesday after a day-long crippling strike called by the opposition against rising food and fuel prices cost the economy millions of dollars.

Shops, businesses and industries reopened, the usual traffic returned to roads and highways, while educational institutions and offices saw normal attendance in all parts of the country.

Exxon, Petrobras May Have to Shut Japan Units on New Refining Regulation

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Japanese unit and Petroleo Brasileiro SA may have to spend billions of dollars upgrading plants or else shut units because of new rules aimed at boosting heavy-oil refining, analysts said.

Nigeria, China Sign an $8 Billion Oil Refinery Agreement, ThisDay Reports

Nigeria and China have signed an agreement to build the West African nation’s biggest oil refinery at a cost of $8 billion, ThisDay reported, without saying where it got the information.

Some Total U.K. Refinery Workers Return to Work; One Unit Shut on Asbestos

About 200 contractors at Total SA’s Lindsey oil refinery in northeast England returned to work today as one unit at the site remained closed after a fatal explosion led to asbestos contamination.

Bulgaria to Pull Out of Joint Oil Pipeline Project

Bulgaria “is no longer interested” in a project to build an oil pipeline from the Black Sea to the Aegean following the environmental damage caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Boyko Borissov, prime minister.

Mr Borissov made clear in an interview with the Financial Times that Bulgaria intended to pull out of a three-way partnership with Russia and Greece after an environmental impact study for the project is completed early next year.

China's heat wave sends power generation to new high

BEIJING - A searing heat wave that has scorched many parts of China has brought the country's daily electricity generation to its highest level ever, touching 12.93 billion kilowatt-hours on Monday, according to data from the National Power Dispatch and Communication Center.

Geologist sentence puzzles officials

US officials reacted with dismay and puzzlement today to the eight-year prison sentence imposed on an US geologist because he bought a database on China’s oil industry.

China defends jailing U.S. geologist

China on Tuesday rejected U.S. criticism of its treatment of an American geologist who was sentenced to eight years in prison for spying and collecting state secrets.

The U.S. Embassy issued a statement calling for Xue Feng's immediate release and deportation to the United States after he was sentenced Monday, and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman attended the court hearing to show Washington's interest.

Tar balls hit Texas as BP oil spill cost soars

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – BP faced a broadening crisis Tuesday with tar balls from the Gulf oil spill turning up on Texas beaches, as the firm's clean-up costs soared and British officials reportedly mulled a possible BP collapse.

A giant Taiwanese ship deployed to boost the clean-up meanwhile remained in testing, with initial results inconclusive because of choppy waters, and bad weather on the horizon threatened to further disrupt clean-up efforts.

`Killing' BP's Macondo Oil Well Takes Mud, Precision Pressure

BP Plc is likely to intercept its Gulf of Mexico gusher this month, ahead of schedule, kicking off a “kill” process that may take as little as two days or drag out because of complications caused by the well’s depth.

Blimp expected to arrive to help track oil slick

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- A massive, silver-colored blimp is expected to arrive in the Gulf Coast Tuesday to aid in oil disaster response efforts.

The U.S. Navy airship will be used to detect oil, direct skimming ships and look for wildlife that may be threatened by oil, the Coast Guard said Monday.

BP oil spill: How much has bad weather hurt the cleanup?

A week of high winds and waves has interfered with some efforts to contain and clean up the BP oil spill. But key activities have continued with little interruption from bad weather.

Wildlife agency predicted low risk from oil spills

NEW ORLEANS – Less than three years before the Gulf oil spill erupted, federal regulators concluded several offshore drilling projects posed a low risk to endangered wildlife — a determination that contrasts sharply with recent scenes of birds struggling to survive the slick.

BP remains key Pentagon supplier

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Despite its role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, energy giant BP remains a key supplier of fuel to the Pentagon, The Washington Post reported.

Citing data from the Defense Logistics Agency, the newspaper said BP had contracts with the US Defense Department worth at least 980 million dollars in the current fiscal year.

BP In Talks With Wealth Funds, Reports Say

BP has approached sovereign wealth funds with a view to securing a strategic investor to fend off takeover bids while the British oil company deals with its massive U.S. oil spill, according to press reports.

Reuters, citing a senior United Arab Emirates source, reported Tuesday that BP executives have held talks with a number of sovereign wealth funds including Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar and Singapore.

BP is seeking a strategic partner so it doesn’t get taken over by other major oil companies such as Exxon and Total, the source said. “It’s BP that is approaching the sovereign wealth funds not the other way round. They are the ones in need of a partner,” the UAE source told Reuters.

BP shares rise as company says no plan to issue stock

LONDON (Reuters) – Stock in BP rose on Tuesday as the British oil major ruled out a share issue and talk persisted of sovereign wealth fund interest, while its Gulf of Mexico oil slick spread to the Texas coast.

BP shares were up 3.7 percent after hitting their highest in two weeks. They at one stage had lost more than $100 billion in value in the 78 days following its April 20 oil rig explosion that unleashed the massive spill.

Govt 'works on crisis plan' in case spill sinks BP

LONDON (AFP) – Britain is working on crisis action in case energy giant BP is ruined by the costs of coping with its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, The Times reported on Tuesday without citing its sources.

The talks, with officials from the government's Department for Business and the Treasury, show mounting concern that the company could collapse, the report said.

Which way forwards for BP?

BP's share price - which had more than halved since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in April first triggered the company's woes - has staged an impressive recovery in recent weeks.

Yet talk continues to circulate of a possible strategic investor in BP - either as a welcome provider of fresh capital to the company, or an unwelcome opportunist sniffing a bargain.

So what are the options now for BP?

Gulf spill hasn't scared off Lloyd's of London

FORTUNE -- From the glamorous to the bizarre to the outright catastrophic, Lloyd's of London has insured against some of the world's most unusual risks: There was the finger that Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards injured during a concert tour in the 1990s. Lloyd's once insured actress Bette Davis' waistline against expansion. It also insured Ugly Betty star's America Ferrara's $10 million smile for Aquafresh White Trays.

But Lloyd's latest high-profile risk has little to do with celebrities and everything to do with the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It is one of the biggest insurers of offshore energy contractors along the Gulf of Mexico, including Transocean (RIG)'s Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded while it was under contract for BP.

More Than Raging Sea, Oil Threatens Inn

An Alabama bed-and-breakfast that was restored after hurricane damage is struggling now.

BP board game foreshadows Gulf disaster

BP Offshore Oil Strike was released in the early 1970s and allows up to four players to explore for oil, build platforms and construct pipelines. The first player to earn $120,000,000 wins.

Its "hazard cards" include "Blow-out! Rig damaged. Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1 million."

Calls to Update Maritime Laws

Lawmakers in Washington are fixed on the legal and financial fallout of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on BP and firms like Transocean, the operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank in April.

But a flurry of legislation in Congress could also have sweeping consequences, both intended and unintended, for other industries that work at sea.

Saudis Will Stop Exploring for More Oil

Depending on who you choose to believe, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is either running out of oil or is sitting on deposits far larger than 262 billion barrels. The Saudis have never allowed independent verification of the Kingdom’s reserves.

Some, such as Matthew Simmons, believe that the original-oil-in-place has been depleted and that the Saudis have not told the truth about the size of the country’s remaining reserves. The difficulty that the state oil company, Saudi Aramco, has had with some of its recent exploration activities gives some credence to this view.

Saudi agrees on nuclear energy pact with France

RIYADH (AFP) – The Saudi cabinet agreed on Monday to sign a nuclear cooperation accord with France, which could open the way for French help in developing nuclear power in the oil-rich kingdom.

The agreement is "for the development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy," the cabinet announced after its weekly meeting in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

Firms plan green energy power lines under Med

PARIS (AFP) – An industrial consortium launched preparations on Monday for a possible future power grid under the Mediterranean that would carry solar energy from Africa to Europe.

The Transgreen group hopes that solar power farms planned in the Sahara desert will generate 20 gigawatts of electricity by 2020, and that a quarter of this could be fed into the European market.

Energy utopia and reality collide

Two weeks ago, the EU energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger met North African officials in Algiers to discuss integrating electricity markets. Mr Oettinger told Reuters electricity could start flowing to Europe within five years.

But analysts say mustering governments and investors on both sides of the Mediterranean into large-scale co-operation presents a significant challenge for Desertec’s supporters.

For a Premier Lab, a Zero-Energy Showcase

The federal government has just finished construction on a zero-energy office building, the nation’s largest, and is hoping that commercial developers will follow its lead. The 222,000-square-foot Research Support Facility is on the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory campus in Golden, Colo. Just over 800 employees will occupy the building once it officially opens in late August.

Morocco’s push to develop renewable power

RABAT // Last Monday near Tangiers, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI inaugurated 165 wind turbines the government is touting as Africa’s largest wind farm, the state news agency says.

The installation is Morocco’s latest advance in a drive for renewable energies that is winning it recognition as a regional leader in the field.

5 things to know about energy rebates

The government's Cash for Appliances program, which lets you score rebates for about $50 to $500 swapping energy guzzling appliances for more efficient models, has gotten lots of attention.

But don't count your greenbacks just yet. The incentives, which are administered through the states, are typically doled out on a first-come, first-served basis, and in many locales the money is already gone.

Little independence in global society

Concern over the current economic meltdown has eclipsed talk of peak oil, but the fact remains that the era of endless supplies of cheap energy, on which globalism absolutely depends, is drawing to a close.

La Nina expected in Pacific this year

(Reuters) - La Nina is likely to cool the tropical Pacific in coming months, a phenomenon which usually causes stronger monsoons across Asia and eastern Australia, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.

The weather condition also promotes the development of storms including hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic, it said.

Greenpeace: Paper company is 'trashing Indonesian rainforests'

(CNN) -- One of the world's largest pulp and paper companies is destroying Indonesia's rainforests and taking away the habitat of rare animals, environmental group Greenpeace charged Tuesday.

The Greenpeace report accuses Asia Pulp and Paper of "relentlessly trashing rainforests, driving species extinction and, if left unchecked, will threaten Indonesia's efforts to address climate change."

Are environmentalists for earth, or for themselves?

Why bother? It's a question many are asking since BP's debacle in the Gulf of Mexico. Is it worth the daily sacrifices we make — separating paper from plastic, standing ready with reusable totes, supplying kids with recycled crayons and paper — when our minuscule efforts can be washed away by one sloppily unsecured oil well? Perhaps it depends on what's really behind our drive to go green.

At least some of our motivation rests on the mistaken belief that the earth's survival depends solely on us. Do-it-yourself has long been America's default mantra. Fend for yourself and your loved ones or suffer the consequences of an empty retirement account, an ailment caught too late, or test scores too low to get your offspring into a reputable college. But can we do it ourselves when it comes to the environment?

China to host UN climate change talks in October

China will host UN climate change talks in October, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang here Tuesday.

The 12th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) and the 14th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) will be held in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, Qin told a regular news briefing.

Global Warming & the Insurance Industry 2010 - Analysing the Impact Global Warming & Climate Change Have on the Insurance Industry

Throughout their history, insurance companies have done more than collect premiums and pay claims. They've made the world a safer place - by promoting fire prevention, lobbying for building codes, testing the crash-worthiness of cars and rating vehicles for safety.

Now some insurers are worried by the threat to their business posed by climate change. And they are starting to see what, if anything, they can do about it.

New Errors Found in UN Climate Change Report

(CBS/AP) A leading Dutch environmental agency, taking the blame for one of the glaring errors that undermined the credibility of a seminal U.N. report on climate change, said it has discovered more small mistakes and urged the panel to be more careful.

But the review released Monday by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency claimed that none of the errors affected the fundamental conclusion by U.N. panel of scientists: that global warming caused by humans already is happening and is threatening the lives and well-being of millions of people.

Prices rise as New Zealand passes emissions trading scheme

The government has pressed ahead with plans to slash the nation's carbon output, despite widespread opposition and New Zealand's larger neighbour Australia shelving its own scheme.

Motorists were hit by a 3c (1.4p) rise in the price of a litre of petrol overnight, while householders face a 5 per cent increase in gas and electricity prices.

Oil Falls a Fourth Day After Unexpected Increase in U.S. Gasoline Supplies

Crude oil fell for a fourth day in New York, the longest losing streak in seven weeks, amid concern the economic recovery in the U.S. and China will slow and curb demand in the world’s two largest energy consumers.

Oil slumped to its lowest in two weeks as Hurricane Alex weakened to a Category 1 storm on its path over northeastern Mexico and forecasters said it could be further downgraded to a tropical storm by tomorrow. China’s manufacturing expanded at a reduced pace for a second month in June, adding to signs the fastest-growing major economy is cooling.

Hurricane Alex Strikes Mexico, Heads Inland

Hurricane Alex was downgraded to a tropical storm after it came ashore over northeastern Mexico from the Gulf of Mexico where it had shut down a quarter of oil production.

The earliest Atlantic hurricane since 1995 was packing maximum sustained winds of 70 miles (110 kilometers) per hour about 55 miles west of Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in advisory posted on its website just before 7 a.m. Central Time. The storm, earlier a Category 2 system blowing at 100 mph, was heading west at 12 mph and will continue to move inland today, the center said.

China expands natural gas network

China plans to expand natural gas storage facilities to all provinces except Tibet in the next few years to meet the surging demand, said Chi Guojing, Secretary General of China Gas Association.

CNPC, China's largest gas producer, and city gas distributors have prepared to establish storage facilities, according to Chi.

JX Nippon plans new LNG terminal

Japanese refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy is planning to build a liquefied natural gas receiving terminal in Kushiro, northern Japan, to tap projected growth in demand, especially from the industrial sector.

Pak hints India 'pulled out' of IPI due to US pressure

Three months after signing a $ 7.6 billion pact for a gas pipeline with Iran bilaterally, Pakistan has hinted that India had "pulled out" of the trilateral project under US pressure and said it could still join.

Belarus raises oil products transit tariff for Russia

MINSK (Itar-Tass) - The pumping of Russian oil products through oil mainlines located in the territory of Belarus from now on will cost higher by about 12.7 percent. The republic on Thursday introduces a higher tariff for the services of oil products’ transportation. The country’s Economics Ministry adopted a resolution on raising the tariffs on April 29.

Investors Are Wary of Petrobras Sale

Petrobras, the Brazilian energy giant, has taken a beating of late. But don’t blame BP for it all.

While Petrobras is heavily into the deep-water business, its technical prowess at ferreting out hydrocarbons trapped in the ocean is world class. What is questionable is the firm’s ability to withstand the Brazilian government’s designs to make it an instrument of social policy, as highlighted by its huge coming stock sale and spending program.

India auction of oil, gas blocks fetches $1.1 billion

NEW DELHI (AFP) – Companies have committed 1.1 billion dollars to explore for oil and gas in India's latest energy auction round, a statement said Wednesday, but the sum was shy of government hopes.

However, the government said it expects a much more enthusiastic response in its next auction thanks to a decision last week to allow petrol prices to be set by the market rather than the state.

Cambodia to pump oil in 2012

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA said on Thursday it will begin pumping oil for the first time in December 2012 as it looks to tap the potential of its offshore reserves.

Interior Delays Offshore Expansion Hearings

WASHINGTON — The Interior Department, preoccupied with its response to the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, said Wednesday that it was pushing back the date of public hearings on the administration’s plan, announced before the disaster began, to expand offshore drilling.

BP Oil Spill To Become Largest Ever In Gulf

BP's massive oil spill will become the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico by Thursday based on the highest of the federal government's estimates, an ominous record that underscores the oil giant's dire need to halt the gusher.

The oil that's spewed for two and a half months from a blown-out well a mile under the sea is expected to surpass the 140 million gallon mark, eclipsing the record-setting Ixtoc I spill off Mexico's coast from 1979 to 1980. Even by the lower end of the government's estimates, at least 71.2 million gallons are in the Gulf.

Despite Gulf Leak, World Still Wants Deepwater Oil

With crude still hemorrhaging into the Gulf of Mexico, deep-water drilling might seem taboo just now. In fact, extreme oil will likely be the new normal. Despite the gulf tragedy, the quest for oil and gas in the most difficult places on the planet is just getting underway. Prospecting proceeds apace in the ultra-deepwater reserves off the coasts of Ghana and Nigeria, the sulfur-laden depths of the Black Sea, and the tar sands of Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin. Brazil’s Petrobras, which already controls a quarter of global deepwater operations, is just starting to plumb its 9 to 15 billion barrels of proven reserves buried some four miles below the Atlantic.

Oily rain and cracks in the earth: Busting Gulf oil spill myths

As the prospect of an active hurricane season adds a new dimension to the on-going BP Gulf oil spill disaster, on-line media is awash with rumors of impending worst-case scenarios for the region. Viral Internet myths range from a collapsing seabed to oily rain to contaminated seafood.

Here are a few oil spill myths and misconceptions, addressed by scientists, experts, and official sources:

Sites to stop Gulf oil leak near completion

One of two relief wells being drilled to stop the Gulf oil spill is within about three football fields of intersecting the original, leaking pipe, and 15 feet off to the side, a BP spokesman said Wednesday. But it's still not expected to be finished before August: The process becomes more delicate the closer the drill gets.

Allen retires from Coast Guard, remains on oil spill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen retired on Wednesday from his military position but will remain incident commander overseeing the government's response to the BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Manager of BP oil fund says not all claimants will be paid

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The prominent US lawyer managing BP's 20-billion-dollar oil disaster fund said Wednesday not all claimants will be paid, especially some of those seeking compensation for falling houses prices.

Louisiana Governor Seals Oil-Spill Records

Elected officials in Louisiana and members of the public seeking details on how Gov. Bobby Jindal and his administration fared in their own response to the disaster are out of luck: late last week, the governor vetoed an amendment to a state bill that would have made public all records from his office related to the oil spill.

BP enlists Washington elite to help image

WASHINGTON — James Lee Witt, the former FEMA director who built his reputation responding to disasters, is poised to become the latest big name on a team of Washington insiders that BP has amassed to help it respond to the Gulf Coast oil spill, rescue its reputation and protect itself from lawsuits.

The list, which includes several prominent Democrats now working on behalf of a company responsible for the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history, is causing some unease — even in a city where power and influence are wielded and traded with ease.

Methane's hidden impact in Gulf oil spill

Large quantities of methane released by BP's oil blowout aren't fouling beaches like the Gulf oil spill is, but could endanger a key link in the undersea food chain.

BP Kills Turtles in Oil Containment Burns, Lawsuit Says

Endangered sea turtles are being killed in BP Plc’s “controlled burns” in the Gulf of Mexico by getting trapped inside the booms the company uses to collect spilled oil, wildlife activists said in a lawsuit.

London-based BP, which is struggling to control the largest spill in U.S. history, should be forced to stop the burns or ensure no turtles are caught inside the floating “corrals” before the oil is ignited, the environmentalists said in the suit. BP’s killing of the turtles constitutes an illegal “taking” of an endangered species under environmental laws, they claim.

Some 70,000 turtle eggs to be whisked far from oil

PENSACOLA BEACH, Florida (AP) — An effort to save thousands of sea turtle hatchlings from dying in the oily Gulf of Mexico will begin in the coming weeks in a desperate attempt to keep an entire generation of threatened species from vanishing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will coordinate the plan, which calls for collecting about 70,000 turtle eggs in up to 800 nests buried in the sand across Florida Panhandle and Alabama beaches.

The E.P.A. on Dispersants: Cure Is Not Worse Than the Disease

Initial tests of Corexit, the oil dispersant that BP is using in the Gulf of Mexico, and of competing products finds that the dispersants range from “practically nontoxic’’ to “slightly toxic,’’ the Environmental Protection Agency says.

Afghanistan war toll hits high mark

WASHINGTON — Coalition forces killed in Afghanistan topped 100 in June, the war's highest monthly toll and approaching some of the deadliest months in the Iraq war.

The deaths of 102 servicemembers included a record 59 Americans. Nine of the 46 nations in the U.S.-led coalition suffered fatalities, the most countries to lose troops since the conflict began nearly nine years ago.

The real Gulf BP oil crisis could be peak oil production

The real Gulf of Mexico and BP oil crsis could be peak oil production which maybe starting to rear it’s head at BP’s Thunder Horse oil platform that was supposed to extract a billion barrels of oil at a rate of 250,000 barrels a day.

Oil production at the Gulf’s Thunder Horse began in May 2008 and by the end of 2008 had reached 170,000 barrels per day. Then something unexpected happened, instead of oil production increasing to the rated 250,000 barrels daily, oil production began to drop at 2 to 3 percent each month so by the end of 2009 production was down to 60 or 70,000 barrels per day.

As BP is under no obligation to tell us what is going on at the Thunder Horse oil well, little news other than mandatory federal production reports have been released.

Loan Giants Threaten Energy-Efficiency Programs

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may not accept home loans if consumers take advantage of energy-efficiency programs.

Petrolheads steer for green track

I don't want to get carried away here, but what you have with the F1 brains trust is a kind of mini-Manhattan Project for auto engines. Set a demanding goal, provide a major pot of money and point enough brainy people in the right direction, and you stand a good chance of making it work - that's the theory, anyway.

It might seem a less purist approach to cutting carbon emissions than signing a global treaty on the subject, but that doesn't mean it won't bring in real savings - and even if you're not in the anthropogenic climate change camp, you might still appreciate the idea for the delay it will would bring to the onset of peak oil.

Blimps could replace aircraft in freight transport, say scientists

Fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers and other foreign luxuries could be part of a global revolution by carrying cargo around the world in airships instead of planes, one of the UK's leading scientists has predicted.

The government's former chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir David King, now director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the University of Oxford, told a conference that massive helium balloons – or blimps – would replace aircraft as a key part of the global trade network as a way of cutting global warming emissions.

Reducing the US carbon footprint, toe by toe

The best hope for a climate-change bill this year is one that would mandate use of alternative energy sources for electric utilities. Many states are already doing this, and Congress should follow – especially when it can't lead on global warming.

Delaware environment: Rising sea levels threaten coast

At the height of a nor'easter last November, waves broke through the dunes at Indian River Inlet and flooded Del. 1.

Further inland, at Oak Orchard and Riverdale, flooding was significant.

And to the north, along Delaware Bay, the rushing water ripped across the sand, inundating the nearby marshes in many areas.

But here is the worst of it: "That is going to become the new normal," said Collin O'Mara, state secretary of natural resources and environmental control.

Indonesia's last glacier will melt within years

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Lonnie Thompson spent years preparing for his expedition to the remote, mist-shrouded mountains of eastern Indonesia, hoping to chronicle the affect of global warming on the last remaining glacier in the Pacific. He's worried he got there too late.

Even as he pitched his tent on top of Puncak Jaya, the ice was melting beneath him.

MIAMI — Hurricane Darby has reached Category 3 strength, making it the second major hurricane of the eastern Pacific season. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Darby's maximum sustained winds Friday are near 115 mph (185 kph). The hurricane is located about 245 miles (395 kilometers ...

Hurricane Darby is still Category 3 strength, making it the second major hurricane of the eastern Pacific season. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Darby's

MIAMI – Hurricane Darby picked up strength Friday in off the coast of southwestern Mexico, becoming the second powerful hurricane in the eastern Pacific this season, the US National Hurricane Center said.

MIAMI — Hurricane Darby is still Category 3 strength, making it the second major hurricane of the eastern Pacific season. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Darby's maximum sustained winds Friday are near 120 mph (195 kph). The hurricane is located about 250 miles (405 kilometers) south-southwest of Acapulco, Mexico. It's heading west-northwest near 6 mph (9 kph).

MIAMI — Hurricane Darby is still Category 3 strength, making it the second major hurricane of the eastern Pacific season. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Darby's maximum sustained winds Friday are near 120 mph (195 kph). The hurricane is located about 250 miles (405 kilometers) south-southwest of Acapulco, Mexico. It's heading west-northwest near 6 mph (9 kph).

MIAMI - Hurricane Darby has reached Category 3 strength, making it the second major hurricane of the eastern Pacific season. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Darby's maximum sustained winds Friday are near 115 mph (185 kph). The hurricane is located about 245 miles (395 kilometers) south ...

MIAMI — Hurricane Darby has reached Category 3 strength, making it the second major hurricane of the eastern Pacific season. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Darby's maximum sustained winds Friday are near 115 mph (185 kph). The hurricane is located about 245 miles (395 kilometers) south-southwest of Acapulco, Mexico. It's heading west-northwest near 7 mph (11 kph).

The eastern Pacific is a hot bed of storm activity right now and that's mainly because the ocean is very warm over there. A pair of cyclones are now spinning off the coast of Mexico, Hurricane Celia and Tropical Storm Darby. Hawaii News Now.

The National Weather Service has extended a red flag warning for Leeward areas of the Hawaiian Islands.KHON2..

The Hawaii Business Roundtable clarified yesterday that it has not taken a position on a civil unions bill, responding to internal dissent and under pressure from gay rights advocates for urging Gov. Linda Lingle to veto the measure. Star-Advertiser.


Why the Roundtable Quieted Its Civil Unions Storm. Civil Beat.

The state won't be able to delay future tax refunds quite as long as it did this year, under a bill signed into law on Wednesday. KHON2.

More serious questions came out Wednesday about the state Tax Department’s contract with a Canadian technology company called CGI. KITV.


The Hawaii County Planning Department won a court victory Tuesday that could set a statewide precedent for other counties that miss self-imposed deadlines. West Hawaii Today.

Nearly eight years after taking office, Gov. Linda Lingle is still excited about Hawaii's renewable energy projects. West Hawaii Today.

Charles Djou raised $1.4 million in his special-election victory for Congress in May and had more cash in the closing weeks of the campaign to outspend state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa and former U.S. Rep. Ed Case, his main Democratic opponents. Star-Advertiser.

A recent fundraising trip to Pittsburgh is again causing heartburn for the Democratic gubernatorial campaign of Mayor Mufi Hannemann. Star-Advertiser.

Former Congressman Neil Abercrombie's campaign for governor will pay a $50 fine for filing notice for an April fundraiser in Washington, D.C., several hours late. Star-Advertiser.

The Honolulu Ethics Commission is allowing city councilman Rod Tam to pay thousands of dollars in restitution and fines interest-free over three years, after an ethics probe found he improperly billed the city for hundreds of meals. KITV

A proposed project to control the spread of strawberry guava is expected to receive a finding of no significant impact, according to a draft environmental assessment released today by state officials. West Hawaii Today.


Residents have until July 23 to comment on an Environmental Assessment concerning the release of a natural predator to control  strawberry guava in Hawai‘i, according to a state Department of Land and Natural Resources news release. Garden Island.

After reviewing petitions to list seven species of Hawaiian yellow-faced bees as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the documents present substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that listing may be warranted, and will initiate a 12-month review of the species' status. Big Island Weekly.


Tired of the loss and damage over the years, residents on Oahu's north shore learned about some potential solutions from a special meeting in Haleiwa on Wednesday night. Hawaii News Now.

Now that Hawaii County has the authority to pass laws restricting or even banning the use of fireworks, officials are being careful on what steps they will take next. Hawaii Tribune-Herald.


The Maui Planning Commission got the first public look Tuesday at detailed designs for the long-debated - and for many - long-awaited Honua'ula 1,400-unit housing development in South Maui. Maui News.


North Hawaii residents soon will have an easier time registering motor vehicles, and area crime victims will receive more privacy when talking with prosecutors. Hawaii Tribune-Herald.
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2010/06/23/local_news/local02.txt

The Ane Keohokalole Highway took another step forward Tuesday, when a Hawaii County Council committee approved the donation of nine lots and 16 easements from adjoining landowners. West Hawaii Today.


An early-afternoon brush fire caused massive traffic tie-ups Tuesday in Kahului after police closed a section of Hana Highway because of poor visibility caused by smoke and dust. Maui News.


The Heart Center at Hilo Medical Center is currently operating without its full-time cardiologist. Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

With an adult day care center opening at Home Pumehana in August, caretakers on Molokai can breathe a sigh of relief. Molokai Dispatch.

Our story last week about the changes in Hawaii’s journalistic landscape–and a note here about how those changes affect readers of the Weekly–brought in a strong response from readers. Honolulu Weekly.
http://honoluluweekly.com/editors-notes/2010/06/editors-note-21/

Public safety will not be jeopardized, and the public will be inconvenienced minimally under the Honolulu Police Department's furlough plan set to begin next week, Police Chief Louis Kealoha said yesterday. Star-Advertiser.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20100624Furloughs_to_slow_some_police_functions.html

The first hurricane of the current season has formed in the Eastern Pacific. The storm, named Celia is being tracked by The National Hurricane Center in Miami and Risk management Solutions. On its … Read the rest of this great post here

Hurricane Celia, the first hurricane of the 2010 Pacific season, formed in the eastern Pacific Ocean near Mexico on Sunday but was headed away from land, the US National Hurricane Center said.

Hurricane Celia, the first hurricane of the 2010 Pacific season, formed in the eastern Pacific Ocean near Mexico Sunday but was headed away from land, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Hurricane Celia, the first hurricane of the 2010 Pacific season, has formed in the eastern Pacific near Mexico but is heading away from land, the US National Hurricane Center says.

WISC Madison

2nd Pacific tropical depression forms off Mexico Houston Chronicle 2010 AP MIAMI — A tropical depression has formed off Mexico's southwestern coast as another one closer to shore dissipated. The National Hurricane Center ... Storm warnings canceled as depression dissipatesThe Associated Press Tropical Depression 2-E forms in the Eastern Pacific, number three may followHawaii 24/7 Tropical depression 02EReuters AlertNet Thaindian.com all 423 news articles »

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center says there’s a 75 percent chance that hurricane season in the eastern Pacific Ocean will be below normal this year.

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 03, 2010 - Tropical storm Phet intensified over the last 24 hours and has grown into a full-blown and powerful cyclone. NASA's Terra satellite imagery of the storm from earlier today also revealed an eye in the storm, confirming the intensification. Residents of coastal Oman are bracing for strong winds, heavy rainfall and rough surf today and tomorrow.

NASA's Terra satellite flew over Tropical Cyclone Phet at 06:55 UTC (2:55 a.m. EDT or 6:55 p.m. local time/Pakistan). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument, or MODIS captured a visible image of Phet at that time, and noticed an eye in the center of the storm's circulation. Satellite imagery indicates the eye is about 12 kilometers (7 miles) in diameter.

At 0900 UTC (9 p.m. local time/Pakistan), Tropical Cyclone Phet had maximum sustained winds near 110 knots (126 mph) with gusts to 135 knots (155 mph). It is now considered a major cyclone (equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale). It is about 560 miles southwest of Karachi, Pakistan, near 17.7 North and 60.6 East.

It is moving to the northwest near 5 knots (6 mph). Cyclone-force winds extend to 35 miles from the storm's center, while tropical-storm force winds extend as far as 75 miles from the center. It is creating very rough seas on the Arabian Sea with waves as high as 18 feet.

Cyclone Phet is a threat to coastal Oman, India (Gujarat), and Pakistan (Sindh and Balochistan). The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) has forecast the storm to continue intensifying and to approach Oman on its way to a weekend landfall in southeastern Pakistan between Karachi and to the border with India.

RSMC New Delhi warns that gale force winds will be experienced along the Oman coast today and tomorrow as Phet continues to move through the Arabian Sea.

related report
Like the Writer, Agatha Was a Brief Mystery
Tropical Storm Agatha made landfall this weekend in El Salvador and Guatemala, and crossed into the western Caribbean. Like Agatha Christie, the famous mystery writer, Agatha was somewhat of a forecasting mystery.

NASA's infrared satellite data showed a strong area of thunderstorms in the middle of Agatha's remnants on June 1, but they have continued to erode and the mystery of possible regeneration has been solved as the National Hurricane Center gives the chance of reorganization "near zero percent."

Agatha's remnants swept into the Western Caribbean Sea and is now numbered "System 91L." At 1800 UTC (12 p.m. EDT) on June 1, the center was located east of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, near 19.1 North and 85.9 West.

On Wednesday, June 2 at 1231 UTC (8:31 a.m. EDT) satellite imagery from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 showed three areas of concentrated scattered clouds in the Caribbean. One concentrated area of cloudiness was near northwestern Cuba, a larger area of cloudiness southeast of Florida, and in the Gulf of Mexico, one area of clouds south of Louisiana. None of these areas showed any signs of development.

Looking back at May 28, when Tropical Storm Agatha was about to make landfall, NASA and the Japanese Space Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite captured rainfall rates and cloud heights of the storm. That data revealed hot towers (very strong thunderstorms around the center of circulation), higher than 16 kilometers (10 miles) with very heavy rainfall (more than 2 inches per hour) in red areas as it was making landfall.

Agatha's remnants, or the area that is now called "91L" in the Caribbean Sea doesn't appear have much of a chance of powering up to the kind of storm it was in the Eastern Pacific, and it is not a mystery anymore.

Rebecca Lefton has an important post, "BP Disaster Is Cheney's Katrina" up at the Center for American Progress web pages. Lefton, researcher for Progressive Media at American Progress, provides a timeline, which provides a convincing rebuttal to the GOP meme that the BP spill is "Obama's Katrina." Says Lefton:

BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is without a doubt former Vice President Dick Cheney's Katrina. President George W. Bush and Cheney consistently catered to Big Oil and other special interests to undercut renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives that would set the United States on a more secure clean energy path.

Oil companies raked in record profits while benefitting from policies they wrote for themselves. These energy policies did nothing for our national security and left consumers to pay the price at the pump and on their energy bills, which rose more than $1,100 during the Bush administration.

Lefton provides a chart indicating that "Big Five" oil company profits, as well as consumer gas prices, doubled during the Bush Administration, and she provides a year-by-year breakdown of Bush-Cheney giveaways to Big Oil, including:

2001 - ...President Bush appointed Vice President Cheney--who gave up his title as CEO of oil and gas company Halliburton to take on his new role--with developing a new energy policy swiftly after taking office. But Cheney's relationship with Halliburton did not end. Cheney was kept on the company's payroll after retirement and retained around 430,000 shares of Halliburton stock.

The task force report was based on recommendations provided to Cheney from coal, oil, and nuclear companies and related trade groups--many of which were major contributors to Bush's presidential campaign and to the Republican Party. Oil companies--including BP, the National Mining Association, and the American Petroleum Institute--secretly met with the Cheney and his staff as part of a task force to develop the country's energy policy.

That was year one. For year two,

Bush released the fiscal year 2002 budget on April 9 that included steep cuts for clean energy research and development: "Solar and renewable energy R&D; would drop by more than a third; nuclear energy R&D; would be almost halved; and energy conservation R&D; would fall by nearly 25 percent."

R & D funding for biomass, geothermal, and solar energy programs was further reduced by Bush-Cheney for FY 2003 and the Republican -controlled congress provided multi-billion dollar tax breaks for dirty energy, as well as subsidies and loan guarantees. On August 8, 2005, Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which "closely resembled Cheney's 2001 plan and gave $27 billion to coal, oil and gas, and nuclear, and only $6.4 billion for renewable energy." Also in that year,

...The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service--the agency responsible for managing oil and gas resources on the Outer Continental Shelf and collecting royalties from companies--decided in 2005 that oil companies, rather than the government, were in the best position to determining their operations' environmental impacts. This meant that there was no longer any need for an environmental impact analysis for deepwater drilling, though an earlier draft stated that such drilling experience was limited. In fact, MMS "repeatedly ignored warnings from government scientists about environmental risks in its push to approve energy exploration activities quickly, according to numerous documents and interviews." And an interior general analysis even found that between 2005 and 2007 MMS officials let the oil industry to fill out their own inspection reports.

The Bush-Cheney pattern of cuts in funding for renewable energy R & D, coupled with subsidies and tax breaks for Big Oil continued throughout their administration, culminating in their 2008 lifting of the moratorium on offshore drilling, including the eastern Gulf of Mexico and offshore of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. As Lefton notes, "Bush then called on Congress to lift its own annual ban on drilling, as John McCain embraced "drill, baby, drill" that year."

Bush's Bungling mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort was the critical turning point for public opinion towards his administration. But, affirming observations made by TDS Co-Editor William Galston back in early May, Lefton makes a compelling case that the BP disaster in the Gulf should forevermore be known as "Cheney's Katrina."

Agatha, the first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season, weakened to a tropical depression over the mountains of Guatemala, the National Hurricane Center said.

NOAA’s National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center today announced that projected climate conditions point to a below normal hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific this year. The outlook calls for a 75 percent probability of a below normal season, a 20 percent probability of a near normal season and a five percent probability of an above normal season.

Hurricane Andrew hitting Florida, August 1992. Photo: NOAA Hurricane Preparedness Week will take place May 23-29, and the Atlantic hurricane season will start on June 1, so it's time to look at 2010 storm forecasts for the Eastern Seaboard. (The Eastern Pacific hurricane season starts on May 15.) Two major forecasts are predicting a severe Atlantic hurricane season, so make sure you're prepared, especially if you live in a hurricane-prone area. If you're a hurricane-forecast cynic, we understand. Last year we reported on predictions of a major Atlantic storm season, but not a single hurricane made landfall on the East Coast. Accuweather.com recently forecast that the 2010 hurricane season could produce 16 to 18 named storms, six of which could impact the U.S. coastline. Storm names slated for use in 2010 include Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Gaston, Hermine, Fiona, Igor, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tomas, Virginie, and Walter, according to the National Hurricane Center. The 2010 forecast from the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University calls for 15 named storms, with four becoming Category 3, 4, or 5 hurricanes. The Tropical Meteorology Project also predicts a 69 percent chance of a landfall on the U.S. coastline, with a 45 percent chance of a major storm hitting Florida and a 44 percent chance of a landfall between the Florida Panhandle and Mexico. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected announce its forecast on May 20. The NOAA will issue storm warnings earlier—you can even sign up for e-mail storm notification—and will use a new version of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale that doesn't tie storm-surge predictions to wind speeds since weaker hurricanes can still produce damaging storm surges. Essential Information: Our Storm & Emergency Guide offers detailed advice on emergency preparedness. And don't forget to stock your emergency-survival kit.

ON THE 3RD OF JULY 1814, a gang of scrappy Devonshire fishermen and crabbers working the Duncannon Pool of the Dart River in southwestern England fell upon a huge and disoriented sea creature that had made its way too far up the tidal reach and too close to the village of Stoke Gabriel. After four hours of bludgeoning it with boathooks in the muddy shallows (aided by a pair of furious terriers), they heard the twelve-foot fish emit a plaintive, expiring wail, “like the bellowing of a bull.” And that was that.

Or that would have been that, except word of the catch reached the ears of Colonel George Montagu, who lived in patrician seclusion on his estate some ten miles down the road. Montagu, veteran of the American Revolution (and at the time the world’s leading expert on the taxonomy of British sponges), was a corresponding member of several societies for natural history, and he set out to recover what was left of the carcass, which had been briefly exhibited at the county fair before being boiled down for oil—the bones unceremoniously dumped back in the river. A little diligent muckraking revealed the skeleton of what Montagu eventually decided was a little whale not previously seen on the English coast, so he wrote up a detailed anatomy and preserved its toothy skull.

Though Montagu stepped on a rusty nail a few months later and promptly died of tetanus, his final dissection outlived him: published posthumously, his account represents the first recognized scientific description of the bottlenose dolphin, a creature Americans generally think of as “Flipper,” but which those in the know call Tursiops truncatus. The skull of the Dart River Beast remains to this day in a drawer in London’s Natural History Museum—the eternal type specimen for the species as a whole. If, therefore, you wish to grasp the essential nature of the bottlenose, you should, technically speaking, start here, pulling item number GERM.353a, and looking down that bony beak into a pair of empty orbits. Alas, poor Yorick!

Actually, though, knowing the bottlenose is a good deal harder than that. Neither Colonel Montagu nor those rough-handed boatmen could have had any idea that the creature they dispatched to scientific apotheosis in 1814 would go on to lead such a queer and dramatic life in the collective imagination of modernity. Tursiops truncatus—a slate-gray, slick-skinned net thief, which coastal fishermen of the late nineteenth-century Atlantic sometimes called the “herring hog” in disgust—would, by the 1970s, leap in the vanguard of the Age of Aquarius, enjoying an improbable secular canonization as the superintelligent, ultrapeaceful, erotically uninhibited totem of the counterculture. And to this day, for many, the bottlenose—mainstay of aquatic ecotourism, beloved water-park performer, smiling incarnation of soulful holism—represents a cetacean version of our better selves. If, as Thoreau wrote a few years after the slaying of the Dart River dolphin, “animals . . . are all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to carry a portion of our thoughts,” then there are few creatures that have done more hauling for Homo sapiens in the twentieth century than Tursiops truncatus.

How? Why? Answering these questions demands a turn through the strange history of postwar American science and culture, and the unbraiding of a set of unlikely historical threads: Cold War brain science, military bioacoustics, Hollywood mythopoesis, and early LSD experimentation. Recovering our strange and changing preoccupations with the bottlenose dolphin across the twentieth century is, in the end, an adult swim. 

BUT LET’S START WITH the children. San Diego is as good a place as any to watch Tursiops grin and splash their way through our feel-good fantasy life. With this in mind, I pull into the oceanic parking lot of SeaWorld on a bright Saturday morning in August and make my way through the sprawling gates. By trade, I’m a left-leaning intellectual historian, so I know I am supposed to dislike this sort of establishment—rife with callow consumerism, sentimental vulgarity, and bad food. But the truth is, SeaWorld is pretty nice: sculpted paths edged by well-tended plantings of sea lavender and greasewood; shady groves hedged in blooming rosemary. And though the park is filled with weekending families, it doesn’t feel crowded; people (of all shapes, colors, sizes) are courteous, maneuvering their strollers into designated areas and waiting here and there in unrancorous concession lines.

I steer toward the “Rocky Point Preserve” to have a “Dolphin Encounter.” Admittedly, the Rocky Point Preserve is none of these things. For starters, there aren’t any real rocks, but rather an ersatz topography of sculpted cement surrounding a swimming-pool-blue in-ground enclosure. And the notion of a “preserve” must be extended considerably beyond customary usage to be applicable here, where a dozen nonendangered Tursiops line up to be fondled in exchange for vanishingly small smelt. One does fret for a moment about a culture that accepts such a perfect inversion of meanings in the name of infotainment: dolphin preserve? They probably sell jars of it in the gift shop.

But surely only a wild-eyed animal libertarian could grouse about the cerulean interspecies paideia unfolding before me. The tank looks clean enough, and the tykes are comely and unblemished. Moreover, as a cheerful woman on a headset microphone explains to the crowd, the dolphins have the option to wait out the “encounter period” in a small inaccessible side pool—a sort of cetacean greenroom. This fact draws a misty aura of mutuality over the moment (though, like much mutuality, there are the inevitable hidden constraints: this is how these creatures get their rations, so understandably few opt for inordinate displays of privacy when smelt, however diminutive, are on offer). I take my paper tray of little fish and join the line.

Opportunities to interact with Tursiops truncatus drive a healthy minor industry in the U.S. and abroad. Touch-and-feed attractions like this one are ubiquitous at water-themed amusement parks around the world, and programs in Mexico, the British Virgin Islands, and elsewhere cater to tourists seeking fully immersed contact with these animals. The most elaborate of such enterprises feature “dolphin assisted therapy,” which offers patient-customers the opportunity for extended aquatic intimacies that promoters insist can work wonders with autistic children, the withdrawn, those suffering from chronic pain—a whole roster of ailments like those that once drove pilgrims to the baths at Lourdes.

SeaWorld itself offers occasions for such miracles. One of the park’s employees tells me the story of an old man in a local nursing home who had been mute and vegetative before a community service agency brought him into the park’s Dolphin Interaction program, whereupon, after several sessions, he reportedly regained his vitality, his will to live, and finally even his speech. Anecdotes like this concerning the salvific powers of Tursiops abound in the subculture of committed dolphin lovers, many of whom believe that the animals use their sonar (bottlenose dolphins possess powerful abilities to echolocate underwater, scanning their environment by means of sound) to reach inside the human body for diagnostic or palliative purposes—and perhaps also, at times, to reach inside the human mind. As one dolphin handler put it to me, looking up from a pen of captive Tursiops, “Plenty of folks out there think these creatures are closer to God.”

Though it is by no means obvious, upon reflection, why one would accord Tursiops this privilege. Despite the widespread sense of the benevolence of these beasts, there are reported instances of wild and captive Tursiops injuring and even killing swimmers. Males are, episodically, libidinous in the extreme, and in some of these cases it has been alleged that the aggressive animals had mating in mind. As for their vaunted intelligence, it’s an iffy thing: for instance, they have not proven especially savvy about escaping from fishing nets at sea; and though they can jump almost twenty feet in the air, they very rarely sort out how easy it would be to roll over the top of an encircling trap. When I explained to the chief veterinarian at SeaWorld that I had come to spend some time with the Tursiops, he tried to be encouraging, but it was clear they were not his favorite animals; the “bad boys of the cetacean fraternity” he called them, and mentioned that the aquarium staff at Epcot had tried to put Tursiops in their large sea tank but found that the males were so aggressive in their efforts to “breed” the sharks (family-park euphemism there) that it was a matter of life and death—for the sharks, which ultimately had to be quarantined. Inclined now and again to rake, butt, and sodomize each other, these powerful sea mammals with fixed grins have presented challenges to their keepers from the earliest days of captivity: one male in a Florida facility in the late 1940s used to spend a good deal of time hanging poolside, its lengthy member inserted into the filtration hose, through which ran a firm current of fresh seawater.

“What do they feel like?” asks the blond woman in a purple and black wet suit who wears the Madonna mike. “A hot dog!” chirps a small girl in a pink dress. And it’s true, I think, brushing the top of a gaping snout as I dangle my limp fry over the deep, pink throat guarded by a snapping jaw of needle-teeth—they do feel very much like a hot dog.

FOR A BRACINGLY CONTRASTIVE glimpse of the bottlenose, one need only take a short drive south from the pink and green-blue towers of SeaWorld, climbing over the ridge of Point Loma on Nimitz Boulevard. A quick right turn, and Rosecrans Street peters out into a warren of armed gatehouses and federal installations. Welcome to the Bayside Campus of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), home to about seventy-five Tursiops truncatus, the majority of which are so-called “fleet animals” trained to perform military functions. Some of them deploy with the Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Units (primarily in swimmer interdiction programs—i.e., the dolphins serve as underwater watchdogs), and others work with Navy Special Clearance Team One (primarily in mine detection operations—i.e., the dolphins assist in identifying and locating underwater explosives, using their natural capacities for echolocation).

Cleared through the checkpoint and clipped with a small red security tag, I make my way down to the water’s edge in the company of a minder from the Navy’s Public Affairs Office. Now and again the billowing thunder from a fighter jet—already long gone over the Pacific—momentarily forestalls communication and redlines the input indicator on my Dictaphone.

With the permission of my host, I step out onto the floating piers, where a dozen or so civilian employees pad around in flip-flops, wearing sun visors and carrying large, cylindrical, fish-filled Igloo coolers emblazoned in garish magic marker with names: Niño, Mu, Old Ben, Shasta, Belle. Here and there out of the honeycomb of docks a large bottlenose suddenly squirts from the water in a suspended vault, before splashing back into its pen, having seized a mackerel from a dockside handler. A few divers emerge from a shed, carrying their tanks and flippers; and three small center-console runabouts, battleship gray, nose in and out around the lattice of nested holding pens, license-plate-sized American flags flapping from long radio antennae.

My guide rehearses the official history and nonclassified operational specifics of the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program: Dating back to the early 1960s and emerging out of research into hydrodynamics (it was briefly thought that the study of dolphin swimming might lead to improvements in torpedo design), the Navy’s work with captive Tursiops eventually gave rise to a then-secret plan to deploy trained dolphins in Vietnam, as part of an effort to capture and/or kill Viet Cong sappers raiding the ammunition depots of Cam Ranh Bay. Though the deployment did not last for very long, Navy records accounted the program a success, and military divers continued to expand the scope of their tactical work with free-swimming trained bottlenose.

Some of the animals before me now are ready to go, should the call come. Bayside personnel pride themselves on their ability to get their Tursiops (which leap up out of the water into carrying slings on command) aboard the cargo planes—accompanied by their retinue of veterinary technicians and trainers, mobile tanks and filtration systems—in a matter of hours. Deployment specifics are classified, but mine-sweeping dolphins (often outfitted, cyborglike, with undersea cameras and other equipment) were used at the start of the most recent Iraq war, and there is every reason to think that some of the animals having their lunch right here have done a tour in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, with life spans of over forty years, it is quite possible that some of them have smelled the Mekong Delta—rumor has it that Toad, one of the beloved animals from the Cam Ranh Bay mission, is still alive, but no one will tell me where she is.

My guide, who has fielded queries from many Vietnam-obsessed conspiracy theorists over the years (Did the dolphins ever actually kill anybody? No no, they were only trained to “mark” intruders . . . ), would rather talk about the future. The latest plan is to use Navy Tursiops to ratchet up port security in the war on terror: trained bottlenose already assist in perimeter monitoring in the open water around moored military vessels at a base in King’s Bay, Georgia, and a similar arrangement is slated for deployment later this year at a Navy shipyard in Washington State, not far from Seattle. Not surprisingly, a number of animal protection groups oppose these projects, and dolphin-loving radicals from such organizations have attacked Navy marine mammal facilities on several occasions over the years, in efforts to liberate animals or damage equipment.

I descend the gangplank to the pools, and stand just a few feet from one of the animals, which rolls to its side to eye me, showing the lightest pink edging of a white belly. The gaze is steady, attentive; the body motionless. This is Belle, a military dolphin.

Wouldn’t the little girl in the pink dress on the other side of Point Loma be surprised to meet Belle? After all, she just might be a trained killer.

CONCEPTUALLY SPEAKING, San Diego’s geographically adjacent dolphin-worlds would seem to be a million miles apart. What is truly strange, then, is to discover that they are, genealogically speaking, kissing cousins.

The roots of this family tree lie buried in a set of forty-one boxes in the basement of the Stanford University Archives. These weathered files, acquired at a considerable price (rumored to touch the hem of seven figures), represent the personal and laboratory papers of the most important dolphin scientist of the twentieth century, the controversial neurophysiologist John Cunningham Lilly—the man who was, in effect, the spiritual grandfather of both the new age dolphin and its military alter ego. Lilly died in 2001, and though he is now widely reviled by those who study Tursiops truncatus professionally (working scientists have for some time tended to dismiss him as a lunatic or a charlatan), there is, in fact, no one who played a larger role in shaping modern ideas about dolphins. To the extent that Tursiops has been a hard-working Thoreauvian “beast of burden” for much of the last half century, it was John C. Lilly who put the smiling creature in harness.

So who was Lilly? His early biography offers little hint of what would be his enduring obsession with the bottlenose. Taking a degree in physics from Caltech in 1938, Lilly headed off to study medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, joining the war effort as a researcher in avionics. An early photo shows him as a rakish young scientist, smoking a corncob pipe while tinkering with a device designed to monitor the blood pressure of American flyboys—a number of whom, in those days, were actually using surfacing cetaceans for strafing practice.

After the war, motivated in large part by contact with the pioneering brain surgeon Wilder Penfield, Lilly turned his hand to neuroscience, applying the era’s expanding array of solid-state electronic devices to the monitoring and mapping of the central nervous system. Eventually appointed to a research position at the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), Lilly spent the better part of a decade conducting invasive cortical vivisection on a variety of animals, particularly macaques. In the spy-versus-spy world of the high Cold War, this kind of work had undeniably creepy dimensions. Manchurian Candidate anxieties about “forced indoctrination” and pharmacological manipulation of political loyalties peaked in the 1950s, and security establishment spooks (as well as a few actual thugs) hung around the edges of the laboratories where scientists were hammering electrodes into primate brains. Lilly later claimed not to care for that sort of thing, but in his prime as a government employee he had high-level security clearance—J. Edgar Hoover knew him by name—and was actively involved in research into brainwashing (or “reprogramming” as it was then called among the cognoscenti), sleep deprivation, and “operant control” of animals with wires implanted in the “pain centers” of their gray matter. Lilly’s papers from this period include a black-and-white photograph of two brain-wired monkeys at coitus, ostensibly being driven by remote electrical stimulation. It may have been some sort of inside joke around the lab, but maybe not.

It was about this time that Lilly learned from a European colleague, an oceanographer with military contracts to study the physiology of deep-diving, that the small toothed whales had surprisingly large brains—proportionately speaking nearly as large as those of human beings; and in absolute terms, bigger. Intrigued, Lilly got wind of an outfit in Florida—Marine Studios, which was at this time a cross between a public aquarium and an underwater sound stage for shooting swamp-thing-oriented B-movies—that had figured out how to keep bottlenose in captivity. By 1955 Lilly had found his way down to St. Augustine, in the company of a number of other researchers, to hammer some electrodes into Tursiops brains and see what happened. 

This may sound flippant, but that was in fact the basic modus operandi in the early days of neurophysiology: stick electrode into brain; apply charge; observe animal; move electrode; repeat. The correlation of spasms, jerks, and eye-rolling with the position of the electrode eventually amounted to a cortical map. It was an ugly business, but the youthful Lilly was not a sentimental character. He wanted to get inside heads, and, if possible, get his hands on the steering wheel of consciousness—as can be surmised from the title of a shocking unpublished paper he prepared in these years, “Special Considerations of Modified Human Agents as Reconnaissance and Intelligence Devices,” where he noted proudly that “a technique for covert and relatively safe implantation of electrodes into the human brain has been devised”—a little hardware that would ultimately provide “push-button control of the totality of motivation and of consciousness.”

The dolphins, which (unlike people) do not continue breathing when anaesthetized, had the good fortune, for the most part, to die with merciful dispatch. One of them, however, before succumbing, made a set of wheezing phonations that Lilly interpreted as an effort to mimic the voices of the laboratory personnel. It was his eureka moment, and he would later equate it with the Copernican Revolution. For Lilly, and those who became his champions, that fateful day at Marine Studios would forever stand as the epiphany of a fundamental discovery: human beings were not at the center of the animal universe. After knocking firmly on countless mammalian brains, the energetic brain doctor finally got a reply—John C. Lilly had heard a voice.

To appreciate the rings of significance that widened from this laboratory scene, it is critical to understand that in the 1950s no one thought of whales and dolphins as “musical” or “intelligent” or—of all things—“spiritually enlightened.” At that time, the large whales were generally regarded as huge kegs of fat (useful for making soap), meat (good to feed to chickens), and fertilizer (best thing to do with what was left after you took the fat and meat), and the smaller dolphins and porpoises were mostly just a nuisance to fishermen—though bottlenose were sometimes actually hunted, since the fine oil in their jaw ducts was considered a superior lubricant for precision timepieces.

This context helps explain the furor that attended Lilly’s presentation, in May of 1958 (at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco), of a paper that made a set of dramatic claims for the intelligence and linguistic abilities of Tursiops truncatus. Despite his small and entirely anecdotal evidence, newspapers on both coasts picked up the fascinating story (Talking fish! What will they think of next?), and by the autumn of that year Lilly was writing grants for a major initiative to study cetacean communication and cognition. In a matter of months he had quit his job at NIMH, separated from his wife of two decades, and moved to the Caribbean. Initially using some of his own funds, but soon outfitted with a string of prestigious federal research awards (National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Department of Defense, even NASA), Lilly founded his own nonprofit scientific establishment—the Communications Research Institute, or CRI—and built a dedicated dolphin laboratory, complete with holding tanks and state-of-the-art bioacoustical equipment, on Nazareth Bay at the eastern end of St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He also married a woman from the Islands, a divorced fashion model named Elisabeth Bjerg.

ARCHIVE WORK IS, when you get right down to it, a pain in the ass. The chairs are hard, the room generally silent, the papers often boring. What’s worse, Palo Alto produces one perfect day after another. Time for a break. Time to do a little bodysurfing in the glorious, roiling waters of the Pacific.

An hour or so later I am tucked into my wetsuit (critical equipment for research trips) and making my way down to a small arc of sand nested at the bottom of a precipitous and eroding dune. The water is less cold than I feared, and I paddle out, feeling my neoprene skin fill with brine. A handful of hardboard surfers cork in a line about a hundred yards offshore, waiting for the combers that mount smoothly on the outside reef. By contrast, the shore break is sloppy, more up and down than straight ahead; but it still feels good to move freely in the active surf. When a fair-sized wave rises behind me, I give a kick, throwing my legs up into the curl. One stroke and I am in the churn, body stiff, chin tucked, hands out, splitting the liquid like a prow and feeling the hard sand as I am driven ashore.

Why was Lilly so amazingly successful at promoting his unlikely program of research on the bottlenose? After all, he managed to cash in upward of half a million dollars a year in grants at his peak—big money in those days. And for what? Dolphin communication? Rolling over in the spent foam of a receding wave and looking out across the heaving blue, it occurs to me that part of the answer lies right here: in the ocean and its changing meanings.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of being propelled through a slipstream in a sea surge, the rush of water seeming to lengthen the body into a fusiform streak. So natural does this watery pleasure feel, so native to the body and the mind, that one easily forgets the novelty and historical specificity of this way of experiencing the briny deeps. Granted, there have long been surfers and surf-swimmers among the traditional peoples of the Pacific islands, but it took a very long time for Anglo-Europeans to approach the sea with anything but anxiety and disgust. The beach as a locus of health and pleasure is a firmly nineteenth-century invention (before that it was a convenient place to throw garbage). And our crystalline vision of refreshing, turquoise waters teeming with beautiful fish would have had little currency before the mid-twentieth century—right about when Lilly turned to the bottlenose. Only then did the widening availability of inexpensive swim goggles and modestly safe diving equipment open leisured access to underwater vistas. Previously, the sea floor fell away in the imagination as murky and abysmal—unaccommodating, hostile, black.

The 1950s and 1960s, then, saw the emergence of a new and widespread cultural preoccupation with the undersea world, a burst of interest on which Lilly drew and capitalized, and to which he ultimately contributed. It was in a file that he had labeled, somewhat ominously, “Solitude,” that I found Lilly’s dog-eared paperback copy of The Silent World, the popular oceanic vade-mecum authored by the psychopomp of SCUBA, Jacques Cousteau, and popularized in the U.S. in the late ‘50s in connection with a successful motion picture of the same name. Significantly, Lilly had marked with care a number of passages, all of which dealt with the kinetic and tactile experience of being submerged, weightless, isolated, and sensitized by a descent into the aquatic realm.

Lilly was no diver, however. His deep fascination with these feelings hails from a very different arena:  his long-standing research into that menacing corner of the human sciences known as sensory deprivation. While still working for the government at NIMH, Lilly and several collaborators developed a new technique for testing the psychological stability of human beings under sustained isolation and reduced sensory input: the flotation tank. Warm water, circulating silently through a perfectly dark chamber, buoyed a naked experimental subject over whose whole head had been fitted a latex mask attached to life-support and monitoring devices. Money for this sort of research hailed, of course, from the military, which was mostly curious how pilots and submariners (and potentially astronauts) would fare during long spells of lonely tedium. When it turned out that many subjects rapidly came unhinged in this disorienting environment, unforeseen possibilities emerged: the technology could be used in personality assessment, and perhaps also in personality adjustment. Lilly himself—fearless about self-experimentation, and already beginning to conceive of himself as a cosmonaut of consciousness—spent many hours encased in his own tanks, exploring what happened when a mind in the water was left to its own devices. The results were trippy (this was, after all, the Lilly that would later inspire the sci-fi thriller Altered States), but he was convinced that the mentally sophisticated and strong—those with what he would eventually call “wet courage”— could thrive under these conditions. One had to transcend the terror, because a kind of enlightenment lay on the other side.

Suspended in warm water, in perfect darkness, Lilly became, you might say, a brain in a vat. And he liked it. Liked it enough that he took a flotation tank with him to his new St. Thomas dolphin laboratory, where it soon became an important tool in his increasingly eccentric pursuit of cetacean intelligence. His own lengthening spells in weightless submersion led him to ponder with mounting awe the sort of mammalian brain that would evolve to dwell in the deep sea. It would be, he decided, a mind like his own, only more so: fearless, deep, and self-sufficient—an expansive intelligence in contemplation of itself. Moving to the Caribbean, Lilly mostly left the electrodes behind, and embarked on a new way of getting inside the heads of his experimental animals: rather than cracking them open like nuts and rewiring them like doorbells, he would cogitate his way in, commensurating his intelligence to theirs, becoming, through strenuous exercises of sympathetic convergence, his own instrument—more and more he wanted to “think like a dolphin.” Thus a nasty piece of Cold War psy-ops technology was launched on a new career path: as the head-trip hot-tub of psychedelia. Before long, Lilly, floating in the dark, was piping the feed from the hydrophones in the dolphin tanks to his own stereo headphones and trying to imagine what it would be like to “see” with sound. And that was pretty far out.

ON THE GRANT APPLICATIONS, however, the central research project of Lilly’s Caribbean dolphin institute was more straightforward: “communication.” At the most basic level this meant studying the phonations of Tursiops truncatus in an effort to understand if they could communicate with each other, and, by extension, if we could communicate with them. Like any savvy fund-raiser, Lilly sold his idea of intelligent and communicative dolphins to different people in different ways, and he started with those he knew best: his earliest and most important backers were in the military.

One of Lilly’s old classmates from Caltech, William B. McLean, had gone on to glory as a wizard of warcraft, developing the Sidewinder (the first functional air-to-air missile), and rising to serve as the technical director of the U.S. Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) in China Lake, California. McLean was struck by Lilly’s visionary ideas, and had him out to NOTS for a briefing—where he clearly stimulated some out-of-the-box thinking. Sifting Lilly’s correspondence from these heady and secretive years, I discovered a magnificently cryptic letter from an excited Navy researcher at NOTS following up on the visit: 

I have wondered whether it might not be feasible to attempt to develop some mechanical equipment that a dolphin might use . . . [and] wondered whether it might be at all feasible (and I realize that this idea may sound a little fantastic) to arm dolphins with some sort of weapon that would enable them more easily to attack shark . . .

And why not something more elaborate, like,

. . . the possibility of developing some dolphin toys, large complex mechanical devices that might be of some interest to dolphins in the open seas, that would involve some kinds of buttons to push that would generate running water, perhaps with one trained dolphin teaching others.

It is surpassingly unlikely that the Navy was contemplating mid-ocean dolphin playgrounds at the height of the Cold War. The veils of euphemism barely conceal that something considerably more germane to national defense was on the drawing boards at China Lake. Lilly himself, writing a few years later, was more explicit:

They could be very useful as antipersonnel self-directing weapons. They could do nocturnal harbor work, capture spies let out of submarines or dropped from airplanes, attacking silently and efficiently and bringing back information from such contacts. They could deliver atomic nuclear warheads and attach them to submarines or surface vessels and to torpedoes and missiles.

By 1961, the Navy had developed its own research program on dolphin communications and intelligence, and two years later a formal Navy facility for marine mammal study and training had been opened at the Naval Missile Center at Point Mugu, a little north of Los Angeles. Lilly, however, who was spending more and more time in his flotation tank trying to commune with his experimental animals, would soon be persona non grata at this facility, despite his having had a hand in its creation. The buzz-headed types had noticed that Lilly was getting a little, well, weird.

But the Navy was never Lilly’s only paymaster. Persuaded that he had glimpsed a genuine dolphin “intelligence” in the late 1950s, Lilly also succeeded in selling the nation’s nascent space administration on the idea that his dolphin laboratory could provide a model system for “breaking through” to a nonhuman mind. In the era of Sputnik this meant actual extraterrestrials, which may sound crazy now, but these issues lay on the cutting edge of national concern in those days: if we met the little green men (or, more likely, started receiving radio signals from deep space that looked to carry nonstochastic levels of information), what would we do? Lilly promised that dolphins offered a chance to rehearse, and he positioned CRI as a visionary organization conducting fundamental work in exobiology. In fact, by 1962, Lilly even presided as the “Grand Dolphin” over a kind of semiserious secret society of prominent astrophysicists, radio astronomers, atmospheric chemists, and computer engineers who called themselves “The Order of the Dolphin,” wore small, engraved Tursiops insignia (a little like a tie clip), and exchanged messages in binary code to test each others’ readiness for extraterrestrial contact.

One of these visionary “Dolphins” was a brilliant young Harvard astrophysicist named Carl Sagan, who made his way down to St. Thomas several times in these years to meet Lilly’s dolphins and muse about alternate forms of life in the cosmos.

By 1964, “Want to come and see my dolphins?” had become an irresistible invitation.

THAT WAS BECAUSE by the early 1960s Lilly and his dolphins had become a national, indeed an international, phenomenon. In the wake of the initial flurry of interest in his 1958 claims about the linguistic abilities of Tursiops truncatus, Lilly seized a trade-book contract and gave free rein to his exuberant imagination. The resulting volume—Man and Dolphin, published by Doubleday in 1961—offered an intrepid-scientific-explorer narrative of the building of the Nazareth Bay lab, together with some headline-ready suggestions about the future of human-dolphin interactions. Passages of startling weirdness (if dolphins prove as intelligent as the initial studies suggest, then “for a long time presumably they will be in the position of the Negro races in Africa who are attempting to become Westernized”) were buttressed by pseudo-technical appendices on neuroanatomy and illegible sonographs of Tursiops phonation. The book, with its tincture of Planet of the Apes fantasy and just-the-facts authority, thrust Lilly onto the national stage in earnest as the iconoclastic boffin of porpoise intelligence: an appearance on the Jack Paar Show followed, together with a photo-spread in Life magazine, talking dolphins in New Yorker cartoons, and glowing reviews throughout the national press. The initial print run of Man and Dolphin sailed off the shelves, and Lilly’s Rolodex swelled to include White House contacts, Hollywood film celebrities, and a host of enthusiasts, fans, and well-to-do hangers-on.

Inspired by Lilly’s depiction of CRI as a kind of Swiss Family Robinson outpost (Man and Dolphin played up the fact that Lilly and his beautiful new wife and their respective children all lived at the lab and participated in the research), the Florida-based Hungarian émigré film director Ivan Tors undertook to produce a film about a Lassie-like dolphin and the family it loves. The 1963 blockbuster Flipper not only gave Lilly a credit line (and research support out of the proceeds); it also gave the world its first “domestic” marine mammal—a lovable, faithful, gentle, and chuckling companion.

Another Hungarian, the physicist Leo Szilard, also boosted Lilly’s cachet in this period, citing him by name in a biting and popular satire on the nuclear arms race, The Voice of the Dolphins. This futurist tale, which emerged out of Szilard’s conversations with Lilly in the late 1950s in Washington, depicts a Soviet-American scientific research institute that departs from Lilly’s work and seemingly succeeds in communicating with dolphins; they prove to be brilliant strategic thinkers, and help steer humans away from thermonuclear devastation. (They are the Delphic oracles—get it?)

The general hubbub attracted a steady stream of high-profile visitors to St. Thomas in the early 1960s, perhaps none more important to the emerging vision of the bottlenose than the quirky and brilliant British anthropologist Gregory Bateson, already well known as an avant-garde social theorist with an appetite for cybernetics. After reading Man and Dolphin, Bateson wrote Lilly an admiring letter, pressing him to think still harder about the ways that Tursiops truncatus could serve its human interlocutors. Indulging his appetite for ethnographic speculation concerning the minds of others (together with an immoderate enthusiasm for semiotics and psychology), Bateson laid out a sweeping theory of cross-species language development: human beings, in his view, possessed a language disproportionately preoccupied with stuff. This was our joy and our pain, since the evolution of such thing-centered linguistic abilities had gone hand in hand with the extraordinary material culture of Homo sapiens, from moldboard plows to supersonic cruise missiles. Yet in Bateson’s view this same evolution had left us with a grotesquely impoverished intelligence in the domain of social relations: those intersubjective complexities, he averred, “are very poorly represented in language and consciousness.” Homo faber was, in this sense, “stunted,” and the consequences, for Bateson, were clear: war, social conflict, pervasive psychological maladjustment.

Enter the bottlenose. Permit a human-sized intelligence to develop over millions of years in a highly social animal, which—on account of its aquatic evolution—possessed no hands, and thus no real capacity to manipulate a material culture, and it was reasonable to hypothesize that the cognition of such a creature would be radically, fundamentally, pervasively social. Theirs would be a language not of things but of beings. As Bateson put it to Lilly, “If I am right, and they are mainly sophisticated about the intricacies of interpersonal relationships, then of course (after training analysis) they will be ideal psychotherapists for us.”

The Navy definitely had no need for dolphin psychoanalysts, and neither did NASA. But around the end of 1964, Lilly—whose second marriage was in free fall, and whose much-hyped research was generating nugatory publishable results—needed all the help he could get. More than ever he needed to listen to the dolphins; and he needed to hear them. 

SO HOW DO YOU “break through”? Well, this had always been Lilly’s basic preoccupation as a scientist of the mind. And indeed, over the course of his decade of intensive dolphin research, Lilly can be understood to have more or less sequenced through the whole battery of Cold War techniques for dealing with a tight-lipped foreign asset held in captivity. Initially committed, in the late 1950s, to that spookish tool kit of techno-maniacal assaults on the cranium (picture a Frankenstein-like cap with electrodes penetrating the skull), Lilly gradually moved, at CRI, to less invasive approaches with his animals. But he nevertheless continued to draw on the playbook of those psy-ops intelligence services that shaped his early training in neurophysiology. For instance, by the early 1960s he was testing code-breaking techniques, having been granted access to one of the very earliest programmable electronic computers, which he used to try to sieve recordings of dolphin vocalizations for patterns, deploying the same statistical methods as Cold War cryptographers. A little later he began experimenting with “chronic contact” scenarios, which involved “isolating” a dolphin in constricted quarters with a human agent, on the assumption that a conversion of loyalties would result. To this end, Lilly even redesigned the St. Thomas laboratory with floodable living quarters, and initiated a set of long-term cohabitation experiments in which a male dolphin and a human female in a leotard and lipstick (to help the dolphin see her mouth move, of course) spent weeks interacting in a confined space. Lilly had her read Planet of the Apes to prepare for the work.

This sort of deracinating, intensive environment—colored with erotic potential—belonged, of course, to the world of counterespionage debriefings. Lilly did not explicitly advertise these dimensions of his project, preferring to talk of the need to treat the dolphin like a child, positioned to learn human language from the continuous attentions and baby talk of a new “mother.” But he was by no means unhappy when an Oedipal scene unfolded underwater: with all the inevitability of a classical drama, this newest effort at interspecies communication eventually climaxed in what is probably the very oldest form of human-animal intimacy—sexual contact.

Pressed by an increasingly desperate Lilly to recognize that she needed to open herself to the dolphin’s solicitations (and warned by him against succumbing to the blinders of her own cultural preoccupations and psychological blockages), the young experimenter eventually decided that the randy and terrifying buckings of her imprisoned subject animal were themselves nothing less than his effort to communicate. In the protocols of her experimental notebooks she recorded coming to feel that her sharp-toothed roommate was doing the best he could to solicit her in a more and more gentle manner; it fell to her to meet him halfway, stroking him to a shuddering calm.

Lilly chalked it up as a victory for interspecies contact. But Swiss Family Robinson it was not. Neither was Lilly’s final effort to hear what the dolphins were saying, which involved the use of lysergic acid diethylamide, otherwise known as LSD.

This now seems to us, perhaps, paradigmatic of the mid-’60s moment, and in this sense, inevitably, a little comic. But such a reaction trades considerably on hindsight. After all, Lilly’s use of pharmaceutical-grade LSD-25 on his experimental subjects was entirely consistent with the trajectory of his borrowings from the Cold War sciences of mind and behavior. Indeed, the drug was widely tested at Veterans Hospitals in the United States as an aid to psychotherapy, in that it was understood to break down inhibition and open pathways to hidden parts of consciousness. It was precisely these putative features of LSD that drew it to the attention of the CIA, which used this powerful psychotropic agent both with and without the awareness of human subjects in these years. As a federal researcher Lilly secured the product (which was a controlled substance) from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals under an NIMH contract, and was explicit about his intentions to give it to the dolphins. I am quite certain that no one evaluating the application would have batted an eyelash, since there were plenty of neuroscientists giving LSD-25 to captive animals in those days—including fish, dogs, and primates.  It made perfect sense to try it on the animal that seemed to offer the greatest promise of cognitive sophistication.

In fact, if the project was communication—if the inhibitions and blind spots of the experimenter were no less a hindrance than the resistance of the subject, if the aim, in the end, was nothing less than the commensuration of minds—then perhaps it was the scientist who needed the LSD even more than the dolphin? Or better yet, both scientist and dolphin could take it together, and then, for the first time, really, they might come to an understanding—floating in the blue water, listening to the strange sounds echoing through their heads.

Together they were drifting over a cultural watershed. Lilly and his dolphins had tuned in and turned on.

AND, SOON ENOUGH, they had dropped out. Or, more like, been kicked out. By the end of 1965, still short of peer-reviewed publications, and with rumors of his increasingly idiosyncratic experimental practices swirling among his professional colleagues (including several who had been folded into the Navy’s rapidly expanding marine mammal project), Lilly faced devastating evaluations from a visiting board of grant examiners—an assessment of his work that effectively torpedoed his research program and shuttered the Nazareth Bay laboratory. Incensed, Lilly fell back to Miami, writing furious letters to old allies and accusing the Navy scientists of staging a military coup in Tursiops research.

Perhaps they had, but the damage was done. In the thick of a second divorce, all his grants revoked or terminated, his fancy computer repossessed by the feds, a defiant and unrepentant Lilly very publicly released his research animals back into the open water whence they had come. Claiming flamboyantly that these brilliant and otherworldly animals had finally succeeded in “reprogramming” him, John Lilly—the star neurophysiologist now turned pied piper of delphinid spiritual awakening—set out for the West Coast, became a regular at Esalen, took to wearing futuristic jumpsuits, and increasingly promoted Zen Buddhism and the mind-expanding virtues of a variety of psychopharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, a number of Lilly’s erstwhile dolphin-researcher colleagues were doing their part to help the Navy win Southeast Asia.

This strange rupture effectively established the curious double legacy of the modern bottlenose: the flower children all learned that Tursiops truncatus was an erotically liberated, spiritually profound pacifist, intent on saving humans from their materialistic, violent, and repressive lives; meanwhile, over on the other side of Point Loma, a coterie of (equally) Lilly-inspired marine mammal biologists busily worked to teach these creatures how to recognize and neutralize enemy combatants.

A caricatured view of the 1960s depicts doves and hawks facing off on opposite sides of the barricades: daisies on this side, gun barrels on that. It is easy to think of the dolphin story as similarly drawn up in ranks: the Navy’s weaponized dolphins belonged to the hawks; the stained-glass dolphin decals on VW microbuses swam with the freaks and the hippies. But what Lilly’s several lives show, what the bottlenose story shows—indeed, what a host of deeper researches into the history of Cold War military technology, computing, sexual identity, music, and the drug culture all show—is that the two sides that would later come to blows, the Cold War and the counterculture, were initially quite intimate, were born, in fact, as Siamese twins.

And they continued to play footsie even as they were pried apart. For instance, the Navy’s failure to win the life-support contracts for the American space race (the Air Force prevailed) left the blue-water forces in the military on the sideline of the era’s flashiest techno-scientific research initiative. Fighting back, the Navy spent much of the 1960s touting the sea as Earth’s forgotten “deep space,” perversely overlooked in the country’s preoccupation with the remote and irrelevant heavens. Thus SEALAB and the Man in the Sea programs were conceived to parallel space-station work and manned interplanetary travel. With the oceans intensively reimagined in these years as our as-yet-unexplored “inner space,” Navy propaganda and research could not but reinforce the notion that dolphins were a kind of neighboring extraterrestrial, awaiting contact. In fact, one of the first undertakings of the new Navy Marine Mammal Program was to train dolphins to work in the open sea as messengers to underwater SEALAB stations. They even made a thirty-minute propaganda film—narrated by Glenn Ford, titled The Dolphins that Joined the Navy—that depicted Navy researchers testing a perfectly fantastic “Human-Dolphin Translator,” an audio-frequency converter capable of shifting the acoustic profile of human commands up into the sweet-spot of delphinid hearing. And (I could not make this up) the Navy scientists ultimately decided to try speaking to them in Hawaiian, on the grounds that this language seemed likely to be closest to their own. The big blue, it turned out, really did have its own little green men—but they were big and gray and always smiling. 

I leave Southern California on a Sunday morning, the flight banking slowly up over the Pacific. And as the Earth tips below, I can clearly see from one side of Point Loma to the other.

JOHN CUNNINGHAM LILLY set out to “break through” to a dolphin. In the end, suspended in his warm tank, addled out of ordinary experiences of human cognition, he did indeed find a “mind in the water”—his own. And the Age of Aquarius found its avatar.

All in all, it would not be wrong to say that the whole thing began in a small cinder-block structure on the southeastern tip of St. Thomas. Curious if the building remains, I spend several hours on Google Earth one afternoon, trying to match up a 1960 aerial photograph of the excavation of the dolphin pond with the modern coastal topography of Nazareth Bay. It is hard to say: hurricane damage along this stretch of beach has been extensive, as has been the commercial buildup in the last half-century.

My wife is from Puerto Rico, which pulls us close enough to St. Thomas that I can’t resist an off-season investigative day trip across the short channel separating the two islands. So I stuff the maps in a small backpack, together with a swimsuit and a towel, and I take the twenty-five minute flight in a chattery ATR-42, whose scimitar propellers sweep menacingly at the narrow cabin. Below, the pleasure boats cut their white arcs against the deep blue water.

Following the southern coast road in my rental car, I thread my way up to a ridge overlooking Nazareth Bay, where I pull over to consult the satellite images. If it exists, then the laboratory must lie down one of these descending spurs, unpaved paths that disappear into the brush. I park and grab a bottle of water for the hike. Slipping cautiously around a fresh-looking chainlink gate emblazoned with stern yellow signs reading KEEP OUT – PRIVATE PROPERTY, I drop down the steep track through the heavy cover. Bromeliads cup rainwater in the shade, and a hermit crab clacks into hiding in the scree. A single flying needle, a blue dragonfly, stays above me for a moment, seeming to point the way.

And then, the path opens onto the water and there it is: the shattered remains of the Communications Research Institute. It’s an oblique angle of a building, set on a stony promontory, and over the ruins hangs a twisted, overgrown sea grape tree. Stacks of marine plywood and piles of studs litter the courtyard, and an abandoned yellow cement mixer has begun to sink into the soft ground on one side. I walk around to the windward face of the structure, where crumbling steps lead precariously down to the water’s edge. For some reason, I am frightened as I feel my way down: it’s midday, and bright, but I am absolutely alone, and the hulking structure—roofless, stripped, bleached like bone, spiny rebar bristling from broken walls—looks cruel and dangerous. Small lizards slip along the dry grass beside the steps, and as I come to the edge of the dolphin pond a pair of rock crabs, hanging upside down like bats, scurry along the outer lip of the wave ramp, where the light surf splashes through a narrow inlet to fill and flush the pool.

I sit for a while here, looking up at the empty, floorless rooms, which are without graffiti—without, in fact, the least trace of all that went on here. A scaffoldlike wing of the building juts out over the rocky basin: once it held the dolphin “elevator,” in which the animals rose to enter the flooded rooms of the lab. In the incandescent endgame, Lilly imagined such a device configured so as to be operated by the animals, permitting them to come and go as they wished. The skeleton of this superstructure gives the dolphin pool the shadowy solemnity of a hidden grotto. A loose doorjamb swings pendular in the breeze before the encroaching vegetation. A storm-crumpled beach chair is embedded in the straggling limbs of a bougainvillea, itself nearly swallowed by the strangling vines.

Like the cavernous halls of the Natural History Museum, this too is a good place to contemplate the essential nature of the bottlenose. Or, perhaps better, this is a good place to dismiss the very idea of such an essence. Ruins have always been helpful this way, since they are so candid about the passage of time, so articulate about the inevitability of change. There are, in the end, no fixed definitions, only histories; no essences, only genealogies. Over time, and through the workings of an improbable series of personalities, technologies, and cultural preoccupations, the Dart River Beast became, as the anthropologists like to say, “good to think”—an animal through which we came to see ourselves in new and disorienting ways. 

As Thoreauvian beasts of burden, the dolphins have certainly done their share of heavy lifting. What they’ve been thinking along the way, though, remains very hard to say.

I DECIDE TO go look for some surf, and make my way back up to my car.  And it’s only as I start to drive back down the ridge that I notice a white paper sign wrapped in plastic and nailed to a tree. It announces a recent zoning hearing about this property, which is slated, it turns out, for a major commercial installation: “64 villas, 36 condos, 4 bungalows, swimming pool, tennis court, waste-water treatment plant, reverse osmosis plant,” and a host of other structures, all shoehorned into Lilly’s Edenic eleven-acre plot. Apparently the whole thing has gotten bogged down in an environmental controversy, owing to the discovery of a few endangered Caribbean tree boas on the property. Et in Arcadia ego. 

The development—if it happens—will be called “Dolphin Cove.” 

Q: From 1950 to 2004, how many tornadoes formed in Sacramento County?
A: Four tornadoes. The strongest was an F2.

Q: From 1950 to 2004, what California county experienced the most tornadoes?
A: Los Angeles County experienced 41 tornadoes.

Q: What was the country's deadliest tornado?
A: The Tri-State Tornado killed 695 people.

Q: How many tornadoes form in California annually?
A: An average of four.

Q: How many tornadoes rotate clockwise?
A: About 1 in 100.

Q: Most tornadoes rotate which direction?
A: Counterclockwise.

Q: Which month spawns the most tornadoes?
A: The month of May. June is second.

Q: Tornadoes have not occurred on which continent?
A: Antarctica.

Q: Why do most tornadoes form in the afternoon and early evening?
A: Because they form from thunderstorms, a lot of solar heating is needed.

Q: Most tornadoes occur during which time of the day?
A: Most form in the afternoon and early evening.

Q: What percentage of the country's tornadoes are considered violent?
A: Actually, only about 5 percent are violent (EF3 or higher).

Q: Where is "Tornado Alley?"
A: Roughly from central Texas through eastern South Dakota.

Q: What is a gust front?
A: A boundary separating cool thunderstorm air and surrounding air.

Q: How much water escapes Earth each day due to the polar wind?
A: About 1,000 gallons escape each day.

Q: What is the polar wind?
A: Charged plasma that travels into space from the upper atmosphere.

Q: The Enhanced Fujita scale (EF) ranks what weather phenomenon?
A: The EF scale ranks tornadoes by wind estimates based on damage.

Q: What are tornadoes that form over water called?
A: Waterspouts.

Q: What is a veering wind?
A: A wind that turns clockwise with height.

Q: Are veering winds associated with warming or cooling?
A: They are associated with warm air advection.

Q: What is the opposite of veering?
A: Backing winds that shift counterclockwise.

Q: The average tornado moves in which direction?
A: From southwest to northeast.

Q: What state sees the most tornadoes?
A: Texas

Q: What is considered the windiest place on Earth?
A: Winds at Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica reach 74 mph every three days.

Q: 16,000 windmills provide power to how many homes in California?
A: Windmills provide power to 300,000 homes (1% of the state's power).

Q: The National Weather Service issues a wind advisory at what speed?
A: Sustained wind speed of 30 mph.

Q: How strong are the winds in a Category 5 hurricane?
A: 156 mph and greater.

Q: On a weather chart, what is stream line?
A: Steam line shows wind direction and trajectory

Q: What does chinook wind mean?
A: It means "snow eater" because of the warm nature of the wind.

Q: What is the term used for "foehn winds" in the lee of the Rockies?
A: Chinook!

Q: Should planes take off with a tail or head wind?
A: A head wind helps the plane get airborne.

Q: What wind reverses its direction seasonally?
A: The monsoon.

Q: A wind advisory requires that winds be how strong?
A: Wind advisories are for winds 31 to 39 mph.

Q: What is a multiple vortex tornado?
A: A tornado with mini-tornadoes inside it. This is different from multiple tornadoes.

Q: What is Beaufort Scale?
A: It is a system used to report wind speeds.

Q: What Beaufort wind scale is equivalent to hurricane force winds?
A: 12 to 17, which represents winds above 74 miles per hour.

Q: What is Katabatic Wind?
A: A wind that is created by air flowing downhill.

Q: In terms of wind, what is a knot?
A: 1.15 miles per hour, or 0.5 meters per second.

Q: What is a jet stream?
A: Relatively strong winds concentrated in a narrow stream in the atmosphere.

Q: Which center issues hurricane watches and warnings?
A: National Hurricane Center.

Q: What is a dust devil?
A: A tornado-like swirl of air that picks up dust off the ground.

Q: What U.S. city has been hit by the most tornadoes?
A: Oklahoma City.

Q: Where did the deadliest recorded tornado in the world occur?
A: Bangladesh. Estimates put the death toll at more than 1,300 people.

Q: Where do typhoons occur?
A: Typhoons occur in the western Pacific Ocean.

Q: What is the Fujita Scale?
A: It is a system of rating the intensity of tornadoes.

Q: What is the strength of a super typhoon?
A: It has maximum sustained winds of 130 knots (150 mph) or greater.

Q: What is upslope flow?
A: It is air that moves from lower terrain to higher terrain.

Q: What is a willy-willy?
A: A tropical cyclone of hurricane strength near Australia.

Q: What is a gust front?
A: The leading edge of gusty winds from thunderstorm downdrafts.

Q: Atlantic hurricane names recycle how often?
A: Hurricane names recycle every six years

Q: How many knots is a 10 mph wind?
A: 8.69 knots.

Q: What is the minimum wind in a hurricane?
A: 64 knots (74 mph).

Q: What is the range of wind speeds in a tropical storm?
A: 34 to 63 knots (39 to 73 mph).

Q: What is the maximum sustained wind in a tropical depression?
A: 33 knots (38 mph).

Q: What did Hurricane Ivan set a record for in 2004?
A: Most tornadoes spawned; Ivan unleashed 117 tornadoes.

Q: If chimney smoke descends rather than rises, what does this indicate?
A: Warm air aloft.

Q: What is the name of the scale to measure hurricane intensity?
A: The Saffir-Simpson scale.

Q: On average, how often do hurricanes hit Hawaii?
A: About once every 15 years.

Q: What is wind shear?
A: A variation of wind with height.

Q: Does wind shear help hurricane development?
A: It actually discourages it.

Q: What was Hurricane Rita's minimum central pressure?
A: Data indicate a pressure of 897 millibars on Sept. 22, 2005.

Q: Hurricane Katrina made landfall as what category storm?
A: It hit as a Category 3 storm.

Q: What was Hurricane Katrina's minimum central pressure?
A: A central pressure of 902 millibars was recorded on Aug. 28, 2005.

Q: What was the smallest recorded tropical cyclone?
A: Tropical Cyclone Tracy, which hit Darwin, Australia, in 1974, measured only 60 miles across.

Q: What is the difference between a tropical storm and a hurricane?
A: Sustained wind speeds. Tropical storm: 39-73 mph; hurricane, 74 mph or greater.

Q: What is the lowest wind speed a hurricane can have?
A: 74 mph.

Q: Hurricanes can't form within how many degrees of the equator?
A: They can't form between the equator and roughly 5 degrees north latitude.

Q: Why can't hurricanes form within 5 degrees of the equator?
A: The Coriolis effect is too weak close to the equator.

Q: What causes a storm to spin counter-clockwise?
A: The Coriolis effect pushes motion to the right in the northern hempishere.

Q: Which solar phenomenon produces the aurora?
A: The solar wind.

Q: From where is the term "hurricane" derived?
A: From Huracan, the Carib god of evil.

Q: When does the North Pacific hurricane season begin?
A: It officially begins May 15.

Housing Solutions Week 2010 continues today with a "Live at the Forum" event introducing the new "Make Homes More Resistant to Natural Disasters" HousingPolicy.org Toolkit and a series of related issue briefs, developed with support from NHC Housing Leadership Support Program Partner WeatherPredict Consulting.

Speakers for this event include Ryan Sherriff, Center for Housing Policy, and Mike Cohen, RenaissanceRE - an affiliate of WeatherPredict Consulting. Leslie Chapman-Henderson, Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, and Ann Roberson, South Carlina Hurricane Damage Mitigation Program, will also be presenting.

The two-part event kicks off with a conference call featuring the speakers at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. The 30-minute call will feature information on programs aimed at expanding financial support for disaster-resistant home construction and renovations, along with strategies for combining funding streams to make homes more energy-efficient as well. Speakers will also discuss ways to help low-income families pay for upgrades to make their homes more resilient to natural disasters. The call-in number is (712) 432-1001 and the access code is 452746624#.

Following the call, please join the speakers on the HousingPolicy.org Forum to get answers to your questions in real time.

Visit the Forum Now to Submit a Question!

Here is the updated look at how the NCAA Tournament field stacks up heading into the weekend. Click here for my Saturday morning bracket. My next projection will be released Sunday morning to reflect Saturday's conference championship games and other action.

Click any team name that appears as a link to visit that school's SB Nation blog.

One-Bid Leagues (15)

America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Southwestern, Summit, Sun Belt

Shot At Two (9)

West Coast: Gonzaga (lock)
Horizon: Butler (lock)
Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa (somewhat safe)
Conference USA: UTEP (somewhat safe)
Pacific-10: California
Western Athletic: Utah State
Colonial: Old Dominion
Ivy: Cornell
Metro Atlantic: Siena

Locks (29)

ACC: Duke*, Maryland, Clemson, Florida State
A-10: Temple*, Xavier, Richmond
Big East: Syracuse*, Villanova, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Georgetown
Big Ten: Purdue*, Ohio State, Michigan State, Wisconsin
Big 12: Kansas*, Kansas State, Baylor, Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M
Horizon: Butler*
MWC: New Mexico*, BYU
SEC: Kentucky*, Vanderbilt, Tennessee
WCC: Gonzaga*

Teams with an asterisk own their respective conference's automatic bid.

Work To Do (12)

ACC: Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech
Big East: Louisville, Marquette, Notre Dame
Big Ten: Illinois
Big 12: Oklahoma State
C-USA: UTEP
Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa*
MWC: UNLV
WCC: St. Mary's

Of this group, Illinois, Notre Dame, St. Mary's and Virginia Tech hold the most precarious positions. These four teams could find themselves among either the Last Four In or First Four Out as the clock ticks down . 

That takes care of 61 of the 65 teams. (No, I didn't count wrong, locks Butler and Gonzaga and "work to do" clubs UNI and UTEP appear twice.) That leaves me to look at the last four teams in the field and the 12 who have varying chances at replacing them over the next week or so.

RPI data from Crashing The Dance and reflects games through Thursday, March 4. All records reflect games played against Division I opponents through Friday, March 5.

Last Four In

Florida (20-10; 9-6 SEC; RPI: 51; Non-conf. RPI: 71): On Wednesday. UConn's loss at the hands of Notre Dame and Mississippi State falling at Auburn helped move the Gators back in, but Florida's failure to beat Georgia in Athens and Vanderbilt in their home finale may yet haunt them, especially if they end up in the NIT for the third straight season. Billy Donovan's team is 3-7 against the RPI Top 50, but two of those wins came all the way back in November (at home against FSU and over Michigan State in Atlantic City). The other came last week against Tennessee in Gainesville. A 7-6 road/neutral record is OK, but likely to get worse, considering that a game at Kentucky is on the schedule for Sunday. Barring a huge win at Rupp, Florida may need to reach the SEC semifinals to get in.

Rhode Island (21-7; 9-6 A-10; RPI: 30; Non-conf. RPI: 3): The Rams haven't played well of late, but they could be turning the corner after their 22-point home win over Charlotte Wednesday night. Rhody's marquee non-conference win came against Oklahoma State, and they own respectable victories over Northeastern, Providence and Boston College. However, none of those three are likely to dance. Making matters worse is the fact the Rams' best league win is over Dayton, as they're 0-4 against Temple, Richmond and Xavier, the three A-10 teams who look to be in the best shape. The Rams will hope to meet at least one of them in the A-10 Tourney after their regular season finale Saturday at UMass. 

San Diego State (19-8; 10-5 MWC; RPI: 32; Non-conf. RPI: 36):The Aztecs won their home finale Wednesday night over Colorado State, which was more than enough to keep them in, considering all of the losses that happened around them. At one point, SDSU was four points away from owning a 10-game win streak, as they lost to BYU by 2 at home and dropped a 2-point OT game at New Mexico. The Aztecs will wish they had those two games back, as they currently sit at 2-5 against the RPI Top 50 (both wins, over New Mexico and UNLV, came at home) with no opportunities left before the Mountain West Tournament.  The Aztecs close the regular season with a road trip to hapless Air Force Saturday.

UAB (23-6; 11-4 C-USA; RPI: 41; non-conf. RPI: 18): The Blazers are in serious trouble now that Memphis swept them. They remain here because others (UConn, Mississippi State) lost Wednesday. However, they won't be able to rely on their early season home wins over lock Butler and fellow bubble team Cincinnati for much longer. UAB owns a 11-3 road/neutral record, but that’s a bit deceptive, as the losses came against three of their best four road opponents — Kent State, Memphis and Virginia. The Blazers really need to grab a win at UTEP Saturday. Otherwise, they may need to claim the auto bid next week in Tulsa.

First Four Out

Mississippi State (21-9; 9-6 SEC; RPI: 61; Non-conf. RPI: 75): So much for the idea that the SEC West leaders were starting to pull things together, as their three-game win streak ended at the hands of a very mediocre Auburn team Wednesday. The Bulldogs’ resume is a bit thin outside of their sweep of archrival (and fellow bubble team) Ole Miss, as a win over Old Dominion in South Padre is the non-conference highlight and losses at Western Kentucky and against Rider in Starkville are major blemishes. MSU really needs to grab a win at home against Tennessee Saturday, and probably a win or two in the SEC Tournament, to grab a place.

Mississippi (20-9; 8-7 SEC; RPI: 57; Non-conf. RPI: 35): The Rebels’ marquee win is better than archrivals' Mississippi State's, as they defeated Kansas State by 12 in Puerto Rico before Thanksgiving. Still, not managing to beat the Bulldogs once is an issue, considering that’s the difference in the race for the weaker division of the SEC. Three straight losses, with two coming at home, didn’t help. However, Ole Miss has won three straight, including Thursday's victory over laughingstock LSU, to get back on track. The Rebels close with a visit to Arkansas Saturday.

South Florida (18-11; Big East 8-9; RPI: 62; Non-conf. RPI: 69): The Bulls may have one last one run in them, as they survived a trip to DePaul Tuesday and now await a showdown with now-desperate UConn at the Sun Dome Saturday. USF looked like they had turned the corner with a four-game win streak in late January/early February, a run capped by a win at Georgetown on February 3. But that was a mirage, as they’ve since dropped four of seven, including an ugly 16-point loss to St. John’s at home on February 20. The Bulls seem to have an issue with playing to the level of their competition, as they’re 4-4 vs. the RPI Top 50, and 1-6 against teams rated between 51 and 100.   

Connecticut (17-13; 7-10 Big East; RPI: 48; non-conf. RPI: 15): The Huskies have followed up a three-game win streak, including wins over West Virginia and Villanova with a home loss to Louisville and an absolutely embarrassing performance in a 58-50 loss at Notre Dame. That defeat means UConn is now 3-9 in road/neutral games with a trip to South Florida on deck for Saturday. The Huskies are also 3-9 in games against the RPI Top 50.

Next Four Out

Dayton (19-10; 8-7 A-10; RPI: 42; Non-conf. RPI: 14):  The Flyers will need to make a run in Atlantic City to go dancing. Their road/neutral record stands at 5-9 after Thursday night's setback at Richmond, a game the Flyers were in control of until the last 10 minutes. The Flyers' the best win coming against Georgia Tech in Puerto Rico way back on November 19 and the best true road victory came against George Mason on December 8. The Flyers close the regular season with a home game against St. Louis on Saturday.

Arizona State (21-9; 11-6 Pac-10; RPI: 54; Non-conf. RPI: 59): The Sun Devils loss at Cal on Saturday was doubly bad, as it kept them from grabbing an RPI Top 50 win and a share of the Pac-10 crown. The Sun Devils won the first game of their regular season-ending home set against L.A. schools, as they defeated USC Thursday. They can wrap up the two seed in the Pac-10 Tourney with a win over UCLA Saturday. They'll need it, as their only real hope is to win the Pac-10 Conference Tournament on March 13. Currently, the only win the Sun Devils can hang their hat on is a home victory over San Diego State on December 19, their lone top 50 win in six tries.

Washington (19-9; 9-7 Pac-10; RPI: 55; Non-conf. RPI: 27): The Huskies do own home wins over Texas A&M and Cal, but December losses at Texas Tech and against Georgetown in Anaheim are now missed opportunities in a weak bubble year. A sweep at the hands of tourney-ineligible USC doesn’t help either. In terms of building a late case, the Huskies’ schedule isn't exactly helpful. UW managed to win the first game of their closing road swing, beating Washington State to sweep the hoops Apple Cup. The Huskies aren't very good away from Hec Ed, as their road record stands at 3-7 after a win at Oregon Thursday. They can grab a fourth road win at Oregon State Saturday.

Memphis (22-8; 12-3 C-USA; RPI: 50: Non-conf. RPI: 96): The Tigers do own a 6-5 mark against the RPI Top 100; however, only two of those wins came against a Top 50 opponent, the sweep over UAB. Memphis' two best non-league wins came against IUPUI and Oakland. A 7-5 road/neutral mark is OK, but the best of those wins (after the win at UAB) came against Marshall and Tulsa. Josh Pastner's club fattened up on Division I's worst teams, going 15-2 against teams ranked 151+ in the RPI, losing at UMass and SMU. I wouldn't consider the Tigers an at-large candidate, but they can certainly steal a bid at the conference tournament in Tulsa. They already won there once and close the regular season at home Saturday against the Golden Hurricane.

On The Fringe

Charlotte (19-10; 9-6 A-10; RPI: 59; Non-conf. RPI: 61): The 49ers loss to Rhode Island Wednesday was their fifth in six games and pretty much relegates them to the NIT. Bobby Lutz’s team will try to get to 20 victories when they visit Rhode Island and host Richmond, a team they already defeated at the Robins Center. Charlotte’s 9-7 road/neutral mark, featuring wins over the Spiders and Louisville, would have been a major boost, had they not lost their last two contests away from Halton Arena. Charlotte closes the regular season at home against Richmond Saturday.

Cincinnati (16-13; 7-10 Big East; RPI: 64; Non-conf. RPI: 37): The Bearcats close home loss to Villanova Tuesday night was their seventh in 10 games. The last time Mick Cronin’s team won a game against an opponent who’s a lock or near lock was a pair of wins Vanderbilt and Maryland in Maui. Cincy closes the regular season with one final chance to correct that flaw in their resume, as they visit inconsistent Georgetown Saturday. Still, they will now need to win a couple of games in the Big East Tournament to have a realistic shot.

Minnesota (17-12; 8-9 Big Ten; RPI: 78; Non-conf. RPI: 57): After grabbing a win at Illinois Saturday, the Golden Gophers made a huge jump. Tuesday night, they gave it all back with an abysmal performance at Michigan, where they lost by 28. The defeat was costly as it cost the Gophers a shot at a bye in the Big Ten Tournament. The Golden Gophers are 5-9 this season against the RPI Top 100. Three of those wins came at The Barn, where they defeated Ohio State, Wisconsin and now-out of the picture Northwestern. Minnesota’s nine-point triumph over Butler in Anaheim is useful, but the losses to Portland and Texas A&M that followed aren’t. Neither was the road loss at Miami days after the California trip. Losses to Indiana (in Bloomington) the Michigan sweep sting. Minnesota closes with a home game against Iowa Sunday, but beating the Hawkeyes won't mean much to the Committee. The Gophers need to make a run in Indianapolis.

Seton Hall (17-11; 8-9 Big East; RPI: 56; Non-conf. RPI: 76): Remember that string of four games at the end of 2009/start of 2010, where the Pirates lost heartbreakers, including OT games against West Virginia and Virginia Tech? Hall fans are undoubtedly wishing they’d won a couple of those right about now, as those wins would be major boosts to an OK resume. But they didn’t, meaning the Pirates own a 2-9 mark against the RPI Top 50 and a 4-7 road/neutral mark. Those stats aren’t major selling points. One thing Seton Hall has done this season is prove that they can lose to good teams, and they won’t get much of a chance to reverse that down the stretch. Tuesday, they beat Rutgers in the first of two late meetings, but they couldn't win their last game against a contender, as they fell at home to Marquette Sunday. The Pirates may as well start planning for the NIT, as Thursday's win at Rutgers and a final road game at Providence won't give them much of a bump.

Games To Watch

Saturday
Old Dominion vs. Towson (Colonial Quarterfinal No. 1), 12 p.m. ET (CSN New England/Comcast Network/Full Court)
Tulsa at Memphis, 1 p.m. ET (CBS College Sports)
Nebraska at Oklahoma State, 1:30 p.m. ET (Big 12 Network/Full Court)
Syracuse at Louisville, 2 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Connecticut at South Florida, 2 p.m. ET (Big East Network/Full Court)
Notre Dame at Marquette, 2 p.m. ET (Big East Network/Full Court)
Northern Iowa vs. Bradley (Missouri Valley Semifinal No. 1), 2:30 p.m. ET (FS Midwest/CSN Chicago)
UCLA at Arizona State, 4 p.m. ET (CBS)
Rhode Island at Massachusetts, 4 p.m. ET (Cox Sports New England)
Mississippi at Arkansas, 4 p.m. ET (SEC Network/Full Court)
Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech, 4 p.m. ET (Raycom/Full Court)
Siena vs. Manhattan (Metro Atlantic Quarterfinal No. 2), 4:30 p.m. ET (MSG/FCS Atlantic/Full Court)
Tennessee at Mississippi State, 6 p.m. ET (ESPN)
California at Stanford, 6 p.m. ET (FSN/Comcast SportsNet)
St. Louis at Dayton, 7 p.m. ET (WHIO/CSN Philly/CSN Washington+)
Washington at Oregon State, 8 p.m. ET (FSN Northwest)
San Diego State at Air Force, 9 p.m. ET (the mtn.)
New Mexico State at Utah State, 9 p.m. ET (CW 30/Aggie Vision/Full Court)

Sunday
Florida at Kentucky, 12 p.m. ET (CBS)
Wisconsin at Illinois, 12 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Missouri Valley Championship, 2 p.m. ET (CBS)
Colonial Semifinal No. 1, 3 p.m. ET (CSN New England/Comcast Network/CSS/Full Court)
Metro Atlantic Semifinal No. 1, 4:30 p.m. ET (MSG/MASN/FCS Atlantic/Full Court)
Iowa at Minnesota, 6 p.m. ET (Big Ten Network)
TBD vs. St. Mary's (West Coast Semifinal No. 2), 10:30 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

It might still feel like winter, but with the Olympics nearing their end, the final six weeks of the NHL 2009-2010 season and the most stressful time of year is just around the corner: spring hockey.

In the Eastern Conference, no team will enter their final month-and-a-half without plenty of drama on their own. Although the Capitals lead the conference by a whopping 13 points, they're still going to be fighting hard for the best record in the league and the Presidents' Cup.

Below them, four teams separated by just a mere two points are battling for division titles on the line, with the Sens and Sabres battling for the Northeast and the Devils and Pens going after the Atlantic crown.

Then we come to the huge mix of teams vying for a the last three playoff spots, with six teams within five points (Philadelphia with 67 to Atlanta with 62) fighting for the last postseason berths. After a four point drop-off below them, the slumping Panthers and Isles and red-hot Hurricanes are trying to pull themselves up within reach of the eighth seed, and they are then finally followed by last-place Toronto.

However, these groups of teams are not set in stone, and everyone still has 20 or more matches left to play in their attempt to find their way into [insert ambition here], whether that be the regular season title, a division championship, or just a ticket to play games past Apr. 10.

However, right now, it's the playoffs that really matter. In this article, will analyze and assess a percentage for each team in the Eastern Conference regarding their chances to find their way into the top eight and, hopefully, into post-April.

Note: Teams are ordered by their current place in the standings, not my projected playoff seed for them.

 

1. Washington Capitals (90 pts)

The Capitals are in the playoffs, period. With only 20 games left to go and a 26-point cushion on the playoffs, all the Caps have to do is win just a few more games and they've secured a spot. What's bigger in the minds of Washington is not only a conference title but the regular season champion award, the Presidents Cup.

Playoff Likelihood: 98%

Projected Seed: First

 

2. New Jersey Devils (77 pts)

Despite trailing the Caps by 13 points and sporting a mere one point lead on the top spot in the division, the Devils have a well-balanced team that shouldn't have to worry much about missing the postseason. They probably will only have to win about eight of their remaining 21 games to stumble in.

Playoff Likelihood: 86%

Projected Seed: Fourth

 

3. Ottawa Senators (76 pts)

Like the Penguins, the Senators are in a tight race for the division crown but looking pretty safe in terms of the playoffs at the moment. They have only four games remaining against top-seven teams in the Eastern Conference, and have already built themselves up with a 12-point gap between them and the current cut-off line.

Playoff Likelihood: 82%

Projected Seed: Third

 

4. Pittsburgh Penguins (76 pts)

The Penguins are fairly safe in terms of making the postseason. They have a 12-point lead on eighth place and have plenty of pressure experience to increase that. The only competitor for Pittsburgh right now is the New Jersey Devils in their race for the division title.

Playoff Likelihood: 87%

Projected Seed: Second

 

5. Buffalo Sabres (75 pts)

The Sabres were off their game heading into the Olympic Break, having won just three of their last 13 games, but, for the moment, Buffalo is definitely more focused on a top-three seed than a playoff berth. They have a packed schedule upcoming in March (16 games on the agenda), but should be safe to make it past Apr. 11.

Playoff Likelihood: 77%

Projected Seed: Fifth

 

6. Philadelphia Flyers (67 pts)

The Flyers are in the sixth seed for now. But are not even close to securing a playoff berth yet, despite their recent four-game streak.

With an eight-point difference between them and fifth-place Buffalo, the Flyers can't forget simply making the postseason like all five of the teams ahead of them. Philadelphia will start the spring on several interesting notes, with a three-game road trip followed by a four-game homestand followed by a four-game away stretch, but they will definitely have to win at least 10 or 11 of their last 21 games to limp past the end of the regular season.

On a higher note, however, it seems likely with their set of players that the postseason is looking more and more like a reality this season.

Playoff Likelihood: 59%

Projected Seed: Sixth

 

7. Boston Bruins (65 pts)

In nearly the same situation as the Flyers above, the Bruins remain in the playoff picture for now but are only a win ahead of teams not in the Conference's top eight.

The Bruins will start back in March with 22 games remaining on the schedule, and with four division games and a five-game road streak looming in their first two weeks following the NHL's return from the Olympic Break. However, even though most of us know inside that the 2010 Boston Bruins are not the same team as last year, I still can't see them missing out on the first round.

Playoff Likelihood: 57%

Projected Seed: Seventh

 

8. Montreal Canadiens (64 pts)

The Canadiens are in the upper half looking down for the moment, but they've been so inconsistent, it's hard to tell where Montreal's going to be next. While goaltender Jaroslav Halak's success with Slovakia at the Olympics may give the team a lighter atmosphere upon his return, the Habs are far from securing a playoff spot after missing it last year.

The Canadiens will also get a harsh return, as their four-game road trip starts off with a division battle with Boston before heading to the Pacific Division for three brutal games. While the Canadiens are still in decent shape on the standings, someone other than Plekanec, Cammaleri, and Gomez (their only players above 40 points) needs to step up and lead this team into the playoffs like they deserve it.

Playoff Likelihood: 43%

Projected Finish: 10th

 

9. Tampa Bay Lightning (63 pts)

The Lightning have several players to fill in the soon-to-be-open top line spots that currently belong to Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier, but with Alex Tanguay and Ryan Malone also aging, Tampa's a tale of two extremes. It's uncertain how that will play into this spring's results, however.

The Bolts still have multiple games remaining in March against some of the East's top teams, with three more against Washington and two apiece with Buffalo and Pittsburgh. They're in a tie for the final playoff spot at the moment, but their play heading down the stretch is not only unpredictable but very important. 

Playoff Likelihood: 49%

Projected Finish: Eighth

 

10. New York Rangers (63 pts)

One thing is certain right now in New York; the Rangers first five games back will give them a good taste of where they are right now in the conference, with matches against Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Washington, Buffalo, and New Jersey all starting off March for the Blueshirts.

Also, with Marian Gaborik looking shaken in the Olympics, the team might have to rely on newcomer Olli Jokinen, who played well for Finland, to take hold of the Rangers' attack. With Lundqvist in net, miracles can always happen, but the odds seem to be starting to be slightly stacked against the Rangers.

Playoff Likelihood: 46%

Projected Finish: Ninth

 

11. Atlanta Thrashers (62 pts)

While I and many others are likely pronouncing Atlanta "dead" after they dealt Ilya Kovalchuk to the Devils for a large group of picks, prospects, and players that make it seem like the Thrashers are looking towards the future, there are a few things going for Atlanta.

First of all, they'll return to the ice with nine of their first 11 games this spring at home. Secondly, they'll only play two teams that are in the Eastern Conference top five in March. However, they probably will want to have a cushion on the playoff cut-off line going into April, with all five of their regular season games in this month against either Washington, New Jersey, or Pittsburgh.

It's also an issue with your top scorer in Nic Antropov. While he does have 50 points and there are 12 Thrashers with at least 20 points, Atlanta should begin looking for at least a decent group to replace the scoring of Kovalchuk alone if they want to make a run for it this season.

Playoff Likelihood: 40%

Projected Finish: 12th

 

12. Florida Panthers (58 pts)

The Panthers are in a tough spot. They have four teams still in-between them and eighth place and a six-point deficit to overcome, but the Panthers also don't want to give up this early. They have a tight but not overly-challenging schedule heading into March, but this team doesn't quite seem poised to make a postseason push in 2010.

Playoff Likelihood: 33%

Projected Finish: 13th

 

13. New York Islanders (58 pts)

With just 20 games to overcome a deficit that's growing deeper and deeper (partially because of a 2-8 slump for the Isles before the Olympic break), New York is probably not where they want to be. They're also going to be up against the cream of the crop from the West this March, with games versus Chicago, St. Louis, Vancouver, Anaheim, Los Angeles, and Calgary looming.

Also, their young core centered on Matt Moulson, Kyle Okposo, and John Travares doesn't seem ready for any more pressure than they already have, and a shaky situation at goaltender just adds to the Isles risks of challenging for a playoff berth.

Playoff Likelihood: 30%

Projected Finish: 14th

 

14. Carolina Hurricanes (55 pts)

The Hurricanes are going to have to have a miraculous spring, but the playoffs are still possible. They have experience in this situation and a roster that's very similar to the one that went to the Conference Finals in 2009, but, still, most of the odds are stacked against them.

For a [much] longer summary of the Canes' situation in terms of making the playoffs, follow this link .

Playoff Likelihood: 24%

Projected Finish: 11th

 

15. Toronto Maple Leafs (49 pts)

Mathematically, the Leafs aren't dead. However, there's a key word there: "mathematically." Even if Toronto wins every game from now on, they will still only end up with 91 points. See what I mean?

Playoff Likelihood: 4%

Projected Finish: 15th

 

Early Playoff Predictions

Quarter-Finals

(1) Washington over (8) Tampa Bay in four games

(2) Pittsburgh over (7) Boston in six games

(6) Philadelphia over (3) Ottawa in seven games

(4) New Jersey over (5) Buffalo in six games

 

Semifinals

(1) Washington over (6) Philadelphia in five games

(2) Pittsburgh over (4) New Jersey in seven games

 

Conference Finals

(1) Washington over (2) Pittsburgh in six games

Washington Capitals win Eastern Conference

 

Mark Jones is currently Bleacher Report's featured columnist for the Carolina Hurricanes. In his 19 months so far with the site, he has written over 160 articles and received over 110,000 total reads.

Visit his profile to read more.

Tonight the Nashville Predators begin a back-to-back set in Phoenix and Colorado, so first, be sure to check out Chris' Game Day Preview, then load up on your hockey news for the day (don't forget yesterday's interview with Preds prospect Taylor Beck, either!).

After the jump, we've got lots of speculation on the future of the Nashville roster, whether it's how Kevin Klein's new contract impacts the defense, which upcoming free agents might be most attractive on the open market, and a scoring winger from the Eastern Conference who was apparently asked for a trade out West. All that, and the Stanley Cup getting lost at an airport....

Predators News

The View from 111: Toronto Tabloid Stirs Tempest in Tennessee Teapot
Mark takes David Shoalts out to the woodshed for his ridiculous article about the Predators and the Sports Authority from the other day.

Predators back on road sweet road - Nashville Predators Examiner
Jim Diamond writes about how the Preds are perhaps better off away from Nashville these days.

What does Klein’s 3 year extension mean for Preds?… | Section 303
Jeremy wonders out loud about what Kevin Klein's deal could mean for the future of the Nashville blueline.

Game Night - Playoff Preview? and Thursday Notes - Paul McCann
Paul looks at tonight's "Balsillie Bowl" and offers up a few other thoughts. Be sure to check out his latest  HockeyBuzz Radio podcast as well.

Attention to detail keeps Spaling with Preds - Nashville City Paper
David Boclair showcases exactly whey Nick Spaling has managed to stick with Nashville, even while injured players return to the lineup.

Hamhuis would have many suitors if he tests free agency - USATODAY.com
Kevin Allen estimates that if he hits the free agent market, Dan Hamhuis could get something close to Ryan Suter or Shea Weber money. Considering what Jeff Finger got from Toronto last year, he just might be right.

THN.com Top 10: 2010 UFAs
John Grigg at The Hockey News looks forward to the summer free agent market, and includes 2 Nashville Predators in his Top 10 UFA's.

Around the NHL

Pacific: Petersen earning ice time increase - NHL.com
Just in time for the Preds' visit to Phoenix, NHL.com features an article on up-and-coming Coyotes defenseman Keith Yandle.

Here come the injuries | All Things Avs
Meanwhile in Denver, the sick ward is filling up as the Predators come to town on Friday.

The Macomb Daily Blogs: Lightning default on Palace loan
This situation sounds a bit different than the Preds' potential default on the Sommet Center lease. It looks like a change in ownership is the preferred outcome here.

When do NHL Teams play for the tie? - Behind The Net
Thanks to the NHL's idiotic points system, you can expect more teams to play it safe, rather than go for a win, late in regulation of a tied game over the next several weeks.

Oilers lead NHL in man-games lost - The Globe and Mail
You might find it hard to believe, but the Preds have gotten off fairly easily in terms of injuries so far.

Is Ales Kotalik on the way out? - Blueshirt Banter
I normally don't pass around trade rumors, but this one seems to have some meat behind it, as the mercurial winger has supposedly asked for a trade out of New York.

Captain Eric Staal Joins Elite Group - Canes Country
In what they hope is the first step out of the long dark of this season, the Carolina Hurricanes named a new captain yesterday. Rod Brind'Amour was very gracious about the move, and will continue to wear an "A".

A Candid Commissioner? - Hockey or Die
Jonathan Willis gives credit to AHL commissioner David Andrews for a candid "state of the league" address he gave recently.

Bettman says head-shot solution could take time - The Globe and Mail
While the Commish says that NHL GM's will examine the head shot issue at their meetings in March, he's trying to lower expectations for an immediate solution. Don't worry, I doubt expectations are that high to begin with!

On Frozen Blog › The Bluechip Options in Net Are Numerous
While there may be questions about Washington's current goaltending, OFB says there may well be hope for the future.

Greatest Hockey Legends.com: 1920 - Hockey Debuts At Summer Olympics
A "betcha didn't know" piece from Joe Pelletier.

Low pay, high abuse: For the love of the $@*%&# ref - The Globe and Mail
Sarah Boesveld uses the Burrows/Auger incident to demonstrate how poorly on-ice officials often get treated at a variety of levels. Especially for beer-league refs, it's all about doing it for the love of the game itself.

Lastly, in case you missed it yesterday, check out the Smashville Express video that debuted yesterday. Be sure to pass this around to your football-loving friends, to help them catch up on where the Predators stand these days:

The Preds return home Saturday, January 30 vs. the Atlanta Thrashers. For discounted tickets to this or any other Nashville Predators home game, you can follow this link and use the special offer code "PREDS".

7th Annual 'Living Legends of Aviation'(R) Awards Ceremony to Honor Tom Cruise, Dr. Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin and Other Aviation Legends | Reuters from http://www.reuters.com/ - The 7th Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards, presented by Learjet, are taking flight on January 22nd at the Beverly Hilton. John Travolta, the official Ambassador of Aviation, willpresentTom Cruise with the "Top Aviation Inspiration and Patriotism Award." Tom Cruise's passion for aviation started at a young age. Growing up in modest economic conditions, Cruise's family moved frequently but once young Tom hung his P-51 Mustang photo in his bedroom, he felt at home…

Blue Angels to perform at Air Force Base in April The Post and ... - The Navy's Blue Angels air demonstration team will perform at Charleston Air Force Base in April. ... Investigators say he was disoriented after a high-speed turn because he failed to properly tense his abdominal muscles. It was his first season with the Navy team. Air Force officials say the air show will feature formation flying and solo routines by the F/A-18 jets as well as an aircraft display on the ground. Share this story: ...

Aerobatic Aviator, Airshows, Air Show, Red Bull Air Race, Aviation Oil - Mike Goulian's edgy, crisp, and aggressive style of aerobatic flying captivates air show and air race fans across the globe. His passion for aviation...

Hurricane hunters head north for Olympics - AUGUSTA, Ga. - The National Weather Service (NWS) is sending the Gulfstream IV Hurricane Research Aircraft into the North Pacific for duty during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics…

A space plane similar to what could soon be flying from Cecil Field - Orlando Sentinel | The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday gave Jacksonville's Cecil Field a license to operate as a spaceport from where commercial space vehicles could ...

Hood Aerodrome » Welcome - AIRSHOWS AT HOOD: 23/01/10 - Joyeux Noel WWI Airshow. AERODROME NOTICES: Air New Zealand flight schedule: The Air NZ schedule...

Hi all my aviation friends! I have some new stuff to share. First, check out my video interview with Eddie Andreini and Bud Granley about airshows past, present, and future. Yep, video! - here it is .... http://www.vimeo.com/8664278 We haven't transcribed it yet so it's not on my website yet. My dad and I made some changes to my website so I hope you like it. We got rid of that big address bar on the top. I've also got two new pages of the coolest museums around - with lots of photos! http://evanflys.com/planes_of_fame
http://evanflys.com/travis_air_museum So anyways, Happy New Year! Evan http://evanflys.com

Cox wants to take President in her plane - Manila Bulletin - Manila Bulletin | President Arroyo welcomes armless Filipino-American pilot Jessica Cox during her courtesy call last Monday at the Music Room of ...

Armless Fil-Am is a certified pilot - Business Mirror | AT 26, Filipino-American Jessica Cox has done much more than a normal woman her age could: she dances, is adept at using computers, has a double black belt ...

Jerry Conley – Warbird Radio LIVE! – Tuesday « WarbirdRadio.com - TUESDAY – Airshow fans know him as "Ivan Protoski" from Red Star and The Dragon…but around the hangar his friends just call him Jerry.  Join airshow...

Want a 'Harvard' qualification? from Bayou Renaissance Man by Peter | I'm highly amused at a series of training courses in vintage aircraft maintenance offered by Vintage Wings of Canada. Their promotional material is certainly tongue-in-cheek! To begin, let's note that the North American T-6 trainer of World War II vintage (shown below), known as the 'Texan' in US service, was named the 'Harvard' in British and Commonwealth service…

At the instruction of General Henry "Hap" Arnold, in 1933 Rogers Dry Lake in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles was chosen as a gunnery and bombing training range for the expanding US Army Air Forces. Set up six miles west of the town of Muroc by personnel from March Army Air Field in Riverside, a series of practice targets were set up throughout the dry lake bed site which included simulated structures, the outlines of naval ships for high level bombing practice, and even a track for a moving target…

Six decades later foes reunite - Eastern Wake News | On June 6, they were assigned to escort a fleet of B-17 bombers attacking a Romanian railroad yard, a nerve center in the network that sent war supplies to ...

Bruce Sundlun Turns 90 - Providence Journal | Summer 1943: Qualifies as B-17 bomber pilot, flies plane Damn Yankee to English base. Dec. 1, 1943: German Luftwaffe fighter plane downs Damn Yankee over ...

"Mizpah" this B-17 Flying Fortress was hit by... from x planes this B-17 Flying Fortress was hit by an 88mm shell while on a mission to bomb the Shell Oil refinery in Budapest on 14th July 1944. The shell exploded in the nose, causing it to peel up and over the cockpit - just missing the tail assembly. Bombardier Kenneth W. Dudley and navigator Joseph H. Henderson were killed instantly. Incredibly, the pilot and co-pilot were able to keep the aircraft in the air for ten minutes without instruments or windshield. All the remaining 8 crew successfully bailed out, and were captured..

Jan. 13, 1908: Pilot Flies Whole Kilometer to Win Big Aviation Prize - Wired News | The catch was that it was only the infancy of European aviation. The Wright brothers had been making such flights for several years — but secretly, ...

L.A. air show in 1910 awed a nation - One hundred years ago, "few Americans had seen an airplane, let alone an air race," Air & Space magazine recently noted. The flying machines were...

A lovely old plane goes under the hammer from Bayou Renaissance Man by Peter | I'm drooling at news of an aircraft to be auctioned in a few days in Arizona. It dates all the way back to the 1920's. The auctioneer's Web site provides the following information: This Hamilton H-47 airplane is completely restored to original airworthy condition.

Fun With Photos: 5 Engines on a Qantas Boeing 747-300 from Airline Reporter by David Parker Brown | Why would this Boeing 747 need a 5th engine? This is not a photo shop, but a photograph of a Qantas Boeing 747-300 with a little extra cargo — a 5th engine. When a Qantas airplane needs a replacement engine or to have one worked on, sometimes they will attached the 5th engine onto a Boeing 747 and fly it without power to its destination. This ends up being more cost effective for the airline. The 5th engine will limit the 747's performance (not that it is known for its sporty maneuvering already), but it provides no additional safety risk. There is also a photo of a Qantas Boeing 747-400 with a 5th engine.

The New Year 2010 will be here tonight so like others my thoughts have been on the past … and the future. This happened because the other night I was sitting in bed scrolling through my smart phone emails when I saw a Computerworld email entitled “Y2K: The good, the bad and the crazy.” Boy did that ring true and bring back some stark memories about how this decade started, just 10 short years ago.

You see, in 1999, I was the CIO of the Edison Electric Institute and I was responsible for many of the organization’s efforts to understand the problem and lead the industry past the Y2K event. The experience certainly changed my career forever.

It started, as I recall, at the Nov. 1997 Edison Electric Institute/American Gas Association IT Conference in San Diego, as the Y2K bug began its way into our consciousness as a threat. During the main conference there was little mention of the Y2K bug but at the leadership meeting afterwards a number of conversations began to discuss the tip of the iceberg.

From that point on we (the IT leadership of the US investor owned utilities) built a community that began engaging in conversations, sharing best practices and developing remediation plans. It was prescient: shortly after that the skies opened up with worries. Not only did interest in the Y2K bug start to capture the national attention but the spotlight shifted intense focus on the electric power system as the most critical of critical infrastructures. Lose power and really bad things can start to happen really fast. Lose power for an extended time and modern society starts to grind to halt. That’s not news to anyone reading this blog, those in the utility industry who have witnessed the devastation of hurricanes and ice storms, as well as the short-lived but significant power blackouts that hit parts of North America, Europe and most recently Brazil during the past decade.

I can’t remember the date but it might have been early 1998 that the major U.S. trade electric associations (Edison Electric Institute, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, American Public Power Association) and the North American Electric Reliability Council (it was a council rather than a corporation back then) were invited to attend a discussion at the U.S Department of Energy.   Remember, this was still very early in the game, when apprehension reigned. While Utilities were working on the issue, there wasn’t much visibility into or communications about the work that was being done. Governments, regulators and the public were understandably nervous. Plus, not much was known about the various interdependencies between various industries such as telecom, electric power, gas, railroads, etc. This was the meeting that set the wheels in motion for a continuous series of events that no one could have imagined.

NERC instituted and headed a formal process of monitoring and reporting. I worked closely with Gerry Cauley who led the NERC effort (incidentally, Gerry becomes NERC’s next president and CEO on Jan. 1, 2010).

The DOE also became very involved in the Y2K remediation efforts. I remember being at several events with then Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Probably the most memorable was a meeting at the Pepco transmission control room in Bethesda Maryland when Richardson proclaimed that the US had a third world grid. That comment didn’t really instill much public confidence in our most critical infrastructure. About this time the White House appointed John Koskinen as the Y2K Czar; he began a very successful effort of information coordination between industries and public awareness of the Y2K challenge.

From that point on Y2K and the electric power industry was the center point for governments, regulators, the press and the public. And guess who was given much of the responsibility for communicating about the situation, to assuage fears and convey facts about the industry’s preparations and remediation? You guessed it: Yours truly.

The FOX Television Network set up cameras in my office for interviews. I spoke at the National Press Club and then was quoted in Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers all over the country, even Voice of America television broadcasts intended to help other countries deal with their Y2K problems. I remember doing the “black box room” interviews for FOX and MSNBC as well as many local TV and radio stations.

Ken Cohn (CIO of Pepco) and I remember all too well an event that occurred during a George Washington University/Washington Post panel on Y2K. Ken and I were describing the good work that the industry was doing overall and the specifics of Pepco’s work. Believe it or not, we got booed! Many in the audience didn’t believe (or didn’t want to believe) our positive news, that we were finding only minor problems across the infrastructure and saw no reason to believe that Jan 1. 2000 would be unlike any other day.

On another night I was speaking with the CIO of Montgomery County, Maryland on Y2K Readiness in front of 800 people at Fannie Mae. During the discussions a number of people shouted out that we must disconnect from the grid! I pointed out that it was the grid that gives us the reliability that we have today and this would be an option that would most likely be counterproductive to keeping the lights on. Of course the fear mongers were hard at work spreading the word that all of these microchips have calendar date dependencies and that they had deep penetration into the fabric of our society and there would be this great transfer of wealth on Jan. 1 as all the electric power, banking and financial systems would fail!

As we got closer to the date, the reporting and score carding of who was ready and who was not became more intense. I testified before Congress and gave numerous briefings to Senators and their staffers. I remember a private viewing of “Y2K The Movie” with Congressman Stephen Horn. Congressman Horn asked my opinion about the movie and I replied that the movie was more science friction than anything close to reality. Of course, we were all fearful that the movie would set off fear and panic, like yelling Fire in a theater, as it depicted collapsing air traffic control systems, nuclear power plant malfunctions and other disasters, if my memory serves me correctly. But I have to say that even many of the skeptics such as Ed Yardeni, Chief Global Economist and Investment Strategist of Deutsche Bank Securities in New York, who sounded the Y2K bug alarm early had started to back down from their earlier warnings of Y2K doom.

Then as we rolled toward the latter half of 1999, John Koskinen set up an operation call at the White House Information Coordination Center. The ICC funneled information between federal agencies and major industries and ran 24/7 starting a month before the rollover and expected to continue operations several months afterwards while the Y2K cleanup persisted.

I ran the Power Sector at the ICC and was lucky enough to man the 9 p.m.-9 a.m. shift. It was quite an operation run by retired Army Lt. Gen. Peter Kind. All the major industries and government agencies were co-located in this complex for information sharing, coordination and remediation activities after the rollover. There were intelligence operations monitoring for Y2K sabotage activities, weather events and even solar storms that might take out power systems during the rollover (this happened in 1989 in parts of Canada and the US).  But once again, electric power was dubbed the Achilles heel and all eyes were focused on us.  

We started the actual December 31 rollover monitoring with Pago Pago, which is the capital of American Samoa just across the International Date Line. From there we rolled through New Zealand then Australia and all eye and ears where focused on any signs of problems. At first we thought we had a problem in Australia as there were outages but it was quickly determined to be a result of high winds. From there we monitored Moscow, Paris, London – all passed through the rollover without an issue.  

As we approached the rollover on the east coast of the US we were allowed to roll up the blinds that concealed our operations and watch the fireworks over the Washington Moument and at the same time the ball fall at Times Square in NYC on the big plasma screens that were used to monitor the rollover around the world.  

As the date changed across the US we had some power outages, just like we have every New Year’s but they were minimal and only impacted a small number of customers. I recall a transformer in Louisiana being shot up with deer rifles as well as a low voltage transmission tower that toppled in the Pacific Northwest. That was thought to have been caused by sabotage but later it was determined to be improperly torqued bolts loosed by wind vibrations.

At about 7 a.m. Eastern time I was asked “What about Hawaii?” Remember, NERC only covers North America and the extensive monitoring and reporting system that we had in place did not include Hawaii. I picked up the phone and called my friends at Hawaii Electric. They said they were “Hanging Ten” (It’s when a surfer has all ten toes on the nose of the board) and experiencing no significant issues, other than a minor problem with a GPS receiver that required a simple reset (known problem).

At about 2 a.m. Eastern time it had appeared that we had indeed squashed the Y2K bug. Hooray!

But our celebration was cut short as the next call to action came down: “What would have happened if we had not gone through all the remediation efforts?”  The reality for the power industry at the time (remember, this is pre-smart grid) is that by and large we were an industry composed of a bunch of metal wires and metal devices. Power system operations had few calendar date dependencies. Gerry Cauley stated this in one of the final NERC reports to DOE. But, it was work that had to be done because no one knew for sure and a catastrophic collapse of the electric power system requiring a total black start (grid completely down) could have had repercussions on the world economy that would have lasted months!

There were indeed problems with the corporate IT systems that needed to be resolved, particularly many of the old customer information systems and some utilities upgraded or replaced their ERP systems because of the Y2K issues. A few billing problems surfaced after Jan 1. Also the industry learned a lot about disaster preparedness, implementing plans and running drills that are much needed skills in today’s world.

As we rolled through January 1, 2000 – at that point I had been up for over 48 hours – there was a giant sign of relief that all was well. But you could see the interest fading fast as my nightline interview with Ted Koppel was cancelled and many others in the media started to lose interest in the “non-event.” Yes, there were those that said this was just the tip of the iceberg (I remember one Computerworld columnist proclamations) but in the days that went by it was obvious that that the Y2K bug had been squashed and was not as ubiquitous in critical infrastructure as many had thought. After about a week John Koskinen began pulling up stakes at the Y2K command center – it was good news for me as I could get off the 9 p.m.-9 a.m. and start my transition back to a normal life. I was tired, like I was partying like it was 1999.

So when I reflect back on what I was doing 10 years ago this is what I see in my mind.  It’s probably the most significant  professional event of my lifetime. But you know what I remember the most? It was all the people working together and all the relationships that came out of Y2K. While Y2K the event was no more than a shooting star that is long forgotten, it was an event that has lasted much longer for me, and probably for many others in the industry as well, and it has been key to my growth professionally and spiritually.  

Happy New Year Everyone!

Jon C. Arnold

Managing Director, Worldwide Power & Utilities Industry

Microsoft Corporation