A Map Animation of the Atomic Age

Via Boing Boing and The New Yorker, a map animation that shows every detonation of a nuclear bomb until 1998, by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto:



Says The New Yorker:

It is the sort of set of pictures that makes you want to read—to learn more, for example, about how it came to be that France exploded more than a tenth of those bombs (two hundred and ten); China blew up forty-five. Not that anyone was taking cover in Provence: if you don’t watch the icons above and below the map, you might think that Algeria, and not France, was the world’s fourth nuclear-armed power (and that Australia, not Britain, was the third). The Gerboise Bleue explosion, of a seventy-kiloton device, took place in 1960, in the Sahara desert, in the midst of the Algerian war; several others followed. (Later, after Algeria gained its independence, France’s tests moved to French Polynesia; its last one was in 1996.)

It's a wonder Nevada's even still habitable - though I guess you could make an argument that it's not, really...

Russia's Portentous Summer

Jeff Masters says, "one of the most remarkable weather events of my lifetime is unfolding this summer in Russia" where the current heat wave is pretty much entirely off the historical charts. For comparison, the 2003 heat wave across Western Europe killed more than 40,000 people - and the present heat wave in Russia is far more extreme than that:




Says Masters:

The past 25 days in a row have exceeded 30°C (86°F) in Moscow, and there is no relief in sight--the latest forecast for Moscow calls for high temperatures near 100°F (37.8°C) for the majority of the coming week. As I reported in yesterday's post, the number of deaths in Moscow in July 2010 was about 5,000 more than in July 2009, suggesting that the heat wave has been responsible for thousands of deaths in Moscow alone. I would expect that by the time the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 is over, the number of premature deaths caused by the heat wave will approach or exceed the 40,000 who died in the 2003 European Heat Wave. As seen in Figure 2, the Russian heat wave of this year is more intense and affects a wider region than the great 2003 heat wave, though the population affected by the two heat waves is probably similar.

Another commentator writes:

To put this in rough perspective -- and note this is not absolutely precise, it's purely ballpark to give you some feel for what the Russian people are enduring -- if this heat wave was hitting North America, it would be near 100°F in Fairbanks, Alaska. Most of Canada would be baking at 100° or higher, the northeast, from Maine to the Great Lakes region would be hitting upwards of 105° everyday, even the nightly low in the massive urban heat islands of New York and Chicago would be over 90°! The midwest grain belt and parts of the Pacific Northwest would not see a drop of rain for two months and pushing as high as 110° in places. The desert southwest, even some of the higher elevations of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas, would be as uninhabitable as Death Valley or the Sahara.

It would mean nation-wide massive power brownouts, unprecedented crop failures, water rationing like you have never seen, record wildfires raging in dozens of states, thousands of deaths [Correction: Dr. Jeff Masters at WeatherUnderground informs me it would probably more like tens of thousands of deaths] and life threatening heat related illness, roads and highways clogged with broken-down, over-heated cars, and emergency services stretched beyond the breaking point across the US and Canada. The conditions could be so severe in places, especially if the wave persisted for a couple of years, that it could produce mass migration, i.e., refugees, the likes of which haven't been seen since the Great Depression.

Tens of thousands of deaths from the sort of weather event that will become more common as global warming continues apace. The usual caveat applies about the fallacy of attributing individual weather events to long-term climate trends, but needless to say, a warming planet will experience more severe heat waves. As Masters notes:

Looking back at the past decade, which was the hottest decade in the historical record, Seventy-five countries set extreme hottest temperature records (33% of all countries.) For comparison, fifteen countries set extreme coldest temperature records over the past ten years (6% of all countries).

Weather events like these heat waves have proven their capacity to have death tolls in the five figures. But perhaps the most ominous portent of the Russian heat wave has been the government's move to ban grain exports - a response to the decimation of wheat crops due to the wildfires and drought that have attended the heat wave. Natural calamity leading to resource nationalism, causing food prices to spike across the globe: this story will be written again in the decades to come.

Global Warming Melts the Arctic; Nations Lick Their Chops at Potential Oil Bonanza

Via Andrew Sullivan, this map animation from the Economist depicts the shrinking of the Arctic ice, and the brewing competition between the Arctic nations over the region's resources.



The six countries involved - Russia, Canada, the US, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark - are, apparently without irony, determined to lay claim to the oil and natural gas that is becoming increasingly accessible as a warming climate continues to erode the Arctic sea ice.

One of the horrors of addiction is that, as the addictive substance becomes less and less satisfying, and its negative effects mount over time, it becomes even more necessary to consume more of the substance to provide escape from the greater and greater suffering the substance is causing.

Place of the Week: Kalmykia

For the first installment of what may or may not become a regular weekly feature of this blog focusing on some odd or surprising corner of the world, I present to you: The Republic of Kalmykia.



Status: Semi-autonomous constituent republic of the Russian Federation
Area: 76,150 sq. km.
Population: 292,410
Languages: Kalmyk, Russian
Religions: Buddhism, Christianity
Autocratic Leader's Eccentric Foible: an exorbitant interest in chess

Kalmykia came to my attention when, looking at a map of world religions one day, I noticed a seemingly misplaced smudge of color in a remote corner of Europe signifying the predominance of Buddhism. Turns out it's quite true: Buddhism is the religion of the Kalmyks, who are a branch of the Oirats, a nomadic shepherding people from the Mongolian steppe. The Kalmyks broke off from the Oirats in the 17th Century, migrating to a fertile grasslands region on the northwest coast of the Caspian Sea.

Though there has been some historical tension between the various Oirat peoples and the Mongols, they share many characteristics, including a similar appearance, language, and culture, as well as an adherence to Tibetan Buddhism. As with most ethnic groups that lived in the Soviet Union, the Kalmyks had to put up with state efforts to quash religious practice. Things have mellowed a bit since the fall of the Soviet Union, though, at least on the religious persecution front; in 2005 the Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume opened as the largest Buddhist temple in Europe.

The republic is led by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. According to the BBC:

A Buddhist millionaire businessman, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov acquired his wealth in the economic free-for-all which followed the collapse of the USSR.

At the age of just over 30, he was elected president in 1993 after promising voters $100 each and a mobile phone for every shepherd. He also pledged to introduce what he called an "economic dictatorship" in the republic.

Soon after his election, Mr Ilyumzhinov introduced presidential rule, concentrating power in his own hands.

He called early elections in 1995 and was re-elected unopposed - this time for a seven-year term. He won re-election in 2002

Ilyumzhinov has been president of FIDE, the International Chess Organization, since 1995. His intention to build an enormous "Chess City" in Kalmykia has engendered protests among the local population, who are among the poorest people in Europe.

According to the BBC, Reporters Without Borders has described the Kalmyk authorities as "among the most repressive towards the media in the entire Russian Federation".