Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.
Go to the link below and scroll to minute 40:58 to listen to this week’s Earth Minute:
Text from this week’s Earth Minute:
Earth Minute 3/27/12
On Sunday night, central Chile was violently shaken by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake–its second in two years. In April 2011, Japan experienced a nuclear disaster following a severe earthquake and resulting tsunami. In January 2010, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, and in April 2010, Iceland’s volcano erupted, disrupting air travel across the Atlantic.
Are these events related? According to a recent article in the UK Guardian, they were likely the result of climate change–in particular, the rising of sea levels.
As the polar ice caps melt, and the ice sheets on Greenland and Iceland vanish into the ocean, sea levels rise. The enoromous weight from all of that added water causes the Earth’s crust to shift and bend. This in turn sets off seismic shocks–including earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions–particularly along coastal areas.
As naturalist John Muir pointed out, “Whenever we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.
