USA Today (June 12)
“Officials mustn’t extend a laptop ban until they can assure the public, with sound data, that they are not trading the possibility of terrorism in the cabin for a greater likelihood of catastrophe in the cargo bay.”
Tags: Airplane, Cabin, Cargo bay, Catastrophe, Data, Laptop ban, Officials, Terrorism
LA Times (February 14)
“California’s majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of record snow and rainfall. That could spell catastrophe for thousands who live below it and for the state of California at large that depends on its stored water. The poor condition of the dam is almost too good a metaphor for the condition of the state as a whole; its possible failure is a reflection of California’s civic decline.”
Tags: California, Catastrophe, Danger, Decline, Failure, Oroville Dam, U.S., Water
New York Times (July 14)
The EU’s tentative deal “may avert an immediate catastrophe, but there is little to celebrate since it will do little to address, much less repair, the slow-moving disaster of the Greek economy.” For that matter, “in forcing Greece to submit they have not resolved the crisis of the monetary union or advanced the European project.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Crisis, Deal, Disaster, Economy, EU, European project, Greece, Monetary union
USA Today (September 24)
27 years after the Montreal Protocol placed restrictions on chlorofluorocarbons, “the ozone layer is beginning to heal and is on track toward full recovery by the middle of the century.” This suggests hope in the fight against global warming. “Collective international action, even at a time of global tensions, can head off environmental catastrophe. And the sooner action is taken, the better, because the atmosphere can take decades to recover.”
Tags: Atmosphere, Catastrophe, Chlorofluorocarbons, Collective action, Environment, Global warming, Montreal Protocol, Ozone, Recovery, Tension
Newsweek (February 24, 1964)
Visually the Beetles “are a nightmare, tight, dandified Edwardian-Beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair. Musically they are a near disaster, guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony and melody. Their lyrics (punctuated by nutty shouts of “yeah, yeah, yeah”) are a catastrophe, a preposterous farrago of Valentine-card romantic sentiments….”
Tags: Beetles, Catastrophe, Disaster, Drums, Guitars, Hair, Harmony, Lyrics, Melody, Music, Nightmare, Rhythm, Sentiment
The Economist (September 7)
“There may be no new Lehman-sized catastrophes on the near horizon. But plenty of smaller crises-in-the-making dot the landscape—and a potentially big one continues to threaten Europe. Five years on, global finance is a long way from safe.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Crises, Europe, Global finance, Lehman, Safe
Los Angeles Times (August 28)
“Politicians who dismiss the risk of climate change like to talk about the uncertainties of the science.” They’d spend less time talking and more time working to halt climate change if they took their cues from professionals who deal with risk. “The real economic costs of mispricing this risk have caught the attention of a good segment of the business community, from commodity traders to insurers. Reinsurers in particular (companies that insure the insurers against catastrophe) see risks on a global scale.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Climate change, Global warming, Politicians, Risk
