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In an “Author’s Message” on page 569 of his current techno-thriller, State of Fear, Michael Chricton states (no link):
H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, endorses Crichton’s analysis:
...Crichton exposes serious problems the climate models that predict warming. The models don’t accurately portray past or current temperature reality, so why should their predictions about the future warming be trusted, much less used to inform public policy?
...I must admit, sitting in Dallas in December watching snow fall in the midst of below freezing temperatures—not typical Texas weather, even during the winter—it would be hard to take global warming alarmism seriously even had I not, after years of seriously studying and working on the issue, concluded that the disaster scenarios spun by environmentalists from human-caused global warming are more fiction than fact.
With the official count of the death toll from the Asian Tsunami currently at 120,000, and some estimates now climbing into the hundreds of thousands, this now appears to be one of the greatest natural disasters in world history.
Highest Death Toll From A Single Landslide
A single landslide of rock debris from Mt. Huascarn, Peru, killed over 18,000 people in the town of Yungay on May 31, 1970.
Highest Death Toll From A Volcanic Eruption
When the Tambora volcano in Sumbawa, Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies) erupted from April 5-10, 1815, 92,000 people were killed.
Highest Death Toll From A Flood
An estimated 900,000 people were killed when the Huang He (Yellow River), Huayan Kou, China, burst its banks in October 1887.
Highest Death Toll From An Earthquake
An earthquake that struck the Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan Provinces of China on February 2, 1556, is believed to have killed approximately 830,000 people.
It looks like this is the worst tsunami disaster in world history, by a factor of almost four. The Guinness World Record Book cites what appears to have been the largest previous such event:
Highest Death Toll From A Tsunami
Following an earthquake off the coast of Sanriku, Japan, in 1896, approximately 27,000 people were drowned when a tsunami hit the coast. A wave that struck Shirahama had an amplitude of 38.2m (125ft).
Via Instapundit, information on donating to relief funds is here.
