Yes, I did not want to challenge Typhoon Melor, already bringing rain to Japan and scheduled to pass just west of Tokyo tomorrow morning. I had three real options: stay in Sapporo for two more days, because Melor is predicted to move back into the Pacific and miss Hokkaido (this turned out to be wrong, as we shall see), catch the bullet train as scheduled and run into the eye of the storm around Sendai, or return earlier. I took the latter, not necessarily to avoid the collision--that could have been exciting--but, more so, to insure that I actually experience my very first tropical storm in relative safety viewing the event while being told what was happening via television.
In all my years living in Hawaii and Louisiana, I have never come close to being caught in one of these. I should be safe in the Tokyo Westin Hotel because one of the architects was Yoshi Kumamoto, who I was scheduled to meet tonight at the Nikko in Sapporo. As he was also involved in that underwater tunnel connecting Honshu with Hokkaido, and it does not leak, I should be fine. My date with Melor continues below in the purple weather section.
Let me review the news of the day, commenting on topics from The Japan Times:
1. In my September 1 posting, I noted:
Elizabeth Blackburn, from the UCSF biology department, originally from Australia, was a co-discoverer of telomerase, for Carol Greider was using Blackburn’s lab at the University of California at Berkeley when the enzyme was found. She won the Lasker and Gruber Prizes for her work on telomeres and telomerase, a nice pathway to a potential Nobel. She might best be known for her firing from the President’s Council on Bioethics in 2004 for her “non” conservative views on the subject. A firestorm of protest came from the scientific community. The council was created in 2001 to monitor stem cell research.
Well, it was announced today that both Blackburn and Greider (with Jack Szostak of Harvard) were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. I also said in a previous blog:
Telomerase is an enzyme found in the telomere region, and was discovered by Carol Greider in 1984, working, it is said, on Christmas Day. Telomeres can be lengthened by the activation of telomerase, and could be the key to immortality. However, while aging is thus slowed, there is an increase in vulnerability to cancer. Geron Corporation granted a license to TA Sciences Center to market a telomerase activator agent extracted from the Chinese Astragalus plant. Human trials for extending lifespan are expected within the decade.
2. The population of Japan is declining. It is worse for Russia, as in 1950 the area represented by the current Russian Federation had the fourth largest population in the world. In 2050, Russia will be #15, smaller than Vietnam. Another way of looking at this is a precipitous fall, according to at least one demographic study, from 150 million to under 100 million. China is faced with a similar problem, as the one child policy means that in 2050, one worker could well be supporting three people. China will get old before it gets rich! Thus, forget those worries about China or Russian dominating the USA in the future. The U.S. population is actually still growing, from immigration. Now, Peak Oil and Global Warming, that dual hammer to our world economy will be cataclysmic…and soon.
3. The latest United Nations Human Development Index was announced, and Norway remains #1, with Australia #2 and Iceland #3. Norway is too expensive, but works. See Chapter 6 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity. This exceptional Scandinavian country, incidentally, has about the same population as states such as Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Colorado. Australia is environmentally collapsing and Iceland has economically collapsed. This is not to complain about the USA at #13. Japan is #10. Sierra Leone is #180 and Afghanistan is somewhere in the bottom ten.
4. Mauritius ranks #1 as the top African government in the latest Mo Ibraham Foundation and World Peace Foundation surveys. They were once the same organization, but, there was a conflict of philosophies. Mauritius also works, and they both rank this country as the best. This progressive nation could well pioneer the Blue Revolution. Of course, Somalia is at #53 for both surveys, the worst for the African continent and islands.
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The Dow Jones Industrials slipped 6 to 9726 and world markets were mixed. The Nikkei is at 9846. Gold went up $8/toz, ending at an all-time high of $1046. Is this significant? Well, if you click on "Measuring worth..." on the right, and type in 1980 when gold was $850/toz, then 2009 to calculate the present value, you will get $2222. Thus, gold just after the second Energy Crisis was more than double the current value. Crude oil is now just above $70/barrel.
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THE EXPECTATION THE NIGHT BEFORE THE STORM: Melor (means Jasmine in Malaysian... there are two names for West Pacific storms, and a second one is Quedan, a Spanish or Filipino word for "they stay") was a Category 5 typhoon, with wind gusts of 200 MPH when it passed Saipan two days ago. The current guess is that early Thursday morning Typhoon Melor, at 100 MPH, will make landfall over Hamamatsu and the eye should be just over, or barely west of the Tokyo Westin Hotel later in the morning, then, over Sendai and into the Pacific Ocean. However, a second model predicts the eye moving north over Akita and Sapporo, exactly my last two stops. This is very rare for Japan typhoons to go so far north on land. By then, of course, Melor will be a tropical storm. THIS GETTING REALLY EXCITING! By the way, this would be the FIRST typhoon to make a Japan landfall in two years.
THE REALITY OF SUPER TYPHOON MELOR: I awoke at 4:30AM, turned on the television and watched several Japanese channels talking about the storm, which was affecting Kansai. A few blown roofs, some rain, not much was happening. Unfortunately, I don't understand Japanese, and could not get a feel for when Melor would hit Tokyo. So I turned to CNNJ, the Japan version on CNN. But this English channel mostly talked about world news, the Indian flood and Typhoon Parma...nothing about Super Typhoon Melor striking Japan. I looked outside and it was perfectly calm, but cloudy. I kept switching stations, hoping to hear something about what I could understand. 5AM, 6AM, 7AM. Nothing! No news I could understand and nothing on CNNJ. Finally, a non-Japanese station had something on Melor, but it was a German channel. So I decided to stick on CNN just about the time three earthquakes struck (7.6, 7.3 and 6.7), mostly around Vanuatu. Seventy-five percent of the time CNN stuck to this earthquake, which apparently was not causing much harm, but I couldn't get even one indication of Melor now charging through Honshu, heading for Tokyo. The wind was picking up with some rain, but after 5 minutes, went away, and the sun began to shine. Some earthquakes last longer. Finally, at 7:30AM, I thought I'd go down for breakfast, as who knows how long the electricity would last. I learned that some train lines were shut down, but the only death was a surfer the day before, and the incident might not have been related to Melor. I now write this at 11AM and the sky is blue, with the eye of the typhoon now far north of Tokyo, just about where my Shinkansen would have been passing through if I returned today. I'm thankful, truly, but somewhat disappointed. This reminds me of my August 14 posting where I reported on Hurricane Felicia, a Category 4 storm, which just fizzled before reaching my apartment in Honolulu. Thank you Felicia and Jasmine (Melor).
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