鈥淚n the coming weeks it will be common for young men to attempt to emulate the behaviour exhibited at Virginia Tech.鈥�
Arizona State University behavioural scientist Joseph Diaz on the shootings in Virginia that left 33 dead (The Daily Telegraph, London, 17 April)
鈥淚鈥檓 extremely steamed about it. There is an awful lot of momentum to not build this costly, dubious new death hotel.鈥�
Advertisement
Democrat assemblyman Jared Huffman on the discovery that construction of a new execution chamber at San Quentin state prison is well under way, despite the fact that the death penalty is suspended in California at present (Marin Independent Journal, California, 13 April)
鈥淭his is a story of mass mortality on a scale rarely observed.鈥�
Stuart Campbell of the Wildlife Conservation Society鈥檚 Indonesia marine programme on the coral death caused by the 2005 earthquake. The quake killed nearly 1000 people on Nias island off the western coast of Sumatra and raised the nearby island of Simeulue by up to 1.2 metres, exposing most of the coral reefs ringing the island (The Age, Melbourne, 12 April)
鈥淯nlike the problems that we are used to dealing with, these will come upon us extremely slowly, but come they will, and they will be grinding and inexorable.鈥�
Retired US navy vice-admiral Richard Truly on the threat to national security posed by climate change (The New York Times, 15 April)
鈥淚t鈥檚 not like Walt Disney where animals all want to kiss and cuddle you.鈥�
Wildlife officer Doug Coughran on the attack of a 13-year-old girl by a sea lion off the coast of Western Australia (The Guardian, London, 16 April)