By Helen Pitt, Lisa Visentin, Laura Chung, Jenny Noyes, and Sally Rawsthorne 14 November 2019 (The Sydney Morning Herald) – A total fire ban is in place in Sydney and seven areas across the state today, as the death toll from NSW bushfires has climbed to four and two men were charged over lighting fires […]
3 November 2019 (BBC News) – Air pollution in the north of India has “reached unbearable levels,” the capital Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvid Kejriwal says. In many areas of Delhi air quality deteriorated into the “hazardous” category on Sunday with the potential to cause respiratory illnesses. Authorities have urged people to stay inside to protect […]
By Guy Davies 1 November 2019 (ABC News) – Five million masks are being distributed throughout schools in Delhi, India, as the chief minister described the city as a “gas chamber” because of the “toxic” air quality. Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, also announced that all schools would be closed in the city […]
By Kasha Patel 30 October 2019 (NASA) – On 23 October 2019, a blaze erupted in Sonoma County, California, near the small town of Geyserville. In six days, flames from the Kincade fire spread across more than 75,000 acres (303 square kilometers), becoming the largest wildfire by acreage in California in 2019. As of October 29, the fire had […]
By Nadja Popovich 24 October 2019 (The New York Times) – New data reveals that damaging air pollution has increased nationally since 2016, reversing a decades-long trend toward cleaner air. An analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data published this week by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that fine particulate pollution increased 5.5 percent on average across the […]
23 September 2019 (CIWEM) – The CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year exposes the terrible impacts being wrought on our planet by humans, but also celebrates humanity’s innate ability to survive and innovate, lending hope to us all that we can overcome challenges to live sustainably. [See all of the submissions: Environmental Photographer of the […]
By Michael Carlowicz 14 September 2019 (NASA) – Fire season in the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales got off to an early and ugly start in September 2019. Fueled by a long and deepening drought, more than 100 fires burned in forest and bush areas near the southeast coasts, including some subtropical […]
By Zoë Schlanger 18 September 2019 (Quartz) – The smoke wafting from fires in the tropical forests of Indonesia—forming plumes big enough to blot out the sky in Malaysia and Singapore—is a reminder of a global supply chain run amok. Whereas the devastating fires burning in the Amazon rainforest were set largely for cattle ranches that feed the […]
By Gayatri Suroyo and Jessica Damiana 11 September 2019 JAKARTA (Reuters) – Thousands of Indonesians prayed for rain in haze-hit towns on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo on Wednesday, as forest fires raged at the height of the dry season, the state Antara news agency reported. Fires have burnt through parts of Sumatra and […]
By Passant Rabie 27 August 2019 (Space.com) – As raging fires continue to sweep through the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, NASA satellites and astronauts aboard the International Space Station are tracking the flames from above. Their view confirmed that this is the most active fire year in Brazil since 2010. Fire detections by NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) […]
