Satellite view of Gondwana rainforest fires, 4-15 September 2019. Photo: NASA Worldview

Drought exacerbates wildfires in Australia rainforest

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 […]

People wait outside of their stranded vehicles along Interstate 10 westbound at T.C. Jester, Thursday, 19 September 2019. The freeway is closed because of high water eastbound on the freeway from Tropical Storm Imelda. Photo: Mark Mulligan / Houston Chronicle / AP

Munich Re: Climate change and its consequences – 18 of the 20 warmest years are in the period 2001-2018

By Dr. Eberhard Faust and Ernst Rauch 8 August 2019 (Munich Re) – When temperature records are broken or major weather disasters strike, people ask whether climate change has anything to do with it. One thing is clear: individual events themselves cannot be attributed directly to climate change. One needs to look at overall trends. […]

Satellite data show fire activity is still heavy around Roboré, Bolivia but is intensifying in the northern and western portions of the Santa Cruz region. Data: NASA FIRMS / “VIIRS Active Fires”. Accessed through Global Forest Watch on 6 August 2019. Graphic: Mongabay

Disaster strikes in Bolivia as agricultural fires lay waste to unique forests – “Fire is a monster and is threatening us. Everything is ashes and fear.”

By Carolina Méndez, Isabel Mercado 6 September 2019 (Mongabay) – “Fire is a monster and is threatening us. Everything is ashes and fear,” says Iván Quezada, the mayor of Roboré, a town in eastern Bolivia. Last week, fires consumed more than 450,000 hectares (1.11 million acres) of forest; if added to the amount of forest […]

Equilibrium climate sensitivity estimates from IPCC AR5, CMIP5, and early CMIP6 models. Graphic: Stephen Belcher / Carbon Brief

Earth warming more quickly than thought, new climate models show – “We have better models now. They have better resolution, and they represent current climate trends more accurately.”

By Marlowe Hood 17 September 2019 (AFP) – Greenhouse gases thrust into the atmosphere mainly by burning fossil fuels are warming Earth’s surface more quickly than previously understood, according to new climate models set to replace those used in current UN projections, scientists said Tuesday. By 2100, average temperatures could rise 7.0 degrees Celsius above […]

Climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Europe, Eurasia, Energy and the Environment Subcommittee, and the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, on 18 September 2019. Photo: Alastair Pike / AFP / Getty Images

Climate activist Greta Thunberg tells U.S. Congress to listen to scientists and take real action, submits IPCC report – “I am submitting this report as my testimony because I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists”

By Leah Asmelash 18 September 2019 (CNN) – Greta Thunberg has had a busy week. On Wednesday, the Swedish 16-year-old climate activist appeared in front of Congress before a hearing on climate change, just days after she met with former President Barack Obama. Thunberg, though, told Congress she didn’t have any prepared remarks. Instead, she said she was […]

Conservationists from Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation hold a baby orangutan rescued along with its mother during a rescue and release operation for orangutans trapped in a swath of jungle destroyed by forest fires in Sungai Mangkutub, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: Quartz

Global demand for palm oil drives fires in Indonesia – “Palm oil plantations make a wasteland out of paradise”

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 […]

A resident of Lighthouse, an informal settlement in Chennai, carries a water pot back to her house in August 2019. “It is part of India’s social culture that the woman looks after everything related to the household. Collecting water and then carrying it up to the family’s apartment is, unfortunately, her burden,” said Krishna Mohan, chief resilience officer at 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), a non-profit organisation. Photo: Tim Daubach / Eco-Business

Parched lives on the fringe: How water scarcity has widened inequality in Chennai – “If you are innocent and weak, you will never get water”

By Tim Daubach 18 September 2019 (Eco-Business) – Weary from long hours spent waiting for water, S. Kumari, 54, rests in the shade to escape the searing, relentless heat. An engine roars to life nearby as the tanker that just delivered water to her drought-stricken neighbourhood M.S. Nagar, an informal settlement in the locality of […]

August 2019 Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies in degrees Celsius. Graphic: NOAA

Summer 2019 in the Northern Hemisphere tied for warmest summer on record – Five hottest NH summers have occurred in the past five years

By Andrew Freedman 16 September 2019 (The Washington Post) – The Northern Hemisphere just had its hottest summer on record since 1880, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data released Monday. NOAA found the average global surface temperature taken by thousands of thermometers, buoys and other sensors on land and sea tied with that of 2016 […]

Eni Norge’s “Goliat” FPSO arrives in Hammerfest, Norway, on 17 April 2015, from South Korea after a 63-day voyage covering 15,608 nautical miles. When the “Goliat” came on stream later in 2016, it was the world’s northernmost producing offshore oil field. Photo: Fredrik Refvem / Stavanger Aftenblad

Cowboy Nation: Norway’s Wild West fantasy – “It’s your misfortune and none of my own”

By Henrik Olav Mathiesen 11 September 2019 (The Dark Mountain Project) – Equinor is the publicly owned Norwegian company firmly intent upon wreaking havoc on the world for as long as possible. Off our own shores – and far beyond. In 2017, the company won the bid for two licences to drill offshore in the […]

Greta Thunberg attends a Senate climate change task force meeting in Washington DC, 17 September 2019. Photo: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Climate activist Greta Thunberg tells U.S. Congress: “I know you are trying but just not hard enough. Sorry.” – Barack Obama meets with Greta: “You and me, we’re a team”

By Lauren Gambino 17 September 2019 WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Guardian) – At a meeting of the Senate climate crisis task force on Tuesday, lawmakers praised a group of young activists for their leadership, their gumption and their display of wisdom far beyond their years. They then asked the teens for advice on how Congress might […]

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