By Ryan F. Mandelbaum 16 December 19 (Gizmodo) – Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island tortoises, died in 2012. George’s story is the perfect extinction story. It features a charismatic character with a recognizable face, an obvious villain, and the tireless efforts of naturalists. The population of the Pinta Island tortoise species was […]
By Bob Henson 11 December 2019 (Weather Underground) – The massive curtain of water in southern Africa between Zambia and Zimbabwe known as Victoria Falls is the world’s biggest waterfall sequence when you take into account both width and height. Often ranked as one of the seven wonders of the natural world, the falls are a prime […]
By Denis Balibouse 25 November 2019 THE FURKA PASS, Switzerland (Reuters) – On the hairpin bend of a Swiss mountain pass, a Victorian-era hotel built for tourists to admire the Rhone Glacier has been abandoned now that the ice has retreated nearly 2 km (1.2 miles) uphill. Where mighty glaciers once spilled into Swiss valleys […]
By Editorial Board 15 November 2019 (The Washington Post) – Venice has always been linked closely with the water that surrounds it. The city is thought to have been founded by refugees seeking protection from Germanic invaders by sheltering in the northwestern Adriatic Sea’s islands and marshes. By the 12th century, the doge would annually […]
By Jessie Yeung 15 November 2019 (CNN) – Australia is reeling from deadly bushfires and the worst drought in decades — but fears are now growing that things could get worse, as a water shortage in the country’s biggest city begins to bite. Four people have died in this year’s blazes, which have been exacerbated […]
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 […]
By K. Lakshmi 6 November 2019 (The Hindu) – With the storage in city’s major lakes steadily increasing, Chennai Metrowater on Tuesday announced that the city is no longer reeling under water crisis. Chennai is officially out of water shortage, the water agency tweeted from its official handle. Senior officials of Metrowater said the five […]
8 November 2019 (BBC News) – Australian authorities say an “unprecedented” number of emergency-level bushfires are threatening the state of New South Wales (NSW). More than 80 blazes were raging across the state on Friday. Gusty winds and up to 35C heat have exacerbated the fires, many of which are in drought-affected areas. We just […]
By Tom McIlroy 4 October 2019 Stanthorpe, Queensland (Financial Review) – The dirt underfoot as dry as anyone can remember, Mike Hayes sees numbers everywhere as he walks through dusty rows of grapevines. A celebrated winemaker in Queensland’s Granite Belt region, he crunches rainfall data in his head, trying not to consider the worst. “In […]
By Alois Vinga 18 October 2019 (New Zimbabwe) – Extreme poverty in Zimbabwe has risen to 34 percent, with 1 million more citizens now added to the existing 4.7 million, World Bank (WB) said in a recent Poverty and Equity brief. The global lender said there has been a significant growth in the country’s poverty […]
