Map centered on the Hotham and Bogong High Plains area in the Victorian Alps showing the extent of the fires from the 1970-2000 period to early January 2020. Graphic: Dr Tom Fairman / Twitter

“Sub-alpine savannas” replace forests in the Victorian Alps as global warming drives fire frequency

5 January 2020 (Desdemona Despair) – Dr. Tom Fairman, forest scientist at the Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning has posted a series of burn maps for the Victorian Alps showing the extent of bushfires from the 1970-2000 period to 5 January 2020. The maps reveal how much of the forest has been […]

Smoke from bushfires in Australia turns the sky red in Merimbula at 7am, 4 January 2020. Photo: Tegan George / Network 10

Total evacuation of Eden ordered as bushfires close in – “There is no safe place here”

By Christopher Knaus 4 January 2020 (The Guardian) – The situation is deteriorating in Eden on the Far South Coast. A bushfire moved quickly up from the NSW-Victorian border last night, as the southerly change moved up the coast and turned fires northward. The fire, dubbed the “border fire”, burnt last night from the Victorian […]

The afternoon sky glows red from bushfires in the area around the town of Nowra in the Australian state of New South Wales on 31 December 2019. Photo: Saeed Khan / AFP / Getty Images

Premier of New South Wales: “We can’t pretend this is something we have experienced before. It’s not.”

4 January 2019 (The Guardian) – The Premier of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, gets very real here, as she talks about exactly what the state is facing: “We can’t pretend our state is in charted territory. “The extent of this bushfire season in living memory, and many experts have been around much longer,than I […]

Map showing Amazon CamperForce locations in Arizona, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Graphic: Amazon

The decade in which everything was great but felt terrible: in the 2010s, the U.S. middle class shrank, longevity fell, and a whole generation fell behind

By Annie Lowrey 31 December 2019 (The Atlantic) – If I had to pick the story that best captured the economy of the 2010s, it might be the tale of CamperForce: a group of elderly nomads, living in vans and RVs, spending their twilight years temping at Amazon fulfillment centers. There’s a positive spin to the […]

Map of daily average temperatures across Australia on 3 January 2020. It was the hottest ever day recorded in Greater Sydney Penrith was hottest place on Earth. The BOM recorded a maximum temperature of 48.9C at 3pm. The previous record of 47.3C was set in January 2018 Graphic: BOM / Prof. Ray Wills

Australia heatwave: Canberra and Penrith smash temperature records that stood for 80 years

4 January 2020 (Australian Associated Press) – Canberra and the outer western Sydney suburb of Penrith have broken temperature records that have stood for 80 years. The mercury climbed to 48.9°C [120°F] in Penrith and 43.6°C in Canberra on Saturday afternoon, the hottest temperatures recorded in those areas. The Canberra mark later rose above 44°C […]

Satellite view of the Camp Fire in California in 2018. The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history, burning nearly 14,000 homes and killing 85 people. Photo: Maxar / USA TODAY

A decade of change from 300 miles above

By Jim Sergent 27 December 2019 (USA TODAY) – The end of each decade affords us a chance to look at our world from the proverbial 30,000-foot view and see how we’ve changed. With the help of Maxar, a provider of advanced, space-based technology solutions, Google and NASA, we’ve taken many more steps back – […]

A cargo ship transits the Panama Canal on 21 April 2019 on its way to the Atlantic Ocean, while tree trunks that used to be submerged are exposed due to the low water levels of Gatún lake, Panama. An intense drought related to this year’s El Niño phenomenon has precipitously lowered the level of Panama’s Gatún Lake, forcing the country’s Canal Authority to impose draft limits this week on ships moving through the waterway’s recently expanded locks. Photo: Arnulfo Franco / AP Photo

Water shortages dog Panama Canal, 20 years after its transfer – “It really has been the driest dry season we’ve had in the history of the canal”

31 December 2019 (DW) – The Panama Canal’s handover from the United States 20 years ago has been marked in Panama amid water supply worries. Managers say less rainfall due to climate change has depleted the inter-ocean conduit’s Gatun Lake. President Laurentino Cortizo hoisted a giant Panamanian flag outside Canal headquarters Tuesday as its operators […]

A kangaroo rushes past a burning house on 31 December 2019 in Conjola, on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Photo: Matthew Abbott / The New York Times / Redux / Eyevine

Australia authorities plead for last-ditch evacuation, with terrible fire conditions ahead

By Ben Smee 3 January 2020 (The Guardian) – Australian authorities have made a final plea for people to flee bushfire-affected areas in three states before the onset of extreme conditions so dangerous that firefighters may be unable to defend entire towns. On Friday, authorities in New South Wales urged people still in a 14,000 […]

Global primary energy consumption by region, 2010-2050. Data: U.S. Energy Information Administration International Energy Outlook 2019 reference case. Graphic: EIA

EIA projects nearly 50 percent increase in world energy usage by 2050, led by growth in Asia – Carbon dioxide emissions to grow from all three fossil fuel sources

3 January 2020 (EIA) – In its newly released International Energy Outlook 2019 (IEO2019) Reference case, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that world energy consumption will grow by nearly 50 percent between 2018 and 2050. Most of this growth comes from countries that are not in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and […]

WFP Global Hotspots 2020: Countries most at risk of sliding further into crisis. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has identified 15 critical and complex emergencies at risk of descending further into crisis without a rapid response and greater investment. While WFP continues to provide extensive assistance to high-profile emergencies such as Yemen and Syria, Global Hotspots 2020 highlights the fastest deteriorating emergencies requiring the world’s urgent attention. Graphic: WFP

World Food Programme forecasts global hunger hotspots as a new decade dawns

ROME, 1 January 2020 (WFP) – Escalating hunger needs in sub-Saharan Africa dominate a World Food Programme (WFP) analysis of global hunger hotspots in the first half of 2020 with millions of people requiring life-saving food assistance in Zimbabwe, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central Sahel region in the coming months. […]

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