Overlooked amidst the human tragedy, thousands of animals — kangaroos and koalas as well as cattle and sheep — also perished in the scorching fires that have swept through southeast Australia. At least 130 people died in the flames, official figures showed, but nobody was prepared to venture an estimate on the animal losses. "It’s […]
Scientist Tim Flannery recalls the long, wet Victorian winters now replaced by a drier and dangerous climate by Tim Flannery The day after the great fire burned through central Victoria, I drove from Sydney to Melbourne. For much of the way – indeed for hundreds of miles north of the scorched ground – smoke obscured […]
By JIM CARLTON MENDOTA, Calif. — Dwindling water supplies are compounding economic woes in California’s Central Valley, causing farmers to leave fields fallow and confront the prospect of going under. The state’s water supply has dropped precipitously of late. California is locked in the third year of one of its worst droughts on record, with […]
Ed Balls, the PM’s closest ally, warns that downturn is ferocious and says impact will last 15 years By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor, and Sean O’Grady, Economics Editor Britain is facing its worst financial crisis for more than a century, surpassing even the Great Depression of the 1930s, one of Gordon Brown’s most senior […]
The state of Victoria in southern Australia has recently been hit with hundreds of bush fires during a record-breaking heatwave – temperatures well above 38°C (100°F). Unfortunately, these fires have proved to be the deadliest in Australian history, with at least 166 deaths reported so far. The fires mostly appear to have been started by […]
The worst drought in half a century has parched fields across eight provinces in northern China and left nearly four million people without proper drinking water. Not a drop of rain has fallen on Beijing for more than 100 days, the longest dry spell for 38 years in a city known for its arid climate. […]
(University of California – Berkeley) Amphibian populations have dropped worldwide, but most studies have detailed only the effects on frogs. A new UC Berkeley study documents that salamander populations also are plummeting. The study, which looked at tropical salamanders in Central America, found that the most common salamanders in the high-elevation cloud forests 40 years […]
by Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor THE ice caps are melting so fast that the world’s oceans are rising more than twice as fast as they were in the 1970s, scientists have found. They have used satellites to track how the oceans are responding as billions of gallons of water reach them from melting ice sheets […]
By Mick Tsikas WANDONG, Australia (Reuters) – Australia’s deadliest bushfire has killed at least 93 people, some as they fled in cars or as they huddled in houses when the inferno engulfed rural towns in the country’s southeast. The fire storm tore through several small towns north of Melbourne on Saturday night destroying everything […]
By David Clarke WAREGADUD, Kenya (Reuters) – Clouds of dust rising above the harsh scrub herald the arrival of more livestock at a borehole in northeastern Kenya, the end for some of a 45-km (28-mile) trek for water that must be repeated every few days. Drought is starting to bite in east Africa’s biggest […]
