By PATRICK COUNIHAN4 January 2014 (IrishCentral) – The latest storms to hit Ireland will cost the economy almost half a billion dollars – with more on the way over the weekend. Record tides and devastating flood and gales lashed the country on Friday with Ireland’s weather forecast service warning of a repeat on Sunday. Experts […]
By Bethany Horne3 January 2013 (Newsweek) – As two military-style helicopters touch down in a remote village in the jungles of Ecuador, masked men with guns hop out and scurry into a one-room schoolhouse. Inside they capture their target: a 6-year-old girl who doesn’t speak their language and can’t even guess why they are kidnapping […]
By MASAKAZU HONDA4 January 2014 URUMA, Okinawa Prefecture (The Asahi Shimbun) – Yoshitatsu Uechi recalls with disgust the disregard for worker safety, the makeshift plans and the cost-cutting measures, including the use of adhesive tape on key equipment, at his job last year. He said an emphasis on saving time and expenses was clear when […]
By David Smith, Africa correspondent 31 December 2013 (The Guardian) – Elephant deaths in Tanzania have risen dramatically since the government abandoned a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers, officials admit. Lazaro Nyalandu, the deputy minister of natural resources and tourism, said 60 elephants were “butchered” in November and December, compared with two in October. Soldiers, police, […]
3 January 2014 (ABC) – Australia has just sweltered through its hottest year on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Average temperatures were 1.20 degrees Celsius above the long-term average of 21.8C, breaking the previous record set in 2005 by 0.17C, the bureau said in its Annual Climate Statement. All states and territories recorded […]
By Matthew Power2 January 2014 (Outside Magazine) – It was only eight o’clock on the evening of 30 May 2013, but the beach was completely dark. The moon hadn’t yet risen above Playa Moín, a 15-mile-long strand of mangrove and palm on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. A two-door Suzuki 4×4 bumped along a rough track […]
30 December 2013 (BBC News) – Main roads to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires have been blocked by people protesting against power cuts. They are demanding government action on shortages that have been affecting many parts of the city. Residents set fire to rubbish bags and tyres on the roads, causing long traffic jams as […]
2013 served up some of the most spectacular doom imagery yet, as historic flooding and wildfire events proliferated globally. Poachers continued to drive megafauna, like elephants and rhinos, to extinction, providing plenty of heartbreaking pictures. Loggers razed ever more forest habitat, slaughtering wildlife wholesale and leaving a only few traumatized survivors for us to witness […]
18 November 2013 (World Bank) – Since the 1980s, there has been an upward trend in disaster losses. During the 1980–2012 period, estimated total reported losses due to disasters amounted to US$3.8 trillion. Weather-related or hydro-meteorological disasters accounted for 74% (US$2.6 tril- lion) of total reported losses, 87% (18,200) of total disasters, and 61% (1.4 […]
By Claire Salisbury 23 December 2013 (mongabay.com) – The majestic jaguar (Panthera onca), the largest of the New World cats, is found as far north as the southern states of the US, and as far south as northern Argentina. In the past jaguars ranged 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) further south, but their range has shrunk […]
