UN agency reports Mozambique flooding “worse than thought” after Cyclone Kenneth, with more heavy rain expected – “We expect the rainfall to be twice as much as that which accompanied Cyclone Idai”

28 April 2019 (BBC News) – The situation in northern Mozambique is worse than thought, a UN spokesman says, days after Cyclone Kenneth ravaged the country. The system struck the Africa nation on Thursday with winds of 220km/h (140mph) which flattened whole villages. Around 700,000 people are now thought to be at risk in the […]

Blue-green algae causing health crisis Southwest Florida – “It is not alarmist to say that the people of Florida are being slowly poisoned by the water”

By Howard Simon 23 April 2019 (Miami Herald) – Hats off to Southwest Florida Congressman Francis Rooney for pressing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies to tell the public what it knows about the threat of toxic blue-green algae. Finally, a public official is focusing attention on our public-health crisis, […]

The world lost a Belgium-sized area of primary rainforests in 2018

By Mikaela Weisse and Liz Goldman 25 April 2019 (Global Forest Watch) – The tropics lost 12 million hectares of tree cover in 2018, the fourth-highest annual loss since record-keeping began in 2001. Of greatest concern is the disappearance of 3.6 million hectares of primary rainforest, an area the size of Belgium. The figures come […]

Category 4 Cyclone Kenneth crashes ashore in Mozambique – Thousands evacuated as Mozambique is hit with the strongest storm in its history

By Bob Henson 25 April 2019 (Weather Underground) – Tropical Cyclone Kenneth slammed onto the coast of far northern Mozambique around 4 pm Thursday afternoon local time (10:15 am EDT) as a potentially catastrophic Category 4 storm. Just before landfall, at 12Z (8 am EDT), Kenneth’s top sustained winds were pegged at 120 knots (140 mph)—solidly […]

From ruined bridges to dirty air, EPA scientists price out the cost of climate change – “The cost of inaction is really high, and the cost of reducing emissions pales in comparison”

By Julia Rosen 8 April 2019 (Los Angeles Times) – By the end of the century, the manifold consequences of unchecked climate change will cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars per year, according to a new study by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency. Those costs will come in multiple forms, including water shortages, […]

Advocates hoped U.S. census would find diversity in agriculture, but it found old white people – “We have seen a 30-year decline in almost every single metric”

By Laura Reiley and Andrew Van Dam 13 April 2019 (The Washington Post) – The Agriculture Department’s newly released 2017 Census of Agriculture is 820 pages of graphs, tables and puzzling shifts (half as many llamas but the number of minks rose toward 1 million). This census comes out every five years and is the most […]

Natural climate solutions aren’t enough – “There is still an emissions gap that requires decarbonizing energy and industry”

By Rob Jordan 28 February 2019 (Stanford Report) – In the fight to slow climate change, nature is a powerful weapon. In fact, natural climate solutions, such as reducing deforestation and changing farming practices, can soak up excess carbon in the atmosphere and prevent certain emissions so effectively that it might be tempting to think […]

After Cyclone Idai, thousands in Mozambique still cut off, many more in need – “They risk becoming utterly forgotten”

By Emma Rumney; Editing by Hugh Lawson 15 April 2019 JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – One month after Cyclone Idai tore through southern Africa bringing devastating floods, aid agencies say the situation remains critical with some communities in worst-hit Mozambique only just being reached with aid. The storm made landfall in Mozambique on 14 March 2019, flattening […]

A lawyer set himself on fire to protest climate change. Did anyone care?

By J. Oliver Conroy 15 April 2019 (The Guardian) – On a recent Saturday in Brooklyn, against the unlikely backdrop of a huge blue-and-white Ikea outlet, several dozen volunteers hand-churned compost. Decomposing food scraps emit considerable heat, and the 6ft-tall compost heaps were warm to the touch. As shovels and pitchforks pierced the compost, gusts […]

Due to humans, extinction risk for 1,700 animal species to increase by 2070 – “Losses in species populations can irreversibly hamper the functioning of ecosystems and human quality of life”

By Kendall Teare 4 March 2019 (Yale News) – As humans continue to expand our use of land across the planet, we leave other species little ground to stand on. By 2070, increased human land-use is expected to put 1,700 species of amphibians, birds, and mammals at greater extinction risk by shrinking their natural habitats, […]

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