Iran expands flood warnings, tens of thousands evacuate after record floods kill at least 70 people – “Iran is under water”

By Golnar Motevalli 13 April 2019 (Bloomberg) – Authorities in Iran expanded flood warnings to five additional provinces Saturday as rescue efforts continue across the western flank of the country already drenched by heavy rain. Residents from the northeast to the south, including islands in the Persian Gulf, have been told to brace for flooding, […]

Cyclone Idai’s death toll rises to 847, hundreds of thousands displaced – “The harvest for this season is gone, and the chances for next season are minimal at best”

BEIRA, Mozambique, 7 April 2019 (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of people are in need of food, water and shelter after Cyclone Idai battered Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. As of Sunday, at least 847 people had been reported killed by the storm, the flooding it caused and heavy rains before it hit. Following is an […]

More than 1 million acres of U.S. cropland ravaged by record floods and dozens of levee breaks – “There’s thousands of acres that won’t be able to be planted”

By P.J. Huffstutter and Humeyra Pamuk29 March 2019 CHICAGO/COLUMBUS, Nebraska (Reuters) – At least 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of U.S. farmland were flooded after the “bomb cyclone” storm left wide swaths of nine major grain producing states under water this month, satellite data analyzed by Gro Intelligence for Reuters showed. Farms from the Dakotas […]

Who keeps buying California’s scarce water? Saudi Arabia

By Lauren Markham 25 March 2019 Four hours east of Los Angeles, in a drought-stricken area of a drought-afflicted state, is a small town called Blythe where alfalfa is king. More than half of the town’s 94,000 acres are bushy blue-green fields growing the crop. Massive industrial storehouses line the southern end of town, packed […]

U.S. farmers hit by tariffs see crops swept away by flood – Midwest flood risk to persist for months – “The most widespread destruction we have ever seen in our state’s history”

By Jim Salter 23 March 2019 ST. LOUIS (AP) – Even as floodwaters receded in hard-hit places in in the Midwest, experts warned Saturday that with plenty of snow still left to melt in northern states, the relief may only be temporary. Rainfall and some snowmelt spurred flooding in recent weeks that’s blamed in three […]

Midwest voters in Trump country face historic floods and call for climate action – “People are being smacked with climate change at a phenomenal rate”

By Hans Nichols and Stefanie Cargill 19 March 2019 La CROSSE, Wisconsin – In two states that flipped from Democratic to Republican in the 2016 presidential race, the devastating floods are focusing voter’s attention on climate change — and both parties’ response to it. “My big concern is the environment,” said Amy Bouska, a retired […]

Cyclone Idai could be the Southern Hemisphere’s deadliest storm – 2.6 million people in need of immediate aid, more than 1,000 feared dead – “Everything is destroyed, everything”

By Ishaan Tharoor20 March 2019 (The Washington Post) – We don’t know how many people have died since Cyclone Idai made landfall last Thursday on the coast of Mozambique before barreling west into Zimbabwe and Malawi. Aerial photography and drone footage have shown the apocalyptic scenes left in the cyclone’s wake: Fields of crops were […]

The climate change paper so depressing it’s sending people to therapy

By Zing Tsjeng 27 February 2019 (Vice) – What if I told you there was a paper on climate change that was so uniquely catastrophic, so perspective-altering, and so absolutely depressing that it’s sent people to support groups and encouraged them to quit their jobs and move to the countryside? Good news: there is. It’s […]

Sharp rise in methane levels threatens world climate targets – “What we are now witnessing is extremely worrying”

By Robin McKie 17 February 2019 (The Guardian) – Dramatic rises in atmospheric methane are threatening to derail plans to hold global temperature rises to 2C, scientists have warned. In a paper published this month by the American Geophysical Union, researchers say sharp rises in levels of methane – which is a powerful greenhouse gas […]

Nearly 50 per cent of India facing drought as groundwater depletion increases – “We are not enhancing groundwater recharge, and drought conditions are making us extract more and more water”

GANDHINAGAR, 28 February 2019 (Press Trust of India) – Nearly 50 per cent of the country is currently facing drought with at least 16 per cent falling in the “exceptional” or “extreme” category, according to IIT Gandhinagar scientists managing India’s real time drought prediction system. This ongoing drought will pose a lot of challenges in […]

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