A wildfire rages in Texas on 27 February 2024. Photo: Greenville Fire-Rescue / Reuters

Historic Texas wildfire consumes more than 500,000 acres as blaze rages on

By Gloria Oladipo 28 February 2024 (The Guardian) – A historic wildfire in Texas continued to rage on Wednesday morning as firefighters work to contain the flames and survey damage. The Smokehouse Creek fire, the second largest wildfire in Texas to date, has consumed more than 500,000 acres in Texas’s Panhandle area since it ignited on Monday. […]

Smoke rises from a warehouse fire, owned by French recycling group SNAM, which houses lithium batteries in Viviez, north of Toulouse, France, 17 February 2024 in this image obtained from social media. Photo: Adeba / REUTERS

Fire at French lithium battery recycling plant under control after two days – 900 metric tons of lithium batteries may have burned

By Geert De Clercq and Ingrid Melander 19 February 2024 PARIS (Reuters) – A fire at a battery recycling plant in southern France is under control, though burning, the local firefighters service said on Monday, two days after the blaze began. The fire broke out in a warehouse containing 900 metric tons of lithium batteries […]

Prentice Sinclair Smith a friend of home owner Dion Peronneau says she was awoken by the sound of cracking around 4 a.m. early morning Monday, as mudflow forced its way into her home in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles, Tuesday, 6 February 2024. One of the wettest storms in Southern California history unleashed more than 300 mudslides in the Los Angeles area after dumping more than half of the city’s seasonal rainfall in just two days, and officials warned Tuesday that the threat hadn’t passed yet. Photo: Damian Dovarganes / AP Photo

Record rainfall, triple-digit winds, hundreds of mudslides. Here’s California’s storm by the numbers

LOS ANGELES, 6 February 2024 (AP) – The slow-moving atmospheric river still battering California on Tuesday unleashed record rainfall, triple-digit winds and hundreds of mudslides. Here is the historic storm by the numbers: Downtown Los Angeles In just three days, downtown Los Angeles got soaked by more than 8 inches (20.3 cm) of rain — more than half […]

Aerial view of an illegal gold mine surrounding Yanomami Indigenous huts in Yanomami Indigenous land, Brazil, 10 January 2024. Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / REUTERS

Gold miners bring fresh wave of suffering to Brazil’s Yanomami – “This is war because people are dying. Hundreds of Yanomami have died in the humanitarian crisis, and they are Brazilians too.”

By Ueslei Marcelino and Anthony Boadle 18 January 2024 (Reuters) – Brazil is losing the upper hand in its battle to save the Yanomami Indigenous people, who are dying from flu, malaria, and malnutrition brought into their vast, isolated Amazon rainforest reservation by resurgent illegal miners. A year after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva […]

Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev speaks during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 11 December 2023. Photo: Thomas Mukoya / REUTERS

Azerbaijan names former oil exec to lead COP29 climate talks – “With another petrostate hosting the climate conference, our concerns multiply”

By Sibi Arasu 5 January 2024 (AP) – Azerbaijan’s ecology minister has been named to lead the United Nations’ annual climate talks later this year, prompting concern from some climate activists over his former ties to the state oil company in a major oil-producing nation. Mukhtar Babayev’s appointment was announced on X by the United […]

The most expensive tuna sold at the first auction in 2024. The "Near Threatened" fish sold for 114.2 million Japanese yen, or nearly $800,000, at Tokyo’s largest fish market and is set to be served at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Japan. The 525-pound fish, caught off of the coast of Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, fetched the fourth-highest price since records began in 1999. Photo: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg

$800,000 tuna to be turned into sushi at Michelin-starred restaurant

By Nathan Rennolds 6 January 2024 (Business Insider) – A bluefin tuna sold for 114.2 million Japanese yen, or nearly $800,000, at Tokyo’s largest fish market is set to be served at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Japan. The 525-pound fish, caught off of the coast of Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, fetched the fourth-highest price […]

Sean de Guzman, the manager of the California department of water resources snow surveys and water supply forecasting unit, and his team measure snowpack in January 2024. Photo: Andrew Nixon / California department of water resources

California snowpack lowest in decade despite hope with December 2023 storms – “In some places there is literally no measurable snow on the ground at all”

By Gabrielle Canon 4 January 2024 (The Guardian) – In the first snow survey of the season, California came up short – just 25% of the historical average – despite a spate of strong storms that caused flooding and landslides along the coast in late December. On Tuesday, officials measured a depth of just 7.5in at a […]

Crews use specialized vehicles to move man-made snow over trails at the Battle Creek Regional Park in St. Paul, Minnesota. The record warm and snowless winter of 2023-2024 has disrupted life in Minnesota. Photo: Rob Adams / The Wall Street Journal

Record warm and snowless winter disrupts life in Minnesota – “People are bored”

By Melanie Evans 1 January 2024 (The Wall Street Journal) – For Minnesotan Tara Young, the perfect beach conditions are when the water is, well, extra stimulating. She prefers the middle of winter, when most mornings she treks off to soak in a nearby frigid lake. The 38-year-old enjoys her chilly pastime so much she […]

An illegal gold dredge burns in Paruari river during an operation against illegal gold mining at the Urupadi National Forest Park in the Amazon rainforest, conducted by agents of the Chico Mendes environmental agency ICMBio with support of the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police, Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) agents and Brazilian Public-Safety National Force officers, in the municipality of Maues, Amazonas state, Brazil on 1 June 2023. Photo: Adriano Machado / REUTERS

Brazil cracks down as wildcat miners in the Amazon shift their operations – “We destroy their camps and they keep coming back”

By Adriano Machado 28 December 2023 SUCUNDURI, Brazil (Reuters) – Deep in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil is fighting destructive wildcat gold mining as it spreads from Indigenous lands into government-protected conservation areas. Federal Police have joined the government’s biodiversity conservation agency ICMBio on a series of recent operations to catch illegal gold miners and destroy […]

Aerial view of the Donnie Creek wildfire in northeastern British Columbia in May 2023. The massive blaze ripped across more than 1.44 million acres of land throughout the late spring and summer, making it the largest wildfire on record for the Canadian province. Photo: BC Wildfire Service

Ten “you must be kidding” weather and climate facts of 2023

By Bob Henson and Jeff Masters 26 December 2023 (Yale Climate Connections) – The drumbeat of record weather and climate phenomena — hottest, wettest, fieriest, fiercest, and so on — can sometimes fade into the background, like the repetitive backdrop to a mournful dirge. Then there are those sharp moments, like a cymbal crash, when […]

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