People walk along a dry arm of the Paraná River near Rosario, Argentina in 2021. Photo: Juan Mabromata / AFP / Getty Images

Dying crops, spiking energy bills, showers once a week: in South America, global warming brings new normal of water scarcity – “What we’re seeing today is as if the future has already arrived”

By Diego Laje, Anthony Faiola, and Ana Vanessa Herrero 24 September 2021 BUENOS AIRES (The Washington Post) – Sergio Koci’s sunflower farm in the lowlands of northern Argentina has survived decades of political upheaval, runaway inflation and the coronavirus outbreak. But as a series of historic droughts deadens vast expanses of South America, he fears […]

People cremate the bodies of COVID-19 victims at a crematorium ground in New Delhi, India, 24 April 2021. Photo: Danish Siddiqui / REUTERS

Global COVID-19 deaths hit 5 million as Delta variant sweeps the world – U.S. deaths top 700,000 as anti-vaccine disinformation lures thousands to the grave – “If we had been more effective in our vaccination, we could have prevented 90 percent of the deaths since mid-June”

By Kavya B and Roshan Abraham 1 October 2021 (Reuters) – Worldwide deaths related to COVID-19 surpassed 5 million on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, with unvaccinated people particularly exposed to the virulent Delta strain. The variant has exposed the wide disparities in vaccination rates between rich and poor nations, and the upshot of […]

Satellite view of the Chinese fishing fleet crossing the Pacific ocean to the coast of Peru, June - September 2021. Data: NASA. Video: AP News

Great Wall of Lights: China’s sea power on Darwin’s doorstep – “It really is like the Wild West. Nobody is responsible for enforcement out there.”

By Joshua Goodman 24 September 2021 ABOARD THE OCEAN WARRIOR in the eastern Pacific Ocean (AP) – It’s 3 a.m., and after five days plying through the high seas, the Ocean Warrior is surrounded by an atoll of blazing lights that overtakes the nighttime sky. “Welcome to the party!” says third officer Filippo Marini as […]

A boy looks at the bodies of more than 1400 Atlantic White-Sided dolphins slaughtered on the Skálabotnur beach in the Danish Faroe Islands on 12 September 2021. Photo: Sea Shepherd

More than 1,400 dolphins slaughtered in one day in Faroe Islands – “Possibly the largest single hunt of cetaceans ever recorded worldwide”

By Joshua Nevett 14 September 2021 (BBC News) – The practice of dolphin hunting in the Faroe Islands has come under scrutiny after more than 1,400 of the mammals were killed in what was believed to be a record catch. The pod of white-sided dolphins was driven into the largest fjord in the North Atlantic […]

Dead oysters in a commercial oyster bed that were killed by the record heat wave in British Columbia in 2021. When Judy Hicks headed to the beach on 2 July 2021, she discovered that many of her oysters had cracked-open shells, indicating they’d died during the heat wave. From 25 June 2021 to 1 July 2021, during B.C.’s unprecedented “heat dome” that caused hundreds of human fatalities, record-breaking temperatures are estimated to have killed more than one billion sea animals. Photo: Judy Hicks / The Tyee

BC’s shellfish farmers struggle after record heatwave decimates oysters – “I have been in this industry for 36 years, and I have never seen a mortality rate like this”

By Vaishnavi Dandekar 5 Aug 2021 (The Tyee) – Judy Hicks, a commercial shellfish grower in Okeover Inlet, B.C., started her day early on July 2. Weather forecasts had predicted that temperatures would reach the mid-20s that day — after hitting the mid-to-high 30s earlier that week — and Hicks wanted to avoid the heat. […]

Aerial view of Lake Oroville, seen through a thick haze of smoke from California wildfires, on 20 August 2021. Lake Oroville has a surface area of 15,000 acres but is facing the worst crisis in its 52-year history. Photo: Action News Now

California mega-drought reduces Lake Oroville reservoir to historically low level – Hydroelectric plant shuts down – “We’re in uncharted territory”

OROVILLE, California, 20 August 2021 (Action News Now) – The reach of the drought emergency has a shocking look at as Lake Oroville drains to dirt. With a surface area of just over 15,000 acres – Lake Oroville provides water and electricity and impacts the local economy as recreation is big on this lake. California’s […]

Aerial view from a Kyodo News helicopter on 15 August 2021 shows the flooded Saga Prefecture city of Takeo in southwestern Japan, following record-breaking rain. Photo: Kyodo News

Record rains lash wide areas of Japan, three feared dead after landslide – Japan braces for more torrential downpours – “I’ve experienced three floods like this so far, but this is the worst”

TOKYO, JAPAN (AFP) – Japan braced for further downpours on Sunday as rescuers sifted through flood and landslide damage after record rain that left at least three dead. Residents returned to check on their mud-covered homes in the southwest where nearly 2 million people were advised to urgently seek shelter on Saturday as rivers overflowed. […]

A man watches the flames as wildfire approaches Kochyli beach near Limni village on the island of Evia, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Athens, Greece, late Friday, 6 August 2021. Wildfires raged uncontrolled through Greece and Turkey for yet another day Friday, forcing thousands to flee by land and sea, and killing a volunteer firefighter on the fringes of Athens in a huge forest blaze that threatened the Greek capital's most important national park. Photo: Thodoris Nikolaou / AP Photo

Thousands flee wildfires in Greece – Forest and homes burn during “nightmarish summer” of heatwave and drought – “For the next 40 years we will have no job, and in the winter, we are going to drown from the floods without the forests that were protecting us”

By Elena Becatoros, Demetris Nellas, and Michael Varaklas 8 August 2021 ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Three large wildfires churned across Greece on Saturday, with one threatening whole towns and cutting a line across Evia, the country’s second-largest island, isolating its northern part. Others engulfed forested mountainsides and skirted ancient sites, leaving behind a trail of […]

“Insert Human Sacrifice” Copyright © 2021 James P. Galasyn. Historical image of Moloch is from the Mary Evans Picture Library.

Moloch: first of the new technogenic viruses

7 August 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus is widely understood to be the most recent virus to have jumped the species barrier to humans[1]. In this post, I propose the idea that COVID-19 is the first virus to jump the platform barrier also, from natural biology to human technology. COVID-19 exists now […]

Cars and homes destroyed by the Dixie Fire line central Greenville on Thursday, 5 August 2021, in Plumas County, California. Photo: Noah Berger / AP Photo

Wildfire explodes to third-largest in California history – “We’re seeing truly frightening fire behavior. We really are in uncharted territory.”

By Daisy Nguyen and Noah Berger 6 August 2021 GREENVILLE, California (AP) – A Northern California wildfire that is now the third-largest in state history had burned for weeks, mostly in remote wildland areas with few people, before it roared through the little mountain community of Greenville, driven by shifting winds and bone-dry vegetation. Eva […]

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