Aerial view of smoke rising from fires at Long Loch and Derrickson Lake in Central Okanagan in Canada on 30 June 2021. Photo: B.C. Wildfire Service / Reuters

Unprecedented heat, hundreds dead, and a town destroyed – Climate change is frying the Northern Hemisphere in 2021 – “This is literally the deadliest weather on record for the U.S. Pacific Northwest and far southwest Canada region”

By Angela Dewan 4 July 2021 (CNN) – The tiny town of Lytton has come to hold a grim record. On Tuesday, it experienced Canada’s highest-ever temperature, in an unprecedented heatwave that has over a week killed hundreds of people and triggered more than 240 wildfires across British Columbia, most of which are still burning. Lytton […]

Video showing the Atami mudslide, 3 July 2021. At least two people were killed and more than twenty were missing after two days of record-breaking rainfall. Video: Eyepress via Reuters

2 killed, 20 missing after record rain triggers mudslide in Japan resort town – Two-day rainfall exceeded average for entire month of July

By Jan Wesner Childs 4 July 2021 (The Weather Channel) – Two people died and at least 20 remained missing after a wave of black mud, water and debris slammed into houses southwest of Tokyo Saturday amid days of heavy rainfall. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters that 19 people had been rescued as more […]

A wildfire rages beside the Kolyma highway, 30 June 2021. The highway is the major connection between the Republic of Sakha’s capital Yakutsk and the port town of Magadan, on the Sea of Okhotsk. The highway had to be shut because the fire got too close to the road and was much too fierce for safe driving. Photo: The Siberian Times

Siberia’s “Road of Bones” closed as early wildfires rage – “We can’t see the sun because of the smog, flakes of ash are raining from the sky. We are struggling to breathe, we really need help.”

By Svetlana Skarbo 30 June 2021 (The Siberian Times) – More than 2,000 people are deployed in extinguishing wildfires raging around Russia’s coldest inhabited territory, Yakutia, now in the third year of an extremely intense season of wildfires. The first of them ignited as early as the beginning of May right outside the world-famous Pole […]

In a grim commentary on climate change, in 2009, British artist Banksy creatively vandalized this 1890 painting by Hudson River School painter Albert Bierstadt. The artwork, now titled Subject to Availability, has a surprise for Northwest locals — Mount Rainier. It sold at auction Wednesday, 28 June 2021, for 4,582,500 pounds, or $6,342,180. Photo: Christie’s Images Limited 2021

Artist Banksy’s “hijacked” painting of Mount Rainier sells for more than $6 million as global warming roasts the Pacific Northwest

By Megan Burbank 30 June 2021 (The Seattle Times) – As the Puget Sound region coped this week with extreme heat caused by climate change, one of the art world’s most audacious commentaries on the issue reemerged across the Atlantic. A 2009 work of creative vandalism from British artist and agitator Banksy, Subject to Availability, was sold […]

A crane is used to remove sets of human remains, as search and rescue personnel work atop the rubble at the Champlain Towers South condo building, where scores of people remain missing more than a week after it partially collapsed, 2 July 2021, in Surfside, Florida. Rescue efforts resumed Thursday evening after being halted for most of the day over concerns about the stability of the remaining structure. Photo: Mark Humphrey / AP Photo

Miami’s climate dystopia gets real – South Florida real estate will get more deadly if we continue to ignore the warning signs of a doomed coastline

By Jeff Goodell 1 July 2021 (Rolling Stone) – Before it fell, Champlain Towers South, the 12-story Florida condo building that collapsed last week in the middle of the night, burying residents in a pile of concrete and chaos, was just another nondescript high-rise on the beach. It had been thrown up quickly during the […]

Wildfires consume the town of Lytton, British Columbia, on 30 June 2021. Photo: Jack Zimmerman / The Guardian

Wildfire forces evacuation for British Columbia town that hit a record 121 degrees – “The whole town is on fire”

LYTTON, British Columbia, 1 July 2021 (AP) – A wildfire amid a record heatwave in western Canada has forced authorities to order residents to evacuate a village in British Columbia that smashed the country’s record for hottest temperature three days in a row this week. Mayor Jan Polderman of Lytton issued the evacuation order Wednesday, […]

Surface temperature in the US Pacific Northwest and Canadian West, 29 June 2021. Graphic: Meteo365.com

More than 230 dead in British Columbia as heatwave shatters records – “Dubai would be cooler than what we’re seeing now”

By Sarah Moon, Jon Passantino, and Rebekah Riess 29 June 2021 (CNN) – “Since the onset of the heatwave late last week, the BC Coroners Service has experienced a significant increase in deaths reported where it is suspected that extreme heat has been contributory,” Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe said in a statement. The coroner’s service […]

Satellite view of Lake Mead in 2000 and 2020. The United States' largest reservoir is draining rapidly. Plagued by extreme, climate change-fueled drought and increasing demand for water, Lake Mead on 16 June 2021 registered its lowest level on record since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s. Photo: LANDSAT / Copernicus / Google Earth

The American West is drying out – Lake Mead, largest reservoir in U.S., drops to lowest level on record since it was filled in the 1930s

By Zachary B. Wolf 20 June 2021 (CNN) – The incredible pictures of a depleted Lake Mead, on the Nevada-Arizona border, illustrate the effects of drought brought on by climate change. Later this year, the US government will almost certainly declare the first-ever water shortage along the Colorado River. Maps show more than a quarter of the US […]

A home destroyed in the 2020 North Complex Fire sits above Lake Oroville on 23 May 2021, in Oroville, California. At the time of this photo, drought had reduced the reservoir to 39 percent of capacity and 46 percent of its historical average. Photo: Noah Berger / AP Photo

Drought saps California reservoirs as hot, dry summer looms – “It makes me feel like our planet is literally drying up,”

By Adam Beam 17 June 2021 OROVILLE, Califorina (AP) – Each year Lake Oroville helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops, sustain endangered salmon beneath its massive earthen dam and anchor the tourism economy of a Northern California county that must rebuild seemingly every year after unrelenting wildfires. But the mighty lake — a […]

Fishermen try to move a fishing boat to a safer ground on the Arabian Sea coast in Mumbai, India, Monday, 17 May 2021. Cyclone Tauktae, roaring in the Arabian Sea was moving toward India's western coast on Monday as authorities tried to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people and suspended COVID-19 vaccinations in one state. Photo: Rafiq Maqbool / AP Photo

India braces for powerful cyclone amid deadly virus surge

NEW DELHI, 17 May 2021 (AP) – A powerful cyclone roaring in the Arabian Sea was moving toward India’s western coast on Monday as authorities tried to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people and suspended COVID-19 vaccinations in one state. Cyclone Tauktae, which had already killed 12 people, was expected to make landfall on Monday […]

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