A kangaroo rushes past a burning house on 31 December 2019 in Conjola, on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Photo: Matthew Abbott / The New York Times / Redux / Eyevine

Australia authorities plead for last-ditch evacuation, with terrible fire conditions ahead

By Ben Smee 3 January 2020 (The Guardian) – Australian authorities have made a final plea for people to flee bushfire-affected areas in three states before the onset of extreme conditions so dangerous that firefighters may be unable to defend entire towns. On Friday, authorities in New South Wales urged people still in a 14,000 […]

Aerial view of smoke rising from a bushfire burning at East Gippsland, Victoria, 2 January 2020. Photo: EPA / BBC News

Tens of thousands stranded while attempting to flee Australia fires – Cashless economy collapses as ATMs fail, supermarket looted – “We have no capacity to contain these fires”

By Ben Smee and Luke Henriques-Gomes 2 January 2020 (The Guardian) – Tens of thousands of people remained stranded on Thursday evening while attempting to flee bushfire-ravaged areas of the south-east Australian coast – having earlier been urged to leave before the return of extreme and dangerous weather conditions. The mass evacuation of communities in […]

Youths pull out an ox stuck in muddy waters in the drying Mabwematema dam in Zimbabwe on 25 December 2019. Photo: Zinyange Auntony / AFP / Getty Images

The 2010s were a lost decade for climate. We can’t afford a repeat, scientists warn.

By Sarah Kaplan 31 December 2019 (The Washington Post) – At the start of the last decade, Kallan Benson was 5 years old, her favorite story was “The Secret Garden,” and Earth was in the midst of its warmest year on record. Benson had heard about climate change (her mother is an environmental scientist), but she […]

One woman shared this picture of her young son wearing a mask and life jacket as the family fled on to a boat to escape the bushfires at Mallacoota, Victoria, Australia on 30 December 2019. Photo: ABC News (Australia)

Raging wildfires trap 4,000 at Australian town’s waterfront – Military deployed to help rescue effort – “It should have been daylight but it was black like midnight and we could hear the fire roaring”

By Tristan Lavalette 31 December 2019 PERTH, Australia (AP) – Wildfires burning across Australia’s two most populous states Tuesday trapped residents of a seaside town in apocalyptic conditions and killed at least two people while more property along the country’s east coast fell victim to a devastating fire season. About 4,000 residents in the southeastern […]

This before-and-after image shows satellite images of Lake Kariba, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, in December 2018 and December 2019. The lake has dropped to critically low levels. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory

Drought threatens millions in Southern Africa – “This year’s drought is unprecedented, causing food shortages on a scale we have never seen here before”

By Michael Carlowicz 17 December 2019 (NASA) – Southern Africa is suffering through its worst drought in several decades and perhaps a century. Diminished and late rainfall, combined with long-term increases in temperatures, have jeopardized the food security and energy supplies of millions of people in the region, most acutely in Zambia and Zimbabwe. According […]

This is all the snow there is in Moscow on 28 December 2019. The snow was trucked in and is being guarded in the Red Square. Photo: mariksa_10 / Instagram

Moscow resorts to fake snow in warmest December since 1886 – “It’s not normal at all”

By Andrew Roth 29 December 2019 MOSCOW (The Guardian) – Moscow has been so warm this December that the government has resorted to sending trucks filled with artificial snow to decorate a new year display in the city centre. Videos of the delivery for a snowboarding hill went viral as observers noted the irony of […]

Victoria Falls before and after a prolonged drought, on 17 January 2019 and 4 December 2019. Photo: REUTERS

Victoria Falls shrink to a trickle, feeding climate change fears – “This is our first experience of seeing it like this”

By Mike Hutchings and Tim Cocks 6 December 2019 VICTORIA FALLS, Zambia (Reuters) – For decades Victoria Falls, where southern Africa’s Zambezi river cascade down 100 meters into a gash in the earth, have drawn millions of holidaymakers to Zimbabwe and Zambia for their stunning views. But the worst drought in a century has slowed […]

Climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP25 in Madrid, Spain on 11 December 2019. Photo: Cristina Quicler

Five reasons the COP25 climate talks failed – “The world is screaming out for climate action but this summit has responded with a whisper”

25 December 2019 (AFP) – The climate summit in Madrid earlier this month did not collapse — but by almost any measure it certainly failed. Five years after the fragile UN process yielded the world’s first universal climate treaty, COP25 was billed as a mopping-up session to finish guidelines for carbon markets, thus completing the […]

The tail of a male grey whale that stranded near Victoria, B.C. in April 2019, with skin eaten by an infestation of cyamids, or whale lice. Photo: Fisheries and Oceans Canada

In 2019, 214 grey whales washed up dead on the West Coast of North America – “They get eaten alive”

By Lisa Johnson 28 December 2019 (CBC News) – The first grey whale found dead in B.C. last year was in such rough shape that someone called to report it was tangled up in a big pink buoy. The pink wasn’t plastic, officials learned when they arrived to tow the skinny male to shore near […]

Orthodox Jewish women mourn during the funeral service of Mindel Ferencz who was killed in a kosher market that was the site of a gun battle in Jersey City, N.J., Wednesday, 11 December 2019. Ferencz, 31, and her husband owned the grocery store. The Ferencz family had moved to Jersey City from Brooklyn. Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AP Photo

Number of U.S. mass killings hit new high in 2019, most were shootings – “This seems to be the age of mass shootings”

By Lisa Marie Pane 28 December 2019 (AP News) – The first one occurred 19 days into the new year when a man used an ax to kill four family members including his infant daughter. Five months later, 12 people were killed in a workplace shooting in Virginia. Twenty-two more died at a Walmart in El Paso […]

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