The Bald Mountain Wildfire burns in the Grande Prairie Forest Area in Alberta on 12 May 2023. Government of Alberta Fire Service / Canadian Press / AP

Forests are no longer our climate friends – “As extreme as this year’s wildfire emissions have been, they are just the latest escalation in a multi-decade flood of CO₂ pouring out of Canada’s ‘managed’ forests and forestry”

By David Wallace-Wells 6 September 2023 (The New York Times) – Canadian wildfires have this year burned a land area larger than 104 of the world’s 195 countries. The carbon dioxide released by them so far is estimated to be nearly 1.5 billion tons — more than twice as much as Canada releases through transportation, […]

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology glaciologist and head of the Swiss measurement network “Glamos”, Matthias Huss, work at the Rhone glacier with his team near Goms, Switzerland, Friday, 16 June 2023. A top glacier watcher warned that a warm early summer and a heat wave could have caused severe glacier melt across Switzerland, threatening to make 2023 the second-worst year for ice loss after a record thaw in 2022. Photo: Matthias Schrader / AP Photo

Swiss glacier watcher warns 2023 heat wave threatens severe melt again after record 2022 – “We can definitely say that we had very high melting in Switzerland and in Europe in general”

By Jamey Keaten 1 September 2023 GENEVA (AP) – A top glacier watcher has warned that a warm early summer combined with a heat wave last week may have caused severe glacier melt in Switzerland, threatening to make 2023 its second-worst year for ice loss after a record thaw last year. Matthias Huss of the GLAMOS […]

The Trinity test fireball, 25 thousandths of a second after its detonation at the Alamogordo bombing range in New Mexico at 5:29 a.m. Mountain time on 16 July 1945. Photo: Los Alamos National Laboratory

The atomic bomb laid down the marker for humanity’s era of catastrophic change – “An observable, unambiguous change in the physical properties or fossil content of the strata”

By Stephen Trimble 3 September 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – Christopher Nolan believes J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. “By unleashing nuclear power,” the film director concludes, “he gave us the power to destroy ourselves.” Nolan might exaggerate, but Oppenheimer, the subject of Nolan’s hit movie, is surely worthy of the […]

A combination picture shows satellite images of Ozello, Florida before flooding (L) on 12 January 2023 and flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia in Florida, U.S., 30 August 2023. Photo: Maxar Technologies / REUTERS / CBS News

Home insurers cut natural disasters from policies as climate risks grow – “The same risks that are making insurance more important are making it harder to get”

By Jacob Bogage 3 September 2023 (The Washington Post) – In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most. At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — […]

The calving front of the Thwaites Glacier in the Amundsen Sea in 2019, viewed from the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer. Photo: Elizabeth Rush

We reached the glacier just as it collapsed – The world’s widest glacier is melting and changing predictions about our planet’s future – “It looks nearly as dramatic as the Larsen B collapse”

By Elizabeth Rush 13 August 2023 (The Atlantic) – Out on the bow of the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, the air is dense and almost warm. We have punched through miles of Antarctic ice floes to reach the Amundsen Sea’s foggy interior. I want to honor the remaining distance between us and Thwaites Glacier’s calving […]

Aerial view of the Panamanian island of Carti Sugdupu. Hundreds are preparing to leave the island in the face of rising sea levels. Photo: Luis Acosta

“We’re going to sink”: hundreds abandon Caribbean island home – “Almost all the islands are going to be abandoned by the end of this century”

By Juan José Rodríguez 6 September 2023 (AFP) – On a tiny Caribbean island, hundreds of people are preparing to pack up and move to escape the rising waters threatening to engulf their already precarious homes. Surrounded by idyllic clear waters, the densely populated island of Carti Sugtupu off Panama’s north coast has barely an […]

Aerial view of houses in a flooded area after an extratropical cyclone hit southern cities, in Lajeado, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, 6 September 2023. Photo: Diego Vara / REUTERS

Brazilian state reels after its worst-ever cyclone disaster – “You have to escape. If you stay there, you die.”

By George Wright 6 September 2023 (BBC News) – Torrential rain and winds caused by a cyclone have left at least 27 people dead in southern Brazil, with more flooding expected. The governor of Rio Grande do Sul said it was the state’s worst-ever weather disaster. Thousands have been forced from their homes, officials said. […]

CAMS Daily total cumulative carbon emissions from Canada wildfires in 2023, compared with emissions since 2003. Data for 2023 are current through 28 August 2023. Growth in fire emissions have surpassed 2014 to set a new record for the last two decades. Graphic: Mark Parrington / Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service

Wildfires in Canada’s Northwest Territories have released 97 megatons of carbon, 277 times what its people emit – Emissions from wildfires across Canada in 2023 vastly exceed the 2014 record

By Liny Lamberink 28 August 2023 (CBC News) – Wildfires in the N.W.T have emitted 97 megatonnes of carbon into the air so far this year — 277 times more than what was caused by humans in the territory back in 2021. Mark Parrington, a senior scientist working at the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), […]

A Burning Man participant trudges through the mud in Black Rock City, in the Nevada desert, after a rainstorm flooded the site and stranded thousands, 2 September 2023. Photo: Trevor Hughes / USA TODAY

One dead at Burning Man as flooding strands thousands – “No one is going to have sympathy for us”

RENO, Nevada, 3 September 2023 (AP) – Authorities in Nevada were investigating a death at the site of the Burning Man festival where thousands of attendees remained stranded Saturday night as flooding from storms swept through the Nevada desert. [Related: Carbon footprint of Burning Man: 27,000 tons of CO2 per year –Des] Organizers closed vehicular […]

The McDougall Creek wildfire burns next to houses in the Okanagan community of West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, 19 August 2023. Photo: Chris Helgren / REUTERS

City empties as thousands flee wildfire burning near capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories – Wildfires could persist for rest of “marathon” summer – “I don’t want to die, mommy”

By Tammy Webber and Jim Morris 18 August 2023 VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) – Residents heeded warnings to evacuate the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories as a large wildfire burned just outside the city of 20,000 Friday, while firefighters battled a growing fire that set homes ablaze in a city in British Columbia. Thousands of […]

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