A home burns on 16 August 2021, south of Janesville, California. Photo: Ethan Swope / Associated Press

Allstate joins State Farm in suspending new policies in California – “The cost to insure new home customers in California is far higher than the price they would pay for policies due to wildfires, higher costs for repairing homes, and higher reinsurance premiums”

By Ryan Mac 4 June 2023 (The New York Times) – California property owners hoping to open new insurance policies are no longer able to do so with one of the nation’s largest homeowner insurance companies. Allstate, the state’s fourth-largest property and casualty insurance provider, has stopped selling new home, condominium or commercial insurance policies in California, […]

Views of the Manhattan skyline at 10:02 a.m., 11:56 a.m., 12:53 p.m., and 1:53 p.m. as smoke from Canada wildfires engulfed the Northeast U.S. on 7 June 2023. Photo: EarthCam

New York City air quality hits worst level on record as smoke from Canada wildfires engulfs the Northeast U.S. – “I can taste the air”

By Mike Ives and Liam Stack 7 June 2023 (The New York Times) – The sky in New York City rapidly darkened on Wednesday afternoon, as a plume of smoke from Canadian wildfires approached the nation’s largest city and sent the air quality index soaring past 324, the worst since the Environmental Protection Agency began […]

Map showing the number of subglobal climate (two local exposure boundaries), functional integrity, surface water, groundwater, nitrogen, phosphorus and aerosol safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) currently transgressed by location. No more than seven of these eight metrics have their ESBs transgressed in any one pixel. Since climate is a globally defined ESB, we use wet bulb temperatures of over 35°C for at least 1-day per year and low-elevation coastal zones (

Earth is “really quite sick now” and in danger zone in nearly all ecological ways, study says – “We are moving in the wrong direction on basically all of these”

By Seth Borenstein 31 May 2023 (AP News) – Earth has pushed past seven out of eight scientifically established safety limits and into “the danger zone,” not just for an overheating planet that’s losing its natural areas, but for the well-being of people living on it, according to a new study. The study looks not just […]

Map showing maximum land subsidence rates around the world, 2015-2020. Sea levels are rising at an average global rate of 3.4 millimeters. Many places are sinking (known as land subsidence) further than that in a year. Data: Wu, et al., 2022. Graphic: Kasha Patel / The Washington Post

Land around the U.S. is sinking. Here are some of the fastest areas.

By Kasha Patel 30 May 2023 (The Washington Post) – Imagine Earth’s surface is like a stack of pancakes. The pancakes, or layers of soil and rocks, may appear fairly evenly stacked and fluffy. Over time though, the stack can become compressed, thinner and shorter. Scientists observe this downward motion of land, called land subsidence, […]

A beachgoer walks through sargassum seaweed that washed ashore on 18 May 2023, in Key West, Florida. A huge mass of sargassum seaweed formed in the Atlantic Ocean is headed for the Florida coastlines and shores in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Seaweed full of flesh-eating bacteria hitting Florida, creating a “perfect pathogen storm”

By Jess Thomson 30 May 2023 (Newsweek) – The massive blob of seaweed creeping across the Atlantic Ocean toward Florida may contain deadly flesh-eating bacteria. The 5,000-mile wide clump of seaweed is made up of sargassum seaweed, which has bloomed massively to form the “Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt.” A study from Florida Atlantic University published […]

Map showing early warning hunger hotspots, June-November 2023. Hunger was set to worsen in 18 “hotspots” worldwide including Sudan, where fighting put people at risk of starvation, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a report published on Monday, 29 May 2023. Sudan, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Mali were elevated to the highest alert level, joining Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. Graphic: UN FAO

UN agencies warn of rising hunger risk in 18 “hotspots” – “Not only are more people in more places around the world going hungry, but the severity of the hunger they face is worse than ever”

29 May 2023 (UN News) – Hunger is set to worsen in 18 “hotspots” worldwide including Sudan, where fighting is putting people at risk of starvation, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned in a report published on Monday. Sudan, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Mali have been elevated to the highest alert level, joining Afghanistan, Nigeria, […]

A worker uses a digital thermometer to record a surface temperature of 42.6°C (108.7°F) in Beijing, China on 15 May 2023. Photo: China Central Television / SCMP

Southern China swelters, power grids struggle under “relentless” heatwaves – Pigs, rabbits, and fish dying from searing temperatures – “It’s just been week on week on week of these records being shattered”

By David Kirton 2 June 2023 BEIJING (Reuters) – Heatwaves tormenting parts of southern and eastern China are set to persist through June, putting power grids under strain as air conditioners are turned on full blast at homes, offices and factories in mega-cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen. In the next three days, most of southern […]

The Butachimie chemical plant sits in Chalempe, eastern France, Tuesday, 8 November 2022. Photo: Jean-Francois Badias / AP Photo

Cracks emerging in Europe’s united front to battle climate change – “You can’t say I support the Green Deal, but not the ambition to restore nature. It’s not ‘à la carte menu.’”

By Samuel Petrequin 27 May 2023 BRUSSELS (AP News) – The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years. But it now finds itself under pressure from within to pause new environmental efforts amid fears they will hurt the economy. With the next European […]

Changes in flood insurance rates in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Data: FEMA. Graphic: WUSF

Flood insurance costs to soar in Florida – In the most expensive ZIP code for flood insurance in South Florida, average premiums will rise above $7,000 per year

By Nicolas Rivero 21 May 2023 (WUSF) – Brace for a few years of flood insurance rate hikes, South Florida. And they’re going to be steep — doubling, even tripling for thousands of homeowners. FEMA has changed the way it calculates flood insurance prices. Instead of relying on old flood zone maps covering broad areas, […]

This Monday, 29 May 2023 satellite image released by NASA shows Typhoon Mawar approaching Philippines' northern provinces. Photo: NASA Worldview / Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) / AP

Thousands evacuated as Philippines warns of flooding, landslides from approaching Typhoon Mawar

By Jim Gomez 29 May 2023 MANILA, Philippines (AP News) – Philippine officials began evacuating thousands of villagers, shut down schools and offices and imposed a no-sail ban Monday as Typhoon Mawar approached the country’s northern provinces a week after battering the U.S. territory of Guam. The typhoon is packing maximum sustained winds of 155 […]

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