Prairies choke on smoke from British Columbia forest fires

By Tamara Baluja, The Province; with files from Laura Baziuk August 22, 2010 B.C.’s ferocious wildfires have resulted in an air-quality advisory that remained in effect Saturday for B.C., Alberta and even parts of Saskatchewan as smoke continues to drift east. There have been unconfirmed reports that the smoke has even drifted to the western […]

Desperate refugees fight over food as UN says eight million flood-stricken Pakistanis are in ‘urgent need’ of food

By Mail Foreign ServiceLast updated at 9:57 AM on 22nd August 2010 Tired, desperate and starving, these two men come to blows as they fight over a food package handed out by a local charity. With more than 20million people displaced by flooding that is now officially the worst disaster Pakistan has ever faced, the […]

Thousands stay in Pakistan floods to protect homes

By TIM SULLIVAN (AP)22 August 2010 HAMDANI LEGARI, Pakistan — The old man stepped carefully through his village, dodging craters as deep as graves where they had been mining soil for embankments to hold back the floodwaters. Already, nearly half this village of tenant farmers had been destroyed. The crops wiped out. But Mohammed Ayoub […]

Economic outlook dire for Pakistan flood victims

By the CNN Wire StaffAugust 22, 2010 9:13 a.m. EDT Multan, Pakistan (CNN) — After weeks of massive flooding that killed at least 1,539 people, water is finally receding in parts of the country. But for the millions of survivors, another nightmare looms. Much of Pakistan’s economy and infrastructure has been washed away by the […]

US utilities building dozens of old-style coal plants

By MATTHEW BROWN (AP)17 August 2010 WYODAK, Wyo. — Utilities across the country are building dozens of old-style coal plants that will cement the industry’s standing as the largest industrial source of climate-changing gases for years to come. An Associated Press examination of U.S. Department of Energy records and information provided by utilities and trade […]

Graph of the Day: Observed Change in US Annual Average Precipitation, 1958-2008

US precipitation has increased an average of about 5 percent over the past 50 years. Projections of future precipitation generally indicate that northern areas will become wetter, and southern areas, particularly in the West, will become drier. While precipitation over the United States as a whole has increased, there have been important regional and seasonal […]

Smoke from B.C. choking eastern provinces, damaging air quality

Haze is reducing visibility, carries a strong smell, and poses a health risk By Vivian Luk, Vancouver Sun August 21, 2010 VANCOUVER — Clouds of stinking smoke from B.C. forest fires covered much of Western Canada on Friday, reducing visibility and sparking air-quality advisories. Cooler weather and a chance of showers could ease some of […]

Putin sacks Russian forestry chief over fires

BBC20 August 2010 Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has sacked the head of the forestry agency for failing to deal adequately with the recent wildfires. The fires have destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of countryside, and shrouded Moscow in dense smog. Mr Putin replaced Alexei Savinov with his deputy, Viktor Maslyakov. However, some Russian […]

Russia environmentalists visit radioactive forests threatened by fires

By Vladimir Slivyak, 21 August 2010; translated by Maria Kaminskaya MOSCOW – Last Wednesday, August 18, a group of journalists and environmentalists joined representatives of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS) to visit Bryansk – a region in Central European Russia where wildfires threatened to spread into areas affected by the 1986 Chernobyl fallout, […]

Image of the Day: Indus River Flooding Viewed from Orbit, 12 August 2010

Kashmor, Pakistan, 9 August 2009   Kashmor, Pakistan, 12 August 2010 Caption by Holli RiebeekAugust 19, 2010 By mid-August, the extreme monsoon floods that had overwhelmed northwestern Pakistan had traveled downstream into southern Pakistan. The bottom image, acquired by the Landsat 5 satellite on August 12, 2010, shows flooding near Kashmor, Pakistan, just before the […]

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