People walk home in the dark due to power shortages in Harare, on Monday, 30 September 2019. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa presented a State of the Nation address on 1 October 2019, at a time the southern African nation is reeling from its worst economic crisis in more than a decade. Zimbabweans are enduring shortages of everything from medicines, fuel, cash and water, bringing a weariness and disgust that has often flared into streets protests. Opposition lawmakers walk out of president’s speech. Photo: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated Press

Surviving the extreme water shortage in Zimbabwe’s capital – Doctors on strike over “appalling and disgraceful” conditions in hospitals – Opposition lawmakers walk out of president’s speech

By Morgan Passi and John McGill 2 October 2019 (CBC Radio) – Think of it as a cash and flow problem. Last month, city councillors in Harare, Zimbabwe shut off their main water plant, blaming a lack of foreign currency needed to import treatment chemicals. The water is back on now — after the national government stepped in. […]

Zimbabweans sit and pray on top of a large rock on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe, 8 September 2019. Photo: Themba Hadebe / AP Photo

Zimbabwe’s capital runs dry as taps cut off for 2 million people – “It is a desperate situation”

By Farai Mutsaka 24 September 2019 HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – Tempers flared on Tuesday as more than 2 million residents of Zimbabwe’s capital and surrounding towns found themselves without water after authorities shut down the main treatment plant, raising new fears about disease after a cholera outbreak while the economy crumbles even more. Officials in Harare have struggled to […]

A swarm of flies hangs in the air in Karachi, Pakistan, on 7 September 2019. Swarms of flies, water-borne illnesses, and rivers of sewage have brought Karachi to its knees this rainy season after decades of mismanagement turned the commercial capital into one of the world’s least liveable cities. Photo: AFP

Flies overwhelm Pakistan’s Karachi after monsoon floods garbage and sewage – “We live in hell”

By Ashraf Khan 7 September 2019 (AFP) – Swarms of flies are descending on Pakistan’s commercial capital in what residents say are record numbers this rainy season, adding to the misery of Karachi’s monsoon “hell”. Heavy rains have inundated the sprawling port city of nearly 20 million people for weeks, overwhelming shoddy drainage systems clogged […]

Remote sensing imagery of discolored water and algal blooms in the Florida Bay and the Florida Keys region between 1992 and 2013 showing connectivity of the mainland and the lower Florida Keys, all outlined in red. (a) Landsat true color image on 29 May 1992 shows turbid water in western Florida Bay and discolored, black water in central Florida Bay that extends southward to the lower Florida Keys; (b) AVHRR reflectance image on 12 March 1996 shows high turbidity from the Shark River Slough plume extending beyond the lower Florida Keys towards Dry Tortugas; (c, d) VIIRS chlorophyll a anomaly images show phytoplankton blooms off Shark River Slough reaching the lower Florida Keys that were partially composed of the cyanobacterium, Synechococcus, on (c) 24 November 2013 and (d) 27 January 2014. Graphic: Lapointe, et al., 2019 / Marine Biology

Nutrient loading lowers resistance to thermal stress in Florida Keys corals – “These data make clear that this is not an ‘either temperature or nutrients’ situation, but rather a ‘both/and’ combination of multiple stressors”

By Gisele Galoustian 15 July 2019 (FAU) – Coral reefs are considered one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet and are dying at alarming rates around the world. Scientists attribute coral bleaching and ultimately massive coral death to a number of environmental stressors, in particular, warming water temperatures due to climate change. A […]

Cover of “State of India’s Environment 2019: In Figures”. Graphic: Centre for Science and Environment

Air pollution kills 100,000 children in India every year, study finds – “The country’s progress in renewable energy in 2018-19 has also been dismal”

5 June 2019 (AFP) – The noxious air hanging over India’s towns and cities kills more than 100,000 children under five every year, a damning study published Wednesday for World Environment Day found. India has repeatedly failed to address environmental concerns. Last year a UN report found 14 of the world’s 15 most polluted cities […]

World’s rivers awash with dangerous levels of antibiotics – “It’s quite scary and depressing”

By Natasha Gilbert 26 May 2019 (The Guardian) — Hundreds of rivers around the world from the Thames to the Tigris are awash with dangerously high levels of antibiotics, the largest global study on the subject has found. Antibiotic pollution is one of the key routes by which bacteria are able develop resistance to the […]

Aid workers race to contain cholera outbreak in cyclone-hit Mozambique

By Nita Bhalla7 May 2019 NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Aid workers were on Tuesday racing to contain a cholera outbreak in northern Mozambique after a powerful cyclone contaminated water sources and damaged health clinics. Cyclone Kenneth crashed into the province of Cabo Delgado on April 25, flattening entire villages and killing more than 40 […]

Civilization destroying nature at rate “unprecedented in human history” – Up to 1 million species threatened with extinction, many within decades

Civilization destroying nature at rate “unprecedented in human history” – Up to 1 million species threatened with extinction, many within decades

6 May 2019 (IPBES) – Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history — and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely, warns a landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the summary of which was […]

Historic flooding in Australia to continue, worsen across Queensland into the new week – “Unprecedented” rainfall drives Daintree River level to break 118-year record

By Faith Eherts and Adam Douty 2 February 2019 (AccuWeather) – Record-setting rainfall in recent days has led to widespread flooding, land slips, road closures and evacuations across Queensland. Flood dangers and travel disruptions will continue with little change expected in the coming week. In northern Queensland this past week, Cairns recorded a daily rainfall […]

Austin urged to boil water as Texas flood shuts down treatment plants – Wettest autumn on record in Dallas

By Mark D. Wilson 22 October 2018 (The Statesman) – Silt and debris from floodwaters have overwhelmed Austin’s ability to produce clean water, prompting an unprecedented citywide alert Monday that urged residents to avoid drinking tap water without boiling it first. By Monday evening, the situation led to a run on bottled water supplies at […]

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