DICHATO, Chile, 31 January 2017 (Associated Press) – Strong winds are continuing to stoke the flames of raging wildfires in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 800 families in the coastal town of Dichato. Firefighters and residents fought the fast-spreading blazes on the ground Tuesday, while a Russian supertanker plane and a Brazilian Hercules […]
By Jorge Poblete27 January 2017 (Los Angeles Times) – Chile’s worst ever wildfires threatened the city of Concepcion and the nation’s wine industry Friday, a day after flames destroyed a town about 200 miles south of the nation’s capital. President Michelle Bachelet’s office said the fires had killed 11 people, forced the evacuation of more […]
By Sofia Barbarani 23 January 2017 CARACAS, Venezuela (The Washington Post) – Political parties called for a nationwide protest Monday against Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government but attracted only several thousand people, in a sign of the difficulties the opposition is facing in building a strong protest movement even as the nation descends into crisis. In September, […]
19 January 2017 (United Nations) – Obesity and overweight are on the rise throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and are prevalent particularly among women and children, according to a new United Nations-backed report. Nearly 360 million people, or 58 per cent of the inhabitants of the region, are overweight with the highest rates observed […]
By Christopher Intagliata22 November 2016 (Scientific American) – Climate change may be partly to blame for the massive die-off of pine trees in the western U.S. But it works the other way, too: forest die-offs can alter the global climate. “I like thinking of this as a parallel to something like El Nino.” Abigail Swann, […]
4 January 2017 (The Associated Press) – Last year, the flowering quinoa plants painted Florencio Tola’s farmlands in vibrant sepia and ochre tones. But this season, all that could be seen was the straw colour of dried-out stalks that never germinated amid Bolivia’s worst drought in 30 years. Nearby a collection of scrawny cows, with […]
By Mario Osava1 January 2017 OURICURI, Brazil (IPS) – The drought that has plagued Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region since 2012 is already more severe than the 1979-1983 drought, the longest in the 20th century. But prolonged dry spells no longer cause the tragedies of the past. There are no widespread deaths from hunger or thirst […]
11 November 2016 (Reuters) – Brazil’s Amazon guardians: fallen trees are seen during an operation to combat illegal mining and logging conducted by agents of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, or Ibama, supported by military police, in the municipality of Novo Progresso, Para State, northern Brazil, 11 November 2016. Photo: […]
By Jan Rocha26 November 2016 SÃO PAOLO (Climate News Network) – The government of Bolivia, a landlocked country in the heart of South America, has been forced to declare a state of emergency as it faces its worst drought for at least 25 years. Much of the water supply to La Paz, the highest capital […]
By Mike Gaworecki20 October 2016 (mongabay.com) – Cultivation of coca, the plant from which the drug cocaine is extracted, has long been considered a “deforestation multiplier” in the Andean Amazon rainforests of Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. For instance, a 2001 report by the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy stated: “Coca cultivation and processing […]
