A protester shakes hands with a security officer in Quito, Ecuador, on Sunday, 13 October 2019, as they celebrate the government’s announcement that it has cancelled an austerity package and restored fuel subsidies. The package had triggered violent protests that paralyzed the economy and left seven people dead. Photo: Dolores Ochoa / AP

Ecuador reaches fuel subsidy deal to end violent protests

By Chris Arnold 14 October 2019 (NPR) – Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno and leaders of the country’s indigenous peoples have reached a deal to cancel a disputed austerity package. The move follows nearly two weeks of violent, widespread protests. The unrest began after Moreno ended government subsidies that have helped keep fuel prices low in […]

Statewide rankings for average temperature and precipitation for September 2019 compared to each September since records began in 1895. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

September 2019 hottest on record globally, second hottest in U.S. history – All-time record for 12-month rainfall in U.S.

5 October 2019 (Copernicus Climate Change Service) – In Europe, temperatures were above average over most of the continent, especially in the south and south-east. Below-average temperatures occurred over much of Norway and Sweden, and over the far east of the continent. Globally September 2019 was 0.57°C warmer than the average September from 1981-2010, making […]

The sun shines orange through through smoke from wildfires in Bolivia in September 2019. Photo: Adolfo Lino / Mongabay

Fires still being set in blazing Bolivia – Up to 18 million wild animals killed, including 500 rare jaguars – “Bolivia needs to rethink its agricultural strategy, as the future of its immeasurable biodiversity is at stake”

By Claire Wordley 1 October 2019 (Mongabay) – Despite over six weeks of firefighting, the infernos destroying Bolivia’s forests continue to spread. 5.3 million hectares (about 13.1 million acres) — an area larger than the whole of Costa Rica — have been destroyed, and about 40 percent of that area was forest. A perfect storm of factors — from […]

People block a road amid clashes with soldiers in Lasso, Ecuador, during protests after Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno’s government ended four-decade-old fuel subsidies, 6 October 2019. Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins / REUTERS

Ecuador declares state of emergency as fuel protesters battle police

By Alexandra Valencia 6 October 2019 QUITO (Reuters) – Ecuadorean authorities began arresting shopkeepers for raising food prices as indigenous groups clashed with security forces on Sunday in a fourth day of protests against President Lenin Moreno’s austerity measures. One man died in central Azuay province when roadblocks blocked an ambulance from reaching him after […]

Satellite view of Humboldt glacier Venezuela in 1985, 2008, and 2019. Photo: Maxar Technologies

Hardy scientists trek to Venezuela’s last glacier amid chaos – “More than 50 million people in South America rely on water provision from the Andes”

By Christina Larson and Federica Narancio 24 September 2019 MERIDA, Venezuela (AP) – Blackouts shut off the refrigerators where the scientists keep their lab samples. Gas shortages mean they sometimes have to work from home. They even reuse sheets of paper to record field data because fresh supplies are so scarce. As their country falls […]

Satellite data show fire activity is still heavy around Roboré, Bolivia but is intensifying in the northern and western portions of the Santa Cruz region. Data: NASA FIRMS / “VIIRS Active Fires”. Accessed through Global Forest Watch on 6 August 2019. Graphic: Mongabay

Disaster strikes in Bolivia as agricultural fires lay waste to unique forests – “Fire is a monster and is threatening us. Everything is ashes and fear.”

By Carolina Méndez, Isabel Mercado 6 September 2019 (Mongabay) – “Fire is a monster and is threatening us. Everything is ashes and fear,” says Iván Quezada, the mayor of Roboré, a town in eastern Bolivia. Last week, fires consumed more than 450,000 hectares (1.11 million acres) of forest; if added to the amount of forest […]

Map showing 2014-2018 global temperature change, compared with 1880-1899 temperatures. Data: Berkeley Earth. Graphic: The Washington Post

Dangerous new hot zones are spreading around the world

By Chris Mooney and John Muyskens 11 September 2019 LA CORONILLA, Uruguay (The Washington Post) – The day the yellow clams turned black is seared in Ramón Agüero’s memory. It was the summer of 1994. A few days earlier, he had collected a generous haul, 20 buckets of the thin-shelled, cold-water clams, which burrow a […]

Aerial view of the Amazon rainforest burning out of control in the municipality of Colniza, Mato Grosso state on 24 August 2019, just days before nine Amazon state governors met with Bolsonaro to discuss pkans to continue destroying the rainforest and assimilating the indigenous peoples of Amazonia. Photo: Victor Moriyama / Greenpeace

State governors support Bolsonaro’s plan to continue destruction of Amazon rainforest for mining and agribusiness – Indigenous peoples of Amazonia to be assimilated

By Jenny Gonzales 9 September 2019 (Mongabay) – It is not only President Jair Bolsonaro who views rainforests and indigenous people as obstacles to Brazilian economic development. Seven of the nine Amazon state governors are in line with the policies of the chief executive, as attested to at an August 27 meeting between the president and representatives […]

Fractional area of agriculture and secondary vegetation in the Brazilian Amazon under the two analyzed land-use change scenarios (“Sustainability” and “Fragmentation”) by the mid (2041-2070) and the end (2071-2100) of the 21st century. Graphic: Fonseca, et al., 2019 / Global Change Biology

Amazon deforestation and development heighten Amazon fire risk – “Most of the current fires are related to the deforestation process”

By Sarah Sax 6 September 2019 (Mongabay) – As of 24 August 2019, there were 41,858 fires reported this year in the Brazilian Amazon — the highest number since 2010, when 58,476 were recorded by that date. Likewise, the U.S. space agency NASA has shown this to be the most active fire year for the region since 2010. However, […]

The sun shines red through smoke and dust left by the fires in the Amazon rainforest, near Porto Velho, Brazil, on 29 August 2019. Photo: Joedson Alves / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

Rain will not extinguish Amazon fires for weeks, weather experts say

By Jake Spring 27 August 2019 BRASILIA (Reuters) – Weak rainfall is unlikely to extinguish a record number of fires raging in Brazil’s Amazon anytime soon, with pockets of precipitation through 10 September 2019 expected to bring only isolated relief, according to weather data and two experts. The world’s largest tropical rainforest is being ravaged […]

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