wildfire – Page 19 – Desdemona Despair

A montage of photos that were submitted to the Environmental Photographer of the Year 2019 award. “Journey by Launch” by Azim Khan Ronnie; “Polluted New Year” by Eliud Gil Samaniego, “Remains of the Forest” by J Henry Fair, “Tuvalu Beneath the Rising Tide” by Sean Gallagher, “My Climate Future” by Souray Karmakar, “Looking Beyond What is There” by Graham Earnshaw, “Where the City Ends and the Ships Begin” by Azim Khan Ronnie, and “Tuvalu Beneath the Rising Tide” by Sean Gallagher (second entry). Photo: CIWEM

September 28, 2019

Photo gallery: Striking images from the 2019 Environmental Photographer of the Year competition – “Climate change is the defining issue of our time and now is the time to act”

23 September 2019 (CIWEM) – The CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the Year exposes the terrible impacts being wrought on our planet by humans, but also celebrates humanity’s innate ability to survive and innovate, lending hope to us all that we can overcome challenges to live sustainably. [See all of the submissions: Environmental Photographer of the […]

Map showing 2015–2019 five-year average temperature anomalies relative to the 1981-2010 average. Data: NASA GISTEMP v4. through June 2019. Graphic: WMO

September 26, 2019

Landmark “United in Science” report brings together world’s leading climate science organizations

NEW YORK, 22 September 2019 (WMO) – The world’s leading climate science organizations have joined forces to produce a landmark new report [pdf] for the United Nations Climate Action Summit, underlining the glaring – and growing – gap between agreed targets to tackle global warming and the actual reality. The report, United in Science, includes details on the […]

Map showing fires around Paradise, California during the Camp Fire on Thursday, 8 November 2018. Although the main body of fire was massed to the east of Paradise, embers created spot fires elsewhere. Graphic: Deer Creek Resources / Google Earth

September 24, 2019

California utility cuts off power to thousands amid wildfire threat – “Humidity levels are dropping, and winds are picking up”

SAN FRANCISCO, 24 September 2019 (AP) – Thousands of people in Northern California woke up Tuesday without electricity after Pacific Gas & Electric cut power to try to prevent wildfires amid windy, dry and hot conditions. PG&E cut electrical service to 24,000 customers in three counties in the Sierra Nevada foothills Monday evening, saying power […]

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, listens to the meeting introduction before delivering opening remarks while hosting a debate on key human rights issues in the country at ICS—Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa on 29 April 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horacio Villalobos / Corbis / Getty Images

September 23, 2019

We are “burning up our future”, UN’s Bachelet tells Human Rights Council – “The world has never seen a threat to human rights of this scope”

9 September 2019 (UN News) – The Human Rights Council opened in Geneva on Monday with a warning from the UN’s top rights official that, with forest fires raging in the Amazon, “we are burning up our future, literally”. In a direct appeal to the forum’s 47 Member States to unite to tackle climate change, […]

Satellite view of Gondwana rainforest fires, 4-15 September 2019. Photo: NASA Worldview

September 21, 2019

Drought exacerbates wildfires in Australia rainforest

By Michael Carlowicz 14 September 2019 (NASA) – Fire season in the Australian states of Queensland and New South Wales got off to an early and ugly start in September 2019. Fueled by a long and deepening drought, more than 100 fires burned in forest and bush areas near the southeast coasts, including some subtropical […]

People wait outside of their stranded vehicles along Interstate 10 westbound at T.C. Jester, Thursday, 19 September 2019. The freeway is closed because of high water eastbound on the freeway from Tropical Storm Imelda. Photo: Mark Mulligan / Houston Chronicle / AP

September 20, 2019

Munich Re: Climate change and its consequences – 18 of the 20 warmest years are in the period 2001-2018

By Dr. Eberhard Faust and Ernst Rauch 8 August 2019 (Munich Re) – When temperature records are broken or major weather disasters strike, people ask whether climate change has anything to do with it. One thing is clear: individual events themselves cannot be attributed directly to climate change. One needs to look at overall trends. […]

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

September 19, 2019

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 […]

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

September 16, 2019

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 […]

Satellite view of smoke from forest fires in Indonesia, from 3 September 2019 to 12 September 2019. Photo: NASA Worldview

September 13, 2019

Thousands pray for rain in Indonesia as forests go up in smoke – “We’re doing everything we can, now we pray to Allah for the rain”

By Gayatri Suroyo and Jessica Damiana 11 September 2019 JAKARTA (Reuters) – Thousands of Indonesians prayed for rain in haze-hit towns on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo on Wednesday, as forest fires raged at the height of the dry season, the state Antara news agency reported. Fires have burnt through parts of Sumatra and […]

The Sentinel-2 satellite captured a headfire in heath fuels burning as a part of the Shark Creek bush fire near Yamba, 8 September 2019. Photo: Nicholas McCarthy

September 11, 2019

Australia rainforest burns as bushfires arrive early – Queensland faces worst fire threat in recorded history – “This isn’t the new normal. We’re going to see much worse. The pace of the change is going to accelerate.”

By Damien Cave 9 September 2019 SYDNEY, Australia (The New York Times) – The conservationists who built the secluded Binna Burra Lodge in Australia’s lush mountains more than 80 years ago hoped to protect and share the natural beauty of the surrounding rainforest. But over the weekend, a bushfire destroyed the beloved getaway, one of […]