Category: environment

DES MOINES, Iowa — The harassment started to intensify as TV meteorologist Chris Gloninger did more reporting on climate change during local newscasts — outraged emails and even a threat to show up at his house. Gloninger said he had been recruited, in part, to “shake things up” at the Iowa station where he worked, but backlash was building. The…

The grey, two-storey home with white trim toppled and slid, crashing into the river below as rushing waters carried off a bobbing chunk of its roof. Next door, a condo building teetered on the edge of the bank, its foundation already having fallen away as erosion undercut it. The destruction came at the weekend as a glacial dam burst in…

It’s so hot in Florida right now that the ocean temperature in one area just crossed into the triple digits. On Monday, a water temperature sensor in Manatee Bay near Everglades National Park recorded a temperature of 101.1 degrees, according to a park spokesperson. The startling data matched high water temperatures observed elsewhere in the Florida Bay recently, and the…

Greta Thunberg was photographed at the European Parliament in Strasbourg last Wednesday smiling broadly while flipping a double-bird – apparently to the opponents of heavily contested new EU environmental legislation known as the “Nature Restoration Law”.  According to the German news site Merkur.de, it was a “winner’s gesture” – if not the most sporting one – because at its Wednesday…

After a weekend of broiling heat waves in the Southwest and South Florida, more extreme heat is forecast to build throughout the week. Forecasters say residents of both regions should stay out of the sun as much as possible. Across the country, heat waves are getting hotter, lasting longer and becoming more unpredictable. Jeff Goodell, the author of The Heat…

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean opposition lawmakers sharply criticized the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog for its approval of Japanese plans to release treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant during a tense meeting in Seoul on Sunday, with protesters screaming outside the door. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general,…

  PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Prandy Tavarez and his wife were expecting a baby when they bought a four-bedroom house in a well-kept neighborhood of century-old homes here. They got to work making it theirs, ripping off wallpaper, upgrading the electrical and replacing windows coated in paint that contained lead, a potent neurotoxin that can damage brain development in children….

Climate change threatens to deliver a “truly terrifying” dystopian future of hunger and suffering, the United Nations’ human rights chief warned Monday. Volker Turk slammed world leaders for only thinking of the short term while dealing with the climate crisis. Turk told a UN Human Rights Council debate on the right to food that extreme weather events were wiping out…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has approved a plan to use phosphogypsum, a radioactive waste material, in “demonstration projects.” Here, signs block a roadway in Boca Raton during a construction project in 2021. Florida is another step closer to paving its roads with phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial…

  PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An elevated section of Interstate 95 collapsed early Sunday in Philadelphia after a vehicle caught fire, closing the main north-south highway on the East Coast and threatening to upend travel in parts of the densely populated Northeast, authorities said. Transportation officials warned of extensive delays and street closures and urged drivers to avoid the area. Early…

The United Nations officially launched its mission this week to prevent what it says could be an “environmental catastrophe” on the Red Sea. Sitting off the coast of Yemen lies a nearly half-century-old ship with roughly 1.14 million barrels of crude oil on board, the global agency said – and it’s “deteriorating rapidly.”  The massive 47-year-old supertanker, FSO Safer, rests…

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States announced at a U.N. conference on Wednesday nearly $524 million in additional humanitarian aid for the Horn of Africa that aims to put a spotlight on the extreme effects of climate change and the worst drought in the region in 40 years — and the need for more than $5 billion. The U.N….

The landmark decision comes as heat-trapping greenhouse gas concentrations are at record levels – “higher than at any time over the last 800,000 years”, WMO warned. Data from Earth and space The new Global Greenhouse Gas Watch will combine observations from Earth and from space with modelling, to fill critical information gaps. It will build on WMO’s experience in coordinating…

German police have carried out raids in seven states in a probe into climate campaigners suspected of forming or backing a criminal group because of their controversial activities. Seven people aged 22 to 38 are suspected. No arrests have been made. For months Last Generation (Letzte Generation) has disrupted traffic in German cities and performed stunts like hurling mashed potato…

Residents across parts of the northwestern United States are under air quality alerts this weekend after smoke from a spate of Canadian wildfires drifted south across the border. Thick plumes of smoke from blazes in the Canadian province of Alberta crossed into multiple states including Montana, Colorado, Idaho and Utah. But a Pacific cold front moving into the area toward…

  GHIBULLO – More than 36,000 people have now been forced from their homes by deadly floods in northeast Italy, regional officials said Saturday, as rising waters swallowed more houses and fresh landslides isolated hamlets Violent downpours earlier this week killed 14 people, transforming streets in the cities and towns of the Emilia Romagna region into rivers. And as more…