Environment

Colorado basin drought sparks water limits at huge US reservoir

LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — A huge reservoir that supplies water to tens of millions of people in the Western United States is at such low levels that populations it feeds must reduce their useage next year, the government said Monday. A chronic drought has left huge swathes of the country parched, as man-made climate change forces shifts in the pattern of rainfall. That has left Lake Mead, the largest US artifical reservoir which […]

Spain sizzles in record heat as fires blaze

Spain saw its highest temperature on record on Saturday as a heatwave on the Iberian peninsula drove the mercury to 47.4 degrees Celsius (117.3 Fahrenheit), according to provisional data from the state meteorological agency. The temperature peaked around five pm local time in the southern town of Cordoba, the agency said, passing the previous record set at the same measuring station in July 2017 by one-tenth of a degree. “If confirmed, it would be the […]

US agency reports July was world’s hottest month on record

    by Lucie AUBOURG Agence France Presse July was the hottest month globally ever recorded, a US scientific agency said Friday, in the latest data to sound the alarm about the climate crisis. “July is typically the world’s warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded,” said Rick Spinrad, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “This new record adds to the […]

Only slight chance of asteroid Bennu hitting Earth: NASA

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — An asteroid known as Bennu will pass within half the distance of the Earth to the Moon in the year 2135 but the probability of an impact with our planet in the coming centuries is very slight, scientists said Wednesday. OSIRIS-REx, a NASA spacecraft, spent two years near Bennu, an asteroid that is about 1,650 feet (500 meters) wide, observing its size, shape, mass and composition and monitoring its orbital […]

In blistering drought, California farmers rip up precious almond trees

by Camille CAMDESSUS HURON, United States (AFP) — Crushed by a devastating drought and new water restrictions, Daniel Hartwig had no choice but to pull thousands of precious, fragrant almond trees from his California farm. “It breaks your heart,” he sighed as he surveyed the once vibrant landscape before him — curled, yellowed leaves covering the shrunken husks that would have been this year’s crop of almonds, had the water arrived. Their exposed roots are […]

Libya’s wildlife treasure island at risk of ruin

by Hamza Mekouar FARWA, Libya (AFP) — Once famed for its exceptional wildlife, Libya’s Farwa island risks becoming just another victim of lawlessness in the war-ravaged North African nation, activists struggling to save it warn. An uninhabited 13-kilometer-long (eight mile) sandbar cut off at high tide in far western Libya, Farwa appears picture-postcard idyllic, with scattered date palms on white sandy beaches and ringed by the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. The International Union for Conservation of […]

Resource-starved Singapore turns sewage into ultra-clean water

by Martin Abbugao Agence France Presse SINGAPORE (AFP) — Giant pumps whir deep underground at a plant in Singapore that helps transform sewage into water so clean it is fit for human consumption while reducing ocean pollution. The tiny island nation has little in the way of natural water sources and has long had to rely principally on supplies from neighbouring Malaysia. To boost self-sufficiency, the government has developed an advanced system for treating sewage […]

UN climate report ‘starkest warning yet’ warns COP26 chief

An upcoming UN report on climate change gives the international community its clearest ever warning about the dangers of accelerating climate change, Britain’s COP26 President Alok Sharma said on Sunday. The chief for the November summit due to be held in the Scottish city of Glasgow told the Observer newspaper a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) due on Monday would show the world was on the brink of potential disaster. “This […]

A drought-hit California town finds itself sinking into the ground

“You’ve got too many farmers pumping all around,” complained Raul Atilano. This octogenarian resident of Corcoran, the self-proclaimed farming capital of California, was struggling to make sense of the strangest of phenomena: his already suffering town is sinking, ever so gradually, into the ground. A constant stream of trucks carrying tomatoes, alfalfa or cotton outside this town of 20,000 shows just how inextricably Corcoran’s fate is tied to the intensive farming practiced here. To irrigate […]

Hundreds of families homeless as Greek fires rage, rain saves Turkey

Hundreds of firefighters fought fires that have devoured record numbers of woodlands in Greece on Saturday and left hundreds of families homeless, but heavy rains brought respite to hard-hit Turkey. More than 1,450 Greek firefighters backed by at least 15 aircraft were battling the blazes, with reinforcements arriving from abroad, the fire service said. In Pefkofyto, in the north of Athens, pensioner Tasos Tsilivakos struggled to contain his tears. “This is a horrible disaster,” he […]

Sumatran tigers infected with coronavirus at Indonesian zoo

Two Sumatran tigers were recovering at a Jakarta zoo after being infected with coronavirus, Indonesian officials said Sunday, as they probed how the critically endangered animals got sick. Nine-year-old Tino and 12-year-old Hari tested positive in mid-July after they experienced flu-like symptoms, trouble breathing and appetite loss. But the male tigers were on the mend after treatment. “Both animals are healthy now,” Suzi Marsitawati, head of Jakarta’s Parks and Forest Service, said in a statement. […]

Heatwave hits Japan site of Olympic marathon

Japan’s northern Hokkaido region was supposed to offer cooler climes for next week’s Olympic marathons and race walks, but now the area is battling a heatwave. Olympic organisers moved the two events from Tokyo in 2019, worried that even shifting the start times to dawn would not be enough to keep athletes safe from the heat. The summer temperatures in Hokkaido’s Sapporo were expected to be kinder — around five or six degrees Celsius cooler […]