By Issam AHMED WASHINGTON, April 27, 2024 (AFP) – They’re loud. They’re sexually aroused. And for one special, cacophonous month up to a trillion of them will engulf suburbs and woodlands across America. Two cicada “broods” are set for a rare double emergence that last occurred in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president and the United States purchased Louisiana from France. The prospect of another natural wonder just weeks after a total solar eclipse across […]
Tag: Environment
Scores of tornadoes lash central US plains states
WASHINGTON, April 27, 2024 (AFP) – Dozens of tornadoes struck the central United States on Friday, razing homes, knocking down power lines and injuring at least three people, authorities said. More than 70 tornadoes were recorded across the country by the National Weather Service (NWS), most of them around Omaha, a transportation hub in Nebraska. Images from storm chasers posted on social networks showed immense black twisters sweeping across the sky, turning over earth, dust […]
155 killed in Tanzania as heavy rains lash East Africa
DAR ES SALAAM, April 25, 2024 (AFP) – At least 155 people have died in Tanzania as torrential rains linked to El Nino triggered flooding and landslides, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said Thursday. Tanzania and other countries in East Africa — a region highly vulnerable to climate change — have been pounded by heavier than usual rainfall during the current rainy season, with dozens of deaths also reported in Kenya. Majaliwa said more than 51,000 […]
Scientists at Spain meeting sound alarm over ocean warming
By Rosa SULLEIRO BARCELONA, April 12, 2024 (AFP) – Scientists at a United Nations conference in Spain called Friday for more research into the sharp rise in ocean temperatures which they warn could have devastating consequences. “The changes are happening so fast that we are not able to keep pace with the impact,” the executive secretary of UNESCO’s intergovernmental oceanographic commission, Vidar Helgesen, told AFP on the sidelines of the three-day “Ocean Decade” conference in […]
Vietnam province declares state of emergency over drought
HANOI, April 6, 2024 (AFP) – Thousands of people in Vietnam are suffering a “severe” shortage of fresh water because of drought and salinisation, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency on Saturday. A weeks-long heatwave has brought drought and saline intrusion to an area of Tien Giang province, 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of business hub Ho Chi Minh City. The province’s Tan Phu Dong area — with 12 kilometers of coastline along […]
Sweden sees earliest ‘summer’ on record
STOCKHOLM, April 11, 2024 (AFP) – Sweden has posted its earliest ever start to what it considers to be “summer”, with three southern towns posting average temperatures above 10 degrees C (50F) for five straight days, the country’s meteorological service said Thursday. “A Swedish weather record was broken on Saturday, April 6, 2024. Each day from April 6th to 10th, the average daily temperature was at least 10 degrees at SMHI’s stations in Malmo, Kristianstad […]
Heatwaves put millions of children in Asia at risk: UN
BANGKOK, April 11, 2024 (AFP) – Massive heatwaves across East Asia and the Pacific could place millions of children at risk, the UN warned Thursday, calling for action to protect vulnerable people from the soaring temperatures. Global monitors have warned that 2024 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record, marked by climate extremes and rising greenhouse gas emissions. The UNICEF data showed over 243 million children across the Pacific and East Asia […]
Bogota restricts water as reservoirs hit ‘critical’ lows
BOGOTA, Colombia, April 8, 2024 (AFP) – The mayor of Colombia’s capital Bogota on Monday announced water restrictions as reservoirs in the sprawling Andean city hit “critical” levels. Mayor Carlos Fernando Galan told a press conference that two key reservoirs supplying the city were at their lowest level since the mid-1980s due to a lack of rain attributed to the El Nino climate phenomenon. He announced cuts from Thursday due to “the critical levels of […]
Thousands of Philippine schools suspend in-person classes due to heat
By Pam CASTRO MANILA, April 5, 2024 (AFP) – Thousands of schools in the Philippines suspended in-person classes Friday, the education department said, as parts of the tropical country endured dangerously high temperatures. The months of March, April and May are typically the hottest and driest in the archipelago nation, but conditions this year have been exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon. Many schools have no air-conditioning, leaving students to swelter in crowded, poorly […]
Biden restores handful of wildlife protections axed by Trump
By Lucie AUBOURG WASHINGTON, March 28, 2024 (AFP) – The US administration of President Joe Biden on Thursday announced further protections for endangered species and their habitats, restoring a set of regulations weakened by Donald Trump. The new rules were touted as evidence of Biden’s commitment to tackling climate change, though some environmental groups said the changes fell short of fully resurrecting necessary protections. “These revisions underscore our commitment to using all of the tools […]
NASA: El Niño and climate change drive global sea level rise
Global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches (0.76 centimeters) from 2022 to 2023 — nearly four times the increase of the previous year — NASA said Thursday, attributing the “significant jump” to a strong El Nino and a warming climate. The NASA-led analysis is based on more than 30 years of satellite observations, with the initial satellite launching in 1992 and the latest in 2020. Overall, sea levels have risen by around four […]
UN warns ‘planet on the brink’ after warmest decade on record
By Nina LARSON GENEVA, March 19, 2024 (AFP) – Global heat records were “smashed” last year, the UN confirmed Tuesday, with 2023 rounding out the hottest decade on record, as heatwaves stalked oceans and glaciers suffered record ice loss. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization issued its annual State of the Climate report, confirming preliminary data indicating that 2023 was by far the hottest year ever recorded. And it came at the end of “the […]





