Tag: Environment

EU palm oil ban sows bitter seeds for Southeast Asian farmers

Langkat, Indonesia (AFP)- Indonesian palm oil farmer Kawal Surbakti says his livelihood is under attack, but the threat is not from insects or hungry orangutans eating his prized crop. Half a world away, the European Parliament is moving to ban the use of palm oil in biofuels, while British grocer Iceland has announced it will stop using the commodity over concerns that it causes widespread environmental destruction. Losing the key European market worries small farmers like Surbakti and […]

Melting permafrost threatens climate rescue plan: study

by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse Global targets aimed at warding off runaway planetary warming could be breached sooner than expected, experts warned Monday, as gases released by melting permafrost threaten to undermine human efforts to avert climate disaster. Under the current rescue plan, outlined in the 2015 Paris climate treaty, countries have agreed to limit global temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius, and 1.5C if deemed possible. That course of action assumes that […]

Floodwaters rise as killer storm stalks southeastern US

https://youtu.be/3NOOg9ip4c8   by Sébastien Duval Agence France Presse GRIFTON, United States (AFP) — Catastrophic floods raised the threat of landslides and dam failures across the southeastern United States on Monday, prolonging the agony caused by a killer hurricane that has left more than a dozen people dead and caused billions of dollars in damage. Downgraded to a tropical depression, Florence crept over South and North Carolina, dumping heavy rains on already flood-swollen river basins that […]

NASA counts down to launch of laser study of ice sheets

  by Kerry Sheridan Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — NASA counted down Saturday to the launch of its $1 billion ICESat-2 mission, using advanced lasers to uncover the true depth of the melting of Earth’s ice sheets. The mission will inform sea level rise forecasts and is “exceptionally important for science,” according to Richard Slonaker, ICESat-2 program executive at NASA. The half-ton satellite should reveal unprecedented detail about the current thickness of […]

Tropical storm Florence leaves at least four dead in the US

  by Sebastien Duval with Leila Macor in Myrtle Beach Agence France Presse WILMINGTON, United States (AFP) — A woman and her baby were killed when a tree fell on their house and at least two other storm-related deaths were reported on Friday as Hurricane Florence slammed into the Carolinas, dousing the eastern US states with torrential rain and causing rivers to burst their banks. Hundreds of people needed to be rescued after becoming trapped […]

Catastrophic’ Florence buffets US east coast

  by Sebastien Duval with Leila Macor in Myrtle Beach Agence France Presse WILMINGTON, United States (AFP) — The outer edge of Hurricane Florence began buffeting the Carolinas with wind and rain on Thursday as forecasters warned the monster storm would trigger life-threatening flooding as it assaults the US east coast. As Florence churned slowly towards the coasts of North and South Carolina as a Category 2 hurricane, federal and state officials issued final appeals […]

Georgia governor declares emergency ahead of hurricane

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Georgia Governor Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency in the southern US state on Wednesday ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence. Deal said he was issuing the emergency declaration for all 159 counties in Georgia “in light of the storm’s forecasted southward track after making landfall.” Florence, a powerful Category 4 hurricane, is expected to make landfall in the Carolinas late Thursday or early Friday but heavy […]

Hurricane Florence on collision course with Carolinas

  by Sébastien DUVAL / with Leila Macor in Columbia, South Carolina Agence France Presse   Hurricane Florence veered slightly to the southwest and weakened a bit on Wednesday but remained a powerful storm on course to deliver a potentially devastating blow to the Carolina coast. Georgia joined four other East Coast states issuing an emergency declaration as the latest forecasts showed Florence dumping torrential rain on the southern state. As Florence churned across the […]

Over a million told to flee as Hurricane Florence stalks US East Coast

by Jason Ryan / with Chris Lefkow in Washington Agence France Presse CHARLESTON, United States (AFP) — More than a million people were ordered Monday to evacuate the path of Hurricane Florence as the powerful Category 4 storm packing winds of 140 miles (220 kilometers) per hour bore down on the East Coast of the United States. “This is one of the worst storms to hit the East Coast in many years,” President Donald Trump […]

Dry run bago ang reopening ng Boracay, itinakda sa Oct. 15; ‘Party life’ limitado na – DENR

(Eagle News) — Mahigit isang buwan bago ang muling pagbubukas ng Boracay sa October 26, inanunsyo na ng Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) na magkakaroon muna ng 10 araw na dry run para rito. Ayon kay DENR Undersecretary Benny Antiporda, ito ay isasagawa mula Oktubre 15 hanggang 25 upang makita agad kung mayroon pang pagkukulang sa loob ng six-month rehabilitation. Dagdag ni Antiporda na babawasan na rin ang nakagawian noon na kaliwa’t kanang […]

The Ocean Cleanup project sails out to sweep Pacific plastic

  SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — A supply ship towing a long floating boom designed to corral ocean plastic has set sail from San Francisco for a test run ahead of a trip to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The ambitious project by The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit group, hopes to clean up half of the infamous garbage patch within five years when all systems are deployed. After five years of preparation and […]

Big wind, solar farms could boost rain in Sahara: study

by Kerry Sheridan Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — Installing massive wind and solar farms in the Saharan desert could slow global warming, and also give a small but beneficial boost to rain in the dry African region, researchers said Thursday. The study in the journal Science used computer modeling to simulate the effect of covering 20 percent of the largest desert on the planet in solar panels and installing three million wind […]