MEXICO CITY (AFP) — The monarch butterfly population in Mexico has grown by 144 percent compared to last year. Despite the increase, activists warn that this migratory phenomenon is still in danger. https://youtu.be/KJ8oPj_JLco
Environment
Storage of nuclear waste a ‘global crisis’: report
PARIS, France (AFP) — Nuclear waste is piling up around the world even as countries struggle to dispose of spent fuel that will remain highly toxic for many thousands of years, Greenpeace detailed in a report Wednesday. Analysis of waste storage facilities in seven countries with nuclear power revealed that several were near saturation, the anti-nuclear NGO said. All these nations also confronted other problems that have yet to be fully contained: fire risk, venting […]
US shivers as extreme cold invades, but is this climate change?
by Kerry SHERIDAN Agnce France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — An Arctic-like deep freeze gripping much of the United States with double-digit subzero temperatures is the coldest of its kind in two decades, but is it linked to climate change? Experts say it could be, but whether global warming plays a role in this particular extreme weather phenomenon is still up for debate. Here’s why: What is a polar vortex? “It is a mass […]
Arctic air sends temperatures well below zero in midwest US
by Nova SAFO Agence France Presse CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — A brutal cold wave brought temperatures lower than Antarctica to the American Midwest on Wednesday, grounding flights, closing schools and businesses and raising hypothermia fears for homeless residents. Mail deliveries were suspended and people encouraged to stay home in nearly a dozen US states where the mercury plunged into the negative double digits, the worst freeze to grip the region in a generation. US […]
Dangerous arctic chill sweeps over US Midwest
by Nova SAFO Agence France Presse CHICAGO, United States (AFP) — The polar vortex is here — tens of millions of people in the United States braced Tuesday for a deep arctic chill, which authorities say could be life-threatening. Sub-zero temperatures already blanketing parts of Canada were already sweeping across the US Midwest and towards the East Coast. The big chill in the Midwest came on the heels of a major storm that dumped up […]
Climate change pushing killer whales to migrate north
by Olivier MORIN with Gael BRANCHEREAU in Stockholm Agence France-Presse NORWAY (AFP) — Paying no attention to nearby divers, a killer whale and her calf hunting for food frolic in a snowy Norwegian fjord. Their favorite meal, herring, abounds, but climate change means both predator and prey must increasingly migrate further north. The clear and calm waters of Reisafjorden, in Norway’s Far North, have in recent years become the winter playground of the Scandinavian country’s killer […]
New Australia mass fish deaths in key river system
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Thousands more fish have died in a key river system in drought-hit eastern Australia just weeks after up to a million were killed, authorities and locals said Monday, sparking fears an ecological disaster is unfolding. Fisheries officials said they were on their way to Menindee, a small outback town in far-west New South Wales state after the third mass fish kill in the area in less than two months. The town […]
S. Korea’s first airborne fight against ‘Chinese’ pollution fails
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — An attempt by South Korea to create artificial rain to tackle air pollution many blame on neighboring China has failed, the government said Monday, as it struggles to address what has become an urgent public concern. Many South Koreans blamed China when pollution surged for three days earlier this month, and on Friday the Korea Meterological Administration (KMA) sent an aircraft to seed clouds with silver iodide in the hope […]
Swimmers return to bathe with Palau’s golden jellyfish
by Bernadette Carreon Agence France Presse KOROR, Palau (AFP) — Swimming with the famous golden jellyfish in Palau can be put back on the bucket list following a two-year ban, but bathers may be stung with a hefty price increase for the pleasure. The government ordered the famed Ongeim’l Tketau Jellyfish Lake closed to swimmers in 2016 because of dwindling numbers of the unique creature — blamed on warming waters although with some suspicion sunscreen […]
WATCH: Space Junk
Videographic illustrating the growing concern over space debris. Of the approximate 23,000 space objects in orbit, just 1,900 are active satellites.
2018 was fourth hottest year on record: researchers
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The last four years have been the world’s hottest since record-keeping began, with 2018 the fourth warmest on record, according to data published Thursday by US research group Berkeley Earth. Temperatures in 2018 were around 1.16 degrees Celsius (2.09 degrees Fahrenheit) above the average temperature of the second half of the 19th century, from 1850-1900, often used as a pre-industrial baseline for global temperature targets. “Global mean temperature in 2018 […]
Tiny killer threatens giant clam, aquatic emblem of the Med
by Claudine RENAUD Agence France-Presse Villefranche-sur-Mer, France (AFP) — With wing-shaped shells lined with iridescent mother-of-pearl and producing the fibers of rare and delicate sea silk, the noble pen shell clam is one of the most emblematic species in the Mediterranean and a bellwether for marine environmental health. But the giant mollusk, the world’s second biggest, is under mortal threat from a parasite that has ravaged populations since it was identified along Spanish coasts in 2016. Scientists […]
