This part of South America is no stranger to major rainfall, but last week’s storms were particularly devastating
Torrential rainstorms in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul have caused the worst flooding the country has seen in 80 years, with many deaths and thousands of families displaced. Central parts of the state were worst-hit after the storms began last Monday, with unofficial weather stations in the area recording 20-40in over the past week.
Widespread floods and landslides have caused major damage to homes and infrastructure, most alarmingly triggering the partial collapse of a small hydroelectric dam on Thursday, which sent a 2-metre-high wave through the surrounding area. At least 57 deaths have been reported and 24,000 people have been displaced, alongside an estimated 500,000 who are without power and clean water.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/06/2024 - 02:32
05/05/2024 - 23:00
Union cites extreme wet weather and post-Brexit phasing-out of EU subsidies as main reasons for slump
Farmers’ confidence has hit its lowest level in at least 14 years, a long-running survey by the biggest farming union in Britain has found, with extreme weather and the post-Brexit phasing-out of EU subsidies blamed for the drop.
The National Farmers’ Union warned there had been a “collapse of confidence” and that the outlook was at its lowest since the annual poll of its members in England and Wales began in 2010.
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05/05/2024 - 11:11
Officials in Rio Grande do Sul state say more than 80,000 have been displaced by record water levels
Seventy-five people are now known to have died in the flooding in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state, while more than 100 people remain missing, local authorities said on Sunday.
The state’s civil defence authority said 101 people were unaccounted for and more than 80,000 had been displaced after record-breaking floods swept across the state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina.
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05/05/2024 - 10:00
Audio collected with underwater microphones suggests numbers at least stable after centuries of industrial whaling left only a few hundred alive
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Centuries of industrial whaling left only a few hundred Antarctic blue whales alive, making it almost impossible to find them in the wild.
New research suggests the population may be recovering. Australian scientists and international colleagues spent two decades listening for their distinctive songs and calls, and have found the whales – the largest animals ever to have lived – swimming across the Southern Ocean with growing regularity.
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05/05/2024 - 09:22
About 6,000 have been installed this year, a quarter of them rapid chargers that can power up a car in under an hour
The UK has installed a record number of public electric car chargers this year, as companies race to keep up with the growing number of battery vehicles on British roads.
Nearly 6,000 new chargers were installed during the first three months of 2024, according to quarterly figures from data company Zapmap published by the Department for Transport. About 1,500 of those were rapid chargers, capable of charging a car in less than an hour.
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05/05/2024 - 09:00
Greg Abbott’s strategy to deter immigration isn’t just harming people and costing billions – it’s ruining the Rio Grande’s ecosystem
Strong-arm strategies by Texas along the US-Mexico border have eroded more than human rights for migrants seeking asylum in the US; they have degraded the environment – and now the destruction is escalating.
In the hotspot of Eagle Pass, environmental damage from years of expansion of anti-migration security measures can be seen everywhere.
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05/05/2024 - 01:00
Organisers of this year’s environmental conference hope cooperation on green issues could help ease global tensions
This year’s Cop29 UN climate summit will be the first “Cop of peace”, focusing on the prevention of future climate-fuelled conflicts and using international cooperation on green issues to help heal existing tensions, according to plans being drawn up by organisers.
Nations may be asked to observe a “Cop truce”, suspending hostilities for the fortnight-long duration of the conference, modelled on the Olympic truce, which is observed by most governments during the summer and winter Olympic Games.
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05/04/2024 - 15:00
‘Some negative projects will get up, but we have to keep our eyes on the broader goals’, says WWF Australia
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A map of operating windfarms in Queensland does not take too long to survey – of the 100 or so across Australia, only six of them are in the sunshine state.
But this is about to change in a very big way. According to state government data, there are 46 separate proposals for windfarms in Queensland with four more already under construction.
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05/04/2024 - 08:00
Court hears effects of 2021 leak, in which thousand of gallons of fuel seeped into drinking water supply from US navy storage tank
Military and civilian families told a federal judge this week they continue to be sickened, more than two years after a US navy underground fuel storage facility leaked thousands of gallons of jet fuel into Pearl Harbor’s main drinking water and caused a water crisis in the Pacific.
United States district court judge Leslie Kobayashi heard testimony from nearly a dozen impacted families suing the US government over the leak from the second world war era storage tanks that has resulted in vomiting, diarrhea, rashes and other ailments. Plaintiffs said the illnesses are connected to the tainted water serving the nearly 93,000 residents in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
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05/04/2024 - 08:00
Effects of heat are expected to worsen after bill prohibiting municipalities from enacting shade and water protection is passed
For Javier Torres and other workers whose jobs are conducted outdoors in south Florida, the heat is unavoidable. A new law recently signed by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, that prohibits any municipalities in the state from passing heat protections for workers ensures that it is likely to stay that way.
Torres has seen a co-worker die from heatstroke and another rushed to the emergency room in his years of working in construction in south Florida. He has also fallen and injured himself due to heat exhaustion.
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