In The News

Bahamas Defends Dorian Response

September 9, 2019
The Bahamas is a disaster zone after Hurricane Dorian, and this is a story of globalization in many ways: climate change, immigration, international aid and a global race to the bottom on taxation. The country reports widespread property damage and 45 deaths, with many more anticipated. Researchers suggest that climate change, due to the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, has intensified such...

Dorian, Climate Change, Bahamas: InsideClimate

Bob Berwyn September 5, 2019
Climate scientists have warned that climate change is picking up pace, with warmer temperatures, more rainfall and systems that linger over coastal areas damage. For example, Hurricane Dorian hit the northern Bahamas on September 1, slowing to 1 mile per hour with a storm surge of 23 feet and sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, reports Bob Berwyn for InsideClimate News. A study from NASA and...

Bolsonaro’s Amazon Disaster: Climate News Network

Jan Rocha August 26, 2019
With the start of Brazil’s dry season, thousands of fires burn out of control, destroying large swaths of the Amazon rainforest. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro campaigned for the presidency on a pro-development, anti-environment platform. Farmers in one town planned a “day of fire,” eager to expand their farms. Brazil’s INPE showed a massive increase in deforestation over the past year, though Bolsonaro...

Wave of Fires Hits Brazil: Folha de S. Paulo

Fabiano Maisonnave and Phillippe Watanabe August 22, 2019
More than 70,000 fires have broken out in Brazil for this year, representing an 83 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the National Institute for Space Research, reports a team for Folha de S. Paulo. More than 60 fires are burning indigenous and other protected lands, with large swaths of vegetation lost. “The fire outbreak is often associated with deforestation,” report...

UK Faces Dire Shortages With Brexit: Reuters

Kate Holton and William James August 19, 2019
Trade has represented more than half of the United Kingdom’s GDP since 2005, reports the World Bank. Leaked government documents suggest that the country will contend with dire shortages of essential goods by leaving the European Union without a trade deal. Government officials suggest the country is preparing for the worst-case scenario. “Setting out a vision of jammed ports, public protests...

A Million People Saved From Cyclone: New York Times

Hari Kumar, Jeffrey Gettleman and Sameer Yasir May 4, 2019
Weather forecasters pinpointed Cyclone Fani bearing down on the crowded coast of Odisha, and governments in India and Bangladesh responded quickly, reports a team of journalists from the New York Times. In Odisha, where the average income is less than $5 per day, disaster crews used lists of vulnerable people, warning them to head to shelters: “To warn people of what was coming, they deployed...

Fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral: New York Times

Sona Patel and Alan Yuhas April 16, 2019
A fire destroyed the roof of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, causing the spire to collapse, and the New York Times reports “an outpouring of grief in France and around the world as the symbol of French culture and history burned.” The cathedral had been been under construction. Citizens and tourists watched from around the city, and people around the world watched the footage on social media and...