In The News

Cooperation on Fukushima Water? Business Korea

Choi Moon-hee September 11, 2019
Consequences of the 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan linger today. Fuel rods require ongoing cooling with freshwater. More than 1 million tons of contaminated water is stored in tanks including underground ones secured by walls of ice, 30 meters deep and 1.6 kilometers long. Treatment technologies remove 62 of 63 radioactive elements, reports Roger Cheng...

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...

Global Outrage Over Amazon Fires: AP

August 27, 2019
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro is crudely defiant in exchanges with world leaders about the fires destroying the Amazon. Brazil lacks resources to bring the fires under control after the populist administration imposed shortsighted policies, rejecting environmental protections and encouraging burning rainforest to expand farmland. The Group of Seven nations pledged $20 million to assist...

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...

Global Rosewood Crisis: EIA

August 24, 2019
Rosewood, or Hongmu, refers to 29 species that produce durable beautiful wood used for antique furniture reproduction. “The insatiable demand for scarce hongmu resources has caused the expansion of supply chains from Southeast Asia to new frontiers in Africa and Central America,” reports Environmental Investigation Agency. “Prior to the surge in international demand, domestic markets in Africa...

Russia’s Climate Change Turn: Wall Street Journal

Georgi Kantchev August 23, 2019
Russian leaders who once belittled climate change's urgency have reversed course after wildfires and floods. “Smoke from massive wildfires raging across an area the size of Belgium has engulfed hundreds of villages in Siberia – and spread as far as Seattle and Vancouver,” reports Georgi Kantchev for the Wall Street Journal. Russian scientists point to climate change and temperatures rising...

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...