The UK faces food shortages and price rises as extreme weather linked to climate breakdown causes low yields on farms locally and abroad. Record rainfall has meant farmers in…Continue readingUK facing food shortages and price rises after extreme weather
Tag: health
Hundreds of Thai children strain to sing the national anthem, reedy voices and fragile lungs competing against eight lanes of belching traffic next to their school’s open atrium in…Continue readingSmog and sick kids: Thai pupils endure air pollution
Vietnamese capital Hanoi was blanketed by a thick haze of pollution on Tuesday that obscured high-rise buildings and left the city’s nearly nine million people breathing toxic air. The…Continue readingHanoi chokes as Vietnam capital tops most polluted cities list
The world generated 2.3 billion tonnes of municipal waste last year and the pile of trash is set to grow another two-thirds by 2050, the UN said Wednesday, warning…Continue readingWorld must act to stem surge of polluting trash, UN warns
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Bangkok city employees have been told to work from home to avoid harmful air pollution, as a layer of noxious haze blanketed the Thai capital on Thursday. City authorities…Continue readingBangkok says work from home as pollution blankets city
The European Drought Observatory’s map of current droughts in Europe shows the entire Spanish Mediterranean coast in bad shape, with red areas indicating an alert similar to those in…Continue readingWhat will Spain look like when it runs out of water? Barcelona is giving us a glimpse
Fipronil and imidacloprid are highly toxic pesticides that are no longer approved for use in outdoor agriculture, but continue to be widely used in pet flea treatments, typically applied…Continue readingHandwashing is a major source of pet pesticide pollution in UK rivers
Located in West Bengal state in eastern India and neighbouring Bangladesh, the Sundarbans forest system is a cluster of low-lying islands and represents the largest mangrove ecosystem in the…Continue readingThe Sundarbans dilemma: Islands swallowed by water, and nowhere else to go
Despite strict EU regulations on plastic recycling, there is little oversight on plastic waste shipped from the EU to Vietnam. About half of Europe’s plastic waste is exported to…Continue readingA large percentage of European plastic sent to Vietnam ends up in nature
The climate crisis turned the drought that struck the Amazon rainforest in 2023 into a devastating event, a study has found. The drought was the worst recorded in many…Continue readingDevastating drought in Amazon result of climate crisis
Rainfall has been lower than the average in Catalonia for the past three years, with the drought lasting more than twice as long as the previous dry spell of…Continue readingHeavens remain shut over Catalonia as three-year drought persists
“Chronic arsenic poisoning from drinking water … is a real problem, not a theoretical exercise,” said the lead researcher, Dr Seth Frisbie, an emeritus professor of chemistry at Norwich…Continue readingClimate crisis to increase cancer risk for tens of millions of people in Bangladesh
In recent years, there has been rising concern that tiny particles known as microplastics are showing up basically everywhere on Earth, from polar ice to soil, drinking water and…Continue readingBottled water can contain hundreds of thousands of previously uncounted tiny plastic bits
A research study for the Bureau of Transportation Statistics focused on the number of daily trips taken in the United States. In 2021, 52% of all trips, including all…Continue readingMore than Half of all Daily Trips in US Were Less than Three Miles in 2021
The vast amount of electricity that India’s growing number of ACs will require presents a significant challenge. Already during peak summertime hours, ACs have accounted for 40% to 60%…Continue reading‘A matter of survival’: India’s unstoppable need for air conditioners
A new investigation by human rights experts appointed by the United Nations has expressed alarm at evidence of pollution from a North Carolina PFAS manufacturing plant, describing it as…Continue readingUN human rights experts express alarm over PFAS pollution in North Carolina
Potentially toxic “forever chemicals” have been detected in the drinking water sources at 17 of 18 England’s water companies, with 11,853 samples testing positive, something experts say they are…Continue reading‘Forever chemicals’ found in drinking water sources across England
Nearly half of the whales and dolphins found in UK waters over the past five years contained harmful concentrations of toxic chemicals banned decades ago, an investigation has found.…Continue readingLevels of toxic PCB chemicals found at 30 times ‘safe’ limits in stranded whales
Fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, is a term for fine particulates that are typically the by-product of car exhausts or coal-fired power plants. Their tiny size enables them to…Continue readingAir pollution behind over 250,000 deaths in Europe in 2021: agency
US industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS “forever chemical” waste over the last five years, and did so with processes that probably pollute the environment around…Continue readingUS industry disposed of at least 60m pounds of PFAS waste in last five years
Extreme droughts that have wrecked the lives of millions of people in Syria, Iraq and Iran since 2020 would not have happened without human-caused global heating, a study has…Continue readingHuman-caused heating behind extreme droughts in Syria, Iraq and Iran
Heat waves have always been part of summer, but the familiar short periods of oppressive conditions have grown into weeks to months of sweltering heat. Research has shown that…Continue readingHere are the places that could become too hot for humans due to climate change
Authorities in Pakistan ordered schoolchildren in the smog-smothered city of Lahore to wear masks during lessons starting Thursday, an effort to protect against hazardous levels of polluted air. The…Continue readingStudents ordered to wear masks in smog-hit Lahore
China’s weather office has said “foggy and hazy” conditions are prevalent in the capital Beijing, the megacity of Tianjin, and parts of the provinces of Hebei, Shandong and Hubei,…Continue readingChina’s smog problem
Earth’s vital signs have worsened beyond anything humans have yet seen, to the point that life on the planet is imperiled. William Ripple, a distinguished professor in the Oregon…Continue readingClimate report: ‘Uncharted territory’ imperils life on Earth
A withering drought has turned the Amazonian capital of Manaus into a climate dystopia with the second worst air quality in the world and rivers at the lowest levels…Continue readingDrought turns Amazonian capital into climate dystopia
The water level at a major river port in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has hit its lowest point in at least 121 years, as a historic drought upends the lives…Continue readingWater level at Amazon port in Brazil hits lowest point in 121 years amid drought
For the past couple of decades, tens of thousands of people living in rural Sri Lanka have been devastated by kidney failure due to unclear causes, also known as…Continue readingRoundup herbicide ingredient connected to epidemic levels of chronic kidney disease
As the ice melts, the hunters in the village of Ittoqqortoormiit—home to one of the last Inuit hunting communities—worry where they will get water. On a headland of barren…Continue readingGreenland’s Inuit falling through thin ice of climate change
Dressed in a full-body protective suit, an elderly pest control worker could last no more than 15 minutes spraying pesticide along a Hong Kong pavement before the summer heat…Continue reading‘In a sauna’: Hong Kong’s laborers swelter as temperatures rise
About 90% of water samples taken over the last 10 years from the Great Lakes contain microplastic levels that are unsafe for wildlife, a new peer-reviewed paper from the…Continue reading90% of Great Lakes water samples have unsafe microplastic levels
The water of as many as 26 million Americans is contaminated, according to an analysis of the new EPA data performed by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington…Continue readingDrinking water of millions of Americans contaminated with ‘forever chemicals’
The flooding in Pakistan in August and September 2022 – described by UN secretary general António Guterres as a “monsoon on steroids” – led to the deaths of more…Continue readingA year on, the devastating long-term effects of Pakistan’s floods are revealed
Extreme temperatures and a lack of electrical power are a deadly combination, and one that is being felt across Iraq. The country is one of the world’s most vulnerable…Continue readingExtreme heat hits Iraq, as temperatures exceed 50 degrees Celsius
At least 97% of the blood samples contained a type of PFAS known as PFOS, associated with multiple serious health problems.Continue readingResearchers find evidence of ‘forever chemicals’ in blood of pregnant women
China Tourists flocked to a giant thermometer in China showing surface temperatures of 80 degrees Celsius (176 degress Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, the latest extreme weather sparking havoc and curiosity…Continue readingHeatwaves set more records across Europe, Asia and US
Algeria In Algeria, five states were listed as places with the highest temperatures in the world in recent days, according to El Dorado Weather, which keeps a log of…Continue readingFrom Algeria to Syria, heatwaves scorch Middle East, North Africa
A total of 130,000 healthy years of life are lost to noise pollution in the UK each year alone, according to data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA),…Continue readingLight and noise pollution are neglected hazards
The wetlands system processes about 60 percent of Kolkata’s sewage free of charge, saving the city over $64 million a year. Farms in the wetlands provide about 150 tons…Continue readingThe ‘kidneys of Kolkata’: Indian wetlands under threat
Swaths of the United States home to more than 80 million people were under heat warnings or advisories Sunday, as relentless, record-breaking temperatures continued to bake western and southern…Continue readingUS West and South bake under extended heat wave
Tourists collapse in Greece and Italy and worker killed near Milan amid heatwave worsened by carbon pollution.Continue readingHealth alerts issued as blistering heat scorches southern Europe
Arizona’s capital city is nicknamed “Valley of the Sun”, and residents are used to scorching heat. But by day 12 of a vicious heatwave that’s sent temperatures soaring into…Continue reading‘Hell on earth’: Phoenix’s extreme heatwave tests the limits of survival
Published in Science of The Total Environment, the researchers collected and filtered samples of air from seven indoor environments on the Gold Coast where people spend most of their…Continue readingResearchers evaluate levels of indoor microplastics in Australia
Agricultural pesticides leach far from their original sources into the world’s waterways, according to new research which finds pesticides exceed safe levels in 13,000km of rivers globally. Analysing 92…Continue readingPesticides from farming leach into world’s waterways at rate of 710 tonnes a year, UN research shows
Drinking water from nearly half of U.S. faucets likely contains “forever chemicals” that may cause cancer and other health problems, according to a government study released Wednesday. The synthetic…Continue readingStudy says drinking water from nearly half of US faucets contains potentially harmful chemicals
With nine million hectares (22.2 million acres) already gone up in smoke—11 times the average for the last decade—the absolute annual record set in 1989 has been surpassed. Authorities…Continue readingWildfires ‘off the charts’ in Canada as temperatures climb
Seven out of eight US kale samples recently tested for toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” contained high levels of the compounds. The testing looked at conventional and organic kale bought…Continue readingNew report finds most US kale samples contain ‘disturbing’ levels of ‘forever chemicals’
Extreme heat is fast becoming a public health crisis in India, with more than 150 people dying during the latest brutal heat wave in June. Prolonged heat waves, sometimes…Continue readingIn rural India, summer’s heat can be deadly. Ambulance crews see the toll up close.
As of Wednesday, more than eight million hectares (20 million acres) of forests and grasslands had burned across Canada, breaking an annual record of 7.3 million hectares set in…Continue readingCanada wildfire smoke chokes millions in North America
At least 13 people have died from the extreme heat wave that has been tormenting the southern United States for two weeks. In recent days, temperatures in some southern…Continue readingAt least 13 die in extreme heat wave in US
More than 2,000 people suffered heat stress during the hajj pilgrimage, Saudi officials said on Thursday, after temperatures soared to 48˚C (118˚F). Over 1.8 million Muslim worshippers performed the…Continue readingThousands suffer heat stress on hajj pilgrimage as temperatures reach 48˚C
France is being badly hit by climate change, is not prepared for its effects and is failing to sufficiently reduce its emissions, an independent climate body warned. The record…Continue readingFrance badly hit by climate change and ill-prepared
Twenty-three deaths were reported on Thursday and another 11 died on Friday, Ballia’s Chief Medical Officer Jayant Kumar said. “All the individuals were suffering from some ailments and their…Continue readingDozens die as northern India swelters under heatwave
Environmental groups are suing the US Environmental Protection Agency over pesticide-coated seeds they say have “devastating environmental impacts” and are spread largely without regulatory oversight. The suit alleges the…Continue readingEPA sued over pesticide-coated seeds’ ‘devastating impacts’ on US wildlife
DuPont scientists found PFAS enlarged lab rats’ livers and likely caused birth defects in workers. Still, the company told its employees the cancer-linked compounds are “about as toxic as…Continue readingChemical industry used big tobacco’s tactics to conceal evidence of PFAS risks
Countries didn’t get around to talking about plastic until the third day out of five, stuck in a prolonged debate over voting rules and points of procedure — led…Continue readingGlobal plastic treaty talks limp on despite blockade by oil-rich countries
Concentrations of plastics in round-the-world race through remote ocean environments found to be up to 18 times higher than during previous event in 2017-18.Continue readingMicroplastics found in every sample of water taken during Ocean Race
To help extract oil, companies pump large quantities of water into the ground. For each barrel of oil, many of which are later exported to Europe, up to three…Continue readingIraq’s oil boom blamed for worsening water crisis in drought-hit south
Parks in the city of eight million people are now plunged into total darkness after 11 pm, while two-thirds of street lights are also switched off at the same…Continue readingHeatwave prompts Hanoi to reduce street lights as power cuts loom
The temperature at the bustling station climbed to 36.7˚C later in the afternoon, Shanghai’s meteorological service said. Parts of India saw temperatures reach 44˚C (111˚F) in mid-April with at…Continue readingShanghai records hottest day in May in 100 years