Most recent 40 articles: Voanews
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Expert Sounds 'Red Alert' About Climate Crisis, Calls it Humanity's 'Defining Challenge' - Voanews (Mar 19) |
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Mar 19 · A report by the World Meteorological Organization presents an ominous picture of what lies ahead for planet Earth if urgent action is not taken to stop what appears to be an inevitable march toward climate change.
According to the WMO's State of Global Climate report, 2023 was the hottest year on record, "with the global average near-surface temperature at 1.45 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline."
"Never have we been so close - albeit on a temporary basis at the moment - to the 1.5 degrees Celsius lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said on Tuesday.
Global warming is caused by the emission of ... Read more ...
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Paris Plans for Dramatic Facelift to Cope With Rising Temperatures - Voanews (Aug 08, 2023) |
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Aug 08, 2023 · Paris has recently been shivering under the kind of summer for which it was once infamous - before climate change entered mainstream lexicon and thinking. As temperatures soared in parts of southern Europe, rain has lashed the French capital, sending tourists and locals scrambling for umbrellas and thick sweaters.
It's certain to be a short-term reprieve. By 2050, one recent study finds Paris could have the highest number of heat wave-related deaths of any European capital, with temperatures possibly hitting a scorching 50 degrees Celsius.
"We have to maintain the beauty of Paris, while also finding new tools, new materials to adapt Paris against the heat waves," said ... Read more ...
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Climate Change Likely Why Dangerous Fungus Spreading Fast, Scientists Say - Voanews (Jul 30, 2023) |
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Jul 30, 2023 · SEATTLE - In 2016, hospitals in New York state identified a rare and dangerous fungal infection never before found in the United States. Research laboratories quickly mobilized to review historical specimens and found the fungus had been present in the country since at least 2013.
In the years since, New York City has emerged as ground zero for Candida auris infections. And until 2021, the state recorded the most confirmed cases in the country year after year, even as the illness has spread to other places, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data analyzed by The Associated Press.
Candida auris is a globally emerging public health threat that can ... Read more ...
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Drought Tightens Its Grip on Morocco - Voanews (Aug 14, 2022) |
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Aug 14, 2022 · Mohamed gave up farming because of successive droughts that have hit his previously fertile but isolated village in Morocco and because he just couldn't bear it any longer.
"To see villagers rush to public fountains in the morning or to a neighbor to get water makes you want to cry," the man in his 60s said.
"The water shortage is making us suffer," he told AFP in Ouled Essi Masseoud village, around 140 kilometers from the country's economic capital Casablanca.
But it is not just his village that is suffering - all of the North African country has been hit.
No longer having access to potable running water, the villagers of Ouled Essi Masseoud rely solely on ... Read more ...
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Hawaiians look to tradition to cope with climate change - Voanews (Aug 12, 2021) |
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Aug 12, 2021 · HONOLULU, HAWAII - Hawaii faces a range of environmental problems caused by global warming, impacts worsened by practices that critics say have ignored the local ecology.
They say reviving traditional values can reduce the damage by limiting coastal erosion, reversing the rising acidity of coastal waters and lessening flooding from intense storms.
Coastal hotels and homes already are seeing the effect of rising sea levels, which could cost the state’s principal island of Oahu 40% of its beaches by 2050, according to one study. That also would harm tourism, which is the largest source of income for the islands.
Even under an optimistic global scenario assuming lower ... Read more ...
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Virus Puts Focus on Deforestation's Risk to Public Health in ASEAN | Voice of America - English - Voanews (Apr 29, 2020) |
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Apr 29, 2020 · Just across the river from downtown Ho Chi Minh City, a tract of land is being turned into a bustling financial center. It's still mostly dirt and concrete, but less than a decade ago, the tract was dense marshland where it was easy to spot goats and pigs.
Fast urbanization all over Southeast Asia is changing humans' relationship to wildlife, and now COVID-19 shows how this process can pose a risk to public health, environmentalists say. They argue that, while climate-harming deforestation has long been known to be a problem for animals, the pandemic highlights more than ever that it can be harmful to humans, too.
Scientists now believe humans contracted the virus ... Read more ...
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Video: Cold War Legacy Sustains Global Warming Research in Greenland - Voanews (Sep 15, 2017) |
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Sep 15, 2017 · The Arctic is melting faster than expected, accelerating rates of sea level rise around the world. The urgent need to understand what is behind the quickening pace is drawing scientists to some of the world's coldest and most remote locations in Greenland. There is really only one way to get there: on military transport planes that land on skis. VOA's Steve Baragona traveled along with the Air National Guard that traces its roots to the coldest part of the Cold War. Read more ...
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Trump's climate policies could shift US jobs to China - Voanews (Nov 14, 2016) |
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Nov 14, 2016 · WASHINGTON - Environmentalists are reeling when they envisage what impact on climate change President-elect Donald Trump might have.
"A gut punch to the planet" is how environmental group Friends of the Earth described his upset victory.
But despite candidate Trump's promises to reopen coal mines, pull out of the Paris climate treaty and roll back environmental regulations, there's only so much the president-elect can do once he begins governing next year.
Energy markets are shifting away from fossil fuels, according to economists, and the market for renewable energy is growing steadily. So, ironically, for all of Trump's vows to create new American jobs, if he ... Read more ...
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Climate change pushing need for better agriculture data - Voanews (Sep 22, 2016) |
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Sep 22, 2016 · BANGKOK - Climate change and its pressure on agriculture to adapt is adding fresh urgency, say experts, for accurate data amid a fast changing agricultural landscape.
Statisticians and analysts say such issues surrounding climate change are also adding to the challenges posed by food security, poverty, undernourishment and sustainable development.
Globally work is underway, led by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to prepare regions for the World Program for the Census for Agriculture 2020 (WACA).
Officials and statisticians from 21 countries met in Bangkok this week as part of steps ahead of the 2020 global survey.
The global census ... Read more ...
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Ecuador begins drilling for oil in pristine corner of Amazon - Voanews (Sep 09, 2016) |
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Sep 09, 2016 · TIPUTINI, ECUADOR - Ecuador began drilling for oil Wednesday near an Amazon nature reserve known as Yasuni, a site that President Rafael Correa had previously sought to protect from development and pollution under a pioneering conservation plan.
Correa in 2007 asked wealthy countries to donate $3.6 billion to offset revenue lost by not drilling in the Yasuni National Park. But the initiative was scrapped in 2013 after it brought in less than 4 percent of the amount requested.
Correa's government blamed the international community for the failure of a plan once seen as a possible model for other developing countries seeking to resist the lure of oil money. Wednesday's ... Read more ...
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With plants, it's not the humidity, it's the heat - Voanews (Sep 07, 2016) |
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Sep 07, 2016 · The drought in the western U.S. state of California is having a major impact on the state's agricultural production.
New research suggests it's not just lack of rain that is damaging local produce, but also the dry air that goes along with it.
Water on ground, and in air
Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. The higher the humidity, the more water vapor in the air. Now, a new study from researchers at Indiana University suggests that low humidity can stress plants just like dry soil. The new research was published in the journal Nature Climate Change, and the authors say this information will become more important as climate change makes both the air ... Read more ...
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Kerry makes plea for enhanced Indian leadership on global stage - Voanews (Sep 01, 2016) |
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Sep 01, 2016 · NEW DELHI - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged India Wednesday to take greater responsibility on the global stage, in partnership with the United States.
Speaking to some of India's brightest students on the Delhi campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kerry called India "an established power with a footprint on matters that affect the entire planet." The top American envoy said further cooperation between the world's two largest democracies is essential for confronting global challenges from terrorism to climate change.
"The bottom line is that the deep cooperation between India and the United States matters a great deal to both our countries and to ... Read more ...
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Indian scientists design solar tree to save space for solar power generation - Voanews (Aug 29, 2016) |
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Aug 29, 2016 · NEW DELHI - Indian scientists have designed a "solar tree" that they hope will help overcome one of the key challenges the country faces in the generation of solar power.
With photovoltaic panels placed at different levels on branches made of steel, "solar trees" could dramatically reduce the amount of land needed to develop solar parks.
"It takes about four-square meters of space to produce energy which otherwise would have required 400 square meters of space. So almost 100 times the space is saved, which as you know is very valuable," said Daljit Singh Bedi, chief scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in New Delhi, whose laboratory in ... Read more ...
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Fighting climate change with movies - Voanews (Jun 13, 2016) |
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Jun 13, 2016 · No media source currently available
"It's going to change in some of the most difficult and dangerous ways that we can imagine. When you really encounter that head on, it causes an incredible crisis. I think you go deep into some kind of despair and I think you ping-pong back and forth between that despair and, and denial." -- Josh Fox, filmmaker and climate activist
See comments No media source currently available
"How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change" is the latest movie from filmmaker and climate activist Josh Fox.
The movie is the third film in a three-part series about climate change.
In 2010, America's ... Read more ...
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