An orange-tinged smog caused by Canada's wildfires shrouded New York on Wednesday, obscuring its famous skyscrapers and causing residents to don face masks, as cities along the US East Coast issued air quality alerts.. America's financial capital and much of New York state were subject to an air quality health advisory alert that was in effect until Wednesday night.
Do you feel like society's morals have declined recently?. This illusion of moral decline may have "troubling consequences," the researchers warned.
A controversial research project in Norway on whales' hearing was suspended after a whale drowned, researchers said on Wednesday, as activists slammed the "cruel and pointless" experiments. . "We have warned that these cruel and pointless experiments would lead to whales being killed and it is sadly ironic that this poor minke has died even before the experiments have got underway," said a spokesman for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Danny Groves.
Bangladesh has shut thousands of schools as it struggles through its lengthiest heatwave in half a century, with widespread power cuts only compounding locals' misery.. Tens of thousands of primary schools were shut down by the government, and electricity production has been drastically cut, even as demand for air conditioners and fans has surged.
Ukraine's dam break is posing "no short-term risk" to Europe's biggest atomic plant, despite falling water levels in a reservoir used to cool its reactors, according to the UN nuclear watchdog agency.. - 'No immediate risk' - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- which has a team of experts at the plant -- said late Tuesday that it saw "no short-term risk to nuclear safety and security".
US special climate envoy John Kerry told AFP that the world's population will not be tenable in 2050, when it is projected to hit nearly 10 billion, but refrained from asking Americans to give up steaks.. But Kerry wasn't about to make an appeal for people to give up their hamburgers.
Canada's Quebec province, not used to the huge number, scale and strength of wildfires ravaging the rest of the country, has become the latest hotspot with about 160 fires burning on Tuesday, most of those out of control.. Dozens of fires are still burning in the west of the country: 62 in Alberta, 76 in westernmost British Columbia and 24 in Saskatchewan.
The Arctic Ocean's ice cap will disappear in summer as soon as the 2030s and a decade earlier than thought, no matter how aggressively humanity draws down the carbon pollution that drives global warming, scientists said Tuesday.. Scientists describe the Arctic Ocean as "ice-free" if the area covered by ice is less than one million square kilometres, about seven percent of the ocean's total area.
Banish fossil fuels, capture their emissions, pull CO2 from thin air -- diplomats in Bonn for UN-led climate talks agree there's too much planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but remain at loggerheads on the best way to reduce it.. There are three ways to deal with the problem, intervening at different points in the CO2 "value chain" from source to tailpipe: stop burning fossil fuels, by far the main driver of warming; if you do burn them, stop carbon pollution from seeping into the air; and remove CO2 from the atmosphere once it's there.
The UN's cultural agency UNESCO welcomed on Tuesday commitments from Australia to protect the Great Barrier Reef, with the government pledging 4.4 billion Australian dollars ($2.9 billion) to safeguard the natural wonder. . In a letter sent to UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay last week, Plibersek also pledged "combined investment of 4.4 billion Australian dollars" ($2.9 billion) from the state Queensland and federal governments to protect the reef.
