Volunteer firefighters have been called up from their day jobs all over France this summer to help battle wildfires.. At the end of 2020, France counted 197,100 volunteer firefighters, according to official figures.
If you had the choice, would you rather go to the Moon or Mars?. "I certainly would be just absolutely thrilled to be able to be a part of the effort to go to another planetary surface, whether it be the Moon or Mars."
Thousands of fish have washed up dead on the Oder river running through Germany and Poland, sparking warnings of an environmental disaster as residents are urged to stay away from the water.. "Probably enormous quantities of chemical waste was dumped into the river in full knowledge of the risk and consequences," added the Polish leader, as German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke urged a comprehensive probe into what she called a brewing "environmental disaster".
Hundreds of billions of dollars for clean energy projects, cheaper prescription drugs and new corporate taxes are a few of the key items in US President Joe Biden's massive investment plan, which the House of Representatives is expected to pass Friday, after Senate approval.. - Minimum corporate tax of 15% - Alongside these huge investments, the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act" would seek to pare down the federal deficit through the adoption of a minimum corporate tax of 15 percent for all companies with profits exceeding one billion dollars.
US lawmakers on Friday were expected to adopt President Joe Biden's sprawling climate, tax and health care plan -- a major win for the veteran Democrat that includes the biggest ever American investment in the battle against global warming.. The plan includes a $370 billion investment aimed at effecting a 40 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 -- the largest ever commitment to fighting climate change by the world's biggest economy, and one of its worst polluters.
The UK government on Friday officially declared a drought across swathes of England, following months of record low rainfall and unprecedented high temperatures in recent weeks.. Drought was last officially declared in England in 2018.
At least 150 critically-endangered vultures were poisoned to death in separate incidents in Botswana and South Africa, conservationists said Friday, warning the killings pushed the birds closer to extinction. . "Given the critical status of vultures globally, poisonings at this scale place the species at increasing risk of extinction," Yolan Friedmann, the head of the Endangered Wildlife Trust conservation group, said in a statement on the Kruger incident.
A huge fire that has devastated swathes of southwestern France was largely contained on Friday, but firefighters face another "complicated" day, local authorities said.. Temperatures of around 37 degrees Celsius (99 Fahrenheit) were expected in the fire zone on Friday, slightly lower than the day before.
Blazes that have torched tens of thousands of hectares of forest in France, Spain and Portugal have made 2022 a record year for wildfire activity in southwestern Europe, the EU's satellite monitoring service said Friday. . Amid a prolonged heatwave that saw temperature records tumble, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) said that France had in the last three months reached the highest levels of carbon pollution from wildfires since records began in 2003.
Forced to start picking grapes much earlier than normal because of torrid temperatures, winemakers across France are worrying that grape quality will suffer from the climate-induced stress.. Now he worries that global warming will make such premature harvests "normal."
