Environment

ADELAIDE HILLS - MFS fire crews fight a bushfire on Wattle Road in Kersbrook, on January 2, 2015 in Adelaide Hills, Australia. (Photo by Campbell Brodie/Newspix/Getty Images)

cnn.com - by Leah Asmelash - January 12, 2020

The fires in Australia have been burning for months, consuming nearly 18 million acres of land, causing thousands to evacuate and killing potentially millions of animals . . .

 . . . The Australian state of New South Wales, where both Sydney and Canberra are located, declared a state of emergency this week, as worsening weather conditions could lead to even greater fire danger.

But a 50,000-year-old solution could exist: Aboriginal burning practices.

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This satellite image provided by NASA shows the fires in Brazil on Aug. 20, 2019. As fires raged in the Amazon rainforest, the Brazilian government on Thursday denounced international critics who say President Jair Bolsonaro is not doing enough to curb widespread deforestation. (NASA via AP)

apnews.com - by MARCELO SILVA de SOUSA - August 23, 2019

Amid global concern about raging fires in the Amazon, Brazil’s government complained Thursday that it is being targeted in smear campaign by critics who contend President Jair Bolsonaro is not doing enough to curb widespread deforestation.

The threat to what some call “the lungs of the planet” has ignited a bitter dispute about who is to blame during the tenure of a leader who has described Brazil’s rainforest protections as an obstacle to economic development and who traded Twitter jabs on Thursday with France’s president over the fires.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the wildfires an international crisis and said the leaders of the Group of 7 nations should hold urgent discussions about them at their summit in France this weekend.

Microplastic found in ice core samples taken from the Northwest Passage is shown on a screen as part of an 18-day icebreaker expedition taking place in July and August 2019 in the Northwest Passage, in a still image taken from a handout video obtained by REUTERS on August 14, 2019. Northwest Passage Project/Camera: Duncan Clark via REUTERS

reuters.com - by Matthew Green - August 14, 2019

Tiny pieces of plastic have been found in ice cores drilled in the Arctic by a U.S.-led team of scientists, underscoring the threat the growing form of pollution poses to marine life in even the remotest waters on the planet . . . 

 . . . The team plans to subject the samples to further analysis to support a broader research effort to understand the damage plastic is doing to fish, seabirds and large ocean mammals such as whales . . .

 . . . much of the large amounts of microplastic found in the Arctic in previous studies had probably been carried there through the atmosphere.

“Once we’ve determined that large quantities of microplastic can also be transported by the air, it naturally raises the question as to whether and how much plastic we’re inhaling,” Bergmann said in a statement.