South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national emergency on April 18 as the death toll from floods in KwaZulu-Natal province climbed over 440, with dozens of people still missing.…
Only aerial footage captures the true scale of the horror: Houses have been flattened, roads ruined, and everything looks like it’s been covered in a film of dark-brown syrup. A…
Scholars and political leaders worldwide are fretting over the complex connections between climate and insecurity. Many social scientists theorize that climate disruption is a “conflict multiplier.” To residents of the…
In 2017, Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm, struck Puerto Rico. The hurricane dried up four basin mangrove forests in the island’s northeast, leaving behind an urgent need for restoration,…
ABUJA, Nigeria — On Feb. 3, the Trinity Spirit, a floating production, storage and offloading vessel, caught fire off the coast of Nigeria. Seven of 10 crew members were killed.…
Cyclone Batsirai rammed into Madagascar’s coast on Feb. 5, bringing further devastation to a country already reeling from the effects of another tropical storm, Ana, that struck on Jan. 22. Batsirai,…
PALAWAN, Philippines — When park ranger Allan Daganta travels to work from his home in a village just outside Palawan's Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (PPSRNP), he’s usually welcomed…
Three years after the collapse of a mining dam forced them from their homes in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, a small community of Pataxó and Pataxó Hãhãhãe Indigenous peoples face…
For the Amazon, 2021 was yet another year under the pandemic where the onslaught against nature never seemed to end. Deforestation continues, surging at year’s end Deforestation continued in the…
In 2020, fires tore across the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland region that spans across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. By the time the year drew to a close, the fires…
A major fire has burned more than 1,000 hectares, or nearly 2,500 acres, of grassland in the Guassa Community Conservation Area of Ethiopia. While any long-term impacts are yet to…
Crude oil from a blowout has been pouring into creeks in the Niger Delta since Nov. 5, with the well's owner, Nigerian energy firm Aiteo, unable to contain the spill…
PENYARINGAN, Indonesia — Stretching across Bali’s southwest coast and up into the mountainous hinterland is Jembrana, one of the least populated of the Indonesian island’s nine administrative districts. Its name…
In a world wracked by wildfires, deadly storms, and the now too-familiar drumbeat of dire climate warnings, statistical descriptions of the future humanity faces can seem at once too sterile…
Fires have destroyed at least 18,000 hectares of vegetation (44,480 acres) in central Brazil’s savanna region and now threaten a national park that’s home to rare species such as jaguars,…
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
On Feb. 8, 2019, two weeks after the collapse of a dam holding mining waste killed 272 people and left a trail of destruction in Brumadinho, in the Brazilian state…
The spread of fires in a Brazilian state that’s still mostly swathed in Amazon rainforest is raising alarms about risks to public health, compounding what’s already one of the worst…
The Brazilian state of Acre, nestled along the border with Peru and Bolivia in the Amazon, has been called “the place where the wind makes the curve,” a saying that,…
TIMBULSLOKO, Indonesia — For Kartimah, traveling to the doctor’s office for her regular checkups is no longer such a simple journey. The trip used to be a short hop by…
Record extreme weather in the U.S., Brazil, China and elsewhere is impacting food production this year, with the future expected to be far worse. Agriculture requires “transformational change” to meet the climate crisis, say experts.
A dam holding back mining waste from Brazilian miner Vale is at risk of collapsing, a government audit says. The same company was responsible for two tailings dam collapses since…
The asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed more than 75% of all species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs, triggered an ecological catastrophe that took the neotropical rainforests…
DAHAB, Egypt — A decaying super-tanker anchored off Yemen with 1.1 million barrels of Marib light crude oil in its hold looks increasingly likely to wreak havoc in the Red…
JAKARTA — Massive deforestation for coal mines may have exacerbated floods that recently inundated the eastern part of Indonesian Borneo, the country’s coal heartland. Fourteen villages in Berau district, East…
SOUTH TAPANULI, Indonesia — The death toll from a landslide at the site of a hydropower plant being built in Indonesia’s Batang Toru forest has risen to 10, with three…
JAKARTA — Three people are reportedly dead and nine are missing after a landslide hit the site of a planned hydropower plant in the only known habitat of the critically…
JAKARTA — Hundreds of mining concessions across Indonesia lie in areas prone to earthquakes, landslides and floods, making them ticking time bombs for local communities, according to a new report.…
MANILA — For the Philippines, the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t the only disaster to hit the country in 2020. The year started out with a volcanic eruption and closed with two…
MANILA — The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 spewed enough volcanic ash into the atmosphere to cool the world. In the immediate vicinity of the volcano,…