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Reuters Smoke rises from mutual aid wildfire GCU007 in the Grande Prairie Forest Area near TeePee Creek, Alberta

Thousands of Canadians have been ordered to leave their homes in Fort Nelson, British Columbia due to the threat of a wildfire.

The blaze began on Friday night and was described by officials as “exhibiting extreme fire behaviour”.

Wildfires have also led to evacuation alerts and orders in the neighbouring province of Alberta.

The Canadian government has warned this year’s weather conditions would mean a greater wildfire risk in the country.

The Parker Lake fire, as it’s been called by the British Columbia Wildfire Service (BCWS), was 8sq km (3 sq miles) in size as of Saturday morning after growing rapidly overnight.

Some 3,000 people in Fort Nelson – located in northeast BC about 1,600km (1,000 miles) from Vancouver – were ordered to evacuate.

Rob Fraser, mayor of the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, told CBC News the fire began after high winds knocked a tree over and it crashed onto a power line and caught fire.

“And then by the time our firefighters were able to get down there, the wind had whipped this up into a fire that they weren’t able to handle with the apparatus that we had,” Mr Fraser said.

Strong winds and dry conditions are making the fire more difficult to fight, according to the BCWS.

As of Saturday, the fire was being fought by nine helicopters, as well as ground crews and a structure protection specialist, whose job it is to protect structures affected by wildfires.

In Alberta, people in the Grande Prairie region are under evacuation alerts and some have been asked to leave due to a blaze burning 4km east of the hamlet of TeePee Creek in the province’s northwest.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oklahoma tornadoes: Aerial footage shows trail of destruction

May 3, 2024

Oklahoma tornadoes: Aerial footage shows trail of destruction

Aerial footage shows the scale of the devastation in Oklahoma after tornadoes tore through the US state.

Buildings were destroyed and tens of thousands of residents were left without electricity.

The storm killed at least four people, including a young child.

Clean-up operations have been taking place in the town of Sulphur, where the storm flattened buildings, flipped over cars and tore off roofs.

On a visit to Sulphur, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt said it appeared that every business in the town had been destroyed.

A state of emergency has been declared in 12 counties. The White House said President Joe Biden had offered the full support of the federal government.Read more: At least five dead after tornadoes hit central US

…click on link above to view the video…

Greece: Orange Sahara dust haze descends over Athens

April 24, 2024

Greece: Orange Sahara dust haze descends over Athens

AFP People sit on Tourkovounia hill overlooking the city of Athens, as southerly winds carry waves of Saharan dust to the city, in Athens, on April 23, 2024

AFP

Despite the beauty of the orange hue over Athens, the clouds of dust left many Greeks suffering from respiratory problems

A dramatic orange haze has descended over Athens as clouds of dust have blown in from the Sahara desert.

It is one of the worst such episodes to hit Greece since 2018, according to officials.

Greece had already been struck by similar clouds in late March and early April, which also covered areas of Switzerland and southern France.

The skies are predicted to clear on Wednesday, says Greece’s weather service.

Air quality has deteriorated in many areas of the country and on Wednesday morning the Acropolis in Athens was no longer visible because of the dust. The cloud has reached as far north as Thessaloniki.

Greeks with respiratory conditions have been urged to limit the time they spend outdoors, wear protective masks and avoid taking physical exercise until the dust clouds clear.

EPA People stroll while African dust covers the sky of Athens, Greece

EPA

Greek skies were expected to clear on Wednesday

The Sahara releases 60 to 200 million tonnes of mineral dust per year.

Most of the dust quickly descends to Earth, but some of the small particles can travel huge distances, sometimes reaching Europe.

The atmosphere especially in southern Greece has become stifling because of the combination of dust and high temperatures.

Meteorologist Kostas Lagouvardos compared the view from one weather station to the planet Mars.

The fire service on Tuesday reported 25 wildfires in the past 24 hours. One fire broke out near a naval base on the island of Crete – where temperatures soared above 30C (86F) – and homes and a kindergarten had to be evacuated, according to local reports.

AFP via Getty Images

Dust plumes from the Sahara are not uncommon across Europe and can vary in intensity, however, they tend to occur most often during the spring and autumn.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Water extraction and weight of buildings see half of China’s cities sink

April 24, 2024

Water extraction and weight of buildings see half of China’s cities sink

Getty Images

A building subsides and collapses in Guangxi province

Nearly half of China’s major cities are sinking because of water extraction and the increasing weight of their rapid expansion, researchers say.

Some cities are subsiding rapidly, with one in six exceeding 10mm per year.

China’s rapid urbanisation in recent decades means far more water is now being drawn up to meet people’s needs, scientists say.

In coastal cities, this subsidence threatens millions of people with flooding as sea levels rise.

China has a long history of dealing with subsiding land, with both Shanghai and Tianjin showing evidence of sinking back in the 1920s. Shanghai has sunk more than 3m over the past century.

In more modern times, the country is seeing widespread evidence of subsidence in many of the cities that have expanded rapidly in recent decades.

To understand the scale of the problem, a team of researchers from several Chinese universities have examined 82 cities, including all with a population over 2 million.

They’ve used data from the Sentinel-1 satellites to measure vertical land motions across the country.

Looking across the period from 2015 to 2022, the team was able to work out that 45% of urban areas are subsiding by more than 3mm per year.

Around 16% of urban land is going down faster than 10mm a year, which the scientists describe as a rapid descent.

Put another way, this means 67 million people are living in rapidly sinking areas.

The researchers say that the cities facing the worst problems are concentrated in the five regions highlighted on the map shown.

The scale of decline is influenced by a number of factors, including geology and the weight of buildings. But a major element, according to the authors, is groundwater loss.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The vast ravines swallowing whole neighbourhoods around the world

April 23, 2024

The vast ravines swallowing whole neighbourhoods around the world

This was once a bustling street in Buriticupu, a city in north-east Brazil.

Now it is a vast chasm 80m deep – a 20-storey building could fit inside it.

Canyons like this are known locally as “voçoroca” or “torn land” in the indigenous Tupi-Guarani language.

The phenomenon is a result of gully erosion, one of the most aggressive forms of soil degradation caused by rain and waste water.

And it is advancing at a worrying speed, destroying thousands of homes in Latin America and Africa.

Former police officer José Ribamar Silveira was nearly killed when he fell into this gully.

He got lost as he was driving home from a party one night in May 2023.

As he turned the car around, the 79-year-old reversed and accelerated backwards. It was dark, there were no warning signs or barriers around the voçoroca, and before he knew it, the car – with him inside – plunged into the vast hole.

“When the car slid, even though it was falling quickly, I thought of my youngest son,” he tells the BBC.

Baby Gael had turned four months old the day before. “I asked God to protect me so that I could raise my little son,” says Lt Silveira.

He was knocked unconscious and woke up at the bottom of the ravine three hours later. After a complicated rescue operation and months of convalescence, he can now walk without crutches.

Portrait of José Ribamar Silveira near a ravine — José Silveira nearly died when he fell into the ravine

His experience is a vivid example of the risks facing Buriticupu’s 70,000 residents.

As more gullies appear, there are fears that the city in Maranhão state, on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, could be split in two. At 350m above sea level, Buriticupu has about 30 gullies, with the largest two separated by less than 1km.

“If the authorities don’t contain this, they will meet and form a river,” says Edilea Dutra Pereira, a geologist and professor at the Federal University of Maranhão.

Gullies have been part of the Earth’s geological history for millions of years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How microplastics are infiltrating the food you eat

January 5, 2023

How microplastics are infiltrating the food you eat

(Image credit: Nailia Schwarz/Alamy)

Root vegetables such as carrots appear to absorb more microplastics than other fruit and vegetables (Credit: Nailia Schwarz/Alamy)

Plastic pollution is one of the defining legacies of our modern way of life, but it is now so widespread it is even finding its way into fruit and vegetables as they grow.

Microplastics have infiltrated every part of the planet. They have been found buried in Antarctic sea ice, within the guts of marine animals inhabiting the deepest ocean trenches, and in drinking water around the world. Plastic pollution has been found on beaches of remote, uninhabited islands and it shows up in sea water samples across the planet. One study estimated that there are around 24.4 trillion fragments of microplastics in the upper regions of the world’s oceans.

But they aren’t just ubiquitous in water – they are spread widely in soils on land too and can even end up in the food we eat. Unwittingly, we may be consuming tiny fragments of plastic with almost every bite we take.

In 2022, analysis by the Environmental Working Group, an environmental non-profit, found that sewage sludge has contaminated almost 20 million acres (80,937sq km) of US cropland with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals”, which are commonly found in plastic products and do not break down under normal environmental conditions.

Sewage sludge is the byproduct left behind after municipal wastewater is cleaned. As it is expensive to dispose of and rich in nutrients, sludge is commonly used as organic fertiliser in the US and Europe. In the latter, this is in part due to EU directives promoting a circular waste economy. An estimated 8-10 million tonnes of sewage sludge is produced in Europe each year, and roughly 40% of this is spread on farmland.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Fuel protests gripping more than 90 countries

October 18, 2022

Fuel protests gripping more than 90 countries

Protesters in Ecuador hit the streets over the rise in cost of living — Image caption,

Protesters in Ecuador hit the streets over the rise in the cost of living

High costs of living are driving people to protest in the streets against crippling prices. The BBC has mapped all reported demonstrations over fuel since January 2021, revealing a huge increase in protests this year.

Fuel costs affect many aspects of daily life – personal travel, transportation of goods, energy for electricity and heating.

Around the world demonstrators have called for change. They’ve demanded that petrol be made more affordable or available at all.

They’ve sat in peaceful protests and they’ve attacked governments.

Some have paid an even higher price.

Fights over fuel

16-year-old Khadija Bah was standing on her family’s front porch when she was shot.

For days, Khadija had been watching growing crowds of demonstrators rally, gathering only metres from her house on the east side of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.

But on 10 August, the protests turned violent. As armed police clashed with protesters, a stray bullet hit Khadjia. She sank to the ground and died almost immediately.

Her mother, Maria Sesay, is still struggling to come to terms with the death of her daughter. A student at the local secondary school, Khadija’s dream was one day to become a nurse.

Khadija's parents, Maria (L) and Abdul (R) — Image caption,

Khadija’s parents, Maria (L) and Abdul (R)

“I’m so sad,” her mother says. “Up until now, I have struggled so hard to raise my daughter. But now she is dead. I’m in so much pain.”

Violence like this has not been witnessed in this small west African nation for years. This time, it was sparked by record-breaking fuel prices.

In the month of August, violent clashes in the capital killed 25 people, including five police officers.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Largest UK Supermarket Warns “Worst Has Yet To Come” Amid Food Inflation Crisis

February 8, 2022

Largest UK Supermarket Warns “Worst Has Yet To Come” Amid Food Inflation Crisis

Britain’s largest supermarket chain warned “the worst is yet to come” on food inflation as the cost-of-living crisis pulverizes the working poor.

John Allan, chairman of Tesco Plc, told the BBC’s Sunday Morning Live that low-income households have difficulty choosing between food and heat this winter. Budgets are tight, triggering a ‘winter of discontent’ if widespread inflation doesn’t diminish.

“In some ways, the worst is still to come – because although food price inflation in Tesco last quarter was only 1%, we are impacted by rising energy prices. Our suppliers are impacted by rising energy prices. We’re doing all we can to offset it … but that’s the sort of number we’re talking about. Of course, 5%,” Tesco’s Allan said.

He said food and energy inflation would change consumer spending patterns, buying fewer luxury goods and big-ticket items and going out less to eat. Food inflation comes as households experience one of the most significant jumps in annual energy costs in years.

“It troubles us, and I’m sure troubles many people, that people may have to struggle to choose between heating their homes and feeding their families,” he said. “And that’s clearly not a situation that any of us should tolerate.”

For some context for our international readers, Tesco controls about 28% of the UK grocery market. So when Allan speaks about the worst of the food inflation has yet to come — it’s very concerning that food price hikes might continue well through spring. It’s still unknown the social ramifications of high inflation.

Food prices globally are at decade highs, likely to hit new records by spring.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Entice and Orbit become latest energy firms to go bust

December 18, 2021

Entice and Orbit become latest energy firms to go bust

Two more energy suppliers have gone bust amid the surge in gas prices, the regulator Ofgem has said.

Entice Energy and Orbit Energy, which have about 5,400 and 65,000 customers respectively, ceased trading on Wednesday.

The two firms are the latest companies to go under as higher wholesale gas prices have made price promises by suppliers to customers undeliverable.

Ofgem said new suppliers would be found for the two companies’ customers.

Households have been advised to wait until a new supplier is appointed before thinking about switching company.

Neil Lawrence, director of retail at Ofgem, said:  ”I want to reassure affected customers that they do not need to worry:  under our safety net we’ll make sure your energy supplies continue. ”

Orbit said energy supplies to its customers were “secure” and said any credit balances would be honoured.

The collapse of Orbit and Entice comes after Bulb, the UK’s seventh largest energy supplier, was handed about £1,000 per customer from the UK government to enable it to continue supplying energy.

Bulb, which has 1.7 million customers, is the largest company to date to face difficulties in recent months and was put into special administration, which will allow it keep trading for the moment with a £1.7bn loan.

It will be run by an administrator until a buyer can be found or until its customers have moved.

Bulb’s size is the reason it has been kept afloat by the government, rather than its customers being transferred to other suppliers, as has happened with other failing energy providers.

Since the beginning of September, a total of 24 energy suppliers have now failed following a spike in gas prices.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Natural gas: SSE Airtricity to increase prices by 21.8%

September 17, 2021

Natural gas: SSE Airtricity to increase prices by 21.8%

SSE Airtricity will increase its natural gas prices for households and businesses by 21.8% from October.

The company says the change will add £112 on to the typical average household bill.

SSE Airtricity has 178,000 customers in Northern Ireland.

Tariffs are scrutinised and approved by the utility regulator, who had previously warned that gas price increases were to be expected this winter.

SSE says it is revising its prices to reflect the sustained increases in external costs outside of its control.

These including rising costs in acquiring natural gas on global wholesale energy markets.

These costs affect all suppliers in the market as seen in similar announcements already this year.

‘The perfect storm’

The Fuel Poverty Coalition has warned unprecedented increases in energy costs could lead to the “perfect storm” this winter coming at the same time as the furlough scheme and the uplift to Universal Credit come to an end.

Chair Pat Austin said one in five families in Northern Ireland are already in fuel poverty and that the Executive needs to intervene to stop the problem from getting much worse.

“We need a crisis intervention at the moment, we need government and the suppliers to get behind this – whether that is a social tariff for low-income households or being able to top households up, that needs to happen sooner rather than later.”

‘Not taken lightly’

Andrew Greer, SSE Airtricity general manager (NI), said the decision had not been taken lightly.

“Almost 90% of a customer’s gas tariff is accounted for through transmission, distribution and commodity costs.

“Over the last year, commodity costs have risen sharply with the cost of purchasing natural gas on the wholesale market more than doubling since last summer.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries?

May 2, 2021

Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries?

A worker with car batteries at a factory for Xinwangda Electric Vehicle Battery Co. Ltd, which makes lithium batteries for electric cars — The world will have to work out what to do with millions of disused car batteries

“The rate at which we’re growing the industry is absolutely scary,” says Paul Anderson from University of Birmingham.

He’s talking about the market for electric cars in Europe.

By 2030, the EU hopes that there will be 30 million electric cars on European roads.

“It’s something that’s never really been done before at that rate of growth for a completely new product,” says Dr Anderson, who is also the co-director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials.

While electric vehicles (EVs) may not emit any carbon dioxide during their working lives, he’s concerned about what happens when they run out of road – in particular what happens to the batteries.

“In 10 to 15 years when there are large numbers coming to the end of their life, it’s going to be very important that we have a recycling industry,” he points out.

While most EV components are much the same as those of conventional cars, the big difference is the battery. While traditional lead-acid batteries are widely recycled, the same can’t be said for the lithium-ion versions used in electric cars.

EV batteries are larger and heavier than those in regular cars and are made up of several hundred individual lithium-ion cells, all of which need dismantling. They contain hazardous materials, and have an inconvenient tendency to explode if disassembled incorrectly.

“Currently, globally, it’s very hard to get detailed figures for what percentage of lithium-ion batteries are recycled, but the value everyone quotes is about 5%,” says Dr Anderson. “In some parts of the world it’s considerably less.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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