By Dipika Kadaba Ah, Florida—home to famous natural landscapes and amazing wildlife, but also to more than 20 million people and billion-dollar industries. Decades of booming development in Florida—all of it built in the path of Atlantic hurricanes—have brought to a head some toxic problems the state still struggles to solve. Every major flooding event, […]
By Jeremy Lent Imagine you’re driving your shiny new car too fast along a wet, curvy road. You turn a corner and realize you’re heading straight for a crowd of pedestrians. If you slam on your brakes, you’d probably skid and damage your car. So you keep your foot on the accelerator, heading straight for […]
Jacksonville and Charleston, South Carolina are facing record-breaking flooding in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Jacksonville officials say the “historic” flooding in the city exceeds levels not seen since 1846, while tidal levels in Charleston reached nearly 10 feet—8 inches higher than levels during Hurricane Matthew last year. Much of the flooding in these two […]
Hurricane Irma tore through the northeast Caribbean Wednesday, causing widespread devastation on the islands of Barbuda, Anguilla, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy. As many as ten deaths have been reported. One official called Barbuda “barely habitable,” estimating to the BBC that 50 percent of the island’s population are now homeless. The hurricane raked over Puerto Rico early […]
When the Aztecs founded Tenochtitlán in 1325, they built it on a large island on Lake Texcoco. Its eventual 200,000-plus inhabitants relied on canals, levees, dikes, floating gardens, aqueducts and bridges for defense, transportation, flood control, drinking water and food. After the Spaniards conquered the city in 1521, they drained the lake and built Mexico […]
By Hannah McKinnon Unprecedented and “never-before-seen” impacts of climate change are all around us. From Hurricanes’ Harvey and Irma to massive flooding in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal to forest fires burning through the west coast of North America—climate change is here and now, and it is catastrophic. Fortunately, unprecedented and never-before-seen climate policy is also […]
Toxic waste and pollution are emerging as a top concern as cleanup continued in Houston over the long weekend. Owners of the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, which suffered multiple explosions and fires last week, announced Sunday it would conduct controlled burns of the rest of the chemicals stored at the damaged facility as a […]
By Andy Rowell As much of the North American media focuses on the ongoing unprecedented flooding and relief efforts in Texas and now potentially Louisiana, another tragedy is unfolding, which is going largely unreported, in Asia. Whereas the death toll in Texas stands at 20, the death toll in South Asia is estimated at 1,200 […]
By Alex Kirby Tropical storm Harvey is by any standard off the scale. Some parts of Texas have received in just over a week the rainfall they would normally expect in an entire year, and the storm is described as generating as much rain as would normally be seen only once in more than 1,000 […]