Disasters

"Ocean temperatures that have gone “crazy haywire” hot, especially in the Atlantic, are close to making the current global coral bleaching event the worst in history. It’s so bad that scientists are hoping for a few hurricanes to cool things off."

"The nation’s electric grid monitor warned Tuesday that areas of New England, the Upper Midwest and the Southwest face potential energy emergencies if severe heat waves strike this summer, including risks of rolling outages."

"Florida will eliminate climate change as a priority in making energy policy decisions, despite the threats it faces from powerful hurricanes, extreme heat and worsening toxic algae blooms."

"More than half of Zimbabwe's population will need food aid this year following a devastating drought that led to widespread crop failure as humanitarian organisations seek funding to save many from hunger, the country's cabinet heard late on Tuesday."

"A barge slammed into a bridge pillar in Galveston, Texas, on Wednesday, spilling oil into waters near busy shipping channels and closing the only road to a small neighboring island. No injuries were reported."

"The threat from a wildfire near Canada’s oil sands hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta, appeared to be easing on Wednesday, a day after it forced thousands of residents to evacuate and stirred memories of a damaging blaze nearly a decade earlier."

"The owner of this home in Iowa, a state once considered low-risk, was dropped by his insurance company last year. ... As climate change produces more extreme weather, insurers are losing money, even in states with low hurricane and wildfire danger."

"Beyond a chain-link fence topped with spiraled barbed wire, swaying coastal grasses conceal a cache of buried radioactive waste and toxic pesticides from a bygone chemical plant."

"The U.S. government has a specialized plane loaded with advanced sensors that officials brag is always ready to deploy within an hour of any kind of chemical disaster. But the plane didn’t fly over eastern Ohio until four days after the disastrous Norfolk Southern derailment there last year."

"Devastating and ongoing flooding in southern Brazil is forcing some of the half million displaced residents to consider uprooting their lives from inundated towns to rebuild on higher ground."