Polar vortex descends on US with 'dangerous, extremely rare' wind chills

Washington: Nearly 90 million people will experience temperatures at or below minus 17 degrees Celsius this week, from the Midwest to New England, and 25 million of those will face temperatures below minus 28 degrees Celsius,the US National Weather Service says.

The polar vortex dips down into the US.CREDIT:

Wind chill temperatures plummeted to minus 45.5 degrees Celsius in the Dakotas and northern Minnesota on Tuesday morning, and the painfully frigid air is forecast to spread south-east into Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit.

Read the story from The Age by Angela Fritz - “Polar vortex descends on US with 'dangerous, extremely rare' wind chills.”

Climate Change Is Driving People From Home. So Why Don’t They Count as Refugees?

UNITED NATIONS — More than 65 million people are displaced from their homes, the largest number since the Second World War, and nearly 25 million of them are refugees and asylum seekers living outside their own country.

A shipwrecked migrant in the Mediterranean in November.
New research suggests that weather shocks are spurring people
 to seek asylum in Europe. Credit

But that number doesn’t include people displaced by climate change.

Under international law, only those who have fled their countries because of war or persecution are entitled to refugee status. People forced to leave home because of climate change, or who leave because climate change has made it harder for them to make a living, don’t qualify.

The law doesn’t offer them much protection at all unless they can show they are fleeing a war zone or face a fear of persecution if they are returned home.

Read The New York Times story - “Climate Change Is Driving People From Home. So Why Don’t They Count as Refugees?”