Brazil dam collapse: 10 bodies found and hundreds missing

Ten bodies have been found and more than 400 people are unaccounted for after a dam operated by the mining firm Vale collapsed in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, releasing a wave of red iron ore waste and raising fears of widespread contamination.

Rescue workers search for victims after the collapse of the Brumadinho dam.

The fire chief Col Edgar Estevão said 100 people had been rescued from the sea of mud released by the dam, according to the G1 news site. Firefighters said they had recovered 10 bodies by Saturday afternoon.

Vale released a list of 412 employees and contractors who were missing. The document lists 412 names of people whom it had been unable to contact and who may be victims of the mudslide. The fire brigade estimated that 300-350 people were missing.

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, visited Minas Gerais and flew over the disaster area on Saturday, after dispatching three ministers there on Friday.

Read the story from The Guardian by Dom Phillips - “Brazil dam collapse: 10 bodies found and hundreds missing.”

(This ugliness - in every sense - is just another example of our industrialised world; a way of living that is disrupting from our atmosphere to living conditions here on earth. We must change our behaviour - Robert McLean)

We’re about to kill a massive, accidental experiment in reducing global warming

Studies have found that ships have a net cooling effect on the planet, despite belching out nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. That’s almost entirely because they also emit sulfur, which can scatter sunlight in the atmosphere and form or thicken clouds that reflect it away.

In effect, the shipping industry has been carrying out an unintentional experiment in climate engineering for more than a century. Global mean temperatures could be as much as 0.25 ˚C lower than they would otherwise have been, based on the mean “forcing effect” calculated by a 2009 study that pulled together other findings (see “The Growing Case for Geoengineering”). For a world struggling to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 ˚C, that’s a big helping hand.

And we’re about to take it away.

Read the MIT Technology Review story by James Temple - “We’re about to kill a massive, accidental experiment in reducing global warming.”

Galilee Basin mine plans understated water impact, government report says

Coalmines planned in the Galilee Basin – including Adani’s Carmichael mine – understated the likely impacts on surrounding water resources, a federal government scientific report has found.

 Green groups say the report shows Adani’s Carmichael
plan and other mines have been approved based on
inadequate environmental information.

The bioregional assessment report into the cumulative impact of coalmine proposals was published quietly last week. It was compiled by experts from the CSIRO, Geosciences Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology and the federal environment department.

The report modelled information from seven of 17 proposed coalmines in the Galilee and found there was a greater than 95% chance that they would cause hydrological changes to the Belyando River Basin.

Read the story from The Guardian by Ben Smee - “Galilee Basin mine plans understated water impact, government report says.”

Climate Change Is Making Deadly Air Pollution Worse in Cities Across the U.S.

Environmentalists worry that climate change could cause problems with rising sea levels and crop failures in the coming decades, but one group of researchers has found it’s already causing health problems now.

Climate change is worsening air pollution in U.S. cities.

Temperature increases linked to climate change are worsening air pollution in communities across the country right now contributing to a range of health problems from asthma to premature death, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.

The total number of Americans exposed to unhealthy air rose to nearly 134 million, according to the group’s 2018 State of the Air report. That represents a spike from 125 million in the previous year.

Read the story by Justin Worland from Time Magazine - “Climate Change Is Making Deadly Air Pollution Worse in Cities Across the U.S..”

‘Wake-up call': microplastics found in Great Australian Bight sediment

Plastic has been found in ocean-floor sediments 2km below the surface in one of Australia’s most precious and isolated marine environments.

The Great Australian Bight marine park, a so-called ‘pristine’ biodiversity
hotspot where microplastics have been found below the surface.

CSIRO scientists discovered the microplastic pieces while analysing samples taken hundreds of kilometres offshore at the bottom of the Great Australian Bight – a so-called “pristine” biodiversity hotspot and marine treasure.

Conservationists and scientists said the discovery off the South Australian coast should act as a “wake-up call” for governments and corporations to cut unnecessary use of plastics and to “legislate and incentivise” to tackle the growing ocean plastics problem.

Read Graham Readfearn’s story from The Guardian - “‘Wake-up call': microplastics found in Great Australian Bight sediment.”

Bat swarms tracked by weather Radar Reveal Earlier Migration as Planet Warms

When millions of migrating bats fly toward their breeding cave near San Antonio, Texas, each spring, the shadowy, swirling swarm is so dense, it shows up on weather radar. Scientists reviewed years of that radar data and found that the flying mammals are arriving about two weeks earlier than they did just two decades ago.

Millions of Brazilian free-tailed bats spend summers in the
Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas. A study finds
they're arriving earlier and staying longer as the planet warms.

The scientists suspect the changes in the bats' timing and seasonal cycles are linked with the way global warming is altering the food chain and weather patterns.

Spring is warming faster than other seasons in many parts of the world, including Texas. An earlier bat migration fits with many pieces of the climate change puzzle, including earlier migrations of some bird species and earlier blossoming of many plants, said Phillip Stepanian, a meteorologist with Rothamsted Research who co-authored a new study in the scientific journal Global Change Biology on bat migration using the radar data.

Read the Inside Climate News story by Bob Berwyn - “Bat swarms tracked by weather Radar Reveal Earlier Migration as Planet Warms.

See it, say it: Climate change.

“NOTHING MORE than ash and bones.” That grim description of how some victims were found underscores the horror of the wildfires that swept through and devastated Northern California. At least 38 people were killed, including a 14-year-old boy found dead in the driveway of the home he was trying to flee, a 28-year-woman confined to a wheelchair and a couple who recently had celebrated their 75th anniversary. In addition to the lives lost, approximately 5,700 homes and businesses were destroyed, including entire neighborhoods turned into smoldering ruins.

A firefighter works to defend homes from the
approaching wildfire in Sonoma, Calif., on Saturday. 

Some 220,000 acres, including prized vineyards, have been scorched, and the danger is not over, as some fires are still burning and officials fear the return of winds could spread more catastrophe. Fire season is part of life in California, something that residents know and prepare for after the hot, dry summer months. But the events that began last Sunday have been unprecedented, and so the question that must be confronted is what caused the deadliest week of wildfires in the state’s history.

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) pointed the finger at climate change. “With a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture, these kinds of catastrophes have happened and will continue to happen and we have to be ready to mitigate, and it’s going to cost a lot of money,” he said last week.

Read The Post’s View from The Washington Post - “See it, say it: Climate change.”