“Our house is burning”

Greta Thunberg won’t be hitting Canberra any time soon. Beijing and Washington too are off limits. The sixteen-year-old environmental prophet, whose weekly sit-downs outside Sweden’s parliament since last August have inspired a transnational “school strike for climate,” shuns air travel. That, and becoming vegan are modest steps in the change she is sure the world must make to avert ecological breakdown. Her family has taken her lead, at some cost to the career of her mother, an opera singer who — somehow, inevitably — once represented Sweden in the Eurovision song contest.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks to
BBC television journalist, Nick Robinson outside
the Houses of Parliament in London on 23 April 2019. 

Yet judging by her March–April procession through Berlin, Strasbourg, Rome and London — all journeys made by rail — Thunberg also needs to go (or at least talk) to those capitals and their hinterlands if her message that “our house is burning” is to take effective hold. This is but one paradox in a meteoric rise that seems already to hold both room for lasting good and risk of early burn-out.

Read the Inside Story by David Hayes - “Our house is burning”.”

Southeast Asia closes island beaches to recover from climate change, tourism

BANGKOK - More popular Southeast Asian islands will be off limits to visitors this year as officials seek to protect eco-systems crumbling from warming seas and unchecked sprawl, despite the risk to tourism revenues and tens of thousands of jobs.

Southeast Asian beaches are being closed to allow
them to recover from the effects of climate change.

Thailand will shut Maya Bay, which famously featured in "The Beach", starring Leonardo DiCaprio, for four months a year, from June. In the Philippines, officials plan to close Boracay island for six months at the end of April.

"Islands have very fragile eco-systems that simply cannot handle so many people, pollution from boats and beachfront hotels," said Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine expert in Bangkok.

Read Rina Chandran’s story from ABS/CBN News - “Southeast Asia closes island beaches to recover from climate change, tourism.”