‘Move out tonight': First Code Red since 2010 issued for parts of Victoria

People living in high bushfire-risk areas in Victoria's north and north-west have been urged to leave their homes as soon as possible as the region faces the worst fire conditions in 10 years.

A fire threatens homes at Hepburn, Victoria, in February this year.

A Code Red – the state’s highest bushfire warning level – has been declared across the Mallee and Northern Country regions for Thursday.

It is the first time a Code Red has been declared in Victoria since 2010. A total fire ban across the state has also been declared.

Read the story from The Age by Liam Mannix - “‘Move out tonight': First Code Red since 2010 issued for parts of Victoria.”

Hurricane Florence: more than 1m ordered to evacuate in Virginia and South Carolina

More than a million people living along the coastlines of South Carolina and Virginia have been ordered to evacuate their homes on Tuesday, as parts of America’s mid-Atlantic coast brace for what could be the most powerful storm to ever hit the region.

One million told to flee as Hurricane Florence bears down on US coast. 

Hurricane Florence is expected to bring potentially catastrophic winds, flooding and storm surge. Forecasters predict it will make landfall sometime late Thursday.

Currently rated as a category 4 storm – the second most powerful on the national weather service’s (NWS) classification system – Florence would be the first storm of that magnitude in recorded history to strike the eastern coastline so far north if it remains on its most likely track.

Read the story from The Guardian by James Lartey in New York - “Hurricane Florence: more than 1m ordered to evacuate in Virginia and South Carolina.”

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?”