Environment | WPN World People News

A farmer harvests her rice crop by hand in Timor-Leste. UN Photo/Martine Perret

A new scientific study indicates the turn-of-the-century drought in the North American West was the worst of the last millennium—with major impacts to the carbon cycle and hints of even drier times ahead.

The floods in Assam, the worst in many years, are estimated to have affected over two million people. Since June, the heavy monsoon rains have caused the River Brahmaputra and its tributaries to overflow, flooding thousands of hectares of crop land and destroying many houses. Over a hundred people are reported dead and several hundred thousand have been displaced. The European Commission has responded to Indian monsoon floods in Assam by providing €2 million to assist people who have been most affected by the recent disaster.

A U.S. Air Force chemical dispersing C-130 aircraft drops an oil dispersing chemical into the Gulf of Mexico as part of the Deepwater Horizon Response effort, May 5, 2010.

The effects of haze on visibility at
Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (NPS)
Top: Good visibility day. Visual range: 124 miles.
Bottom: Bad visibility day. Visual range: 26 miles.

Atlantic (sea) herring, river herring and shad are critical components of the ocean and coastal ecosystem.

Atlantic (sea) herring, river herring and shad are critical components of the ocean and coastal ecosystem.

The World Bank’s Board of Directors today approved US$10 million grant to help the Government of Mauritania provide emergency food and agricultural supplies for rural communities in the face of the country’s ongoing drought.

Greenpeace Brazil said the agreement, signed by all seven pig iron producers of Maranhão state, brings the pig iron industry and Brazil a step closer towards ending deforestation in the Amazon, while also helping to curb the use of slave labour.

Visitors are dwarfed by giant sequoias
in Yosemite National Park.