Tag: Environment

There is a word in the Nicobarese language that translates into “a calm sea”. Tamra, today, is however only used by the islands’ elders and is at risk of fading away from their language forever. As seasons go awry, species go extinct, and livelihoods change, words and phrases in several Indian languages are at the precipice of...

Tropical cyclones that originate near the Equator, while being devastating, have been unusually subdued in recent decades. The last major cyclone of this kind in the Indian neighbourhood was the 2017 Cyclone Okchi which devastated Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. However, a combination of global warming and a cyclical event called the Pacific Decadal...

Climate models predicted the 2026 El Niño during early spring, just as they had in 2023. And the predictions have turned out to be accurate, with the robust evolution of a strong El Niño by the summer. Models had predicted the 2023 monsoon to be slightly deficient, and the final seasonal total, at 94% of...

This year’s El Nino weather pattern will be the biggest in over a century and could make 2027 the hottest year globally, Britain’s national weather agency predicted Friday. An El Nino weather event happens when warming sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific trigger worldwide changes in winds, atmospheric pressure and rainfall, as well...

“Solar irrigation will worsen the groundwater crisis.” This concern is raised in most discussions about the rapid spread of solar irrigation in India — where heavily subsidised or free electricity has led to unsustainable groundwater abstraction, contributing to falling water tables, depleting aquifers, and growing fiscal burdens on energy utilities. Thus, with solar irrigation offering...

The black-and-white image appears to show the unlikeliest of interactions: an orangutan cradling endangered leopard cubs deep in the jungles of Malaysia’s Sabah state. But the viral image is not just unlikely, it is fake, part of a trend of wildlife images generated by artificial intelligence that experts warn endanger animals and people. Fact-checkers have...

The Hara forests are a vital ecological treasure of the Persian Gulf. Spanning the Strait of Hormuz, these mangrove forests consist mainly of grey mangrove trees (Avicennia marina), which have a special filtration system in their roots that allows them to thrive in saline conditions. The same roots also protect the coast against erosion and...

Urban India’s water emergency will not be fixed by better crisis management alone. Over the coming decades, hundreds of millions more people will live and work in Indian cities, driving a sharp increase in the urban water demand. And unless we change how we design, finance, and govern water systems, we will simply scale up...

Water-bombing aircraft resumed firefighting operations in Greece on Monday after winds eased, joining hundreds of firefighters battling multiple blazes that have already claimed five lives. Greece, which had largely avoided major blazes at the start of the summer unlike France and Spain, is now grappling with a second consecutive week of wildfires that have scorched...

As firefighters in France and Spain continue to tackle raging wildfires that have forced thousands of people to evacuate, communities farther from the frontlines are turning to donkeys. The Tivissa Donkey Firefighters and El Burrito Feliz, two grassroots initiatives in Spain, are using these equines to reduce the risk of forest fires by letting them...