Until recently, news from China about its environmental concerns and problems were highly censored. But because it can no longer literally put a lid to control its spreading and unmanageable air pollution, China has admitted the smog haze situation in the country has already claimed thousands of lives.
Some suburban areas of Christchurch may be under the water within 100 years due to rising sea levels. In a Taylor & Tonkin report, experts have warned that South Shore, South New Brighton, Summer and Brooklands could sink if current sea levels continue to rise. The city council is making plans to prepare for a worst case scenario of a great change on Canterbury's coastline due to melting ice in Antarctica and Greenland, storm surges and warming seas.
Canada's prevailing bitter cold temperature conditions has created a massive travel chaos all over the country, with air and road travel pretty much suspended on Tuesday. The freezing weather has likewise given birth to "frost quakes," giving off panic and tension to already anxious residents.
Canada's cloaked in a massive, deep and bitter cold weather conditions that has frozen everything it has touched with. It has disrupted flight plans of major airliners, prompted school bus service cancellations and yielded power outages. The prevailing weather condition is likewise threatening oil drilling and fracking operations.
A magnitude 2.6 earthquake has struck Adelaide before 8:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 6, after an earthquake rattled nearby Flinders Ranges in South Australia (SA) at 4:31 a.m. on the same day.
Russia has barred some 132 used Japanese cars from entering the country due to radioactive pollution concerns.
The year 2013 has been recorded as New Zealand's second hottest year, according to Auckland University climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger on Monday.
Officials have warned residents in Western Australia, particularly Perth, to take necessary precautions against the smog haze currently enveloping the state. The smoke emanated from a bushfire that started on Friday. Authorities have issued a corresponding alert versus life and property.
Inland Australia continues to deal with rising temperatures as the Bureau of Meteorology declares 2013 the hottest year on record with average temperatures at 1.20 degrees Celsius higher than the long term average of 21.8C. According to the bureau's Neil Plummer, the statistics point to a warming trend in Australia. He added it is not only in Australia where rising temperatures have been recorded but in other parts of the world as well.
30 Hurricane Katrina homes that were built by Brad Pitt's Make It Right charity in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana (LA) are now reportedly rotting from the inside out.
Australia's State of Victoria Department of Justice (DOJ) has just unveiled its new FireReady mobile phone app in early Dec. 2013 but some critics say that its performance is poor and not at par with their expectations. It reportedly had a lot issues that hindered it from working properly.
An amazing nano-scale microscopic muscle with more than 1000x the strength of humans was reportedly created by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) researchers using the vanadium dioxide inorganic compound.
At least 70 swimmers were injured in a river in Argentina when a school of carnivorous fish believed to be the piranha's cousins attacked on Christmas Day.
Can Australian scorpion venom actually be used for pain management? Scientists from Queensland University, Canada's Dalhousie University and Portugal's Universidade do Porto think so after studying the venom of Australian scorpions and discovering that it might be an effective painkiller. The study is entitled "Evolution Stings: The Origin and Diversification of Scorpion Toxin Peptide Scaffolds."
Canadian holiday merrymakers, wanting to spend the holidays with loved-ones, have been stuck in the airports after a severe ice winter storm. The massive weather turmoil has snapped power lines leaving more than 430,000 households in Ontario and Quebec without electricity.
China on Thursday announced that it will be building its fourth research base in the Antarctic, the Taishan summer field camp, according to the state-run China Daily.
Australia's network of legal centres is not happy with the Coalition government and Prime Minister Tony Abbott's decision to cut funding for the Environmental Defenders Offices (EDO). Mr Abbott cut EDO's $10 million worth of funds, which means the offices will not receive money from the government after July 1, 2014.
Australia's State of Victoria reveals plans for a FireReady app and an emergency Web site for important fire alerts. This is in response to the alarming rate of destructive and deadly bushfires in Australia.
Environmental conservationists and growth advocates in New Zealand are currently at each other's necks over a planned construction of a monorail that will slice through the country's pristine forests and river made famous in the trilogy films "The Lord of the Rings."
The sun will reportedly "flip upside down" within weeks due to a reverse in polarity of its magnetic field. This is what several scientists are saying. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), measurements from NASA-supported observatories show that the sun's vast magnetic field is indeed about to flip.
The Bureau of Meteorology said that heatwave for Christmas may disrupt Aussies travel plans.
Research at Flinders University in Australia puts in question the origin of a bird, the kiwi, which has stood as neighbour New Zealand's unofficial symbol. Trevor Worthy, a palaentologist born in New Zealand, based his study on fossilised remains on NZ's south island that suggest the kiwi did not come from a larger ancestor but from a winged creature that originated in Australia but migrated to New Zealand.
A piglet with unique physical features was born in China's Jiangxi Province on Dec 9, the Chinese news Web site jxnews.com.cn reported on Tuesday. The animal has three eyes, two noses and two snouts.
The cities of Dalian and Tianjin located in northern China have joined the list of jurisdictions where car sales and ownership are imposed on its local constituents, in a bid to help curb the nation's growing "airpocalypse" problem.
Canadian researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered a new greenhouse gas substance called perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA). Although not as prevalent as carbon dioxide, it is however 7,000 times more destructive to the Earth's atmosphere than CO2.
China's most expensive priced carbon market is set to launch on Dec 16 in the southern province of Guangdong.
The Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has just launched its trial "Thunderstorm Tracker" Online Radar for the Southeast Queensland area. According to the official Web site of the Australian Government BOM, the "Thunderstorm Tracker" aims to show the expected position and location of thunderstorms up to 30 minutes before it happens. It is reportedly based on data that is obtained from weather radar and is an extension of the BOM's radar capabilities.
As the 2013 Geminid Meteor Shower is set to peak on Dec 13 to 14, a thrilling and festive sky show is expected to happen with the meteor shower intensifying the deeper the night goes. The Earth Sky Web site said that no matter where your location is, it will surely fall in great numbers after 12 midnight on the mentioned dates.
Canada will begin on Dec 14 its traditional annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count, the longest-running wildlife census in the world. Over 70,000 volunteer bird counters will take part, to be deployed in more than 2,300 locations in the Western Hemisphere.
The Western Australian (WA) Government has launched several Shark Kill Zones along its beach shorelines to address shark-related deaths in the area and to counteract shark risks in WA. The planned shark safety measures were announced by WA Premier Colin Barnett and WA Fisheries Minister Troy Buswell on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013.
