Environment

Salem (US), Sep 13 (AP/PTI) Wildfire smoke that posed a health hazard to millions choked the West Coast on Saturday as firefighters battled deadly blazes that obliterated some towns and displaced tens of thousands of people, the latest in a series of calamities this year.

New Delhi, Sep 12 (PTI) The National Green Tribunal has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to conduct environmental audit and recover fine from Amazon and Flipkart for violation of environmental norms.

The green panel observed that the statutory regulators were not taking coercive measures, including invoking of "polluter pays" principle for enforcing the statutory norms against the e-commerce firms.

08 Sep 2020; MEMO: Fires have broken out in a number of agricultural areas in western Syria, Russia Today (RT) reported yesterday.

A video showing the fires went viral on social media.

Fires have been raging in recent days across a number of large agricultural lands across Syria’s western parts. The fires were intensified in the Slunfeh forest, which extends along the Latakia portal city to the Masyaf Mountains in Homs.

Srinagar, Sep 8 (PTI) Glaciers in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are melting at a "significant" rate, according to a first-of-its-kind study which used satellite data to find that over 1,200 glaciers in the Himalayan region saw an annual reduction in mass of 35 centimetres (cm) on average between 2000 and 2012.

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, was carried over the Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh region, including areas across the Line of Control (LoC) and Line of Actual Control (LAC), and in all 12,243 glaciers were studied for thickness and mass changes.

Kanpur: The government is hell-bent upon improving the quality of water flowing into the river Ganga. Despite its true intentions, the industrial effluents mar the efforts of clean and clear Ganga.

Though there exists a national clean Ganga mission the actions appear smaller before the unbridled discharge of untreated wastes mixing with the water in the rivers.

Cairo, Sep 5 (AP/PTI) Sudanese authorities declared their country a natural disaster area and imposed a three-month state of emergency across the country after rising floodwaters and heavy rainfall killed around 100 people and inundated over 100,000 houses since late July.

The announcement was made late Friday following a meeting of the country's Defense and Security Council which is headed by a top government official, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan.

Kanpur: Cleaning of the polluted rivers is a big challenge these days. The National Green Tribunal is bent upon improving the poor health of the much-talked Pandu river originating from a lake in Farrukhabad.

Completing its 120-Km long journey through this industrial city it merges directly into the Ganges at Fatehpur district.

Greenish Pandu river requires a check on the free flow of the four drains carrying polluted, contaminated water into its depth. 

Nagpur, Aug 30 (PTI) Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday stressed on the conservation of nature, saying it should be nurtured and not just consumed as is being done in the present world.

Addressing a programme organised by the Hindu Spiritual Seva Foundation through virtual mode to celebrate 'Prakruti Din', Bhagwat emphasised on the way of living followed by our ancestors who nurtured nature as an important part of their life.

Washington, Aug 29 (PTI) Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party's vice-presidential candidate, has pledged to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and re-enter the Iran nuclear deal to restore "our place in the world" and win back the "trust and support" of the US' Asian and European allies if her party wins the November presidential election.

(AP) --- California sizzled to a triple-digit temperature so hot that meteorologists need to verify it as a planet-wide high mark.

Death Valley recorded a scorching 130 degrees (54.4 degrees Celsius) Sunday, which if the sensors and other conditions check out, would be the hottest Earth has been in more than 89 years and the third-warmest ever measured.