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The world is facing an alarming surge in drought risks, with the total land area affected by drought doubling over the last 120 years, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The cost of droughts is also expected to rise sharply with an average drought in 2035 projected to cost at least 35% more than today. The OECD Global Drought Outlook: Trends, Impacts and Policies to Adapt to a Drier World reveals that climate change is the primary driver behind the worsening frequency and intensity of droughts. Nearly 40% of the planet has experienced more frequent and severe droughts in recent decades, threatening not just agriculture but also trade, energy production, and industry. “Co-ordinated policy action across levels of government...

A chilling prediction by Japanese manga artist Ryo Tatsuki, dubbed the "New Baba Vanga," has triggered widespread anxiety across Asia severely impacting Japan’s tourism sector. Airline bookings from Hong Kong to Japan have reportedly plunged by 83% between late June and early July, as fears of an impending disaster loom. Tatsuki, whose 1999 manga "The Future I Saw" eerily predicted the Covid-19 pandemic, warned of a massive catastrophe striking Japan on July 5, 2025. The republished manga ominously claims that "a crack will open under the seabed between Japan and the Philippines," causing waves even more devastating than the infamous 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. As the date nears, Hong Kong Airlines has suspended flights to southern Japanese cities like Kagoshima and Kumamoto ...

Monitoring and forecasting volcanic clouds is essential for protecting communities, infrastructure, and air travel from the serious hazards posed by volcanic eruptions. When a volcano erupts explosively, it sends a mixture of rock fragments, known as tephra, into the air. While larger fragments fall near the volcano, smaller particles stay suspended in the atmosphere, forming far-reaching volcanic clouds. A recent review in Reviews of Geophysics highlights how tephra forms, spreads, and poses risks both in the air and on the ground. It also outlines the latest research on modeling volcanic clouds and the challenges that remain. What is Tephra and Why is it Dangerous? Tephra is created when rising magma breaks apart in the volcanic vent. These particles vary in size: large blocks a...

  In the heart of South Asia, Pakistan stands on the brink of a worsening water crisis a struggle that has deepened over the past decade. Many in the country still remember the historic drought of 1998-2002, which devastated more than three million lives, drying up crops, stealing livelihoods, and pushing rural families into hardship. Similar disasters struck again in 2018 and 2019, hitting Balochistan and Sindh hard, forcing families to abandon farms and move in search of work and water. Though 2024 brought brief relief, last year’s drought affected over 80% of the country, proving that Pakistan’s water troubles are far from over. The problem runs deeper than just dry skies. Pakistan receives about 80% of its annual rainfall during the monsoon season, but the country has storag...

On the evening before his birthday, June 14, 2025, US President Donald Trump stood before a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., as tanks rumbled, fighter jets roared overhead, and hundreds of troops marched in formation. The occasion marked both Trump’s 79th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the United States military but the celebration stirred controversy as much as spectacle. While the display of military power was intended to showcase American strength, critics saw something else: a show of growing autocracy and alarming environmental waste. The scale of the event was massive. Over 150 military vehicles, including 60 tanks, armoured carriers, and more than 50 helicopters and aircraft, rolled and flew through the capital. Old warplanes from the Second World War like the...

  The June climate meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany, opened this week with unusual tension. What should have been a routine adoption of the conference agenda turned into a 48-hour stalemate between rich and developing nations, reflecting deeper fault lines over climate finance and global trade. The event, formally known as the 62nd Meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62), runs from June 16 to 26. But the real work couldn’t begin until late on the second day, June 17, because the countries couldn’t even agree on what they were supposed to talk about. At the heart of the dispute were two fresh proposals from developing nations led by the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group, including India demanding fair d...

Mauritius small island nation in the Indian Ocean, is facing its worst water crisis in years. A dangerous mix of less rainfall, rising temperatures, and a growing population has put the island’s water supplies under severe strain. The country’s main reservoirs once nearly full are now holding just 38% of their capacity, a steep fall from the 92% levels seen in early 2024. At the same time, Mauritius’s population has tripled since the 1950s, pushing water demand higher than ever before. The droughts are becoming more frequent and severe, threatening not just daily life but also the island’s economy, farming, and industries. Restrictions are now in place: people are fined if they wash cars or water gardens. Even the watering of sugarcane crops, vital to the island’s economy, has been s...

  In Fairbanks Alaska, under the bright summer sky that stays lit for nearly 22 hours a day meteorologist Ciara Santiago stood by the thermometer as it climbed steadily into the 80s. For the first time in the state’s history, Santiago had to issue an official heat advisory a warning unheard of in this part of the world, where cold weather is usually the main concern. This may sound like a minor event elsewhere, but for Alaska where permafrost keeps the ground frozen, homes are built to trap warmth, and air conditioning is rare the heat warning is a sign of a fast-changing climate. Scientists say Alaska is warming at more than twice the global average rate. Until this month, weather offices in Fairbanks, only 120 miles south of the Arctic Circle, didn’t even have the option to...

New Delhi: A recent ruling by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Karnataka’s Honnavar Port project has raised deep concerns about the future of environmental governance and public participation in India. In a controversial decision, the NGT allowed the reuse of a public hearing held 12 years ago in 2012 for approving a fresh environmental clearance granted in 2024, sidestepping the need for new community consultation. This move, environmental experts argue, has undermined constitutional rights, environmental protections, and the voices of coastal communities who fear the irreversible damage this port may cause. The Rs 607 crore Honnavar Port project a public-private partnership between Karnataka Maritime Board and Honnavar Port Pvt Ltd was first cleared in 2012 after a thinly atten...

New Delhi: In a discovery that sheds fresh light on India’s ecological history, scientists have unearthed fossilized leaves in Assam’s Makum Coalfield that reveal a long-forgotten connection with the biodiversity of the Western Ghats. These leaves, dating back around 23–24 million years to the late Oligocene epoch, belong to the Nothopegia genus a group of tropical trees now found only in the lush rainforests of the Western Ghats. The breakthrough study, led by researchers from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences (BSIP) in Lucknow, has been published in the Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology. It marks a major advance in understanding how India’s northeastern and southwestern ecological zones were once directly linked. For decades, the Makum Coalfield has been known as a t...