Disasters

"Taxpayers are backing more than a trillion dollars in home mortgages, but the agencies buying them are neglecting to consider climate risks."

"Wildfires in the western United States are increasingly destroying forests by turning them into grasslands and shrublands that exacerbate soil erosion and minimize carbon capture, according to new research."

"Great Basin Caves tell a story linking climate change to a “worst-case scenario,” with potential impact on 56 million western water users."

"A few winding turns past Bodega Bay, along foggy bluffs and coastal prairie, relentless waves pound a crumbling stretch of coastline in dire need of saving."

As the nation's hospitals are being overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, the federal data system for tracking them, poleaxed this summer by the Trump administration, is giving inaccurate and unreliable data to officials trying to manage the crisis.

"After record-breaking wildfires this year, thousands of people across the West are still clearing piles of charred debris where their homes once stood in the hope of rebuilding their lives. ... But most states don't require rebuilding with fire-resistant materials, an NPR analysis has found."

"Parts of Australia, including Sydney, sweltered through the hottest November night on record with temperatures likely to stay high on Sunday, prompting authorities to issue a total fire ban."

"The fires sweeping across millions of acres in California aren’t just incinerating trees and houses. They’re also filling the lungs of California’s children with smoke, with potentially grave effects over the course of their lives."

"At a shelter in this northern Honduran city, Lilian Gabriela Santos Sarmiento says back-to-back hurricanes that hit with devastating fury this month have overturned her life. Her home in what was once a pretty neighborhood in nearby La Lima was destroyed by flooding."

"Millions of homes are being built in communities with archaic building codes, leaving them vulnerable to flooding, hurricane winds and earthquakes, according to a groundbreaking new federal report that links out-of-date building codes to billions of dollars in property damage."