Indonesia’s capital Jakarta is sinking at an alarming rate
As the world looks towards Australia, climate change is wreaking havoc closer to home in Indonesia. Jakarta, the capital city, has been experiencing devastating floods and landslides since the beginning of the year. More than 36,000 people have been displaced and over 66 people have been killed. These are the worst floods in the region since 2013 and the capital city is sinking so quickly that officials are working towards moving it to another island. Everything you need to know on Time.
How we know over 1 billion animals dead in Australian fires
Fires continue to rage in Australia in what is becoming one of the deadliest climate disasters for wildlife, Over 1 billion animals are estimated to be dead and many species are likely to have gone extinct. More details on this on Vox.
How do we arrive at this number of one billion if we can’t go counting all these animals? The numbers are projections from how we track animals and how much we know about their geographical spread, and are extremely likely to be accurate. Mother Jones has the details on how these calculations are done.
Animals thriving around Fukushima
Meanwhile, Japanese researchers found that animals are flourishing in the area around the Fukushima nuclear facility, which was evacuated following radiation leaks post the 2011 earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. Animal species, normally in conflict with humans, such as raccoons, monkeys, and wild boars, were observed in high numbers. The animals were tracked by ecologists using remote wildlife cameras over a four-month period. The study was unable to test or examine the health of any of the animals. More on Daily Mail.
One of the world’s largest fish goes extinct
The Chinese paddlefish is the latest species in a long list of animals and plants disappearing from existence due to human activity. The fish had been around for 200 million years, surviving the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs. It was native to the Yangtze River in China and has gone extinct due to overfishing and construction of dams. Many of the country’s freshwater fish are under threat. More on National Geographic.
ISRO releases Cartosat-3 images
Cartosat-3 is one of India’s most advanced satellites in orbit today. It is used for earth observation and aids in forest surveys, urban planning, coastal monitoring, etc. ISRO has released the first set of high resolution pictures taken by the satellite, which was inserted into orbit on 27 November 2019. The images are of Qatar and can be viewed on the official website.