DEAD SEA — It is an unparalleled wonder of the world: the lowest exposed spot on Earth, its therapeutic waters are so full of salt that bathers float right to the top. This natural spa is a source of rich minerals used by the ancient Egyptians for mummification, and fabled to be the biblical site of Sodom and Gomorrah.

But today the Dead Sea is dying, and its banks are collapsing. The water level is dropping close to 4 feet every year. The main part of the lake is now around 950 feet deep — about 15% shallower, and a third of the surface area, compared to its shape half a century ago.

"You've seen a living disaster in front of your eyes," says Jake Ben Zaken, an Israeli who says he operates the only passenger boats on the Dead Sea.

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The Guardian
Leyland Cecco

Over the course of nearly three months, navigating ocean swells and currents, vast expanses of flat water and immense pain, Moon the humpback whale completed a journey of 5,000km (3,100 miles) from the waters of British Columbia to Hawaii – all with a broken back.

Her crossing of the Pacific – and the likelihood that she will soon die – is a stark reminder of the growing dangers for whales along Canada’s west coast, as marine traffic clashes with the gentle marine giants.

“Without the use of her tail, she was literally doing the breaststroke to make that migration. It’s absolutely amazing,” said Janie Wray, CEO and lead researcher for BC Whales, a non-profit that studies cetaceans off the province’s west coast. “But also it just breaks your heart.”

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On November 27, the volcano Mauna Loa on Hawaii’s Big Island erupted for the first time in 38 years, spewing out lava and ashes.

On the night of the eruption the sky was bathed in a red glow from the lava but high above that glowed a heavenly pillar of light, like some sort of divine sign. This was a light pillar, more often seen in polar regions and other intensely cold places. Ice crystals floating in the atmosphere had caught the glowing red light from the volcano and created a vertical beam of light, but where the ice crystals came from was less certain.

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Canada Today
Layla Nelson

An indigenous person named Tebu of the Uru-eu-wau-wau tribe looks over an area deforested by invaders in the Alto Jaru village in the Uru-eu-wau-wau indigenous reservation near Campo Novo de Rondonia, Brazil. on February 1, 2019.

An indigenous person named Tebu of the Uru-eu-wau-wau tribe looks over an area deforested by invaders in the Alto Jaru village in the Uru-eu-wau-wau indigenous reservation near Campo Novo de Rondonia, Brazil. on February 1, 2019. Credit – Ueslei Marcelino – Reuters

In the south of the Amazon, right where two dirt roads intersect, is a small bar set back from the highway. There’s no name above the door as it’s actually part of a house, but everyone calls it Guiga’s Bar, after its owner. Like many of the bars in the region, Guiga’s is ramshackle and unfussy. There’s a pool table to one side and a few tables and chairs in front of it, but that’s about it. People go to find some shade, have a beer and exchange local gossip, not for the decor or ambiance.

The last known whereabouts of Ari Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau was at Guigas Bar just before midnight on April 18, 2020. Ari was a member of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau indigenous people and had spent that evening drinking in a number of Bars scattered along the dirt roads near the group’s reserve. His body was found on the side of the road about half an hour away the next morning. His head was caked with blood that had dried quickly in the scorching heat. His phone was lying on the grass a few feet away. Walls of grass flanked the road and beyond were fields where the mighty Amazon rainforest had once stood.

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Fir trees in Oregon and Washington died in record-breaking numbers in 2022, according to as-yet unpublished research conducted by the U.S. Forest Service.

Called “Firmageddon” by researchers, the “significant and disturbing” mortality event is the largest die-off ever recorded for fir trees in the two states.

In total, the Forest Service observed fir die-offs occurring on more than 1.23 million acres (over 1,900 square miles) in Oregon and Washington.

Oregon, however, was the hardest hit. The Forest Service observed dead firs on roughly 1.1 million acres (over 1,700 square miles) of forest in Oregon alone. This year’s numbers for the state are nearly double the acres recorded during previous die-offs.

Heavily affected areas include the Fremont, Winema, Ochoco and Malheur National Forests.

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