News

Australia has endured fires, drought, cattle loss, and much more. Its ongoing plague of mice now threatens crops. The New South Wales’ primary crop association predicts the mice could “wipe more than 1 billion Australian dollars ($775 million) from the value of the winter crop” (AP, May 28, 2021). Mice seem to be everywhere.

For years, the Vatican has promoted the pope’s Laudato Si’ message. This plan, “designed to encourage strategic actors to commit to achieving total sustainability with Pope Francis’s environmental advocacy as a guide,” kicked into gear this year (CruxNow, May 25, 2021).

The Nile River, one of the longest rivers in the world, is fed by two major tributaries—the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile, responsible for some 80 percent of the Nile’s water, begins in the mountains of Ethiopia. Yet, for decades, Ethiopia has not had full rights to the water flowing through its own land.

Author Wolfgang Münchau recently wrote for The Spectator, “What we are witnessing is the birth of a new breed of Euroskepticism.… This all amounts to a moment of great danger for the EU.” Münchau spoke of the plummeting respect for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron and the impact on the future of the EU.

The southern part of Madagascar, an island off Africa’s eastern coast, is in the throes of a severe famine and its worst drought in decades. “1.14 million people are food-insecure [i.e., in danger of lacking enough food] and 400,000 people are headed toward starvation” (Washington Post, July 1, 2021). Due to three years of little rain, winds have swept away productive topsoil.