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President of Brazil accuses Leonardo DiCaprio of starting the fires in the Amazon

Instagram / Leonardo DiCaprio

This August, the world watched as the Amazon burned. There were 30,901 individual fires that lapped at the largest rainforest in the world. While fires can occur in the dry season due to natural factors, like lightning strikes, it is believed that the widespread fires were started by loggers and farmers to clear land. Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, cites a different cause: the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

DiCaprio wasn't accused of hanging out in the rainforest with a box of matches, however President Bolsonaro did accuse the actor of funding nonprofit organizations that allegedly set fires to raise donations.

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Italian council chamber floods—just after council rejected climate change measures

Andrea Zanoni/Facebook

Oh, irony. You are having quite a day.

The Italian region of Veneto, which includes the city of Venice, is currently experiencing historic flooding. Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro has stated that the flooding is a direct result of climate change, with the tide measuring the highest level in 50 years. The city (which is actually a collection of 100 islands in a lagoon—hence its famous canal streets), is no stranger to regular flooding, but is currently on the brink of declaring a state of emergency as waters refuse to recede.

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All the whales have finally been released from the 'whale jail' in Russia

Since the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, whale populations have been steadily recovering. However, whales in the wild still face other dangers. In the summer of 2018, four Russian companies that supply aquariums with marine animals captured almost 100 beluga whales and killer whales (aka orcas). After a public outcry, those whales are swimming free as the last of the captive whales have been released, the first time this many captured whales have been released back into the wild.

In late 2018 and early 2019, a drone captured footage of 11 orcas and 87 beluga whales crammed into holding pens in the Srednyaya Bay. The so-called "whale jail" made headlines, and authorities began to investigate their potentially illegal capture.

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Here's the best place in America to live to dodge the oncoming climate catastrophe

via p199 / Wikimedia Commons

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a terrifying report last year that said the world has 12 years to reduce its carbon output by 45% to avoid a climate catastrophe.

That was last year, so now we have 11 years to get our collective act together.

What will happen if we don't? Inside Climate News says it will result in "dangerous and costly disruptions to global societies and ecosystems, including longer, hotter heat waves and more frequent crop-killing droughts."

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Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian climate scientist — and a breath of fresh air

YouTube / Global Weirding with Katharine Hayhoe

If you peruse the comments on any article about climate change, you'll see scores of people claiming that climate change is a hoax and that the masses are being duped by some version of a globalist conspiracy in which thousands upon thousands of professional earth scientists are being paid off by boogeyman George Soros. Such denial about the reality of climate change crosses cultures, but one group is particularly prone to questioning the scientific consensus: white American evangelical Christians.

According to Pew Research, over a third of evangelical Christians claim there is "no solid evidence" that climate change is happening, and white evangelical Christians in the U.S. are much more likely to be skeptical of the science than other demographics. Most of the strongest voices in the climate change denier camp are religiously and politically conservative, which may lead those who view the world in binary, black and white terms — conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat, saved/damned, good/evil — to automatically swing toward listening to deniers before listening to the vast majority of scientists.

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'How do we save this f--king planet?' A 7-point response is giving people hope and some clear answers.

Over on the /AskReddit forum, one frustrated citizen got down to brass tacks. In today's world, it's easy to feel hopeless when it comes to the herculean challenges posed by climate change. There's so much to do and it feels like we're constantly barraged with negative warnings that even our most valiant efforts might be in vain.

So, virtually throwing their arms up in air, Reddit user "ExoticFailure" simply begged for an answer: "How do we save this fucking planet?"

In less than five hours, more than 20,000 people liked the question with hundreds more adding in their own comments, questions, and venting their frustrations. But one incredibly thoughtful and detailed response has quickly elevated itself above the chatter. An anonymous user writing under the handle "m4ybe" offered up a detailed, seven-point response that instantly caught fire. While it's unclear if these solutions are backed by science or possible, they sound like a step in the right direction.

Here is their response in its entirety:

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