Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes – Global
5.8 earthquake hits Tonga.
5.8 earthquake hits Vanuatu.
5.7 earthquake hits Tonga.
5.6 earthquake hits Vanuatu.
5.5 earthquake hits Samoa.
5.0 earthquake hits the Kermedec Islands.
Storms and Floods
Tropical Storms – Roundup of Tropical Storms:
In the Eastern North Pacific Ocean: Hurricane 05e (Darby), located approximately 1176 nm south-southwest of San Diego, is tracking westward at 16 knots.
Disease
Covid-19
The countries with the 10 greatest number of Covid-19 cases:
Brazil
Chikungunya – The Brazil Ministry of Health reported that there were 122,075 probable cases of chikungunya through mid-June this year. This is a 94 percent increase compared to the same period in 2021.
Monkeypox – As of Monday, July 11, Brazil has reported 219 confirmed cases of monkeypox.
Environment
How many people can Earth support?
There are nearly 8 billion people(opens in new tab) living on Earth today, but our planet wasn’t always so crowded. Around 300,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens likely first appeared, our total population was small, between 100 and 10,000 people. There were so few people at the start, that it took approximately 35,000 years for the human population to double in size. From 1930 to 1974, the Earth’s population doubled again, in just 44 years.
Right now the scientific consensus is that the population of the world will reach a peak some time later this century. The world population is projected to reach 10.4 billion people sometime in the 2080s and remain there until 2100, according to the United Nations Population Division. However, the further that demographers look into the future, the more speculative and uncertain their predictions become.
Wildfires
Wildfires – California, USA
A grove containing some of the world’s oldest giant sequoia trees is under threat from a rapidly growing wildfire at California’s Yosemite national park.
From Friday to Monday, the blaze expanded from 250 acres to roughly 2,340 acres, with the terrain of timber and brush fueling the flames, officials said. Visitors on the Washburn trail of the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias first reported the blaze on 7 July, and 545 firefighters and other personnel were currently working to contain it as of Monday.