Category: Life & Style

In a first, France has decided to ban short domestic flights for journeys possible in less than two-and-a-half hours by train, with the objective to reduce carbon emissions from aircraft. Accordingly, flights will not operate between Paris and regional hubs such as Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux. The government has also specified that the train services on these routes would be frequent and well-connected.

With the move, city hopping within the European nation is grounded. Travellers looking to fly within France will no longer be able to take a short domestic flight when there is alternative high-speed rail service. The move is part of the country’s larger commitment to decarbonise transport, which accounts for 30 percent of emissions, according to the statement. According to the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation, this ban will cut 55,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

So far, only three routes, not including connecting flights, have been affected: Paris-Orly airport between Nantes, Bordeaux and Lyon. The routes represent 2.5 percent of France’s annual domestic flights. The country plans to evaluate the decree’s success in three years and possibly ban more routes.

In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron had suggested domestic flights of less than four hours to be banned if someone could just take the train. The two-and-a-half-hour ban was introduced in 2021 after pushback from airline companies such as Air France-KLM.

Luxury car maker Bugatti has revealed the designs for its 42-storey skyscraper in Dubai. The building – the company’s first foray into residential real estate – will have two garage-to-penthouse car lifts.

Bugatti is one of the luxury car brands that have moved into residential property. Bentley is building a 61-storey skyscraper in Miami Beach, while Aston Martin has designed an angular black home in New York as part of its Automotive Galleries and Lairs service.

Bugatti’s new construction will be built in the Business Bay area of Dubai. The skyscraper will have a sinuous form wrapped in balconies on every level. It will have 171 apartments and 11 penthouses. Its form and its interiors are inspired by the heritage of the luxury car brand founded in 1909. The building is being built in partnership with Dubai-developer Binghatti.

Each of the apartments in Bugatti’s skyscraper will have a unique shape with access to a curved balcony, while the building will be topped with a pool. The penthouses will be served by a pair of garage-to-penthouse car lifts, which will allow the owners to drive their vehicles directly into these apartments. Bentley’s Miami skyscraper will also have a car lift to allow residents to drive vehicles directly into apartments on all levels.

Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter, translated by Angela Rodel, has become the first Bulgarian novel to win the International Booker Prize.

The novel is about “a ‘clinic for the past’ [that] offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. But soon the past begins to invade the present,” said the International Booker Prize website. Full of irony and melancholy, the novel deals with a contemporary question: what happens to us when our memories disappear?

“Georgi Gospodinov succeeds marvellously in dealing with both individual and collective destinies and it is this complex balance between the intimate and the universal that convinced and touched us,” said Leïla Slimani, chair of judges, International Booker Prize, about Time Shelter.

Gospodinov is a Bulgarian poet, writer and playwright. Reports say that when Time Shelter was published in Bulgaria, it topped the book charts and won the Strega European Prize.

International Booker Prize is meant specifically for books written in other languages and translated into English. Last year, Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand, translated by Daisy Rockwell, had become the first Hindi novel to win the International Booker. The prize is awarded annually for the finest single work of fiction from around the world that has been translated into English and published in the UK and Ireland.

Brazil’s environmental authority declined to issue a licence for a contentious offshore oil drilling project at the mouth of the Amazon River on May 17.

The decision to reject the state-run oil company Petrobras’ request to drill the FZA-M-59 block was taken “as a function of a group of technical inconsistencies,” said the agency’s head, underlining environmental concerns. 

Eighty civil society and environmental bodies, including WWF Brasil and Greenpeace, had called for the license to be rejected. The biodiverse area is home to little-studied patches of mangroves and a coral reef. The activists and experts had said the project risked leaks that could imperil this sensitive environment.

In the initial presidential terms of Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from 2003 to 2010, massive offshore discoveries helped finance health, education and welfare programs in Brazil. However, this changed in recent years, with the protection of the Amazon becoming an important element in the leader’s campaign to return to the presidency. Activists and experts had warned that the approval for the offshore oil project could not only threaten the natural world, but also dent Lula’s brand new image as an environmental champion.

The process to obtain an environmental license for the FZA-M-59 block began in 2014, and exploration rights were transferred to Petrobras in 2020. 

Other controversial projects in the Amazon that are under discussion include repaving a highway that would cut through the preserved rainforest, construction of a major railway for grain transport, and renewal of the license of a giant hydroelectric dam.

Environmental activists poured black liquid into Rome’s iconic Trevi Fountain to protest against Italy’s “inaction” on climate change. Members of the climate activist group Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) poured diluted charcoal into the fountain to symbolise the “dark future” they believe the planet faces due to climate change.

The protestors demanded that the government remove subsidies for the fossil fuels sector. They held up banners that read “We won’t pay for fossil fuels” and “Our country is dying.” Police detained the activists about 20 minutes after their demonstration began.

In its previous protests, the group has hurled paint at Milan’s famous La Scala opera house, thrown food over the glass protecting famous paintings, and sprayed orange paint on the facade of the Italian Senate.

Last month, to draw immediate attention to the grave dangers posed by global warming to water supplies and sea levels, The Last Generation poured a dark liquid with vegetable base into another famous 17th-century Roman fountain, Fontana della Barcaccia. The fountain that is shaped like a boat was designed by famous Italian sculptor Pietro Bernini in 1629. The group claimed that the act was done to highlight the dangers that sea levels and water resources face from global warming.

The Last Generation began carrying out peaceful, but disruptive protests in Italy last year ahead of the general election, urging politicians from all parties to make climate change their priority. Activists have thrown soup, cake, mashed potatoes or washable paint at heritage and culture sites and artworks in museums.

A study has found that New York City is sinking due to the weight of its high-rise buildings. According to the report, the sea level around the US city is gradually rising.

The study, published in the journal Earth’s Future, claimed that the sea level around New York City has been rising more than twice as fast as the global rate. The study projected that the sea level would rise between 8 inches and 30 inches by 2050. In addition, scientists expect more frequent and extreme rainfalls and hurricanes in the region due to the human-induced climate crisis.

There are more than 10 lakh buildings across the five boroughs of New York City that weigh about 1.68 trillion pounds (762 billion kilograms) — equivalent to roughly 1.9 million fully loaded Boeing 747-400s. The researchers used simulation to calculate the effects of this weight on the ground. The analysis revealed that the city is sinking on average about 1 to 2 millimeters, with land subsidence in some areas occurring at the rate of 4.5 mm a year. The research also found some areas of lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens to be sinking at a faster than average rate.

Space Perspective, a US space travel company, plans to offer the first-ever space weddings. Its revolutionary Neptune spacecraft offers couples a rare chance to embark on a truly unique journey to the edge of space, providing them with an unforgettable experience complete with unparalleled views of our planet, for ₹1 crore per person.

The space expedition has already found takers, who are eager to exchange their sacred vows under the stars. The spacecraft is designed to lift off the ground at a gentle pace of 12 mph making the experience accessible to anyone who is medically fit to fly with a commercial airline. Hence, the couples need not be worried about being blasted off into space like an astronaut.

The spacecraft is propelled by renewable hydrogen, with no rockets or associated carbon footprint, ensuring an eco-friendly journey to the heavens. It is also fitted with massive porthole windows which are sure to be a special backdrop for wedding photos. These windows are the biggest windows flown into space and feature a hyper-resistant material and a special anti-UV coating, the company says.

The out of this world journey is anticipated to be the six-hour trip, which will be able to carry passengers 1,000 feet above the Earth and then bring them back down. The company says it has already sold 1,000 seats and intends to debut in 2024.

Global temperatures are likely to surge to record levels in the next five years, energised by greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño event, said a new update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva on 17 May 2023.

There is a 66 percent likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.  There is a greater chance, of 98 percent, that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record.

“This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement, which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.

A warming El Niño is expected to develop in the coming months, and in combination with human-induced climate change to push global temperatures into uncharted territory. This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment, said Prof. Taalas.

Four of Uranus’ largest moons may contain an ocean layer between their cores and icy crusts, suggests a re-analysis of data from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft, along with new computer modeling. The work explores how oceans could exist in unlikely places in our solar system.

The study is the first to detail the evolution of the interior make-up and structure of all five large moons of the planet: Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, and Miranda.  The planet is surrounded by its four major rings and 10 of its 27 known moons in this colour-added view that uses data taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1998. A study featuring new modeling shows that four of Uranus’ large moons likely contain internal oceans that could be dozens of miles deep.

Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, the new work could inform how a future mission might investigate the moons; the paper also has implications that go beyond Uranus, said lead author Julie Castillo-Rogez of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The study revisited findings from NASA’s Voyager 2 flybys of Uranus in the 1980s and from ground-based observations. The researchers built computer models infused with additional findings from NASA’s Galileo, Cassini, Dawn, and New Horizons (each of which discovered ocean worlds), including insights into the chemistry and the geology of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, Pluto and its moon Charon, and Ceres – all planetary icy bodies around the same size as the Uranian moons.

The record-breaking humid heat wave that hit east and north India, Bangladesh, Laos and Thailand in April was made at least 30 times more likely by climate change, said a rapid attribution analysis by scientists of the World Weather Attribution (WWA) on May 17.

The analysis by the international team of scientists said that a highly vulnerable, large population was subjected to a deadly combination of high heat and humidity, which amplified the impacts in early summer this year. People across South Asia during a four-day period between April 17 and 20 were exposed to a heat index or ‘feels like’ temperature of over 41 degree C and some areas mainly in Laos recorded heat index of over 54 degree C which can be deadly, scientists said. WWA’s report corresponded with a statement issued by World Meteorological Organisation warning that there is a 66% chance that the annual average global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5 degree C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.

India and Pakistan also experienced a severe heat spell last March and April. The 2022 heatwave is estimated to have led to around 90 deaths across the two countries; triggered an extreme Glacial Lake Outburst Flood in northern Pakistan; forest fires in India; reduced India’s wheat crop yields; power outages that impacted millions of people. WWA scientists had said the climate crisis had made such an event 30 times more likely.