A Changing Climate Is Scorching the World’s Biggest River

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By Ana Ionova, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: The world’s largest river is parched. The Amazon River, battered by back-to-back droughts fueled by climate change, is drying up, with some stretches of the mighty waterway dwindling to shallow pools only a few feet deep. Water levels along several sections of the Amazon River, which winds nearly 4,000 miles across South America, fell last month to their lowest level on record, according to figures from the Brazilian Geological Service. In one stretch in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, the river was 25 feet below the average for this time of year, according to the agency, which began collecting data in 1967. ...Starting this month, the country plans to begin dredging sections of the river with the aim of ensuring that, even in times of drought, people and goods can keep moving through the rainforest. ...The remarkable drop in water levels has left boats struggling to shuttle children to school, rush the sick to hospitals or deliver medicine and drinking water to distant villages.... 

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