Europe: The Long, Dry Summer

The Long, Dry Summer

At last, a few brief showers fell in Britain, France and Spain. Very brief. The spotty precipitation last week was not enough to reverse the effects of the worst drought to stifle the Continent in decades. Intense heat over the past month has only aggravated the drastic water shortages afflicting countries from England to Turkey. While much of northern Europe is largely unaffected, in Spain and Italy, parched grasslands have become playgrounds for arsonists. On the first weekend in August, more than 3,100 acres of woodland near Livorno on the Tuscan coast went up in smoke. Agriculture and tourism / have...

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