9 January 2020 (The Economist) – “It was like the end of the world,” says Nurhayati, dabbing her eyes with the hem of her hijab. On December 31st swollen clouds emptied over Indonesia’s capital, dumping 377 millimetres of rain in one day. That is the most since records began in 1886, according to the state […]
By Joy Wiltermuth 11 January 2020 (MarketWatch) – Rural America needs help. That was the key message from Beth Ford, president and CEO of Land O’Lakes, Inc., while speaking Thursday at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ annual economic outlook conference for the Ninth District. “Farmers want trade. They want a robust marketplace and they […]
8 January 2020 (Munich RE) – 820 natural catastrophes caused overall losses of US$ 150bn, which is broadly in line with the inflation-adjusted average of the past 30 years. A smaller portion of losses was insured compared with 2018: about US$ 52bn. This was due, among other things, to the high share of flood losses, which are […]
By David Wallace-Wells 31 December 2019 (New York magazine) – Right now, on the outskirts of a hyper modern first world megapolis, at the end of a year in which the public seemed finally to wake up to the dramatic threat from global warming, a climate disaster of unimaginable horror has been unfolding for almost two […]
MOSCOW, 30 December 2019 (AFP) – This year was the hottest ever registered in Russia, the country’s weather chief said on Monday, as climate change pushes global temperatures to record highs. “This year in Russia was the hottest for the entire period of instrumental observations,” the head of the Gidromedtsentr weather service, Roman Vilfand, told […]
By Matt Rivers, Lily Lee, and Yong Xiong 2 January 2020 BEIJING (CNN) – Uyghur poet Aziz Isa Elkun fled China’s far western Xinjiang region nearly 30 years ago. He’s not welcome in the country. He can’t even phone his mother. She said it was better if he didn’t, because every time he did, police […]
3 January 2020 (EIA) – In its newly released International Energy Outlook 2019 (IEO2019) Reference case, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that world energy consumption will grow by nearly 50 percent between 2018 and 2050. Most of this growth comes from countries that are not in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and […]
27 December 2019 (Christian Aid) – Extreme weather, driven by climate change, hit every populated continent in 2019, killing, injuring and displacing millions and causing billions of dollars of economic damage, according to a new report by Christian Aid. […] Counting the Cost 2019: a year of climate breakdown identifies 15 of the most destructive droughts, […]
By Andrew Roth 29 December 2019 MOSCOW (The Guardian) – Moscow has been so warm this December that the government has resorted to sending trucks filled with artificial snow to decorate a new year display in the city centre. Videos of the delivery for a snowboarding hill went viral as observers noted the irony of […]
By Gerry Doyle 10 December 2019 (Reuters) – China imprisoned at least 48 journalists in 2019, more than any other country, displacing Turkey as the most oppressive place for the profession, a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists report said on Wednesday. At least 250 journalists were imprisoned worldwide this year, according to the […]
