Italy – Page 3 – Desdemona Despair

European surface air temperature anomalies for summer (JJA) 1950–2021, relative to the average for the 1991–2020 reference period. In 2021, summer temperatures were about 1 degree Celsius above the average over the past three decades, with Italy even recording temperatures of 48.8C – a provisional record for the whole of Europe. Data source: ERA5, E-OBS. Credit: C3S / ECMWF / KNMI

May 7, 2022

Europe suffered year of climate chaos in 2021 with hottest summer on record – “We are facing a lot of challenges”

By Gloria Dickie and Kate Abnett 22 April 2022 (Reuters) – Europeans endured the hottest summer on record last year, with wildfires, floods and intense heatwaves hitting the continent, according to a report by EU scientists released Friday. Summer temperatures were about 1 degree Celsius above the average over the past three decades, with Italy even recording […]

Prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents aged 5–19 years in the WHO European Region, by sex, 1975–2016. Graphic: WHO

May 5, 2022

World Health Organization warns of obesity epidemic in Europe – “Overweight and obesity rates have reached epidemic proportions across the region and are still escalating”

3 May 2022 (AFP) – The WHO said Tuesday that “epidemic” overweight and obesity rates are linked to over 1.2 million deaths annually across Europe, calling for swift policy changes to reverse the dangerous trend. Obesity rates in the region have ballooned by 138 percent in the past five decades, the World Health Organization said […]

Distribution of major tax cuts for the rich across OECD nations, 1965-2015. This figure visualizes the resulting binary variable that picks out years in which taxes on the rich were reduced substantially. In total, we identify 30 country-year observations where taxes on the rich were significantly reduced. Governments enacted major tax reforms in all countries in our sample and across the whole observation period. Many countries implemented major tax cuts for the rich in the late 1980s. Furthermore, the identification of tax cuts is also in line with previous studies that have focused on income tax progressivity (Rubolino and Waldenström, 2020) or on overall tax progressivity single specific countries (Saez and Zucman, 2019). For instance, echoing these authors’ findings, we find two major reforms that reduced taxes on the rich in the US: 1982 (First Reagan Tax Cut) and 1986/1987 (Second Reagan Tax Cut). Graphic: Hope and Limberg, 2020 / LSE

December 25, 2020

Tax breaks for the rich don’t boost the economy – “Our research shows that the economic case for keeping taxes on the rich low is weak”

16 December 2020 (LSE) – Major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality but do not have any significant effect on economic growth or unemployment, according to new research by LSE and King’s College London. Researchers say governments seeking to restore public finances following the COVID-19 crisis should therefore not be […]

View of air pollution in Moscow, Russia on 6 August 2010 and 20 April 2020. Photo: Natalia Kolesnikova / Niklas Halle'n / AFP / Getty Images

April 26, 2020

Before-and-after photos show dramatic decline in air pollution around the world during coronavirus lockdown

By Sophie Lewis 22 April 2020 (CBS News) – As humans continue to stay indoors under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Earth is slowly healing. Wild animals have taken to roaming the streets, clear waters have returned to the Venice canals and the world is literally shaking less. With billions of people quarantined and businesses closed, travel has all but […]

Coronavirus COVID-19 global cases, 26 Mar 2020. Graphic: Center for Systems Science and Engineering CSSE at Johns Hopkins University

March 26, 2020

World passes 500,000 coronavirus cases – U.S. overtakes Italy and China with most cases globally

26 March 2020 (Desdemona Despair) – The world reached an unhappy milestone today, as the number of confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2, aka novel coronavirus, exceeded a half-million. More than 23,000 deaths have been reported globally. As Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, observed three days ago, “It took 67 days from the […]

Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and daily testing in the U.S., Italy, and South Korea, 17 March 2020. Delays in testing in the United States set back the nation’s response to the pandemic, even though its first case was discovered around the same time that South Korea’s was. Graphic: The New York Times

March 18, 2020

U.S. lags in coronavirus testing after slow response to outbreak

By Larry Buchanan, K.K. Rebecca Lai, and Allison McCann 17 March 2020 (The New York Times) – Coronavirus testing data has been spotty and not easily available, especially in the United States. Based on official government sources, here’s how testing efforts in the United States compare with those in Italy and South Korea. Delays in […]

COVID-19 cases in mainland China (orange) and worldwide (yellow), 20 January 2020 - 15 March 2020. Graphic: Johns Hopkins University

March 15, 2020

Graph of the Day: Worldwide COVID-19 cases surpass China cases

15 March 2020 (Desdemona Despair) – Des follows the Johns Hopkins University dashboard for COVID-19 on a daily basis. Today, the total number of cases outside of China (81.7k) exceeded the total number of cases in mainland China (81k). The exponential rise in global cases shows no sign of abating. Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by […]

A man and a girl on a scooter are backdropped by a Lombardy region campaign advertising, reading in Italian, “Coronavirus: let’s stop it together”, at the Porta Nuova business district in Milan, Wednesday, 11 March 2020. Italy is mulling even tighter restrictions on daily life and has announced billions in financial relief to cushion economic shocks from the coronavirus. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. Photo: Luca Bruno / AP Photo

March 11, 2020

WHO declares virus crisis a pandemic, urges global fight – “We are deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction”

By Maria Cheng, John Leicester, and Jamey Keaten 11 March 2020 GENEVA (AP) – Expressing alarm both about mounting infections and inadequate government responses, the World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the global coronavirus crisis is now a pandemic but added that it’s not too late for countries to act. By reversing course and using […]

People walk on catwalk set up on the occasion of a high tide, in a flooded Venice, Italy, 12 November 2019. Photo: Luca Bruno / AP Photo

November 23, 2019

Venice is drowning. It’s a warning of what’s to come.

By Editorial Board 15 November 2019 (The Washington Post) – Venice has always been linked closely with the water that surrounds it. The city is thought to have been founded by refugees seeking protection from Germanic invaders by sheltering in the northwestern Adriatic Sea’s islands and marshes. By the 12th century, the doge would annually […]

A woman is silhouetted as she walks toward a flooded St. Mark’s Square, during historic flooding in Venice, Italy, 12 November 2019. Photo: Luca Bruno / AP Photo

November 17, 2019

Venice sees record third exceptional tide – Priceless artwork threatened – “It is a long-term issue. It is not the issue of one flood, we restore, and we go back to normal.”

By Colleen Barry and Luca Bruno 17 November 2019 VENICE, Italy (AP) – Venice was hit Sunday by a record third exceptional tide in the same week while other parts of Italy struggled with a series of weather woes, from rain-swollen rivers to high winds to an out-of-season avalanche. Stores and museums in Venice were […]