authoritarianism – Desdemona Despair

In a victory for climate scientists, jurors in Professor Michael E. Mann’s defamation case against Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn awarded Mann $1 million in punitive damages for defamatory comments made in 2012. Prof. Mann’s lawyer called attacks on the scientist “vile”. Photo: Julian Meehan / Flickr

February 9, 2024

Jury awards climate scientist Michael Mann $1 million in defamation lawsuit – “I hope people think twice before they lie and defame scientists”

By Suman Naishadham 8 February 2024 WASHINGTON (AP) – A jury on Thursday awarded $1 million to climate scientist Michael Mann who sued a pair of conservative writers 12 years ago after they compared his depictions of global warming to a convicted child molester. Mann, a professor of climate science at the University of Pennsylvania, […]

Michael Mann is a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s suing a right-wing author and a policy analyst for defamation. Photo: Slaven Vlasic / Getty Images for HBO

February 8, 2024

A famous climate scientist is in court with big stakes for attacks on science – “Young people, looking at future careers, looking at how scientists are attacked are going to say, ‘Well, why do I want to go into this profession?’”

By Julia Simon 6 February 2024 (NPR) – In a D.C. courtroom, a trial is wrapping up this week with big stakes for climate science. One of the world’s most prominent climate scientists is suing a right-wing author and a policy analyst for defamation. The case comes at a time when attacks on scientists are […]

An Ogiek home in Kenya’s Mau Forest that has been set on fire to illegally evict hunter-gatherers from their ancestral lands to profit from carbon offsetting schemes. Photo: OPDP / BBC

December 3, 2023

Kenya’s Ogiek people being evicted for carbon credits – “The Ogiek are on the front line of a false climate solution that is used to justify ongoing evictions and emissions”

By Claire Marshall 9 November 2023 (BBC News) – Kenya’s government is illegally evicting hunter-gatherers from their ancestral lands to profit from carbon offsetting schemes, human rights lawyers say. Hundreds of members of the Ogiek community are being evicted from the Mau Forest, say their representatives. Ogiek leader Daniel Kobei said armed forest rangers were […]

A partially removed sign at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, 26 July 2023. Photo: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg / Getty Images

September 4, 2023

Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty – “Now it’s just a cesspool of trolls and bots”

By Michael Hiltzik 25 August 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – In the first couple of years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Hotez, an expert in vaccines and tropical medicine at Baylor University, found Twitter to be “a useful and at times almost essential tool for timely and important exchange of information.” The platform banned the […]

Smoke from Canadian wildfires enveloped Washington, D.C. in June 2023. Photo: Kenny Holston / The New York Times

August 5, 2023

U.S. Republican energy strategy for 2024 denies climate change, calls for more drilling and less clean energy – “This agenda would be laughable if the consequences of it weren’t so dire”

By Lisa Friedman 4 August 2023 (The New York Times) – During a summer of scorching heat that has broken records and forced Americans to confront the reality of climate change, conservatives are laying the groundwork for future Republican administration that would dismantle efforts to slow global warming. The move is part of a sweeping strategy dubbed […]

Migrant workers from Mexico, working on six-month visas, pick squash and peppers on a farm in Lyons, Georgia, in July of 2023. Photo: José Ibarra Rizo / TIME

August 5, 2023

Extreme heat in 2023 endangers America’s workers and economy – Likely dozens of workers have already died from heat exposure in what may be the hottest summer in U.S. history – “Why are we being asked to choose between working and staying alive?”

By Aryn Baker 3 August 2023 GEORGIA (TIME) – Just after dawn on a recent July day in Rochelle, Ga., Silvia Moreno Ayala steps into a pair of sturdy work pants, slips on a long-sleeved shirt, and slathers her face and hands with sunscreen. She drapes a flowered scarf over her wide-brimmed hat to protect […]

August 5, 2023

Texans die from heat after GOP Governor bans mandatory water breaks – “Houston will fight so its residents retain their constitutional rights and have immediate local recourse to government”

By Steven Monacelli 6 July 2023 (Texas Observer) – As a part of a bill critics have dubbed the “Death Star” bill—an expansive law that preempts legislation in eight key areas of local government—the Legislature has overridden local ordinances that require giving workers water breaks. Otherwise known as House Bill 2127, it was signed into […]

Center for Industrial Progress President Alex Epstein speaks at a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing in March 2023. Photo: Francis Chung / POLITICO

July 31, 2023

“It’s called summer”: U.S. Republicans brush off record 2023 heat wave – “Thank God for air conditioning”

By Chris D’Angelo and Igor Bobic 28 July 2023 (Huffington Post) – Unless you’ve been living underground or have a vested interest in turning a blind eye to reality, you know that climate change has sent temperatures soaring to dangerous levels around the planet this summer. Two global climate organizations on Thursday confirmed that July […]

Age-standardized mortality trends in the United States and other wealthy nations. Figure shows deaths per 100,000 person-years: A) 1933–2021 and B) 1980–2021. The solid thick red line is the United States, the dashed thick grey line is the population-weighted average of 21 other wealthy nations, and the thin grey lines are country-specific trends for each of the other nations. Total mortality was age-standardized to the 2000 US population age distribution. Graphic: Bor, et al., 2023 / PNAS Nexus

July 23, 2023

More than one million Americans “missing” as U.S. endures crisis of early death – “Americans die younger than their counterparts elsewhere because when corporate profits conflict with health, our politicians side with the corporations”

By Tessa Koumoundouros 20 July 2023 (ScienceAlert) – If the United States of America had the same mortality rates as other wealthy countries, more than 1 million people would have avoided death in 2021, a new study found. Researchers have termed these excess deaths the Missing Americans. “The number of Missing Americans in recent years is unprecedented […]

Map showing the Global Peace Index for 2023. In the period 2022-2023, deaths from global conflict increased by 96 percent to 238,000. 79 countries witnessed increased levels of conflict including Ethiopia, Myanmar, Ukraine, Israel, and South Africa. The global economic impact of violence increased by 17 percent or $1 trillion, to $17.5 trillion in 2022, equivalent to 13 percent of global. Conflicts became more internationalised, with 91 countries now involved in some form of external conflict, up from 58 in 2008. GDP Graphic: IEP

July 23, 2023

Conflict deaths in 2023 at highest level this century – Conflicts are becoming more internationalised, with 91 countries now involved in some form of external conflict, up from 58 in 2008

LONDON, 28 June 2023 (IEP) – Today marks the launch of the 17th edition of the Global Peace Index from international think-tank, the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). Key results Impact of the war in Ukraine on peacefulness The 17th edition of the annual Global Peace Index (GPI) [pdf], the world’s leading measure of peacefulness, reveals […]