By Christopher Flavelle 1 January 2021 (The New York Times) – The National Climate Assessment, America’s premier contribution to climate knowledge, stands out for many reasons: Hundreds of scientists across the federal government and academia join forces to compile the best insights available on climate change. The results, released just twice a decade or so, […]
31 December 2020 (Desdemona Despair) – In 2020, the long campaign by conservatives to squelch scientific decision-making in government reached its goal: the complete sidelining of evidence-based expertise in favor of arbitrary political whim. Last year’s Doomiest Graph presaged this development, but even Desdemona couldn’t have imagined the mass death that would result as government […]
By Terrence McCoy 16 June 2020 RIO DE JANEIRO (The Washington Post) – Weeks ago, when this seaside metropolis had recorded fewer than 10,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and there still appeared to be time, some of Brazil’s most respected scientists made their last-ditch appeal. The country had reached a pivotal juncture. Cases were […]
By Rob Picheta, Vasco Cotovio, and Shasta Darlington 18 May 2020 (CNN) – The health care system in Brazil’s largest city is wavering on the brink of collapse and coronavirus deaths throughout the South American nation are soaring — but President Jair Bolsonaro nonetheless reveled in crowds of supporters on Sunday, joining yet another anti-lockdown […]
By Tom Phillips and Fabiano Maisonnave 30 April 2020 MANAUS (The Guardian) – Day and night, the dead are delivered into the tawny Amazonian earth – the latest victims of a devastating pandemic now reaching deep into the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. On Sunday 140 bodies were laid to rest in Manaus, the jungle-flanked capital of […]
By Heather Houser 16 April 2020 (the Austin Statesman) – Every day it seems we read headlines that connect science denialism to cruel indifference and death. Just recently, when talking about the initial COVID-19 response, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asserted that ”[Trump’s] denial at the beginning was deadly.” In Arizona, some residents called […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., 16 April 2020 (CPJ) – When President Donald J. Trump initially minimized the danger of the COVID-19 virus in the first two months of 2020, he attacked news media reporting about the growing threat and his administration’s slow response. “Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make […]
By Masha Gessen 16 April 2020 (The New Yorker) – In the early days of the Trump Presidency, there was a lot of speculation about when, if, and how we would pass the point of no return, when we would know that American democracy had been destroyed. That conversation faded after a while, drowned out by the […]
2 April 2020 (BBC News) – A member of a protected tribe in the Amazon has been killed by gunmen, authorities in the Brazilian state of Maranhao say. The body of Zezico Guajajara, of the Guajajara tribe, was found near his village on Tuesday. He had been shot. The former teacher was a supporter of […]
By Christopher Ingraham 11 February 2020 (The Washington Post) – Runaway inequality is eroding trust in democratic societies and paving the way for authoritarian and nativist regimes to take root, according to a dire new report from the United Nations. The findings note that solutions — including robust social safety nets, an active redistribution of wealth and […]
