governance – Page 24 – Desdemona Despair

Climate activist Greta Thunberg of Sweden listens as Vanessa Nakate of Uganda speaks at a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on 19 January 2023. The activists urged attendees to give less power in the climate-change fight to oil companies. Photo: AP

January 21, 2023

Greta Thunberg: It’s “absurd” to think oil companies causing the climate crisis have a solution to it – “As long as they can get away with it, they will continue to invest in fossil fuels, they will continue to throw people under the bus”

By Rachel Koning Beals 19 January 2023 (MarketWatch) – Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, age 20 and arguably the face of a generation that wants to roll back decades of reliance on oil and gas by means of alternative energy sources, had a message Thursday as she mingled with the corporate and political bigwigs meeting […]

Summary of all global warming projections (nominal scenarios) reported by ExxonMobil scientists in internal documents and peer-reviewed publications (gray lines), superimposed on historically observed temperature change (red). Solid gray lines (and asterisked numerical labels) indicate global warming projections modeled by ExxonMobil scientists themselves; dashed gray lines indicate projections internally reproduced by ExxonMobil scientists from third-party sources. Shades of gray and numerical labels scale with model start dates, from earliest (1977: lightest, “1”) to latest (2003: darkest, “12”). Numerical labels correspond to panels in Fig. 1, which displays all original graphical projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists. Observations reflect the smoothed annual average of five historical time series. Graphic: Supran, et al., 2023 / Science

January 21, 2023

Exxon disputed climate findings for years. Its scientists knew better. “ExxonMobil scientists knew about this problem to a shockingly fine degree as far back as the 1980s, but company spokesmen denied, challenged, and obscured this science.”

By Alice McCarthy 12 January 2023 (The Harvard Gazette) – Projections created internally by ExxonMobil starting in the late 1970s on the impact of fossil fuels on climate change were very accurate, even surpassing those of some academic and governmental scientists, according to an analysis published Thursday in Science by a team of Harvard-led researchers. Despite those […]

The sun rises behind a lignite excavator at the Garzweiler lignite coal mine near the village of Luetzerath, Erkelenz, Germany, Tuesday, 10 January 2023. The village of Luetzerath was to be demolished to expand the Garzweiler lignite coal mine near the Dutch border. Photo: Michael Probst / AP Photo

January 10, 2023

German police drag away activists protesting coal mine expansion – “We are peaceful, what are you? We’re here for your children too.”

LUETZERATH, Germany, 10 January 2023 (Reuters) – Police on Tuesday began dismantling barricades and dragged away activists staging a sit-in protest against the expansion of an opencast lignite mine that has highlighted tensions over Germany’s climate policy during an energy crisis. The demonstrators, many wearing masks or balaclavas, have for weeks been protesting against the […]

U.S. billion-dollar climate disaster events, 1980-2022. Storms, floods, wildfires and droughts caused a total of $165 billion in damages in the US last year, $10 billion more than the 2021 total and the third most costly year since records of major losses began in 1980, according to new US government data. With 18 disasters costing at least $1 billion in damages, 2022 was only marginally behind 2020 and 2021 in terms of the number of severe events. A total of 474 people died last year from these major calamities. Graphic: NCEI / NOAA

January 10, 2023

Extreme weather left 474 people dead and cost $165 billion in the U.S. in 2022 – “It does not seem likely that these trends will reverse. Perhaps we need to be more prepared for a future that has rapidly become our present.”

By Oliver Milman 10 January 2023 (The Guardian) – The US endured a particularly painful year as communities wrestled with the growing impacts of the climate crisis, with 18 major disasters wreaking havoc across the country as planet-heating emissions continued to climb. Storms, floods, wildfires and droughts caused a total of $165 billion in damages […]

Yearly change in life expectancy in the U.S. and 30 other countries, 1901-2022. Data: Schöley, et al., 2022. Graphic: Fortune

January 10, 2023

The first global decline in life expectancy since World War II poses a major threat to the economy

By Matthew Heimer and Nicolas Rapp6 December 2022 (Fortune) – COVID’s devastation shows up starkly in life expectancy data: The pandemic’s peak marked the first time since World War II that LE (as demographers call it) declined across the globe. The graphic above is based on a data set that focuses mostly on Europe, but similar […]

Police officers stand guard as activists protest on 8 January 2023. Protesters oppose the destruction of the hamlet of Luetzerath, Germany for the expansion of the Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine by Germany’s utility RWE. Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / REUTERS

January 9, 2023

German police prepare to clear climate activists from condemned coal village

9 January 2023 (DPA) – German police will soon move to evict climate activists from a deserted village in the west of the country before its demolition for opencast coal mining, a senior officer said Monday. Energy giant RWE intends to demolish Lützerath in order to mine the area. Residents have left, but climate activists […]

Cyrille Honoré, head of the WMO Disaster Risk Reduction and Public Services Branch. Photo: Stanley Honoré

January 9, 2023

“Brutal” temperature changes are the new normal, says UN meteorological agency – Interview with Cyrille Honoré

6 January 2023 (UN News) – The rapid 10-degree Celsius rise in temperature across large parts of Europe before Christmas was “brutal” but it could be the shape of things to come, the UN Meteorological Organization WMO, said on Friday. In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Cyrille Honoré, head of the UN agency’s […]

Police guard a lignite excavator near the German village of Luetzerath, 4 January 2023. Luetzerath was to be razed to expand Garzweiler lignite coal mine near the Dutch border. The tactic of energy company RWE was to quickly dredge away areas that can be used for activism and resistance. Photo: Marius Michusch / hessen.social

January 7, 2023

Protests erupt near German village set to be razed to expand coal mine

BERLIN, 2 January 2023 (AP) – Scuffles broke out on Monday outside a village in western Germany that is to be razed to allow the expansion of a coal mine, a plan that is drawing resistance from climate activists. Activists threw fireworks, bottles and stones at police outside the village of Luetzerath before the situation […]

FAO Food Price Index in real terms, 1961-2022. In 2022, the U.N. organization’s Food Price Index hit the highest level since its records began in 1961, according to FAO data. Data: UN FAO. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

January 6, 2023

Global food prices in 2022 hit record high amid drought, war

ROME, 6 January 2023 (AP) – Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger worldwide. The FAO […]

Ducks swim through an algae bloom in Santuit Pond in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in July 2018. Photo: Steve Heaslip / The Cape Cod Times / Associated Press

January 2, 2023

A toxic stew on cape cod: Human waste and warming water

By Christopher Flavelle 1 January 2023 MASHPEE, Massachusetts (The New York Times) – Ashley K. Fisher walked to the edge of the boat, pulled on a pair of thick black waders, and jumped into the river to search for the dead. She soon found them: the encrusted remains of ribbed mussels, choked in gray-black goo […]