governance – Page 6 – Desdemona Despair

Researchers Peter Hotez (centre) and Tara Kirk Sell (right) at a congressional hearing in 2020. Photo: Sarah Silbiger / Bloomberg / Getty

June 1, 2024

Harassment of scientists is surging, and institutions aren’t sure how to help – “This is a very powerful adversarial force that is seeking to undermine science, and now it’s not only going after the science. It’s going after the scientists.”

By Bianca Nogrady 21 May 2024 (Nature) – As a vocal advocate of vaccinations for public health, Peter Hotez was no stranger to online harassment and threats. But then the abuse showed up on his doorstep. It was a Sunday during a brutal Texas heatwave in June 2023 when a man turned up at Hotez’s […]

Aerial view showing houses destroyed by rising sea levels and coastal erosion associated with climate change, in the community of El Bosque in Nuevo Centla, Tabasco state, Mexico. About 700 people once lived in El Bosque, which sits on a small peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico. According to environmental group Greenpeace, El Bosque is the first community in Mexico to be officially recognised as displaced by climate change. Photo: Yuri Cortez / AFP

June 1, 2024

Submerged homes and heatwaves fuel Mexico climate angst – “We hear about climate change all the time but we never thought that it would come to us”

28 May 2024 (Al Jazeera) – Waves wash over abandoned homes in a Mexican village slowly being swallowed by the sea; a symbol of the climate change effects being felt by the major fossil fuel producer. The school where Adrian Perez used to attend classes in the community of El Bosque in the southern state […]

A Guadalupe Virgin statue lays among the rubble of the destroyed home of Juana Landeros, who rode out a deadly tornado with her husband and her 9-year-old son when it rolled through the previous night, Sunday, 26 May 2024, in Valley View, Texas. Powerful storms left a wide trail of destruction Sunday across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas after obliterating homes and destroying a truck stop where drivers took shelter during the latest deadly weather to strike the central U.S. Photo: Julio Cortez / AP Photo

May 28, 2024

23 are dead across the U.S. after weekend tornadoes, Texas battered again

By John Seewer 28 May 2024 (AP News) – Strong storms with damaging winds and hail pummeled north Texas on Tuesday morning as much of the U.S. recovered from severe weather, including tornadoes, that killed at least 23 people during the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Widespread power outages were reported in the region, which includes […]

Maps showing daily temperature variation (DTV, a) and population density in the world (b). Graphic: Liu and Smith-Greenaway, 2024 / PNAS Nexus

May 28, 2024

Study finds Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately exposed to wider temperature swings

22 May 2024 (PNAS Nexus) – Extreme heat can harm human health, but so can extreme temperature swings. Large daily temperature variation (DTV) has been associated with elevated mortality in studies around the world. Trees and other vegetation can lower DTV, as trees reduce temperature through transpiration during the day and also trap long-wave radiation […]

Satellite view of severe flooding on the Rufiji River in Tanzania on 2 May 2024. Photo: NASA

May 28, 2024

Climate change and rapid urbanization worsened the impact of East African rains, scientists say – “We’re likely to see this kind of intensive rainfall happening this season going into the future”

By Carlos Mureithi 23 May 2024 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The impact of the calamitous rains that struck East Africa from March to May was intensified by a mix of climate change and rapid growth of urban areas, an international team of climate scientists said in a study published Friday. The findings come from World Weather Attribution, […]

Map of confirmed tornadoes and tornado warnings by the National Weather Service during the tornado outbreak of 6-9 May 2024. Map produced in QGIS. National Weather Service warning outlines available from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet and tornado data available from the National Centers for Environmental Information. Graphic: Wxtrackercody / Wikipedia

May 27, 2024

How “kitty cats” are wrecking the home insurance industry – “What we’ve missed is that it wasn’t a big event that had a big impact, it was a bunch of small surprise events that just added up”

By Jake Bittle 16 May 2024 (Grist) – The rising cost of homeowner’s insurance is now one of the most prominent symptoms of climate change in the United States. Major carriers like State Farm and Allstate have pulled back from offering fire insurance in California, dropping thousands of homeowners from their books, and dozens of small […]

Global daily average temperature anomalies relative to a preindustrial baseline, 1940-2024. Data: Copernicus C3S/ECMWF Era5. Note: Data for 2024 are through February. Preindustrial baseline = 1850-1900. Graphic: The Guardian

May 27, 2024

We asked 380 climate scientists what they felt about the future – “Sometimes it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken”

By Damian Carrington 8 May 2024 (The Guardian) – “Sometimes it is almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken,” says the climate scientist Ruth Cerezo-Mota. “After all the flooding, fires, and droughts of the last three years worldwide, all related to climate change, and after the fury of Hurricane Otis in Mexico, my country, […]

Monthly year-over-year change in atmospheric CO2, 1960-2024. CO2 is measured in parts per million at the Mauna Loa observatory. The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide in the world’s atmosphere occurred from March 2023 to March 2024. Data: Dr. Xin Lan, NOAA/GML and Dr. Ralph Keeling, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Graphic: The Guardian

May 27, 2024

Record-breaking increase in CO2 levels in world’s atmosphere – “We aren’t just breaking records in CO2 concentrations, but also the record in how fast it is rising”

By Oliver Milman 9 May 2024 (The Guardian) – The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide laden in the world’s atmosphere has just occurred, according to researchers who monitor the relentless accumulation of the primary gas that is heating the planet. The global average concentration of carbon dioxide in March this […]

Map showing April 2024 mean temperature in South Asia. The blue outline shows the region with the most extreme heat. Graphic: World Weather Attribution

May 27, 2024

Sweltering heat across Asia in 2024 was 45 times more likely because of climate change, study finds – “Heat is now among the foremost risks in terms of personal health for millions across the world as well as nations’ economic development”

By Sibi Arasu 14 May 2024 BENGALURU, India (AP) – Sizzling heat across Asia and the Middle East in late April that echoed last year’s destructive swelter was made 45 times more likely in some parts of the continent because of human-caused climate change, a study Tuesday found. Scorching temperatures were felt across large swaths of Asia, […]

Responses of 380 climate experts to the question, “How high above pre-industrial levels do you think average global temperature will rise between now and 2100? Almost 80 percent of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5°C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3°C (5.4°F). Only 6 percent thought the internationally agreed 1.5°C (2.7°F) limit would be met. Graphic: The Guardian

May 27, 2024

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target – “I could not feel greater despair over the future”

By Damian Carrington 8 May 2024 (The Guardian) – Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed. Almost 80% of the […]