A man wades through an area flooded by heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, 3 May 2024. Photo: Carlos Macedo / AP Photo

From flooding in Brazil and Houston to brutal heat in Asia, extreme weather seems nearly everywhere in 2024 – “We’re departing the climate of the 20th century right now and we just can’t handle these events”

By Seth Borenstein, Suman Naishadham, Sibi Arasu, and Fabiano Maisonnave 7 May 2024 (AP News) – In sweltering Brazil, flooding killed dozens of people and paralyzed a city of about 4 million people. Voters and politicians in India, amid national elections, are fainting in heat that hit as high as 115 degrees (46.3 degrees Celsius). […]

Research into Southern California’s history of ocean dumping was spurred by the discovery of mysterious and corroded barrels dumped off the coast of Los Angeles. Photo: David Valentine / ROV Jason

DDT found in deep-sea fish raises troubling concerns for food web – “Nothing is untouched”

By Rosanna Xia 6 May 2024 (Los Angeles Times) – For several years now, one question has held the key to understanding just how much we should worry about the hundreds of tons of DDT that had been dumped off the coast of Los Angeles: How, exactly, has this decades-old pesticide — a toxic chemical spread across […]

Measles cases in the UK (top) and Russian Federation (bottom), Jan 2020 - Feb 2024. Graphic: WHO

Global measles cases nearly doubled in one year, researchers say – “A crisis among many crises”

By Katherine Dillinger 27 April 2024 (CNN) – The number of measles cases around the world nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023, researchers say, presenting a challenge to efforts to achieve and maintain elimination status in many countries. There were 171,153 cases globally in 2022, according to Dr. Patrick O’Connor of the World Health Organization, […]

Emissions offset credits awarded to Shell by the Albertan government (Mt CO2e), 2015-2022. Shell was awarded more than 5.7 million unearned carbon offset credits over 8 years. Data: Alberta Carbon Registries. Graphic: Financial Times

Shell plant reported millions of “phantom” carbon credits – “Selling emissions credits for reductions that never happened literally makes climate change worse”

By Kenza Bryan and Clara Murray 4 May 2024 LONDON (Financial Times) – A Shell-operated plant reported millions of carbon credits tied to CO₂ removal that never took place but were used by Canada’s largest oil sands companies, raising new doubts about a technology seen as crucial to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. As part of […]

Screenshot of a Twitter (X) post showing a photo of Gov. Ron DeSantis signing legislation that erases the words “climate change” from state statutes on 15 May 2024. Photo: Ron DeSantis / UPI

Gov. Ron DeSantis signs law erasing “climate change” from Florida policy – “This purposeful act of cognitive dissonance is proof that the governor and the state legislature are not acting in the best interests of Floridians, but rather to protect profits for the fossil fuel industry”

By Sheri Walsh 16 May 2024 (UPI) – With summer’s extreme heat and this year’s hurricane season rolling into Florida next month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Wednesday that will erase climate change from state policy effective 1 July 2024. The new law will erase the words “climate change” from state statutes and make energy […]

Low water levels at the Miguel Aleman dam in May 2024. Photo: Luis Antonio Rojas / The Washington Post

Mexico City’s water “Day Zero” may come even for the wealthiest residents – “No one could have foreseen this would happen in the city”

By Kasha Patel 25 May 2024 MEXICO CITY (The Washington Post) – Raquel Campos’ water issues started in January, when her condo building’s manager sent residents a message saying that the city hadn’t delivered water to its cistern. Four days later, taps in the upscale residence went dry. Campos has lived in the wealthy Polanco […]

A vendor selling used remote controls for various home appliances takes a nap in Nhat Tao market, the largest informal recycling market in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Sunday, 28 January 2024. Photo: Jae C. Hong / AP Photo

E-waste is overflowing landfills, rising five times faster than formal recycling – At one sprawling Vietnam market, workers recycle some of it – “We are currently generating e-waste at an unprecedented rate”

By Aniruddha Ghosal and Jae C. Hong 2 May 2024 HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) – Dam Chan Nguyen saves dead and dying computers. When he first started working two decades ago in Nhat Tao market, Ho Chi Minh City’s biggest informal recycling market, he usually salvaged computers with bulky monitors and heavy processors. […]

Effect of political contributions from oil and gas companies on U.S. legislators that vote against the environment. Coefficients and 95 percent CIs for tests of investment (Left) and influence (Right) hypotheses and their corresponding metaanalytic effects for the years 1992 to 2018. In 13 out of 14 analyses, lower LCV scores (i.e., more antienvironmental votes) in one election cycle predicted significantly increased contributions in the following election cycle. For example, the strongest result was observed for the 2016 election: For every additional 10 percent of congressional votes against the environment in 2014, a legislator would receive an additional $5,400 in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies in 2016 (b = −0.54, SE = 0.12; P < 0.001; 95 percent CI [−0.77, −0.31]). This is an especially strong relationship considering that many elected officials vote against environmental policies nearly 100 percent of the time, thereby compounding the cycle of antienvironmentalism and increasing rewards in the form of contributions. Graphic: Goldberg, et al., 2020 / PNAS

Big Oil spent decades sowing doubt about fossil fuel dangers, experts testify – “Big Oil had to evolve from denial to duplicity”

By Dharna Noor 1 May 2024 (The Guardian) – The fossil fuel industry spent decades sowing doubt about the dangers of burning oil and gas, experts and Democratic lawmakers testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The Senate budget committee held a hearing to review a report published on Tuesday with the House oversight and accountability […]

Map showing worldwide natural disasters in 2023. Worldwide, natural disasters in 2023 resulted in losses of around US$250 billion (previous year US$250 billion). Loss statistics were characterised by the large number of severe regional storms. Such high thunderstorm losses have never been recorded before in the USA or in Europe: assets worth around US$66 billion were destroyed in North America, of which US$50 billion was insured, while in Europe the figure was US$10 billion (€9.1 billion), of which US$8 billion (€7.3 billion) was insured. A large body of scientific research indicates that climate change favours severe weather with heavy hailstorms. Similarly, loss statistics from thunderstorms in North America and other regions are trending upward. Graphic: Munich Re

Munich Re: Record thunderstorm losses in 2023 – “The warming of the earth that has been accelerating for some years is intensifying the extreme weather in many regions, leading to increasing loss potentials”

9 January 2024 (Munich Re) – Worldwide, natural disasters in 2023 resulted in losses of around US$ 250bn (previous year US$ 250bn), with insured losses of US$ 95bn (previous year US$ 125bn). Overall losses tally with the five-year average, while insured losses were slightly below the average figure of US$ 105bn. Unlike in previous years, […]

Hectares of primary forest lost each year in Indonesia, 2001-2023. For a second year, Indonesia saw an uptick in forest losses. Between 2002 and 2023, the country lost 11 percent of its primary forest — that is, mature natural forests that have not been touched in recent years. Data: Global Forest Watch. Graphic: M.K. Wildeman / AP

Deforestation in Indonesia spiked in 2023, but resources analyst sees better overall trend

By Victoria Milko 28 April 2024 JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – From trees felled in protected national parks to massive swaths of jungle razed for palm oil and paper plantations, Indonesia had a 27% uptick in primary forest loss in 2023 from the previous year, according to a World Resources Institute analysis of deforestation data. But […]

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