Mexico – Page 4 – Desdemona Despair

Global excess and reported COVID-19 deaths and death rates per 100,000 population, January 2020-January 2022. (a) Cumulative global excess death estimates and the cumulative reported COVID-19 deaths by month from January 2020 to December 2021. (b) Global excess death rates per 100,000 population and the reported COVID-19 death rates per 100,000 population, also by month, from January 2020 to December 2021. On both plots, the central lines of the excess mortality series show the mean estimates, and the shaded regions indicate the 95 percent uncertainty intervals. Graphic: Msemburi, et al., 2022 / Nature

December 30, 2022

WHO study reports global Covid death toll likely three times higher than official records – Pandemic may have claimed nearly 15 million lives, more than 2.7 times official reports of 5.4 million – India mortality alone may be 6.45 million dead

By Robert Hart 14 December 2022 (Forbes) – The Covid-19 pandemic may have claimed nearly 15 million around the world in 2020 and 2021, according to World Health Organization estimates published in Nature on Wednesday, almost three times what was reported in official records and underscoring the devastating and far-reaching impact of the disease as countries strive to return […]

The leadership of the U.N.-backed COP15 biodiversity conference applaud after passing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 19 December 2022. Photo: Julian Haber / UN Biodiversity / REUTERS

December 19, 2022

COP15 reaches deal to halt decline in nature by 2030 – Countries to allocate $200 billion per year for biodiversity initiatives but funds to biodiversity are miniscule – “We know the global economy and every company in it is negatively impacting biodiversity”

By Isla Binnie and Gloria Dickie 19 December 2022 MONTREAL (Reuters) – A United Nations summit approved on Monday a landmark global deal to protect nature and direct billions of dollars toward conservation but objections from key African nations, home to large tracts of tropical rainforest, held up its final passage. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity […]

Global human population, 1700-2022. On 15 November 2022, the world’s population was estimated to reach 8 billion people, having grown by 1 billion since 2010. This is a remarkable milestone given that the human population numbered under 1 billion for millennia until around 1800, and that it took more than 100 years to grow from 1 to 2 billion. By comparison, the increase of the world’s population over the last century has been quite rapid. Despite a gradual slowing in the pace of growth, the global population is projected to surpass 9 billion around 2037 and 10 billion around 2058. Graphic: UN DESA

November 19, 2022

Global human population hits 8 billion – “We are already overstretching what we have: the housing, roads, the hospitals, schools. Everything is overstretched.”

By Dan Ikpoyi and Chinedu Asadu 15 November 2022 LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – The world’s population will likely hit an estimated 8 billion people on Tuesday, according to a United Nations projection, with much of the growth coming from developing nations in Africa. Among them is Nigeria, where resources are already stretched to the limit. More than […]

Mexican journalists gather around pictures of murdered colleagues as they protest the recent killings of photojournalist Margarito Martinez and journalist Lourdes Maldonado, in Veracruz, Mexico, on 25 January 2022. Photo: Yahir Ceballos / Reuters

November 13, 2022

CPJ’s Global Impunity Index 2022: Vast majority of journalists’ killers go free – Of the 263 journalists murdered in the last decade, 78 percent were assassinated with complete impunity

By Jennifer Dunham1 November 2022 (CPJ) – The vast majority of killers of journalists continue to get away with murder, according to CPJ’s 2022 Global Impunity Index. In nearly 80% of the 263 cases of journalists murdered in retaliation for their work globally over the past decade, the perpetrators have faced no punishment. Somalia remains […]

Potential effect of high-temperature days on global life evaluations, 2021-2030. The estimated 17 percent drop in life evaluation by 2030 again does not take adaptability and recovery into account. However, this estimation is based on the increase in the number of high-heat days people will face globally by 2030, and is substantively meaningful. Graphic: Gallup

September 25, 2022

Rising global temperatures linked to declining wellbeing – “The analysis paints a bleak picture of the future”

By Benedicte Clouet and Nicole Willcoxon 31 August 2022 (Gallup) – As people around the world suffer through concurrent extreme heat waves, droughts, and wildfires, the effects of climate change are becoming a grim, global reality. Despite robust evidence of the environmental and economic costs of rising temperatures, far less is known about how these […]

The conservation status of the world’s 58,497 tree species in 2022. Graphic: BGCI

September 17, 2022

At least one-third of Earth’s trees face extinction – Scientists issue “warning to humanity” that tree species extinction could bring economic as well as ecosystem crisis

LONDON, 1 September 2022 (BGCI) – Today a new paper by leading scientists and the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) reveals the severe impact that tree species extinction will have on other species, ecosystems and livelihoods. This comes exactly one year on from the landmark State of the World’s Trees report, which examined global tree species and found that a […]

September 3, 2022

Scientists detect second “vast” methane leak at Pemex oil field in Mexico – “It’s really alarming what is happening. Pemex should be stripped of its rights to operate it.”

MEXICO CITY, 2 September 2022 (Reuters) – Satellites recorded another large methane leak at an offshore platform belonging to Mexico’s Pemex in August, according to exclusive data shared with Reuters, even as pressure mounts on the state oil company to reduce these emissions. Three satellites recorded images of methane plumes at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap oil field […]

Satellite view of Lake Mead on 6 July 2000 and 3 July 2022. Data: Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Photo: Lauren Dauphin / NASA Earth Observatory

July 22, 2022

Image of the Day: Satellite view of Lake Mead in 2000 and 2022 – “Declining water levels due to climate change and 20 years of ongoing drought have reshaped the park’s shorelines”

By Michael Carlowicz 20 July 2022 (NASA Earth Observatory) – Continuing a 22-year downward trend, water levels in Lake Mead stand at their lowest since April 1937, when the reservoir was still being filled for the first time. As of July 18, 2022, Lake Mead was filled to just 27 percent of capacity. The largest reservoir in the […]

Three-wheelers queue to buy petrol due to fuel shortage, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 5 July 2022. Dinuka Liyanawatte / REUTERS

July 8, 2022

World Bank calls for sovereign debt changes ahead of looming crises – “There are more Sri Lankas on the way”

By Marc Jones 28 June 2022 LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) – A senior official at the World Bank has ramped up its calls for changes in sovereign debt laws so governments have more control when crises strike and they have to restructure their debt. World Bank economists estimate that low- and middle-income economies owe a […]

Global distribution of estimated excess mortality rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic, for the cumulative period 2020–21. Although reported COVID-19 deaths between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 totaled 5.94 million worldwide, IHME estimates that 18.2 million (95 percent uncertainty interval 17.1–19.6) people died worldwide because of the COVID-19 pandemic over that period, as measured by excess mortality. Graphic: Wang, et al., 2022 / The Lancet

May 7, 2022

WHO estimates nearly 15 million deaths associated with COVID-19, more than double the official toll – “When you have a massive outbreak where people are dying in the streets because of a lack of oxygen, we end up never knowing just how many people died”

By Maria Cheng 5 May 2022 LONDON (AP) – The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 15 million people were killed either by coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems during the first two years of the pandemic, more than double the current official death toll of over 6 million. Most of the […]