North America – Page 59 – Desdemona Despair

Net U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by sector, 2005-2019. Graphic: Rhodium Group

January 12, 2020

Preliminary U.S. carbon emissions estimates for 2019 – Coming up short on climate targets

By Trevor Houser and Hannah Pitt 7 January 2020 (Rhodium Group) – After a sharp uptick in 2018, we estimate that US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fell by 2.1% last year based on preliminary energy and economic data. This decline was due almost entirely to a drop in coal consumption. Coal-fired power generation fell by […]

Worldwide natural catastrophe loss events in 2019. Tropical cyclones, extreme storms, and floods caused overall losses of $150 billion. Video: Munich RE

January 11, 2020

Tropical cyclones causing billions in losses dominated the natural catastrophe picture of 2019 – “Cyclones are becoming more frequently associated with extreme precipitation”

8 January 2020 (Munich RE) – 820 natural catastrophes caused overall losses of US$ 150bn, which is broadly in line with the inflation-adjusted average of the past 30 years. A smaller portion of losses was insured compared with 2018: about US$ 52bn. This was due, among other things, to the high share of flood losses, which are […]

Danielle and Jacob Stenger are raising their two children — Colten and Delaney — on a farm near Milford Lake outside Junction City, Kansas. Danielle is a proud ambassador for farming in the state and applauds the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s efforts to help farmers in mental health distress. Photo: Danielle Stenger

January 11, 2020

Kansas state steps in as farmers die by suicide – “The increase in suicide rates among farmers and ranchers is alarming”

By Lisa Gutierrez 28 December 2019 KANSAS CITY, Missouri (The Kansas City Star) – He fought it as long as he could. Mick Rausch didn’t know what was wrong until he finally hit a wall he could no longer climb on his own. It was 10 years ago. His brother — younger by just a […]

Global surface temperature anomalies, 1880-2019, compared with the 1880-1899 average. The year 2019 was the second warmest year on record, capping the warmest decade since measurements began. Data: Gavin Schmidt / NASA GISTEMP. Graphic: InsideClimate

January 7, 2020

2010-2019: Earth’s hottest decade on record marked by extreme storms, deadly wildfires – “The climate of the 20th Century is gone. We’re in a new neighborhood.”

By Bob Berwyn 19 December 2019 (InsideClimate News) – Deadly heat waves, wildfires and widespread flooding punctuated a decade of climate extremes that, by many scientific accounts, show global warming kicking into overdrive. As the year drew to a close, scientists were confidently saying 2019 was Earth’s second-warmest recorded year on record, capping the warmest […]

A helicopter carries water through smoky skies as it flies near the town of Bilpin, located west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, on Sunday, 29 December 2019. Photo: Bloomberg

January 7, 2020

Global apathy toward the fires in Australia is a scary portent for the future

By David Wallace-Wells 31 December 2019 (New York magazine) – Right now, on the outskirts of a hyper modern first world megapolis, at the end of a year in which the public seemed finally to wake up to the dramatic threat from global warming, a climate disaster of unimaginable horror has been unfolding for almost two […]

Map showing Amazon CamperForce locations in Arizona, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Graphic: Amazon

January 4, 2020

The decade in which everything was great but felt terrible: in the 2010s, the U.S. middle class shrank, longevity fell, and a whole generation fell behind

By Annie Lowrey 31 December 2019 (The Atlantic) – If I had to pick the story that best captured the economy of the 2010s, it might be the tale of CamperForce: a group of elderly nomads, living in vans and RVs, spending their twilight years temping at Amazon fulfillment centers. There’s a positive spin to the […]

Extreme weather events across the world caused more than $100 billion worth of damage in 2019. The most financially costly disasters were wildfires in California, which caused $25 billion in damage, followed by Typhoon Hagibis in Japan ($15 billion) and floods in the American mid-west ($12.5 billion) and China ($12 billion). The events with the greatest loss of life were floods in Northern India which killed 1,900 and Cyclone Idai which killed 1,300. Data: Christian Aid. Graphic: The Guardian

December 31, 2019

15 climate disasters of 2019 that cost more than $1 billion – “It is no wonder youth around the world are taking to the streets to demand that we write a different story towards a better future”

27 December 2019 (Christian Aid) – Extreme weather, driven by climate change, hit every populated continent in 2019, killing, injuring and displacing millions and causing billions of dollars of economic damage, according to a new report by Christian Aid. […] Counting the Cost 2019: a year of climate breakdown identifies 15 of the most destructive droughts, […]

Small area income and poverty estimates (SAIPE), 2007-2018. Data: U.S. Census Bureau Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program. Graphic: U.S. Census Bureau

December 29, 2019

Poverty grew in one-third of U.S. counties despite strong national economy

By Tim Henderson 19 December 2019 (Pew) – Despite an economic recovery that lifted people out of poverty in most areas of the country, poverty increased in at least one county in every state between 2016 and 2018. The poverty rate grew in 30% of counties between 2016 and 2018, according to a Stateline analysis of U.S. Census […]

Climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP25 in Madrid, Spain on 11 December 2019. Photo: Cristina Quicler

December 29, 2019

Five reasons the COP25 climate talks failed – “The world is screaming out for climate action but this summit has responded with a whisper”

25 December 2019 (AFP) – The climate summit in Madrid earlier this month did not collapse — but by almost any measure it certainly failed. Five years after the fragile UN process yielded the world’s first universal climate treaty, COP25 was billed as a mopping-up session to finish guidelines for carbon markets, thus completing the […]

Water towers of the World: the most important mountainous and glacial regions in the Americas, which serve as the “water towers” for billions living downstream. Data: Walter Immerzeel, Utrecht University. Graphic: Brian T. Jacobs / National Geographic

December 28, 2019

World’s supply of fresh water in trouble as mountain ice vanishes – 1.9 billion people at risk from mountain water shortages – “The most important water towers are also among the most vulnerable”

By Alejandra Borunda 9 December 2019 (National Geographic) – High in the Himalaya, near the base of the Gangotri glacier, water burbles along a narrow river. Pebbles, carried in the small river’s flow, pling as they carom downstream. This water will flow thousands of miles, eventually feeding people, farms, and the natural world on the vast, […]