United States – Page 31 – Desdemona Despair

February 23, 2022

Graph of the Day: U.S. COVID-19 vaccinations by partisan lean, February 2021 – February 2022

By Charles Gaba 22 February 2022 (ACA Signups) – Last summer, I pulled together the occasional vaccination rate scatter plot graphs I’d been compiling for months into a single animated GIF image to show how both the correlation (R^2) and steepness (slope) of the partisan COVID vaccination divide grew from almost nothing at all to a gaping […]

(a) Total, (b) global, (c) linear, and (d) regional and local nonlinear sea-level rise (SLR) rates for three sites (New Jersey, Cheesequake; Florida, Nassau; Scotland, Kyle of Tongue) are shown with the time of emergence for each site. Model predictions are the mean with 1σ uncertainty. Note variable y-axes. Graphic: Walker, et al., 2022 / Nature Communications

February 21, 2022

Onset of modern sea level rise began in 1863, international study finds – “We can be virtually certain the global rate of sea-level rise from 1940 to 2000 was faster than all previous 60-year intervals over the last 2,000 years”

18 February 2022 (Rutgers University) – An international team of scientists including Rutgers researchers has found that modern rates of sea level rise began emerging in 1863 as the Industrial Age intensified, coinciding with evidence for early ocean warming and glacier melt. The study, which used a global database of sea-level records spanning the last […]

Weekly average count of “hospital onset” COVID-19 patients in the United States, April 2020 - February 2022. During the Omicron wave, more patients than ever caught COVID-19 at hospitals (nosocomial infections). Data: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Graphic: Allan James Vestal / POLITICO

February 19, 2022

Nowhere is safe: Record number of patients contracted Covid in the hospital in January 2022

By Rachael Levy and Allan James Vestal19 February 2022 (Politico) – More than 3,000 hospitalized patients each week in January had caught Covid sometime during their stay, more than any point of the pandemic, according to U.S. government data analyzed by POLITICO. The record surge demonstrates the virulence of the Omicron variant and how even […]

Generational wealth gap in the United States, 1989-2020. In 1998, the American population under 40 years old held 13.1 percent of America’s total wealth. In 2020, those under 40 hold only 6 percent of the total wealth. This means that millennials and Generation X own less than half of the wealth that older generations owned when they were the same age. Graphic: Self Financial, Inc.

February 19, 2022

Graph of the Day: Generational wealth gap in the United States, 1989-2020

20 December 2021 (Self Financial) – In 2021, the average net worth in an American household aged 64-75 reached over $1.2m [1], while the average household under 35 had a net worth of just $76k. With these massive generational wealth gaps, Self decided to dig deeper into the historical wealth distribution of different generations to understand […]

Maps showing regional sea level linear rates of rise (mm/year) from satellite altimetry over three different time periods: (a) 1993–2006, (b) 2007–2020, and (c) 1993–2020. Linear rates of change of relative sea level (ocean and land height changes) from tide gauges over the same time period are also shown (circles). Graphic: Sweet, et al., 2022 / NOAA

February 19, 2022

U.S. coastline to see up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050 – Report projects a century of sea level rise in 30 years – “These numbers mean a change from a single flooding event every 2-5 years to multiple events each year”

15 February 2022 (NOAA) – The United States is expected to experience as much sea level rise by the year 2050 as it witnessed in the previous hundred years. That’s according to a NOAA-led report updating sea level rise decision-support information for the U.S. released today in partnership with half a dozen other federal agencies. […]

Map showing estimated additional deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic above normal number of deaths, including COVID-19 and other causes. 91 percent of the deaths from COVID-19 are attributed directly to the disease. In the other 9 percent of deaths, COVID-19 was a contributing factor but not the primary cause. Data: CDC. Graphic: Dan Keating / The Washington Post

February 16, 2022

U.S. “excess deaths” during pandemic surpass 1 million, with Covid killing most but other diseases adding to the toll, CDC says – “We did not handle it well. That’s glaringly obvious.”

By Joel Achenbach 15 February 2022 (Washington Post) – The United States has recorded more than 1 million “excess deaths” since the start of the pandemic, government mortality statistics show, a toll that exceeds the officially documented lethality of the coronavirus and captures the broad consequences of the health crisis that has entered its third year. The excess-deaths figure […]

U.S. Drought Monitor map of the U.S. West, 10 February 2022. In February 2022, 95 percent of the Western U.S. was experiencing drought conditions. In summer 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, two of the largest reservoirs in North America — Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both on the Colorado River — reached their lowest recorded levels. Graphic: Deborah Bathke / Richard Tinker NOAA / NWS / NCEP / CPC

February 15, 2022

Megadrought in U.S. West worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years – “We need to be preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this”

By Seth Borenstein 15 February 2022 (AP) – The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds. A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one […]

Estimated economic impacts of unmitigated climate change on seven geographical regions in the United States. Over the next 50 years, climate change-induced economic losses in the U.S. could total approximately $14.5 trillion in present-value terms. Graphic: Deloitte

February 7, 2022

Climate change-induced losses in the U.S. could total $14.5 trillion by 2070 – “In a climate-damaged world of 2070, the U.S. could lose nearly 4 percent of GDP in that year alone”

By Rachel Koning Beals 26 January 2022 (MarketWatch) – Definitive and deliberate climate action from Wall Street to Washington and beyond could deliver a $3 trillion gain to the U.S. economy over the next 50 years to 2070. But it’s the toll of inaction that would cost the nation nearly five times that amount, a […]

Followers of Tennessee pastor and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Greg Locke burn books on 2 February 2022. The books included Millennial staples like Harry Potter and Twilight. Photo: Tyler Salinas / Nashville Scene

February 5, 2022

COVID-19 mortality in U.S. exceeds 900,000 as Covid deaths surge in low-vaccination states – Tennessee has lowest vaccination rate and highest book-burning rate

By Nigel Chiwaya 4 February 2022 (NBC News) – More than 900,000 people have died in the United States from Covid-19 as of Friday, according to NBC News’ tally, and data shows that states with low vaccination rates have had the biggest share of deaths over the past six weeks. The country has recorded 100,000 […]

Far-right conspiracy theorist Ben Bergquam tweets from the National Butterfly Center on 30 January 2022, espousing the unfounded claim that the center participates in child sex trafficking. On 1 February 2022, the National Butterfly Center was forced to close indefinitely due to ongoing threats from QAnon and MAGA conspiracy theorists. Photo: Twitter

February 2, 2022

Ongoing threats from conspiracy theorists force National Butterfly Center to close – “Our staff should not suffer a loss of wages due to this unexpected business disruption caused by false and defamatory attacks directed by political operatives”

2 February 2022 (National Butterfly Center) – We regret to announce that the National Butterfly Center will be closed to the public—both members and visitors—for the immediate future. This difficult decision was made Tuesday evening, 1 February 2022, by the board of directors of the North American Butterfly Association, in the wake of recent events targeting the center. […]