United States – Page 44 – Desdemona Despair

Video clip showing a cloudburst and flooding, shown in Aon’s “Weather, Climate and Catastrophe Insight: 2020 Annual Report”. Video: Aon

January 30, 2021

2020 was costliest year on record for severe convective storms – U.S. hit by record-breaking 12 named storm landfalls – China saw most widespread Yangtze River floods since 1998

CHICAGO, 25 January 2021 (Aon) – Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement, and health solutions, today launches its global Weather, Climate & Catastrophe Insight: 2020 Annual Report. The report evaluates the impact of global natural disaster events to identify trends, manage volatility and enhance resilience. The report reveals […]

A Florida manatee has the word “Trump” carved in its back, causing serious scarring. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the harassment of this manatee. The animal was reported to federal authorities over the weekend of 9 January 2021. The animal was reported swimming in the Blue Hole, the headwaters of the Homosassa River. The USFWS is looking for any information regarding the harassment of this animal. Call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation hotline at 888-404-3922 to report information. Video: Citrus County Chronicle

January 14, 2021

Someone carved “Trump” on a Florida manatee, causing serious scarring – “This abhorrent action goes beyond the bounds of what is considered cruel and inhumane”

By Johnny Diaz 11 January 2021 (The New York Times) – The sighting in Florida this week of a manatee with “Trump” in block letters on its back has prompted an investigation and a plea for help from a nonprofit conservation group. The Center for Biological Diversity said it was offering a $5,000 reward for […]

Infographic showing costs of natural disasters in 2020. Global losses from natural disasters in 2020 came to US$210 billion. The hurricane season in the North Atlantic was hyperactive, with a record-setting 30 storms, 13 of which reached hurricane status. Graphic: Munich Re

January 10, 2021

Global natural disaster figures for 2020 – “The hurricane season in the North Atlantic was hyperactive”

7 January 2021 (Munich Re) – Global losses from natural disasters in 2020 came to US$ 210bn, of which some US$ 82bn was insured. Both overall losses and insured losses were significantly higher than in the previous year (2019: US$ 166bn and US$ 57bn respectively). The US share of losses was rather high: Natural disasters in the […]

Trump insurrectionists attack police inside the Capitol Building, 6 January 2021. Video: Jon Farina / CNN

January 9, 2021

How the attack on the U.S. Capitol happened, from planning to siege to arrests – “The lack of security at the Capitol was not an accident”

By Cam Wolf 8 January 2021 (GQ) – Wednesday’s attack on the US Capitol is already one of the most unforgettable events in American history. The Capitol building was last breached when British forces invaded during the War of 1812. 209 years later, a mob of insurrectionists attacked the building at the behest of none […]

Caribou and geese at Teshekpuk Lake in North Slope Borough, Alaska in 2019. The Trump administration, in its final days, decided to open millions more acres of land in the Alaskan Arctic to oil and gas drilling, including the wetlands around Teshekpuk Lake, which are a crucial breeding area for migratory birds and calving grounds for roaming caribou. Photo: Bonnie Jo Mount / The Washington Post

January 9, 2021

Trump administration opens millions more acres of Alaska to drilling – “A last-minute and irresponsible effort to open an enormous amount of land in a sensitive area”

By Dino Grandoni 5 January 2021 (The Washington Post) – The Trump administration, in its final days, decided to open millions more acres of land in the Alaskan Arctic to oil and gas drilling. The decision from the Bureau of Land Management on Monday, finalized just two weeks before President Trump is set to leave office, will […]

Trump refers to a map, modified using a Sharpie, while talking to reporters following a briefing from officials about Hurricane Dorian in the Oval Office at the White House on 4 September 2019. Trump has dismissed scientific evidence and fact numerous times, including 2019 when he displayed a map inaccurately modified to show Hurricane Dorian’s likely path. Photo: Erin Schaff / The New York Times

January 4, 2021

How Trump tried, but largely failed, to derail America’s top climate report – “Thank God they didn’t know how to run a government”

By Christopher Flavelle 1 January 2021 (The New York Times) – The National Climate Assessment, America’s premier contribution to climate knowledge, stands out for many reasons: Hundreds of scientists across the federal government and academia join forces to compile the best insights available on climate change. The results, released just twice a decade or so, […]

Deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger listens during a briefing of the coronavirus task force at the White House on 31 January 2020. Photo: Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post

December 30, 2020

We should embrace the Cassandras when the next disaster comes

By Megan McArdle 29 December 2020 (The Washington Post) – Any popular novel set around 1929 will generally have a character who pulls their money out of the market after overhearing an elevator operator bragging about his stock market winnings. Like all the best fantasies, this contains just enough truth to be plausible: Some sharp […]

Satellite view of wildfires on the U.S. West Coast between 12 September 2020 and 16 September 2020. Video: Michael Benson / CIRA / NOAA

December 30, 2020

Watching Earth burn – “The war has started. We’re losing.”

By Michael Benson 28 December 2020 (The New York Times) – I have a pastime, one that used to give me considerable pleasure, but lately it has morphed into a source of anxiety, even horror: earth-watching. Let me explain. The earth from space is an incomparably lovely sight. I mean the whole planet, pole to […]

U.S. COVID-19 mortality per 100,000 population, 11 April 2020 - 25 December 2020. Data: Johns Hopkins University. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

December 25, 2020

U.S. Covid mortality rate exceeds 100 per 100k population – “The current exponential increase in COVID-19 is reaching a calamitous scale”

25 December 2020 (Desdemona Despair) – The per-capita death rate from Covid-19 in the United States exceeded 100 for the first time today, according to mortality data from John Hopkins University. The milestone comes on the heels of this week’s announcement from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) stating that […]

Distribution of major tax cuts for the rich across OECD nations, 1965-2015. This figure visualizes the resulting binary variable that picks out years in which taxes on the rich were reduced substantially. In total, we identify 30 country-year observations where taxes on the rich were significantly reduced. Governments enacted major tax reforms in all countries in our sample and across the whole observation period. Many countries implemented major tax cuts for the rich in the late 1980s. Furthermore, the identification of tax cuts is also in line with previous studies that have focused on income tax progressivity (Rubolino and Waldenström, 2020) or on overall tax progressivity single specific countries (Saez and Zucman, 2019). For instance, echoing these authors’ findings, we find two major reforms that reduced taxes on the rich in the US: 1982 (First Reagan Tax Cut) and 1986/1987 (Second Reagan Tax Cut). Graphic: Hope and Limberg, 2020 / LSE

December 25, 2020

Tax breaks for the rich don’t boost the economy – “Our research shows that the economic case for keeping taxes on the rich low is weak”

16 December 2020 (LSE) – Major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality but do not have any significant effect on economic growth or unemployment, according to new research by LSE and King’s College London. Researchers say governments seeking to restore public finances following the COVID-19 crisis should therefore not be […]