Pedestrians age 0 through 17 fatally struck by motor vehicles, 2004-2018. Halloween is the deadliest day of the year for child pedestrians. Data: National Highway traffic Safety Association. Graphic: The Washington Post

Here’s why Halloween is the deadliest day of the year for child pedestrians

By Christopher Ingraham 28 October 2019 (The Washington Post) – It’s almost Halloween, which means that law enforcement agencies around the country are warning parents about the possibility of finding marijuana candy in their children’s trick-or-treat buckets. But like poison and razor blades, Halloween pot candy is largely a myth. The real threat to kids on October 31st […]

This animation shows winds over the western United States between 20 October 2019 and 28 October 2019. The strongest gusts appear bright yellow; weaker winds are purple. The wind data comes from the Goddard Earth Observing System Model 5 (GEOS-5), an experimental weather model that scientists at NASA use to analyze global weather phenomena. The GEOS model ingests wind data from more than 30 sources, including ships, buoys, radiosondes, dropsondes, aircraft, and satellites. Video: Joshua Stevens / Lauren Dauphin / NASA Earth Observatory

Image of the Day: Satellite view of Diablo winds spreading the Kincade Fire in California

By Kasha Patel 30 October 2019 (NASA) – On 23 October 2019, a blaze erupted in Sonoma County, California, near the small town of Geyserville. In six days, flames from the Kincade fire spread across more than 75,000 acres (303 square kilometers), becoming the largest wildfire by acreage in California in 2019. As of October 29, the fire had […]

A car drives through the Kincade fire, 27 October 2019. Photo: Los Angeles Times

California’s governor declares statewide emergency – Kincade fire has wine country under siege as winds gust up to 96 mph

By Anita Chabria, Taryn Luna, Maura Dolan, Teresa Watanabe, and Luis Sinco 27 October 2019 SANTA ROSA, California (Los Angeles Times) – Fueled by powerful winds, the massive Kincade fire continued its southwest march across Sonoma County, burning winery properties and threatening to jump Highway 101 as more than 2 million people across the region were […]

The Kincade Fire burned through the Soda Rock winery in Healdsburg, California, on Sunday, 27 October 2019, one of at least 79 structures destroyed so far. Photo: Eric Thayer / The New York Times

California enters uncharted territory: Massive blackouts, historically dangerous wind, nearly 200,000 people evacuated – “This is definitely an event that we’re calling historic and extreme”

By Phil Willon, Joe Mozingo, Rong-Gong Lin II, and Maura Dolan 26 October 2019 SAN FRANCISCO (Los Angeles Times) – Northern California braced for a weekend in uncharted territory as Pacific Gas & Electric prepared to shut off power to more than 2 million people as the region faced one of the worst periods of […]

Traffic moves past a gas station during a blackout in Calistoga, California on 24 October 2019. Photo: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg

PG&E warns of largest intentional blackout ever as windstorm approaches – “The upcoming wind event has the potential to be one of the strongest in the last several years”

By David R Baker and Mark Chediak 25 October 2019 (Bloomberg) – PG&E Corp. warned it will shut off power again on Saturday to as many as 2.5 million people as violent winds batter the state — in what will be California’s largest intentional blackout ever. The outages will impact up to 850,000 homes and businesses […]

Illustration from The New York Times review of “13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?”, by Neil Howe and Bill Strauss, titled “The Boomers’ Babies”. Graphic: Rob Shepperson / The New York Times

Only half of U.S. Gen Xers have a retirement account, and that’s a disaster in the making

By Tanza Loudenback 22 October 2019 (Business Insider) – Millennials may bear the brunt of bad press, but Gen X is arguably in worse financial shape. Insider recently teamed up with Morning Consult to survey 2,096 Americans about their financial health, debt, and earnings for its new series, “The State of Our Money.” Of the total respondents, 566 were […]

Andrew Crane-Droesch is a data scientist with the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He worked as a research economist at the Economic Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture between 2016 and 2019. Photo: UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Group

The Trump administration didn’t like my agency’s research. So it sent us to Missouri. – “They can’t tolerate it when scientists present hard truths they don’t like”

By Andrew Crane-Droesch 21 October 2019 (The Washington Post) – I joined the Economic Research Service (ERS) in 2016. I wanted to use my academic training to do something in the public interest — I didn’t really expect to get involved in agriculture. Then I got absorbed in the subject: Humanity’s dependence on the environment […]

A car drives through a darkened Montclair Village in Oakland, California, after Pacific Gas & Electric shut down power in October 2019 to prevent wildfires. Photo: Noah Berger / AP

California can expect blackouts for a decade, says PG&E CEO – Power outage in Fall 2019 could cost California economy more than $2 billion

By Richard Gonzales 18 October 2019 (NPR) – The CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. told California energy regulators that the state will likely see blackouts for another 10 years like the one imposed last week that left as many as 800,000 customers without power. The revelation by corporation CEO Bill Johnson came Friday […]

Clip from BP’s “Energy Illustrated” web series. Graphic: Spencer Dale / BP

BP chief economist to youth conference: “The haves must remember the have nots”

By Spencer Dale 23 October 2019 LONDON (BP) – It’s a great pleasure to be here this morning. One Young World is a big deal in BP. As you just heard, Bob Dudley is a massive fan. And many friends and colleagues have been delegates in the past and raved about it. So I’ve heard […]

This animation shows Arctic sea ice decline from 1979 to 2019 from pink to purple, with dark purple in 2019. This animation is based on the Chartic Interactive Sea Ice Graph. Graphic: M. Scott / NSIDC

Falling up: A look back at the 2019 Arctic summer – New record daily lows for sea ice extent in July and early August

3 October 2019 (NSIDC) – Arctic sea ice began its autumn regrowth in the last 12 days of September, with the ice edge expanding along a broad front in the western Arctic Ocean. Overall, the summer of 2019 was exceptionally warm, with repeated pulses of very warm air from northern Siberia and the Bering Strait. […]

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