South America – Page 14 – Desdemona Despair

Forcibly displaced people worldwide, 1990-2019. At the end of 2019, nearly 80 million people were displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations, or events seriously disturbing public order. Forced displacement is now affecting more than one per cent of humanity – 1 in every 97 people – and with fewer and fewer of those who flee being able to return home. Graphic: UNHCR

June 20, 2020

UN refugee report 2020: 1 percent of humanity now displaced, doubling since 2010 – “Forced displacement now is not only vastly more widespread but is no longer a short-term and temporary phenomenon”

18 June 2020 (UNHCR) – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is today appealing to countries worldwide to do far more to find homes for millions of refugees and others displaced by conflict, persecution or events seriously disturbing public order. This is as a report released today showed that forced displacement is now affecting more than […]

World consumption of primary energy in exajoules, 1994-2019. Primary energy consumption rose by 1.3 percent in 2019, less than half its rate in 2018 (2.8 percent). Growth was driven by renewables (3.2 EJ) and natural gas (2.8 EJ), which together contributed three quarters of the increase. All fuels grew at a slower rate than their 10-year averages, apart from nuclear, with coal consumption falling for the fourth time in six years (-0.9 EJ). By region, consumption fell in North America, Europe and CIS, and growth was below average in South and Central America. In the other regions, growth was roughly in line with historical averages. China was the biggest individual driver of primary energy growth, accounting for more than three quarters of net global growth. Oil continues to hold the largest share of the energy mix (33.1 percent). Coal is the second largest fuel but lost share in 2019 to account for 27.0 percent, its lowest level since 2003. The share of both natural gas and renewables rose to record highs of 24.2 percent and 5.0 percent respectively. Renewables has now overtaken nuclear, which makes up only 4.3 percent of the energy mix. The share of hydroelectricity has been stable at around 6 percent for several years. Graphic: BP

June 18, 2020

BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020: Carbon emissions increase for another year, coal still the single largest source of power generation

By Bernard Looney 17 June 2020 (BP) – The COVID-19 pandemic may well turn out to be the most tragic and disruptive event that many of us will ever live through. As I write this – in the middle of June – over 400 thousand people globally have lost their lives to the infection. Millions […]

A performance protest on 15 June 2020 in Brasilia honors Brazilians who died after contracting the novel coronavirus. Photo: Adriano Machado / Reuters

June 16, 2020

Brazil ignored the warnings about COVID-19 – “A human catastrophe of unimaginable proportions”

By Terrence McCoy 16 June 2020 RIO DE JANEIRO (The Washington Post) – Weeks ago, when this seaside metropolis had recorded fewer than 10,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and there still appeared to be time, some of Brazil’s most respected scientists made their last-ditch appeal. The country had reached a pivotal juncture. Cases were […]

Accumulated Amazon deforestation Jan-Apr, 2009-2020. Data: INPE. Graphic: Mongabay

June 14, 2020

14 straight months of rising Amazon deforestation in Brazil

By Rhett A. Butler 12 June 2020 (Mongabay) – Deforestation in Earth’s largest rainforest increased for the fourteenth consecutive month according to data released today by the Brazilian government. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is currently pacing 83 percent ahead of where it was a year ago. Data from Brazil’s national space research institute INPE […]

Map showing the Global Peace Index for 2020. The average level of global peacefulness deteriorated 0.34 percent on the 2020 GPI. This is the ninth time in the last 12 years that global peacefulness has deteriorated. Graphic: Institute for Economics and Peace

June 13, 2020

Global peacefulness falls for the fourth time in the last five years – “We find ourselves at a critical juncture”

11 June 2020 (Institute for Economics and Peace) – This is the 14th edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness. In addition to presenting the findings from the 2020 GPI, this year’s report includes an analysis of the effect of the COVID-19 […]

Indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa Yanomami delivers a 30-page report at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, 3 March 2020, in which he notes that indigenous peoples isolated in the Amazon are at serious risk of genocide if they continue to "explode deforestation on their land." Photo: Marcelo Seixas / Funai

May 30, 2020

Deforestation drives cases of Covid-19 among indigenous peoples – “There is no decreased effect of deforestation with coronavirus, quite the contrary”

By Mark Candido 25 May 2020 São Paulo (ECOA) – Indigenous lands with the largest deforested areas in the country are also among the most vulnerable to the advance of the new coronavirus. According to experts, invaders may have taken the city’s virus toward the Yanomami and Raposa Serra do Sol lands in Roraima. In […]

An indigenous woman, wearing a face mask that reads “Indigenous lives matter”, attends the funeral of Chief Messias Kokama, 53, from the Parque das Tribos (Tribes Park), who passed away due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Parque das Tribos in Manaus, Brazil, 14 May 2020. Photo: Bruno Kelly / REUTERS

May 18, 2020

Coronavirus pandemic reaches dozens of indigenous groups in Brazil, felling Chief Messias Kokama – Hospitals on brink of collapse as Bolsonaro does pushups with supporters

By Rob Picheta, Vasco Cotovio, and Shasta Darlington 18 May 2020 (CNN) – The health care system in Brazil’s largest city is wavering on the brink of collapse and coronavirus deaths throughout the South American nation are soaring — but President Jair Bolsonaro nonetheless reveled in crowds of supporters on Sunday, joining yet another anti-lockdown […]

Trump, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Kushner as Immortan Joe and henchmen from “Mad Max: Fury Road”. “But nowhere has our policy been more evident than backward countries and failed states. Like the U.S. Here, as thousands of people died and got buried in mass graves, Il Duce left you to fight each other over medical equipment by entrusting it to his little shit-goblin-in-law.” Photo: The Juice Media

May 1, 2020

Honest Government Ad: Pandemic Update – “Scientists have been warning us for decades to prepare for this crisis. Did we? Of course not.”

30 April 2020 (The Juice Media) – The Government has made an ad about its response to the pandemic, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative. Scientists have been warning us for decades to prepare for this crisis. Did we? Of course not. The Machine said there was no profit in preventing future crises. So instead, […]

Aerial view of coffins being buried at an area where new graves have been dug at the Parque Tarumã cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, in April 2020. On 26 April 2020, 140 bodies of people killed by COVID-19 were laid to rest in Manaus, the jungle-flanked capital of Amazonas state. Normally the figure would be closer to 30 – but these are no longer normal times. Photo: Michael Dantas / AFP / Getty Images

April 30, 2020

Manaus fills mass graves as Covid-19 hits the Amazon – “They were just dumped there like dogs. What are our lives worth now? Nothing.”

By Tom Phillips and Fabiano Maisonnave 30 April 2020 MANAUS (The Guardian) – Day and night, the dead are delivered into the tawny Amazonian earth – the latest victims of a devastating pandemic now reaching deep into the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. On Sunday 140 bodies were laid to rest in Manaus, the jungle-flanked capital of […]

A healthcare worker stands in a crosswalk to block hundreds of pro-death pro-Covid protesters in Denver, on 19 April 2020. Photo: Alyson McClaran / Reuters

April 21, 2020

Are we finally seeing science denialism for the death wish it is? “Denying the severity of COVID-19 is tantamount to denying the worth of the thousands who have died and the thousands more who will”

By Heather Houser 16 April 2020 (the Austin Statesman) – Every day it seems we read headlines that connect science denialism to cruel indifference and death. Just recently, when talking about the initial COVID-19 response, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asserted that ”[Trump’s] denial at the beginning was deadly.” In Arizona, some residents called […]