By Sarah Sax 6 September 2019 (Mongabay) – As of 24 August 2019, there were 41,858 fires reported this year in the Brazilian Amazon — the highest number since 2010, when 58,476 were recorded by that date. Likewise, the U.S. space agency NASA has shown this to be the most active fire year for the region since 2010. However, […]
By J.D. Simkins 26 August 2019 (Navy Times) – When he took office as secretary of defense, retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis urged the armed forces to battle the effects of global climate change. The order by Mattis was backed by a slew of scientific studies — including those commissioned by the Pentagon — and […]
By Raymond Pierrehumbert 16 August 2019 (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – Let’s get this on the table right away, without mincing words. With regard to the climate crisis, yes, it’s time to panic. We are in deep trouble. To understand why, it is necessary to understand something about carbon budgets. Some of the carbon […]
By Jonathan Franzen 8 September 2019 (The New Yorker) – “There is infinite hope,” Kafka tells us, “only not for us.” This is a fittingly mystical epigram from a writer whose characters strive for ostensibly reachable goals and, tragically or amusingly, never manage to get any closer to them. But it seems to me, in our […]
By Nick Brown 6 September 2019 MARSH HARBOUR, Bahamas (Reuters) – The smell of death hangs over parts of Great Abaco Island in the northern Bahamas, where relief workers on Friday sifted through the debris of shattered homes and buildings in a search expected to dramatically drive up the death toll from Hurricane Dorian. Dorian, […]
5 September 2019 (Carbon Tracker Initiative) – This report provides an update to our 2017 and 2018 2 Degrees of Separation reports, along with an updated methodology. The most common climate-related question facing investors – “how can we tell if a company is aligned with Paris”? Carbon Tracker’s framework for addressing this challenge in the oil and gas sector […]
By Rebecca Gredley 14 August 2019 TUVALU (AAP) – Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to touch down in Tuvalu’s capital of Funafuti on Wednesday, joining Minister for the Pacific Alex Hawke. Hawke says coal is a “red line issue” for Australia in negotiations with its smaller island neighbours. “Australia’s position on coal is we […]
4 September 2019 (CBS News) – As Hurricane Dorian accelerates up the Florida coast, the magnitude of the storm’s destruction in the Bahamas is coming into view. Parts of the island nation are in ruins. Much of Grand Bahama Island is underwater. Two more deaths were confirmed overnight, bringing the official total now to seven. The country’s prime minister […]
By Ben Smee 28 August 2019 (The Guardian) – Australian governments will give $4.4 billion in effective subsidies to Adani’s Carmichael coal project, which would otherwise be “unbankable and unviable”, a new analysis has found. The report, by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, concluded that the project would benefit from several Australian […]
By Ramon Espinosa, Dánica Coto, and Michael Weissenstein 3 September 2019 FREEPORT, Bahamas (AP) – Practically parking over the Bahamas for a day and a half, Hurricane Dorian pounded away at the islands Tuesday in a watery onslaught that devastated thousands of homes, trapped people in attics and crippled hospitals. At least five deaths were […]