Climate activist Greta Thunberg named TIME magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year

Climate activist Greta Thunberg photographed on the shore in Lisbon, Portugal, 4 December 2019. She was named TIME magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year on 11 December 2019. Photo: Evgenia Arbugaeva / TIME

December 11, 2019

Climate activist Greta Thunberg named TIME magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year

By Charlotte Alter, Suyin Haynes, and Justin Worland 11 December 2019 (TIME) – Greta Thunberg sits in silence in the cabin of the boat that will take her across the Atlantic Ocean. Inside, there’s a cow skull hanging on the wall, a faded globe, a child’s yellow raincoat. Outside, it’s a tempest: rain pelts the boat, ice […]

Extinction Rebellion demonstrators protest in front of Norway’s embassy during the launch of a new wave of civil disobedience in Berlin, Germany, 11 October 2019. Photo: Christian Mang / Reuters

December 11, 2019

The dark side of the Nordic model: Scandinavian countries top every ranking on human development, but they are a disaster for the environment

By Jason Hickel 6 December 2019 (Al Jazeera) – Scandinavians have it all. Universal public healthcare and education that is the envy of the world. Reasonable working hours with plenty of paid vacation. They have some of the highest levels of happiness on the planet, and top virtually every ranking of human development. The Nordic […]

Global pattern in the cumulative development of coastal hypoxia in the periods before 1969, 1970-1989, and 1990-2015. Each red dot represents a documented case related to human activities. Green dots are sites that have improved. Since the 1960s, the global number of hypoxic systems has about doubled every ten years up to 2000. Data: Based on Diaz and Rosenberg (2008), Diaz, et al. (2010), and Conley et al. (2011). Graphic: Laffoley and Baxter, 2019 / IUCN

December 10, 2019

Oceans losing oxygen at unprecedented rate, experts warn

By Fiona Harvey 7 December 2019 MADRID (The Guardian) – Oxygen in the oceans is being lost at an unprecedented rate, with “dead zones” proliferating and hundreds more areas showing oxygen dangerously depleted, as a result of the climate emergency and intensive farming, experts have warned. Sharks, tuna, marlin and other large fish species were […]

Aerial view of steam and smoke rising from the Syncrude Mildred Lake mining facility in 2014. Photo: Alex MacLean / climatestate.com

December 10, 2019

Trudeau will fuel the fires of our climate crisis if he approves Canada’s mega mine

By Tzeporah Berman 10 December 2019 (The Guardian) – This week, the Canadian government is in Madrid telling the world that climate action is its Number 1 priority. When they get home, Justin Trudeau’s newly re-elected government will decide whether to throw more fuel on the fires of climate change by giving the go-ahead to […]

Repparfjord is near the northernmost point of Norway. On 30 November 2019, Norway greenlit a copper mine that will dump two million tons of tailings in Arctic fjord each year. Photo: Thomas Nilsen / The Barents Observer

December 9, 2019

Norway greenlights copper mine that will dump two million tons of tailings in Arctic fjord each year – “Dumping of mining waste will kill every living thing on the ocean floor in the immediate area and disturb spawning grounds over a much greater distance”

ByThomas Nilsen 30 November 2019 (The Barents Observer) – “Allowing this to happen with a protected national salmon fjord doesn’t make sense at all,” said Silje Lundberg, head of Naturvernforbundet. The organisation is the Norwegian branch of Friends of the Earth. Lundberg said the planned dumping of tailings from the copper mine to the fjord […]

Carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas, petroleum, coal, and land use changes, 1998-2017, in gigatons of CO2 per year. Graphic: GCP

December 9, 2019

Global carbon emissions growth slows, but still hits record high in 2019 – “Emissions cuts in wealthier nations must outpace increases in poorer countries where access to energy is still needed”

By Rob Jordan 3 December 2019 (Stanford News Service) – The runaway train that is climate change is about to blow past another milestone: global fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions will reach yet another record high. Driven by rising natural gas and oil consumption, levels of CO2 are expected to hit 37 billion metric tons this […]

Extinction Rebellion protesters in Madrid during the COP25 climate summit in December 2019 hold a banner that reads, “Oceans are rising. So are we.” Photo: Javier Barbancho / Reuters

December 8, 2019

UN climate talks failing to address urgency of crisis, says top scientist – “There is a risk of disappointment in the UN process because of the inability to recognise that there is an emergency”

By Fiona Harvey 8 December 2019 MADRID (The Guardian) – Urgent UN talks on tackling the climate emergency are still not addressing the true scale of the crisis, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has warned, as high-ranking ministers from governments around the world began to arrive in Madrid for the final days of negotiations. […]

RFS volunteers and NSW Fire and Rescue officers fight a bushfire encroaching on properties near Termeil, New South Wales, Australia, on Tuesday, 3 December 2019. Photo: Reuters

December 8, 2019

“Mega fire” near Sydney may burn for weeks as people struggle to breathe – “We cannot stop these fires, they will just keep burning until conditions ease”

By Lidia Kelly 6 December 2019 MELBOURNE (Reuters) – A giant bushfire on the edge of Sydney, which has blanketed the city in smoke causing a spike in respiratory illnesses and the cancellation of outdoor sports, will take weeks to control but will not be extinguished without heavy rains, firefighters said. Thousands of weary firefighters, […]

Satellite view of the extremely rapid intensification of Tropical Cyclone Ambali in the southern Indian Ocean, and then quick weakening, 6 December 2019. This entire satellite loop is only 24 hours. Photo: Stu Ostro / The Weather Channel

December 8, 2019

Two tropical cyclones set records in one week: Ambali has fastest intensification on record south of the equator, and Kammuri has tallest, coldest cloud tops ever

By Bob Henson 6 December 2019 (Weather Underground) – Barely a tropical storm on Wednesday night EST, Tropical Cyclone Ambali astounded weather watchers on Thursday as it pole-vaulted to the brink of Category 5 strength in the southwest Indian Ocean, counter to nearly all expectations. Ambali’s top sustained winds, as assessed from satellite data by […]

Share of national wealth owned by each generation, by median cohort age. Baby boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — collectively owned 21 percent of the nation’s wealth by the time their generation hit a median age of 35 in 1990. Generation X (born from 1965 to 1980) came of age during the era of wage stagnation and growing inequality ushered in by the 1970s and ’80s. When the typical Gen Xer reached 35 in 2008, his or her share of the nation’s wealth was just 9 percent, less than half that of boomers at a comparable point in life. Millennials haven’t hit the 35 mark yet — that won’t happen until about 2023 — but their financial situation is relatively dire. They own just 3.2 percent of the nation’s wealth. To catch up to Gen Xers, they’d need to triple their wealth in just four years. To reach boomers, their net worth would need a sevenfold jump. Graphic: Gray Kimbrough / The Washington Post

December 8, 2019

Graph of the Day: The staggering millennial wealth deficit – “To catch up to Gen Xers, millennials would need to triple their wealth in just four years. To reach boomers, their net worth would need a sevenfold jump.”

By Christopher Ingraham 3 December 2019 (The Washington Post) – Few things capture the precariousness of life for today’s young adults like a visualization of their wealth. Economist Gray Kimbrough did just that, using Federal Reserve data to compare how generations fared financially at different points of their life cycles. Wealth is a measure of what people own: […]

Desdemona Despair

Category: technogenic disaster