Yearly change in life expectancy in the U.S. and 30 other countries, 1901-2022. Data: Schöley, et al., 2022. Graphic: Fortune

The first global decline in life expectancy since World War II poses a major threat to the economy

By Matthew Heimer and Nicolas Rapp6 December 2022 (Fortune) – COVID’s devastation shows up starkly in life expectancy data: The pandemic’s peak marked the first time since World War II that LE (as demographers call it) declined across the globe. The graphic above is based on a data set that focuses mostly on Europe, but similar […]

Global average surface temperature compared to a preindustrial baseline, 1940-2022. Data: Copernicus / ECMWF. Graphic: The New York Times

The last 8 years were the hottest on record – “The rare event now would be to see a really cold year”

By Henry Fountain and Mira Rojanasakul 10 January 2023 (The New York Times) – The world remained firmly in warming’s grip last year, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China, and elsewhere contributing to 2022 being the fifth-hottest year on record, European climate researchers said on Tuesday. The eight warmest years on record have now […]

Police officers stand guard as activists protest on 8 January 2023. Protesters oppose the destruction of the hamlet of Luetzerath, Germany for the expansion of the Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine by Germany’s utility RWE. Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / REUTERS

German police prepare to clear climate activists from condemned coal village

9 January 2023 (DPA) – German police will soon move to evict climate activists from a deserted village in the west of the country before its demolition for opencast coal mining, a senior officer said Monday. Energy giant RWE intends to demolish Lützerath in order to mine the area. Residents have left, but climate activists […]

The atmospheric river hitting California on 9 January 2023 simulated by the high-resolution HRRR weather model. Graphic: WeatherBell

California’s deadly floods won’t break the megadrought – “We are in the middle of a flood emergency and also in the middle of a drought emergency”

By Neel Dhanesha 6 January 2023 (Vox) – A “river” more than 100 miles wide is gushing through the air high above California, bringing with it heavy rain, winds, and snow. It’s the third in a series of weather systems known as atmospheric rivers — long, heavy columns of water vapor in the sky — to hit the state in the […]

Cyrille Honoré, head of the WMO Disaster Risk Reduction and Public Services Branch. Photo: Stanley Honoré

“Brutal” temperature changes are the new normal, says UN meteorological agency – Interview with Cyrille Honoré

6 January 2023 (UN News) – The rapid 10-degree Celsius rise in temperature across large parts of Europe before Christmas was “brutal” but it could be the shape of things to come, the UN Meteorological Organization WMO, said on Friday. In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Cyrille Honoré, head of the UN agency’s […]

Regional glacier mass change and contributions to sea level rise from 2015 to 2100. Discs show global and regional projections of glacier mass remaining by 2100 relative to 2015 for global mean temperature change scenarios. Discs are scaled based on each region’s contribution to global mean sea level rise from 2015 to 2100 for the +2°C scenario by 2100 relative to preindustrial levels, and nested rings are colored by temperature change scenarios showing normalized mass remaining in 2100. Regional sea level rise contributions >1 mm SLE for the +2°C scenario are printed in the center of each disc. The horizontal bars below each disc show time series of area-averaged annual mass balance from 2015 to 2100 for +1.5°C (top bar) and +3°C (bottom bar) scenarios. The colorbar is saturated at −2.5 m w.e., but minimum annual values reach −4.2 m w.e. in Scandinavia. Graphic: Rounce, et al., 2022 / Science

Half of glaciers will be gone by 2100 even under Paris 1.5C accord, study finds

By Phoebe Weston 5 January 2023 (The Guardian) – Half the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen […]

Police guard a lignite excavator near the German village of Luetzerath, 4 January 2023. Luetzerath was to be razed to expand Garzweiler lignite coal mine near the Dutch border. The tactic of energy company RWE was to quickly dredge away areas that can be used for activism and resistance. Photo: Marius Michusch / hessen.social

Protests erupt near German village set to be razed to expand coal mine

BERLIN, 2 January 2023 (AP) – Scuffles broke out on Monday outside a village in western Germany that is to be razed to allow the expansion of a coal mine, a plan that is drawing resistance from climate activists. Activists threw fireworks, bottles and stones at police outside the village of Luetzerath before the situation […]

FAO Food Price Index in real terms, 1961-2022. In 2022, the U.N. organization’s Food Price Index hit the highest level since its records began in 1961, according to FAO data. Data: UN FAO. Graphic: James P. Galasyn

Global food prices in 2022 hit record high amid drought, war

ROME, 6 January 2023 (AP) – Global prices for food commodities like grain and vegetable oils were the highest on record last year even after falling for nine months in a row, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said, as Russia’s war in Ukraine, drought and other factors drove up inflation and worsened hunger worldwide. The FAO […]

Beds in acute NHS trusts taken by UK influenza patients in winter 2021/22 compared with winter 2022/23. Data: NHS Digital. Graphic: The Times and The Sunday Times

UK after Brexit: “Shocking” emergency room delays “killing up to 500 people a week” as NHS care collapses – “We are seeing equivalent levels of pressure to the early months of Covid”

By Rhys Blakely and Henry Zeffman 2 January 2023 (The Times) – As many as 500 people are dying each week because of delays in emergency NHS care, a senior doctor has said. Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), said that a bad flu season was piling pressure on […]

Body bags lay on gurneys at the back entrance of a funeral home in Shanghai, China, on Saturday, 31 December 2022. Photo: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg

Bodies pile up in China as Covid surge overwhelms crematoriums – “Bodies are overflowing everywhere”

3 January 2023 (Bloomberg News) – For five days the elderly Chinese lady’s corpse lay decomposing in the Shanghai house she shared with her family before a hearse finally arrived to take away her remains. “We’re lucky it’s the cold winter time,” a relative said last week at Shanghai’s Longhua Funeral Home, recounting the ordeal […]

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