GENEVA, 23 November 2020 (WMO) – The industrial slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic has not curbed record levels of greenhouse gases which are trapping heat in the atmosphere, increasing temperatures, and driving more extreme weather, ice melt, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The lockdown has cut emissions […]
By Michelle Nichols 4 December 2020 NEW YORK (Reuters) – Next year is shaping up to be a humanitarian catastrophe and rich countries must not trample poor countries in a “stampede for vaccines” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, top U.N. officials told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday. World Food Programme (WFP) chief David […]
By Lynda V. Mapes 3 December 2020 (Seattle Times) – First they circle. Then they gasp at the surface of the water. Soon they can’t swim. Then they die. For decades now, scientists have known something was killing beautiful, adult coho salmon as soon as they hit Seattle’s urban waters, ready to spawn. They had […]
By Jessica Flores 3 December 2020 (USA TODAY) – Evacuations and search and rescue efforts were underway Wednesday after a record-breaking rainstorm swept across Southeast Alaska, triggering mudslides and widespread flooding. Multiple precipitation records were broken Tuesday across the region, including a single-day rainfall record from 1946, according to the National Weather Service in Juneau. […]
GENEVA, 2 December 2020 (WMO) – Climate change continued its relentless march in 2020, which is on track to be one of the three warmest years on record. 2011-2020 will be the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Ocean heat is at […]
By Jerry Schwartz 1 December 2020 (AP) – Behold, a world in distress: A 64-year-old woman weeps, hugging her husband as he lay dying in the COVID-19 unit of a California hospital. A crowded refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, engulfed in flames, disgorges a string of migrants fleeing this hell on Earth. Rain-swept protesters, enraged […]
1 December 2020 (WMO) – The extremely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season officially ended on 30 November with a record-breaking 30 named tropical storms, including 13 hurricanes and six major hurricanes. There were 12 landfalling storms in the continental United States. This is the most storms on record, surpassing the 28 from 2005, and the […]
By Thomas Frank 25 November 2020 (E&E News) – The county most at risk for coastal flooding is not in Florida, North Carolina or New Jersey, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It’s not even on a coast. It’s Cowlitz County, Washington, population 102,000, about 50 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean on the […]
29 November 2020 (Desdemona Despair) – Much has been made of Sweden’s tacit “herd immunity” policy, and people have argued both for and against its effectiveness. Now the data are in, and we can safely make a judgment about it, and the similar policies used in various other countries, like the UK, the US, and […]
18 September 2020 (NBC News) – A new report reveals the adult obesity rate in the United States now stands at more than 42 percent, the highest it’s ever been. Twelve states have an obesity rate of more than 35 percent. “That’s extremely alarming in terms of its medical implications,” says John Auerbach, president […]
