By Mario Osava1 January 2017 OURICURI, Brazil (IPS) – The drought that has plagued Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region since 2012 is already more severe than the 1979-1983 drought, the longest in the 20th century. But prolonged dry spells no longer cause the tragedies of the past. There are no widespread deaths from hunger or thirst […]
31 December 2016 (Desdemona Despair) – Another disastrous year for wildlife, another year closer to living under green skies. The year 2016 saw the largest number of refugees since World War Two and the worst bleaching ever recorded in the Great Barrier Reef. The dissolution of coral reefs globally may be an apt metaphor for […]
30 December 2016 (Snopes) – An image purportedly showing a billboard advertisement for Trump Tower Mumbai — which shows a photograph of the American businessman and President-elect alongside the slogan “There is only one way to live” with a group of apparently homeless people sitting and sleeping in the street beneath it — was circulated […]
28 December 2016 (AFP) – Chinese customs seized over three tonnes of pangolin scales, state media said, in the country’s biggest-ever smuggling case involving the animal parts. Shanghai Customs found around 3.1 tonnes of pangolin scales mixed in with a container of wood products imported from Nigeria, state broadcaster CCTV reported Tuesday. It estimated up […]
New York (Panthera) – The world’s fastest land animal, the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), is sprinting towards the edge of extinction and could soon be lost forever unless urgent, landscape-wide conservation action is taken, according to a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Led by Zoological Society of London […]
14 December 2016 (Desdemona Despair) – These graphs show the poll results for U.S. Republicans and Democrats when asked about their feelings toward Russia and Vladimir Putin. Over the two-year period from 2014 to 2016, the net favorability of Republicans toward Putin increased by 56 points. Data are from the YouGov/Economist poll, 10-13 December 2016; […]
15 December 2016 (United Nations) – Even as the international community pledged to ‘leave no one behind’ with the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has warned that without stronger global support, 48 of the world’s most vulnerable countries will lose ground in economic development and face […]
By Greg Jericho10 December 2016 (The Guardian) – This week was a prime example of how economics and, by extension, politics doesn’t cope very well with the issue of climate change. The news that Australia economy went backwards in the September quarter was greeted with alarm by politicians and then used as a reason to […]
By Clare Foran 25 December 2016 (The Atlantic) – Denial of the broad scientific consensus that human activity is the primary cause of global warming could become a guiding principle of Donald Trump’s presidential administration. Though it’s difficult to pin down exactly what Trump thinks about climate change, he has a well-established track record of […]
26 December 2016 (Earthy Robot) – Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources has removed “climate change” from its website page that describes the impact of climate change. Contact the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to let them know that science matters and that Governor Scott Walker‘s personal agenda of denial is irrelevant. Luckily, the internet remembers. […]
