Blogging the End of the World™
6 February 2019 (Desdemona Despair) – There are many reasons to despair when Donald Trump speaks – the baseless nativist paranoia, the continuous stream of half-truths and lies, the thinly veiled appeals to bigotry – but last night, during his second State of the Union address to Congress, Trump extolled the “energy dominance” policy he […]
By Ishaan Tharoor 6 February 2019 (The Washington Post) – President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night zigzagged between paeans to unity and sops to his hardcore base. He eulogized World War II soldiers and then wheeled on immigrants and leftist rivals at home. But absent amid the nativist demagoguery and partisan jockeying […]
8 January 2019 (The Economist) – Democracy stopped declining in 2018, according to the latest edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index. The index rates 167 countries by 60 indicators across five broad categories: electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties. It is stricter than […]
By Hayley Dunning 30 January 2019 (Imperial College London) – Extreme rainfall – defined as the top five percent of rainy days – often forms a pattern at the local level, for example tracking across Europe. But new research, published today in Nature, reveals that there are also larger-scale global patterns to extreme rainfall events.These […]
By Guy Davies 4 February 2019 LONDON (ABC News) – The Australian government is warning citizens to be on the look out for crocodiles and snakes in the streets amid severe rainfall and flooding in north Queensland over the past few days. “Crocodiles prefer calmer waters and they may move around in search of a […]
By Nomaan Merchant 4 February 2019 HOUSTON (AP) – The U.S. government is preparing to begin construction of more border walls and fencing in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, likely on federally owned land set aside as wildlife refuge property.Heavy construction equipment was expected to arrive starting Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. A […]
By Greta Thunberg 2 February 2019 (Facebook) – Recently I’ve seen many rumors circulating about me and enormous amounts of hate. This is no surprise to me. I know that since most people are not aware of the full meaning of the climate crisis (which is understandable since it has never been treated as a […]
By Carol Rasmussen 30 January 2019(Jet Propulsion Laboratory) – A gigantic cavity – two-thirds the area of Manhattan and almost 1,000 feet (300 meters) tall – growing at the bottom of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is one of several disturbing discoveries reported in a new NASA-led study of the disintegrating glacier. The findings highlight […]
1 February 2019 (Euronews) – The streets of Brussels were buzzing on Thursday as thousands of Belgian teens marched for the fourth week in a row, demanding more extreme measures be taken to combat climate change. This week the young protesters were joined by youths demonstrating in Liège and Leuven with a combined total of […]
By Rod McGuirk 31 January 2019 CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Australia sweltered through its hottest month on record in January and the summer of extremes continued with wildfires razing the drought-parched south and flooding in expanses of the tropical north. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology confirmed the January record on Friday as parts of the northern […]
