Blogging the End of the World™
By Kaamil Ahmed4 January 2019 (Mongabay) – A pair of “French spies” had infiltrated India by sea to commit a “treasonous conspiracy,” an Indian minister claimed in late November. In reality, they were two visiting journalists, and their mission was an investigation into allegations of illegal sand mining in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. […]
By Eric Westervelt4 January 2019 (NPR) – Facing staggering liability costs for its potential culpability in a series of deadly wildfires, the parent company of California’s largest utility is exploring whether to sell off a major part of the company, NPR has learned. Internally, Pacific Gas & Electric has dubbed this strategy “Project Falcon.” Under […]
By Eric Holthaus3 January 2019 (Grist) – Right now, on the shores of Antarctica, there’s open water crashing against the largest ice shelf in the world. The annual ice-free season has begun at the Ross Ice Shelf — a month ahead of schedule. The frozen region of freshwater ice the size of France partially protects […]
BILLINGS, Montana, 4 January 2019 (AP) – Former U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says National Park visitors should “grab a trash bag and take some trash out” as garbage bins at some parks overflow during the government shutdown. With many government workers furloughed as the partial shutdown entered its 14th day on Friday, garbage has […]
By Clyde Hughes4 January 2019 (UPI) – One person died Friday as Thailand was hit by Tropical Storm Pabuk, the most powerful storm to hit the country in three decades. The storm made landfall in Nakhon Si Thammarat, about 380 miles south of Bangkok on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula — with sustained […]
By Mike Gaworecki3 January 2019 (Mongabay) – New research by scientists at the United States’ University of Washington and Stanford University suggests that the most destructive mass extinction event in Earth’s ancient history was caused by global warming that left marine life unable to breathe. The Permian period, the last period of the Paleozoic Era, […]
By James Rainey 4 January 2019 (NBC News) – An ambitious project to clean up a vast tide of ocean pollution has been sidelined. The project’s 2,000-foot-long screen — which was already failing to capture plastic while stationed more than 1,000 miles off the coast of California — broke apart just before New Year’s under […]
By Lydia DePillis4 January 2019 Washington (CNN) – The US national debt stood at $21.974 trillion at the end of 2018, more than $2 trillion higher than when President Donald Trump took office, according to numbers released Thursday by the Treasury Department. The national debt has been rising at an accelerated rate in the aftermath […]
By Helen Regan, Kocha Olarn, and Laura Smith-Spark4 January 2019 Krabi, Thailand (CNN) – Thousands of people were left stranded on Thailand’s southern gulf coast as Tropical Storm Pabuk made landfall on Friday. Authorities had moved to suspend all flights and ferry services ahead of the storm, which officially made landfall in the Pak Panang […]
By Bob Henson3 January 2018 (Weather Underground) – In a post on December 29, we noted a number of U.S. cities that had already secured their wettest year on record. Now that 2018 is a wrap, it’s time to circle back and see how the final totals turned out.Here are some of the larger towns […]
