Blogging the End of the World™
26 November 2018 (BBC News) – Hundreds of Australians have evacuated their homes due to bushfires amid “unprecedented” weather conditions in the state of Queensland, officials say. About 40 bushfires are burning across the state following a heatwave, said Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. The most serious blaze, 450km (280 miles) north of Brisbane, has […]
By Abrahm Lustgarten 20 November 2018 (The New York Times) – The fields outside Kotawaringin village in Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, looked as if they had just been cleared by armies. None of the old growth remained — only charred stumps poking up from murky, dark pools of water. In places, smoke […]
19 November 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – In August 2018, it was “environmental terrorist groups” causing California’s forest fires. Before that, it was water regulations. Now, California just needs to rake its forests and manage them like Finland.Anything to deny the obvious: global warming is causing California’s megafires.Throughout 2018, the Trump administration has undertaken a Stalinist […]
By Jessica Taylor 19 November 2018 (Evening Standard) – Distressing photos have emerged online of a beached whale in Indonesia that was found to have almost six kilograms of plastic in its stomach. The sperm whale washed up on the shore of Kapota Island, in the Wakatobi Archipelago of Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia on Monday, 19 […]
24 October 2018 (Silencing Science Tracker) – On 24 October 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a draft “Air and Energy Strategic Research Action Plan” (Action Plan) for the period from 2019 to 2022. The Action Plan identifies research needed to “address[] EPA priorities and mandates” with respect to air pollution. Unlike previous versions, […]
By Christie Aschwanden, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Maggie Koerth-Baker, and Ella Koeze 16 November 2018 (FiveThirtyEight) – The Camp Fire in Northern California has already been the most lethal and most destructive in state history, and it continues to burn. The death toll, currently at 63, is expected to grow — more than 600 people are […]
By Amanda Mull 17 November 2018 (The Atlantic) – The particulates in smoke don’t destroy homes. They don’t down trees. But in the case of wildfires, smoke’s impacts—and dangers—can reach hundreds of miles further than the flames themselves. As of Friday evening, the Camp Fire raging in Butte County, north of the San Francisco Bay […]
By James Fernyhough 15 November 2018 (The Australian Financial Review) – Insurance giant IAG has warned a failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could result in a world that is “pretty much uninsurable”, with poorer communities likely to bear the brunt of the effects. In Australia, IAG said temperature increases of more than 3 degrees […]
By James McAuley 17 November 2018 PARIS (The Washington Post) – The French president is under fire again, this time over rising fuel prices. On Saturday, some 244,000 protesters, many clad in yellow vests, not only took to the streets, but in many places literally took the streets, according to the French Interior Ministry. The […]
By Stephanie Nebehay; editing by John Stonestreet 8 November 2018 GENEVA (Reuters) – Three million Venezuelans have fled economic and political crisis in their homeland, most since 2015, the United Nations said on Thursday. The exodus, driven by violence, hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicines, amounts to around one in 12 of the population. […]
