Blogging the End of the World™
By Saul Elbein 7 September 2023 (The Hill) – Human civilization came to be thanks to the comparatively stable climate of the past 10,000 years. But the unchecked burning of fossil fuels is undermining that foundation, according to a leading climate scientist. “There is no analog in the past for the rapid warming” we are […]
By Jacob Bogage 3 September 2023 (The Washington Post) – In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most. At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and Berkshire Hathaway — […]
By Elizabeth Rush 13 August 2023 (The Atlantic) – Out on the bow of the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, the air is dense and almost warm. We have punched through miles of Antarctic ice floes to reach the Amundsen Sea’s foggy interior. I want to honor the remaining distance between us and Thwaites Glacier’s calving […]
By Juan José Rodríguez 6 September 2023 (AFP) – On a tiny Caribbean island, hundreds of people are preparing to pack up and move to escape the rising waters threatening to engulf their already precarious homes. Surrounded by idyllic clear waters, the densely populated island of Carti Sugtupu off Panama’s north coast has barely an […]
By George Wright 6 September 2023 (BBC News) – Torrential rain and winds caused by a cyclone have left at least 27 people dead in southern Brazil, with more flooding expected. The governor of Rio Grande do Sul said it was the state’s worst-ever weather disaster. Thousands have been forced from their homes, officials said. […]
24 August 2023 (PA Media) – Measures taken during the Covid pandemic such as social distancing and wearing face masks “unequivocally” reduced the spread of infections, a report has found. Experts looked at the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) – not drugs or vaccines – when applied in packages that combine a number of measures […]
By Liny Lamberink 28 August 2023 (CBC News) – Wildfires in the N.W.T have emitted 97 megatonnes of carbon into the air so far this year — 277 times more than what was caused by humans in the territory back in 2021. Mark Parrington, a senior scientist working at the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), […]
By Michael Hiltzik 25 August 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – In the first couple of years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Hotez, an expert in vaccines and tropical medicine at Baylor University, found Twitter to be “a useful and at times almost essential tool for timely and important exchange of information.” The platform banned the […]
By Maggie Harrison 1 September 2023 (Futurism) – According to Exxon Mobil, oil giant and one of the more prominent architects of our planet’s fossil fuel-laden doom, humanity is likely to fail its climate goals of halting a global temperature rise of two degrees Celsius by 2050. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Exxon published its grim prediction in […]
RENO, Nevada, 3 September 2023 (AP) – Authorities in Nevada were investigating a death at the site of the Burning Man festival where thousands of attendees remained stranded Saturday night as flooding from storms swept through the Nevada desert. [Related: Carbon footprint of Burning Man: 27,000 tons of CO2 per year –Des] Organizers closed vehicular […]
