Blogging the End of the World™
24 July 2018 (Silencing Science Tracker) – The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) removed references to “climate change” in its 2017 sustainability report. Notably, in a departure from USAID’s 2016 report, the 2017 version no longer lists “climate change adaptation” as a priority. The 2017 version also omits discussion — which had appeared in […]
By Marcie Grabowski 1 August 2018 (UH News) – Several greenhouse gases are emitted as common plastics degrade in the environment, according to researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST).Mass production of plastics started nearly 70 years ago, and the production rate is expected to […]
By Paul A. Eisenstein 2 August 2018 (NBC News) – The White House announced Thursday that it is moving ahead on its much-anticipated plan to roll back the fuel economy mandate set by the Obama administration. The previous guidelines, which were reached during Obama’s first term, call for automakers to each reach a fleet average […]
By Paul Nelson 30 July 2018 (Cascadia Magazine) – (For David McCloskey)Tahlequah is daughter of Princess Angelinebrother of Moby, sister to Kiki, motherto Notch. Her second offspring was notborn but born still and still un-named &un-numbered. For five days Tahlequahpushed her still-born calf around theSalish Sea, perhaps a hope that she’dnot be a parent to […]
1 August 2018 (CBC) – Members of a pod of endangered killer whales now appear to be taking turns floating the body of a newborn calf that died more than week ago.As It Happens reported on Friday about J-35, a mother orca from B.C.’s endangered killer whale population that has been balancing her dead calf […]
Dr. Jeff Masters 1 August 2018 (Weather Underground) – Wednesday, 1 August 2018, was the hottest day in Korean history, as a withering heat wave toppled all-time heat records throughout the peninsula. South Korea set a new all-time heat record of 41.0°C (105.8°F) at Hongcheon, a town in South Korea’s northeastern province of Gangwon. This […]
By Rachel Elbaum 1 August 2018 LONDON (NBC News) – Brown is the color of summer in northern Europe this year. Fields that are usually covered in lush green grass have now turned to dust, trees are shedding their leaves and animals eating dry hay or grain instead of grazing in pastures. Farmers in around […]
By Sarah Mervosh 1 August 2018 (The New York Times) – This whodunit begins on a beach in Mississippi, where a bottlenose dolphin turned up dead one day this spring. A man found the animal lying at the water’s edge in April and called the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, which responds to dolphin strandings […]
By Oliver Buckley 1 August 2018 (Sky News) – Earth Overshoot Day is the date when we have effectively consumed more resources than the planet can naturally replenish over the course of that entire year. The day has shown a trend for appearing earlier and earlier since its inception – and today marks its earliest […]
By Jessica Bruder 31 July 2018 (The New York Times) – In 2000, a doctor in the tiny town of St. Charles, Va., began writing alarmed letters to Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. The drug had come to market four years earlier and Art Van Zee had watched it ravage the state’s poorest county, […]
