Blogging the End of the World™
By Daniel Bases, with additional reporting by Nick Brown and Jessica Resnick-Ault; Editing by Leslie Adler and Clive McKeef 22 January 2018 NEW YORK (Reuters) – Puerto Rico’s governor said on Monday he intends to sell off its troubled power utility to the private sector, saying the process could take roughly 18 months to complete.The […]
20 January 2018 (BBC News) – Thai police have arrested a man alleged to be the head of Asia’s biggest illegal wildlife trading networks. Boonchai Bach, a 40-year-old Thai of Vietnamese origin, was detained in a town on the border with Laos. He faces up to four years in jail for smuggling protected animal parts […]
9 January 2018 (EIA) – Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions: EIA estimates that energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide decreased by 1.0% in 2017 and forecasts these levels to increase by 1.7% in 2018 and by 0.2% in 2019. These forecasts are sensitive to assumptions about weather, economic growth, and fuel prices. EIA: Short-term Energy Outlook 2018
By Chris Mooney 18 January 2018 (The Washington Post) – 2017 was among the hottest years ever recorded, government scientists reported Thursday. The year was the second-hottest in recorded history, NASA said, while scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported 2017 was the third-warmest they have ever recorded. The two government agencies use […]
By Michael J. Abramowitz 18 January 2018 (Freedom House) – Political rights and civil liberties around the world deteriorated to their lowest point in more than a decade in 2017, extending a period characterized by emboldened autocrats, beleaguered democracies, and the United States’ withdrawal from its leadership role in the global struggle for human freedom. […]
By Juliet Eilperin 16 January 2018 (The Washington Post) – Three-quarters of the members of a federally chartered board advising the National Park Service abruptly quit Monday night out of frustration that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had refused to meet with them or convene a single meeting last year.The resignation of nine out of 12 […]
A man burns old palm fruit from a palm oil plantation in Cameroon. Photo: Go Forth FilmsThe big stories of 2017 clustered into five categories: Donald Trump and the capture of the U.S. government by fossil fuel interests; The destruction of Puerto Rico and its subsequent abandonment by the U.S. government [UPDATE: not quite abandoned […]
By Dale White and Dinah Voyles Pulver 7 January 2018 GAINESVILLE, Florida (The Gainesville Sun) – What do St. Augustine’s Castillo de San Marcos and Egmont Key near Tampa have in common? They are two of thousands of Florida’s heritage sites that are vulnerable to rising seas. “Jupiter Lighthouse, Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, […]
By Aleksandra Pajda 4 January 2018 (One Green Planet) – On Greta Beach, Christmas Island, a staggering sight was caught by an environmental scholar and shared by PTS Our Island. A mother turtle who returned to her place of birth to lay eggs found herself amongst a sea of garbage. Surrounded by the plastic trash […]
4 January 2018 (SERC) – In the past 50 years, the amount of water in the open ocean with zero oxygen has gone up more than fourfold. In coastal water bodies, including estuaries and seas, low-oxygen sites have increased more than 10-fold since 1950. Scientists expect oxygen to continue dropping even outside these zones as […]
