Blogging the End of the World™
By Ephrat Livni 1 August 2017 (Quartz) – The American Civil Liberties Union isn’t exactly known for its sense of humor. But on 1 August 2017, the defenders of free speech filed a jocular amicus brief in perhaps the most comical case of 2017, a year that’s proving pretty amusing for US courts.Still, the organization […]
5 August 2017 (BBC News) – The Trump administration has issued its first written notification that the US intends to withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement. But in the notice to the United Nations the US state department said Washington would remain in the talks process.President Donald Trump drew international condemnation in June when […]
By Damian Carrington 4 August 2017 (The Guardian) – Cars must be driven out of cities to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, not just replaced with electric vehicles, according to the UK government’s top adviser. Prof Frank Kelly said that while electric vehicles emit no exhaust fumes, they still produce large amounts of tiny […]
By Damian Carrington 2 August 2017 (The Guardian) – Extreme heatwaves that kill even healthy people within hours will strike parts of the Indian subcontinent unless global carbon emissions are cut sharply and soon, according to new research. Even outside of these hotspots, three-quarters of the 1.7 billion population – particularly those farming in the Ganges […]
By Kathleen Maclay 31 July 2017 (Berkeley News) – Climate change has already caused more than 59,000 suicides in India over the last 30 years, according to estimates in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that suggests failing harvests that push farmers into poverty are likely the […]
By Jim Shelton 31 July 2017 (Yale News) – Arctic sea ice is not merely a passive responder to the climate changes occurring around the world, according to new research.Scientists at Yale University and the University of Southampton say the ongoing Arctic ice loss can play an active role in altering one of the planet’s […]
By David G. Victor, Keigo Akimoto, Yoichi Kaya, Mitsutsune Yamaguchi, Danny Cullenward, and Cameron Hepburn 1 August 2017 (Nature) – Beyond US President Donald Trump’s decision in June to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a more profound challenge to the global climate pact is emerging. No major advanced industrialized country […]
4 August 2017 (Washington Department of Ecology) – Air monitors around Washington state are lighting up the maps like a Christmas tree – and red lights aren’t good. Almost every community in the state has been hit hard by smoke blowing in from British Columbia wildfires. You can see it, you can almost reach […]
By Lorenzo Zazueta-Castro 4 August 2017 (The Monitor) – Six Democratic Congressmen expressed concern in a letter addressed to the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security about the expected border wall construction at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.The congressmen expressed concern on the heels of news that DHS would be waiving environmental […]
By Jacqueline Thomsen 1 August 2017 (The Hill) – A top Environmental Protection Agency official resigned Tuesday in protest of the direction the EPA has taken under President Trump.Elizabeth “Betsy” Southerland ended her 30-year run at the agency with a scathing exit letter in which she claimed that “the environmental field is suffering from the […]
