Blogging the End of the World™
(World Bank) – The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies over the period 1996–2013, for six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability Political Stability and Absence of Violence Government Effectiveness Regulatory Quality Rule of Law Control of Corruption These aggregate indicators combine the views of a large […]
Extreme weather events dominated doom imagery in 2014. The California mega-drought was the big global warming story; assorted record flooding in various locations punctuated the background. The Philippines endured another brutal typhoon season, and Alaska experienced its most powerful storm on record. The usual Desdemona stories rolled on, as humans continued to destroy the natural […]
By Javier Panzar 2 January 2014 (Los Angeles Times) – The carcasses of thousands of small birds called Cassin’s auklets have been washing ashore over the last few months from Northern California up to the north coast of Washington. Scientists along the Pacific Coast have been trying to determine what is causing the large die-off […]
By David Beniuk4 January 2015 (The Mercury) – SEA Shepherd activists are vowing to tail Antarctica’s most wanted illegal fishing vessel until it is forced into port and its crew arrested. Bob Barker skipper Peter Hammarstedt says his vessel has enough fuel to outlast the Nigerian-flagged Thunder, which is wanted by Interpol and black-listed by […]
From charismatic megafauna to insect pollinators, 2014 was a bad year for wildlife. The London Zoological Society updated the Living Planet Index and found that during the 40 years from 1970 to 2010, more than half of vertebrate species, and more than three-quarters of freshwater species, met their end. Stanford biology professor Rodolfo Dirzo calls […]
By Bob Weber10 December 2014 (The Canadian Press) – Recently released documents indicate the federal government has reservations about restricting international trade in endangered species — more of them than almost any other government on Earth. The papers show that Canada has opted out of nearly every resolution to protect endangered species taken at last […]
By Dr. Jeff Masters23 December 2014 (wunderground.com) – #1: Earth Likely Had Its Warmest Year on Record The year 2014 has made it very apparent that global warming has not stopped, as the year-to-date-period January – November 2014 was Earth’s warmest such period since record keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data […]
By Satish Cheney27 December 2014 (AFP) – Rescue teams struggled Saturday to reach inundated areas of northeast Malaysia as victims accused the government of being slow to provide assistance after the country’s worst flooding in decades. Malaysians have vented their anger at Prime Minister Najib Razak after the release of photos which went viral on […]
9 December 2014 (OECD) – The gap between rich and poor is at its highest level in most OECD countries in 30 years. Today, the richest 10% of the population in the OECD area earn 9.5 times more than the poorest 10%. By contrast, in the 1980s the ratio stood at 7:1. The average incomes […]
By COREY WILLIAMS21 December 2014 DETROIT (Associated Press) – Bankruptcy behind it, Detroit’s atmosphere swirls with the promise of better days. Charles Floyd Jones can only hope that the city’s good fortune trickles down to him and the 10 other residents of a tent city that’s sprouted in the shadow of a resurgent downtown where […]
