Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Map of the U.S. showing the Covid risk levels and vaccination percentages, per county, 4 August 2021. The counties with the lowest vaccination rates hanve the highest infection rates. The highest Covid risk levels are in Louisiana and Florida. Graphic: Covid Act Now

Graph of the Day: U.S. Covid vaccination rates and risk levels by county, 4 August 2021

4 August 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Republican election strategy became clearer today, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed exponential increases in Covid infection rates on immigrants at the Southern border, deflecting blame from the unvaccinated populations in Florida and other Republican-controlled states. This ridiculous idea is easily tested by examining the spatial distribution of case […]

Farmer Fernando Enriquez Sr. looks at one of the stunted, blistered red sweet onions in Walla Walla, Washington on 28 July 2021, after the unprecedented heatwave of June 2021 destroyed his crops. Photo: Greg Lehman / Walla Walla Union Bulletin

Record 2021 heatwave cooked Walla Walla sweet onions to mush – “It’s unprecedented. It’s just never that hot at the beginning of June.”

By Emry Dinman 3 August 2021 (The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin) – In June 2021, as the sun baked the ground, harvest began at Enriquez Farms, a midsized operation in Walla Walla specializing in the region’s famous sweet onions. Up to that point, the alliums had thrived in the warm weather, and Fernando Enriquez Sr., the […]

Screenshot from “Honest Government: Ad Hotel Quarantine and Vaccines” by The Juice Media, 30 July 2021. Shown are headlines describing how experts are calling for urgent action on Covid hotel quarantine in Australia. Photo: The Juice Media

Honest Government Ad: Hotel Quarantine and Vaccines in Australia – “You can eat a bag of dicks”

30 July 2021 (The Juice Media) – Hello, I’m from the Australien Government. Many of you are wondering, how did we manage to go from Zero Covid and being the envy of the world to being an experiment in what happens when the Delta variant rips through an unvaccinated population? Well, it wasn’t easy – […]

Daily hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in Florida, 1 August 2021. On Sunday, Florida broke a previous record for the most COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., just one day after the state registered its highest single-day COVID-19 case number. Graphic: Covid Act Now

Florida breaks record for COVID-19 hospitalizations, a day after reporting most new cases – Dr. Fauci says more “pain and suffering” ahead as Delta variant burns through unvaccinated population

By Natalie Colarossi 1 August 2021 (Newsweek) – Florida on Sunday broke a previous record for the most COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., just one day after the state registered its highest single-day COVID-19 case number. Florida now has 10,207 people hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus cases, a number that surpasses a previous record the state […]

Firefighters try to get a wildfire under control in Kirli village near the town of Manavgat, in Antalya province, Turkey, early Friday, 30 July 2021. Photo: AP Photo

Eight dead as wildfires sweep Turkey, force tourists to flee beach resorts – “The animals are on fire”

By Gul Tuysuz and Arwa Damon 1 August 2021 MANAVGAT, Turkey (CNN) – In the small village of Kacarlar, on Turkey’s southern coast, farmers are facing apocalyptic scenes as wildfires continue to sweep the country. “The animals are on fire,” 56-year-old resident, Muzeyyan Kacar, told CNN. “Everything is going to burn. Our land, our animals, […]

Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician in Cape Coral, Florida, is a key figure in the “Disinformation Dozen” spreading anti-vaccine messaging. Photo: Mercola​

The Disinformation Dozen: 12 people are the source for 65 percent of anti-vaccine propaganda – “In full view of the public on the internet is a small group of individuals who do not have relevant medical expertise and have their own pockets to line”

By Sheera Frenkel 24 July 2021 SAN FRANCISCO (The New York Times) – The article that appeared online on 9 February 2021 began with a seemingly innocuous question about the legal definition of vaccines. Then over its next 3,400 words, it declared coronavirus vaccines were “a medical fraud” and said the injections did not prevent infections, provide immunity, […]

Time series of climate-related responses to anthropogenic drivers, 1990-2020. Out of the 31 tracked planetary vital signs, 18 were at new all-time record lows or highs in 2020. Data obtained before and after the publication of Ripple and colleagues (2020) are shown in gray and red respectively. For variables with relatively high variability, local regression trend lines are shown in black. The variables were measured at various frequencies (e.g., annual, monthly, weekly). The labels on the x-axis correspond to midpoints of years. Sources and additional details about each variable are provided in the supplemental material. Graphic: Ripple, et al., 2021 / BioScience

World scientists’ warning of a climate emergency 2021 – Humans face untold suffering from “the consequences of unrelenting business as usual”

28 July 2021 (BioScience) – In 2019, Ripple and colleagues (2020) warned of untold suffering and declared a climate emergency together with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from 153 countries. They presented graphs of planetary vital signs indicating very troubling trends, along with little progress by humanity to address climate change. On the basis of […]

Map showing rainfall anomalies (percentage) for seasons of 2020 in the UK. This was the fifth wettest year for UK in a series from 1862, and the wettest year since 2000. It was a particularly wet year across parts of north-west England and south-west Scotland which received more than 125% of average fairly widely, and some locations recorded more than 135% of average. Winter refers to the period December 2019 to February 2020. Note that winter 2021 (December 2020 to February 2021) will appear in State of the UK Climate 2021. Graphic: Met Office

Climate change continued across the UK in 2020 – 2020 was the first year that rainfall, temperature, and sunshine values all were in the top ten in the same year

By Karen Graham 29 July 2021 (Digital Journal) – The United Kingdom’s climate has continued to warm, with the decade 2011–2020 providing a 10-year “snapshot” of the most recent of the UK’s climate events and how this compares to historical records. According to the Met Office, The Royal Meteorological Society’s latest analysis of the UK climate – […]

COVID-19 daily confirmed new cases in Florida, January 2020 - July 2021 (7-day moving average). Florida exceeded its previous peak in daily cases on 26 July 2021, as Gov. DeSantis downplayed the severity of the outbreak and told healthcare professionals that he will oppose any mask mandate for students. Graphic: Johns Hopkins University

Florida hits Covid daily case record as Gov. DeSantis downplays outbreak

27 July 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Florida broke its COVID-19 daily-case record on Monday, exceeding the previous peak in January 2021. Hospitalizations hit the highest number since February 2021. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has downplayed the outbreak and told healthcare professionals that he opposes any mask mandate for students. Florida saw more than 18,200 new […]

Indian National Disaster Response Force personnel rescue people from areas inundated with floodwaters on 26 July 2021 in Maharashtra state, India. Photo: National Disaster Response Force / EPA-EFE

India begins landslide, flood clean-up as deadly monsoon rains ease – “We’ve seen floods before in 1965 and 2005, but this was worse than before”

26 July 2021 (AFP) – Rescuers waded through waist-deep mud in western India Monday to reach injured residents and start a massive clean-up after heavy monsoon rains triggered landslides and floods that killed 159 people. India’s western coast was hit by severe rainstorms over several days, with a quarter of a million people evacuated from […]

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