Desdemona Despair – Page 9 – Blogging the End of the World™

A member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) posing after covering Claude Monet’s painting Les Coquelicots at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France with a sticker. In the video she said of the poster covering Monet’s art that “this nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place”. Photo: Roberta Fumagalli / AFP

June 1, 2024

Climate activist defaces Monet painting in Paris – “This nightmarish image awaits us if no alternative is put in place”

1 June 2024 (AFP) – A climate activist has been arrested for sticking an adhesive poster on a Monet painting at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to draw attention to global heating, a police source said. The action by the woman, a member of Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) – a group of environmental activists and […]

A soldier removes the body of a howler monkey that died amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, 21 May 2024. Photo: Luis Sanchez / AP Photo

June 1, 2024

It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees – “They were falling out of the trees like apples”

By Mark Stevenson 21 May 2024 (MEXICO CITY) – It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees. At least 138 of the midsize primates, who are known for their roaring vocal calls, were found dead in the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco since May 16, according to the Biodiversity […]

A man stands near his home looking at a street he says has been flooded for months, on Thursday, 7 December 2023, in Prichard, Alabama. Water bubbles up in streets, pooling in neighborhoods for weeks or months. Homes burn to the ground if firefighters can’t draw enough water from hydrants. Utility crews struggle to fix broken pipes while water flows through shut-off valves that don’t work. Photo: Brynn Anderson / AP Photo

June 1, 2024

Trillions of gallons leak from aging drinking water systems, further stressing shrinking U.S. cities – “It’s a huge problem because infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating”

By Tammy Webber 4 March 2024 PRICHARD, Alabama (AP) – Water bubbles up in streets, pooling in neighborhoods for weeks or months. Homes burn to the ground if firefighters can’t draw enough water from hydrants. Utility crews struggle to fix broken pipes while water flows through shut-off valves that don’t work. For generations, the water […]

Researchers Peter Hotez (centre) and Tara Kirk Sell (right) at a congressional hearing in 2020. Photo: Sarah Silbiger / Bloomberg / Getty

June 1, 2024

Harassment of scientists is surging, and institutions aren’t sure how to help – “This is a very powerful adversarial force that is seeking to undermine science, and now it’s not only going after the science. It’s going after the scientists.”

By Bianca Nogrady 21 May 2024 (Nature) – As a vocal advocate of vaccinations for public health, Peter Hotez was no stranger to online harassment and threats. But then the abuse showed up on his doorstep. It was a Sunday during a brutal Texas heatwave in June 2023 when a man turned up at Hotez’s […]

Aerial view showing houses destroyed by rising sea levels and coastal erosion associated with climate change, in the community of El Bosque in Nuevo Centla, Tabasco state, Mexico. About 700 people once lived in El Bosque, which sits on a small peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of Mexico. According to environmental group Greenpeace, El Bosque is the first community in Mexico to be officially recognised as displaced by climate change. Photo: Yuri Cortez / AFP

June 1, 2024

Submerged homes and heatwaves fuel Mexico climate angst – “We hear about climate change all the time but we never thought that it would come to us”

28 May 2024 (Al Jazeera) – Waves wash over abandoned homes in a Mexican village slowly being swallowed by the sea; a symbol of the climate change effects being felt by the major fossil fuel producer. The school where Adrian Perez used to attend classes in the community of El Bosque in the southern state […]

A screenshot from a CBC video shows a girl in Sheikpura, India suffering from record-breaking heat on 29 May 2024. In the northeast of India, students fainted from the heat in their classrooms. Photo: CBC

June 1, 2024

Animals collapse, water shortages bite amid India’s searing heat – “I haven’t seen it so hot in 56 years”

By Sakshi Dayal, Tanvi Mehta, and Anushree Fadnavis 31 May 2024 NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Animals collapsed, people jumped on water tankers with buckets amid shortages, and government employees changed their work hours as blistering summer heat kept its grip on north India on Thursday. Although Thursday’s readings were marginally lower in Delhi than the […]

Map showing additional days with temperatures above the 90th percentile in the current climate over 15 May 2023 to 15 May 2024, added by the burning of fossil fuels. Produced 21 May 2024. Graphic: Climate Central

June 1, 2024

Global warming added a month’s worth of extra-hot days between 2023 and 2024 – “That’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on people. It’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on nature.”

By Raymond Zhong 28 May 2024 (The New York Times) – Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said Tuesday [Climate change and the escalation of global extreme heat […]

Heat-related deaths in the U.S., 1979-2023. A heat wave in July of 2023 contributed to a higher recorded death toll — about 2,300 people in total — than historic heat waves in 1980 and 1995. Data: National Center for Health Statistics, CDC Wonder. Graphic: M.K. Wildeman / AP

June 1, 2024

2023 set record for U.S. heat deaths, killing in areas that used to handle the heat – “We can be confident saying that 2023 was the worst year we’ve had since we’ve started having reliable reporting on that”

By Seth Borenstein, Mary Katherine Wildeman, and Anita Snow 31 May 2024 (AP) – David Hom suffered from diabetes and felt nauseated before he went out to hang his laundry in 108-degree weather, another day in Arizona’s record-smashing, unrelenting July heat wave. His family found the 73-year-old lying on the ground, his lower body burned. Hom […]

Map showing maximum temperatures in India during the period 16 May 2024 through 25 May 2024. Parts of Rajasthan, Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and west Haryana experienced maximum temperature in the range of 45°C to 48°C. Punjab, Delhi NCR, and Uttar Pradesh experienced between 43-46°C. Graphic: Navdeep Dahiya

May 30, 2024

“Unbearable” heat in Delhi is testing limits of human survival – “The rise in temperatures comes alongside water shortages, and together are making many areas simply unlivable”

By Karishma Mehrotra and Dan Stillman 29 May 2024 DELHI (The Washington Post) – India’s capital territory of Delhi experienced some of its hottest weather on record Tuesday and Wednesday, with highs in some neighborhoods near the landmark threshold of 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). The exceptional heat has closed schools, endangered outdoor workers, […]

Overdose deaths in Baltimore, 1993-2022. Baltimore’s fatal overdose rate has quadrupled since 2013. It dipped in 2022, but preliminary data for 2023, not shown here, indicates overdoses were on track to rise again. Data: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Graphic: Molly Cook Escobar / The New York Times

May 29, 2024

Almost 6,000 dead in 6 years: How Baltimore became the U.S. overdose capital – “Unprecedented in the city’s history”

By Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme, and Jessica Gallagher 23 May 2024 (The New York Times) – People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city. In the past six years, nearly 6,000 lives have been lost. The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly […]