U.S. owns 700 million barrels of oil. Trump wants to sell it.

By Catherine Traywick and Dan Murtaugh 21 July 2017(Bloomberg) – The weather was hot and humid on 21 July 1977, the day the U.S. government began stockpiling oil. It started small. Just 412,000 barrels of Saudi Arabian light crude stashed in a Southeast Texas salt cavern. In the wake of the Arab oil embargo, which […]

The Uninhabitable Earth, Annotated Edition

By David Wallace-Wells14 July 2017(New York Magazine) – We published “The Uninhabitable Earth” on Sunday night, and the response since has been extraordinary — both in volume (it is already the most-read article in New York Magazine’s history) and in kind. Within hours, the article spawned a fleet of commentary across newspapers, magazines, blogs, and […]

2016 saw a record 200 killings of people defending their land, forests, and rivers against destructive industries

13 July 2017 (Global Witness) – It has never been deadlier to take a stand against companies that steal land and destroy the environment. Our new report Defenders of the Earth found that nearly four people were murdered every week in 2016 protecting their land and the natural world from industries like mining, logging and […]

Climate change-induced migration from Central America

By Stephanie Leutert 21 June 2017 (Lawfare) – Last Thursday and Friday, the United States and Mexico co-hosted top officials from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and other countries for the “Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America.” As the name suggests, the gathering aimed to spur a wide-ranging conversation for improving the region’s economic […]

Children in West and Central Africa moving in greater numbers than ever before – More than seven million children uprooted from their homes each year due to violence, poverty, and global warming

5 July 2017 (United Nations) – With more than seven million children in West and Central Africa uprooted from their homes each year due to violence, poverty, and climate change, and projections that this number will continue to rise, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for greater efforts to ensure that migrant and […]

Mexico’s violent drug war roars back: 11,155 killed so far in 2017

By Robbie Whelan 5 July 2017 CHIHUAHUA, Mexico (The Wall Street Journal) – On the morning of March 23, gunmen here fired eight shots into a cherry-red Renault Duster SUV, killing newspaper reporter Miroslava Breach as she waited outside her home to drive her 14-year-old son, Carlos, to school.A hand-painted sign at the scene said […]

Lake Tanganyika hit by global warming, overfishing, and refugees

16 June 2017 (BBC) – Millions of people rely on Lake Tanganyika for their livelihoods. But the second largest lake in Africa is in crisis. It is suffering from the effects of climate change, over-fishing, and deforestation and has been nominated by the Global Nature Fund as the “most threatened lake of the year”. The […]

Global narcotics market “thriving” – range of available drugs diversifying at alarming pace – UN

22 June 2017 (United Nations) – Of the quarter of a billion people who used drugs in 2015, about 29.5 million – or 0.6 per cent of the global adult population – were engaged in “problematic use” and suffered from drug use disorders, including dependence, according to report out today from the United Nations drugs […]

Brazil: Increase in number indigenous activists killed as political crisis threatens Amazon – “The situation in the country is deteriorating”

By Joe Sandler Clarke and Sam Cowie 5 June 2017(Energydesk) – There has been a significant increase in the number of indigenous people and environmental activists killed over land disputes in Brazil, as human rights experts warn of a dangerous political mood in the nation. New research shared with Energydesk by Brazilian human rights NGO […]

Violence and persecution uprooted record 65.6 million people in 2016, UN agency reports – “By any measure this is an unacceptable number”

19 June 2017 (United Nations) – Nearly 66 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes last year, the United Nation refugee agency today reported, stressing the “very high” pace at which conflict and persecution is forcing people to flee their homes. The figure equates to “one person displaced every three seconds – less than […]

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