corruption – Page 27 – Desdemona Despair

George Luber spoke at Monsanto Auditorium about the health threats of climate change at the MU Life Sciences & Society Program’s 12th annual symposium, “Confronting Climate Change,” held on 12 March 2016 in the Bond Life Sciences Center. Photo: Bond Life Sciences Center

August 15, 2019

U.S. scientist to file whistleblower complaint after agency halts his climate work – “As our climate spins out of control, bureaucrats eager to please the Trump administration have worked feverishly to destroy the reputations of climate scientists who stand in its way”

By Timothy Gardner 15 August 2019 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A climate scientist for the Trump administration’s health protection agency who was ordered to drop work on climate issues will file a whistleblower complaint this week with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, his lawyers said on Wednesday. George Luber, who ran the climate and health […]

Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience in Paolo VI hall at the Vatican on 7 Aug 2019. Photo: Maurizio Brambatti / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock

August 15, 2019

Pope Francis again warns against nationalism, says recent speeches sound like “Hitler in 1934”, fears “devastation of nature that can lead to the death of humanity”

By Siobhán O’Grady 9 August 2019 (The Washington Post) – Pope Francis called for a united Europe in an interview published by Italian daily La Stampa on Friday, saying recent political rhetoric has echoed that of Nazi Germany. “I am concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934,” he said. “ ‘Us […]

Dead fish lie on the parched bed of the Chembarambakkam reservoir in India, 19 May 2019. Photo: The News Minute

August 14, 2019

Amid drought, plants in Chennai guzzle 21 million liters of groundwater per day – “We are moving towards a groundwater disaster. On one hand, the surface water resources are being destroyed, and on the other groundwater resources are being over-exploited.”

By Yogesh Kabirdoss 22 July 2019 CHENNAI (TNN) – Drought-prone Tamil Nadu has the highest number of licensed packaged drinking water and carbonated beverages units in the country. These water-guzzling plants operating in and around Chennai draw at least 21 million litres of water every day. For the record, water-starved Tamil Nadu has 40 percent […]

Media article co-visibility network-individual level. Clustered representation of the co-visibility network: nodes are climate change contrarians (CCCs) and climate change scientists (CCSs) who have at least one media article associated with at least one other individual. Links are colored according to three types: links between members of the CCC (CCS) group are red (blue) and links between groups are black; the percentages of links by type are reported in parentheses (e.g., 52 percent of links are within the CCC group). We used a modularity-maximizing clustering algorithm48 to identify three communities, with nodes ordered along each spine according to its network centrality—as such, the most prominent individuals are located at the apex. Two communities are well mixed, whereas the third represents an extremely polarized echo chamber comprised primarily of CCC. (inset) Magnification of the apex showing the most prominent individuals. Graphic: Peterson, et al., 2019 / Nature Communications

August 14, 2019

Media coverage creates false balance on climate science, study shows – “Climate change contrarians” receive 49 percent more media coverage than scientists

By Lorena Anderson 13 August 2019 (UC Merced) – The American media lends too much weight to people who dismiss climate change, giving them legitimacy they haven’t earned, posing serious danger to efforts aimed at raising public awareness and motivating rapid action, a new study shows. While it is not uncommon for media outlets to […]

A bald eagle, one of the Endangered Species Act’s success stories, near Castle Dale, Utah. Photo: Brandon Thibodeaux / The New York Times

August 12, 2019

Trump Administration weakens protections for endangered species – “If we make decisions based on short-term economic costs, we’re going to have a whole lot more extinct species”

By Lisa Friedman 12 August 2019 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would change the way the Endangered Species Act is applied, significantly weakening the nation’s bedrock conservation law credited with rescuing the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the American alligator from extinction. The changes could […]

Aerial view of Bristol Bay, Alaska. A controversial mining project that was all but killed by the Obama administration is now moving forward under President Trump's EPA. Photo: Jason Ching / CNN

August 11, 2019

EPA dropped salmon protection after Trump met with Alaska governor – Scientists dumbfounded at gold mine approval that will cause “complete loss of fish habitat” – “We were told to get out of the way and just make it happen”

By Scott Bronstein, Curt Devine, Drew Griffin, and Ashley Hackett 9 August 2019 (CNN) – The Environmental Protection Agency told staff scientists that it was no longer opposing a controversial Alaska mining project that could devastate one of the world’s most valuable wild salmon fisheries just one day after President Trump met with Alaska’s governor, […]

A thermometer show the temperature of over 40 degrees at the Volklingen Ironworks in Volklingen, Germany on 24 July 2019. Photo: Harald Tittel / AFP / Getty Images

August 11, 2019

AccuWeather misleads on global warming and heat waves, a throwback to its past climate denial

By Jason Samenow and Andrew Freedman 9 August 2019 (The Washington Post) – A week after a punishing heat wave torched the eastern two-thirds of the country, setting numerous records, AccuWeather chief executive Joel Myers cast doubt on the scientific finding that heat waves in the United States and elsewhere are worsening because of climate change. […]

Targets of violent extremists in the U.S. in 2018. The largest percentage of attacks was against African Americans (“Black People”). Graphic: New Jersey Office of Homeland Security Preparedness (NJOHSP)

August 10, 2019

Here’s the data on U.S. white supremacist terrorism the Trump administration has been “unable or unwilling” to give to Congress

By Jana Winter and Hunter Walker 8 August 2019 WASHINGTON (Yahoo News) – Alleged white supremacists were responsible for all race-based domestic terrorism incidents in 2018, according to a government document distributed earlier this year to state, local and federal law enforcement. The document, which has not been previously reported on, becomes public as the […]

U.S. Army Major General John King surveys flood damage from Hurricane Florence on 20 September 2018 in Lillington, North Carolina. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

July 31, 2019

White House blocked report on climate change and national security – “Politics intruded on science and intelligence. That’s why I quit my job as an analyst for the State Department.”

By Rod Schoonover 30 July 2019 (The New York Times) – Ten years ago, I left my job as a tenured university professor to work as an intelligence analyst for the federal government, primarily in the State Department but with an intervening tour at the National Intelligence Council. My focus was on the impact of […]

IBAMA environmental agency agents investigate illegal deforestation in Jamanxim National Forest in Pará state, Brazil. Photo: Mongabay

July 30, 2019

Brazil’s Amazon deforestation surge is real, despite President Bolsonaro’s denial – Brazil environmental agencies and deforestation controls “effectively dismantled”

By Philip M. Fearnside 29 July 2019 (Mongabay) – Brazil’s Amazonian deforestation in June 2019 was 88 percent greater than for the same month in 2018, and deforestation in the first half of July was 68 percent above that for the entire month of July in 2018. There is no reason to question INPE’s current deforestation numbers from the DETER (Detection […]