By Sofia Chaava, Matthew Grimson, and Ian Sherwood14 June 2015 (NBC News) – Georgia mobilized its special forces on Sunday and warned residents in the capital not to leave their homes after lions, tigers and bears — among other animals — escaped during floods that have claimed at least 11 lives. Heavy rains and […]
By PATRICK BOEHLER and SERGIO PEÇANHA 8 June 2015 (The New York Times) – Eleven million people were uprooted by violence last year, most were propelled by conflict in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, and Afghanistan. Conflict and extreme poverty have also pushed tens of thousands out of parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Here’s a […]
By Alister Doyle and Geert De Clercq, with additional reporting by Michel Rose and Jessica Chen; Editing by Ahmed Aboulenein and Pravin Char21 May 2015 PARIS (Reuters) – Top European companies urged governments on Thursday to set a goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero well before 2100, saying that going green can […]
[To my eyechrometer, it looks like progress halted in 2009. It’s possible that this curve has bottomed out, and Germany can’t reduce carbon emissions further without restarting its nuclear plants. –Des] 21 May 2015 (Carbon Counter) – Some of us are slow learners. In 2011, Germany made the decision to shut 8 nuclear reactors and […]
Paris, 21 May 2015 (AFP) – The gap between the rich and poor in most of the world’s advanced economies is at record levels, according to an OECD study that also found glaring differences between men and women. In most of the 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development the income gap […]
Incendio en una zona montañosa de Alicante By HAROLD HECKLE15 May 2015 MADRID (Associated Press) – Sunny Spain and Portugal are seeing record high temperatures for May, hitting levels normally only reached in mid-summer. Up to 20 Spanish cities have been hit by scorching temperatures and several regional governments are worried about the effects the […]
By Richard Marsden11 May 2015 (Daily Mail) – English wine production soared to a record 6.3 million bottles last year – buoyed by climate change. Vintners say similar conditions now exist in England to those in parts of France ten to 20 years ago, allowing types of grapes such as chardonnay and pinot noir – […]
By John R. Platt 7 May 2015 (Takepart) – For the first time, plastic particles have been found in the stomachs of tuna and other fish that are a staple of the human diet. More than 18 percent of sampled bluefin, albacore, and swordfish caught in the Mediterranean Sea and tested in 2012 and 2013 […]
February 2015 (McKinsey Global Institute) – A new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, Debt and (not much) deleveraging [pdf], examines the evolution of debt across 47 countries—22 advanced and 25 developing—and assesses the implications of higher leverage in the global economy and in specific sectors and countries. The analysis, which follows our July 2011 report […]
By Chelsea Harvey4 May 2015 (Washington Post) – When it comes to combating climate change, many scientists and policy makers focus on one major goal: cut carbon emissions enough to keep the planet’s average surface temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial level. But a new analysis [pdf], published on Monday […]
