Why have we done so little to tackle climate change? “In the end I did nothing just the same. And the same went for most everyone I knew.”

By Meara Sharma 6 April 2018 (The Washington Post) – A decade ago, the environmental philosopher Timothy Morton invented a new word: hyperobject. It describes something so “massively distributed in time and space relative to humans” that it eludes our understanding. The best example of a hyperobject is climate change. Its scale confounds our perception. […]

Human role in global warming censored from official National Park Service science report – “Censorship of this kind is something you’d see in Russia or some totalitarian regime. It has no place in America.”

By Elizabeth Shogren 2 April 2018 (Reveal) – National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not censoring science. The research for the […]

China is massively betting on coal outside its borders, even as investment falls globally

By Huileng Tan 6 April 2018 (CNBC) – Once globally vilified for extensive air pollution due to heavy coal usage, China now talks a big game about its environmental efforts after the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate pact.But, beyond its borders, the country has been the world’s biggest investor in coal power.”Chinese banks’ and […]

Particulate matter from California wildfires linked to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events – “It’s a local problem, but it’s also a national problem”

By L.A. McKeown 12 April 2018 (TCTMD) – New data show a surprising pattern of increased emergency department (ED) visits for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular problems on days when wildfires are burning in California. Researchers say the fine particulate matter created by the fires poses significant risk beyond the state’s borders, and in particular to people […]

Lloyd’s of London slumps to £2 billion loss over hurricanes and wildfires – 2017 was “the costliest year for a decade for natural catastrophes”

By Oliver Ralph 21 March 2018 (Financial Times) – Lloyd’s of London has reported its first loss in six years as a series of natural catastrophes took their toll on the insurance market.The underwriters at Lloyd’s faced claims for hurricanes in Florida and the Caribbean, earthquakes in Mexico and wildfires in California in what chief […]

Ocean heatwaves becoming longer and more frequent – “With more than 90 percent of the heat from human-caused global warming going into our oceans, it is likely marine heatwaves will continue to increase”

11 April 2018 (University of Tasmania) – An international study in Nature Communications co-authored by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes and the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) reveals that marine heatwaves have increased globally over the past century in number, length and intensity as a direct result of […]

How Trump favored Texas over Puerto Rico – “It was an absolute mess. No communication, no coordination, no chain of command, and certainly no reasonable plans given the magnitude of the problem.”

By Danny Vinik 27 March 2018 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Politico) – As Hurricane Maria unleashed its fury on Puerto Rico in mid-September, knocking out the island’s electrical system and damaging hundreds of thousands of homes, disaster recovery experts expected that only one man could handle the enormity of the task ahead: Mike Byrne. But […]

Blackout in Puerto Rico is now the second largest on record worldwide

12 April 2018 (Rhodium Group) – Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico more than six months ago, devastating the island’s economy and the electrical grid. Efforts to restore full electricity service continue. As of the beginning of this week, more than 100,000 Puerto Ricans were still without power. What was already the largest blackout […]

Another power outage hits Puerto Rico, leaving about 840,000 in the dark, officials say

By Marwa Eltagouri 12 April 2018 (The Washington Post) – About 840,000 people across Puerto Rico were without power Thursday as the U.S. territory continues to struggle after the damage caused by Hurricane Maria last fall, according to island’s Electric Power Authority.The power company, in tweets Thursday, said that a tree had fallen onto the […]

Study finds warning signs for mass extinction do exist, contrary to previous assumptions – “We should take these signs very seriously”

14 March 2018 (FAU) – Mass extinctions throughout the history of the Earth have been well documented. Scientists believe that they occurred during a short period of time in geological terms. In a new study, FAU palaeobiologists and their research partners have now shown that signs that the largest mass extinction event in the Earth’s […]

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