Graph of the Day – Page 65 – Desdemona Despair

Traffic moves past a gas station during a blackout in Calistoga, California on 24 October 2019. Photo: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg

October 25, 2019

PG&E warns of largest intentional blackout ever as windstorm approaches – “The upcoming wind event has the potential to be one of the strongest in the last several years”

By David R Baker and Mark Chediak 25 October 2019 (Bloomberg) – PG&E Corp. warned it will shut off power again on Saturday to as many as 2.5 million people as violent winds batter the state — in what will be California’s largest intentional blackout ever. The outages will impact up to 850,000 homes and businesses […]

Map of Zimbabwe showing the Acute Food Insecurity Phase for June 2019 to September 2019 and October 2019 to January 2020. Graphic: FEWS NET

October 22, 2019

“It’s a nightmare”: Zimbabwe struggles with hyperinflation – Extreme poverty surges to 34 percent as 1 million more added to poor bracket – “People should brace for worse”

By Alois Vinga 18 October 2019 (New Zimbabwe) – Extreme poverty in Zimbabwe has risen to 34 percent, with 1 million more citizens now added to the existing 4.7 million, World Bank (WB) said in a recent Poverty and Equity brief. The global lender said there has been a significant growth in the country’s poverty […]

This animation shows Arctic sea ice decline from 1979 to 2019 from pink to purple, with dark purple in 2019. This animation is based on the Chartic Interactive Sea Ice Graph. Graphic: M. Scott / NSIDC

October 19, 2019

Falling up: A look back at the 2019 Arctic summer – New record daily lows for sea ice extent in July and early August

3 October 2019 (NSIDC) – Arctic sea ice began its autumn regrowth in the last 12 days of September, with the ice edge expanding along a broad front in the western Arctic Ocean. Overall, the summer of 2019 was exceptionally warm, with repeated pulses of very warm air from northern Siberia and the Bering Strait. […]

In Doha, Qatar, Fans equipped with misters blow moist air on evening diners who sit beside cooling units. Overnight lows rarely dip below 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. Photo: Salwan Georges / The Washington Post

October 19, 2019

Facing unbearable heat, Qatar has begun to air-condition the outdoors – “The Persian Gulf is a prophecy of what’s to come”

By Steven Mufson 16 October 2019 DOHA, Qatar (The Washington Post) – It was 116 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade outside the new Al Janoub soccer stadium, and the air felt to air-conditioning expert Saud Ghani as if God had pointed “a giant hair dryer” at Qatar. Yet inside the open-air stadium, a cool breeze was blowing. […]

$Total fossil fuel financing by investment banks in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The financing has been led by the Wall Street giant JPMorgan Chase, which has provided $75 billion (£61 billion) to companies expanding in sectors such as fracking and Arctic oil and gas exploration. Graphic: RAN$

October 18, 2019

Top investment banks provide $713 billion to expand fossil fuel industry since Paris climate change agreement – “We can all sit around pointing fingers at each other, but that doesn’t help solve what is a really complex and multifaceted problem”

By Patrick Greenfield 13 October 2019 (The Guardian) – The world’s largest investment banks have provided more than $700 billion of financing for the fossil fuel companies most aggressively expanding in new coal, oil and gas projects since the Paris climate change agreement, figures show. The financing has been led by the Wall Street giant […]

Statewide rankings for average temperature and precipitation for September 2019 compared to each September since records began in 1895. Graphic: NOAA / NCEI

October 16, 2019

September 2019 hottest on record globally, second hottest in U.S. history – All-time record for 12-month rainfall in U.S.

5 October 2019 (Copernicus Climate Change Service) – In Europe, temperatures were above average over most of the continent, especially in the south and south-east. Below-average temperatures occurred over much of Norway and Sweden, and over the far east of the continent. Globally September 2019 was 0.57°C warmer than the average September from 1981-2010, making […]

The pattern of normalized relative sea-level (RSL) from Glacial Isostatic Adjustement (GIA) simulations of a 20-m rise in eustatic sea level (ESL). Graphic: Grant, et al., 2019 / Nature

October 14, 2019

If warming exceeds 2°C, Antarctica’s melting ice sheets could raise seas 20 meters in coming centuries

By Georgia Rose Grant and Timothy Naish 2 October 2019 (The Conversation) – We know that our planet has experienced warmer periods in the past, during the Pliocene geological epoch around three million years ago. Our research, published today, shows that up to one third of Antarctica’s ice sheet melted during this period, causing sea levels to rise […]

Global variability in nature’s contributions to people, for water quality regulation, coastal risk reduction, and crop pollination. Graphic: Chaplin-Kramer, et al., 2019 / Science

October 14, 2019

Billions face food, water shortages over next 30 years as nature fails – Study paints “a deeply worrying picture of the societal burdens of losing nature”

By Stephen Leahy 10 October 2019 (National Geographic) – As many as five billion people, particularly in Africa and South Asia, are likely to face shortages of food and clean water in the coming decades as nature declines. Hundreds of millions more could be vulnerable to increased risks of severe coastal storms, according to the first-ever model […]

Total U.S. Tax Rate (Federal, State and Local), 1950-2018, by income decile. Graphic: The New York Times

October 13, 2019

For the first time in history, U.S. billionaires paid a lower tax rate than the working class in 2018

By Christopher Ingraham 8 October 2019 (The Washington Post) – A new book-length study on the tax burden of the ultrarich begins with a startling finding: In 2018, for the first time in history, America’s richest billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the working class. The Triumph of Injustice, by economists Emmanuel Saez […]

Rates of reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis in the U.S. by region, 2009-2018. In 2018, the West had the highest rate of reported P&S syphilis cases (15.0 cases per 100,000 population), followed by the South (11.1 cases per 100,000 population), the Northeast (8.7 cases per 100,000 population), and the Midwest (7.1 cases per 100,000 population). During 2017–2018, the P&S syphilis rate increased 16.4% in the Midwest, 15.6% in the South, 15.4% in the West, and 10.1% in the Northeast. Graphic: CDC

October 12, 2019

America’s sexually transmitted infection rates are out of control – “Systems that identify, treat, and ultimately prevent STDs are strained to near-breaking point”

By Rachel Feltman 10 October 2019 (Popular Science) – Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are still on the rise in the United States, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). On Tuesday the CDC released a report on statistics from 2018, which indicate historic rates of chlamydia and the worst rates of syphilis […]