The three highest-volume U.S. rainfall events on record happened in the past three years

Dr. Jeff Masters 8 December 2018 (Weather Underground) – Preliminary research by precipitation expert Dr. Kenneth Kunkel of the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, announced in September 2018, found that the three highest-volume rainfall events in the U.S. in the last 70 years have occurred since 2016: Hurricane Harvey in Texas/Louisiana in 2017, Hurricane […]

Darwin, Australia swelters through hottest night ever recorded

11 December 2018 (NT News) – Did your air con just not cut it in Darwin last night? Well, no surprises there because the Top End capital has just sweltered through its hottest ever night on record. In a message on social media this morning the Bureau of Meteorology (Northern Territory) posted: “This will not […]

Landmark study finds more than 1.2 million deaths in 2017 due to air pollution in India – Uttar Pradesh recorded 260,028 deaths attributable to air pollution

NEW DELHI, 6 December 2018 (Press Trust of India) – One in eight deaths in India last year was attributable to air pollution, which contributes to more disease burden than tobacco use, a study said Thursday while asserting the highest exposure to ultra-fine particulate matter, PM2.5, was in Delhi followed by Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. […]

Vanishing nutrients: 2 billion people worldwide suffer from “hidden hunger,” in which people are malnourished even though they consume enough calories

By Elena Suglia 10 December 2018 (Scientific American) – Is it possible to starve yourself of nutrients while simultaneously gaining weight? It turns out the answer is yes. According to a growing body of research, rising carbon dioxide levels are making our food less nutritious, robbing key crops of vitamins essential to human development.Studies have […]

Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018 – Emissions grew at fastest rate in seven years – “We are in deep trouble with climate change”

By Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney 5 December 2018 (The Washington Post) – Global emissions of carbon dioxide are reaching the highest levels on record, scientists projected Wednesday, in the latest evidence of the chasm between international goals for combating climate change and what countries are doing. Between 2014 and 2016, emissions remained largely flat, […]

No relief for Queensland bushfire crisis – “We have never seen this in our state before”

By Robyn Wuth 30 November 2018 (Australian Associated Press) – There is no relief in sight for Queensland’s bushfire crisis as extreme heatwave conditions continue to grip the state on the first day of summer.There have been no lives lost as wildfires raged across central Queensland this week but 110 are still burning around the […]

U.S. life expectancy falls, driven by suicides and drug overdoses – First three-year period of decline since World War I

By Peter Sullivan 29 November 2018 (The Hill) – U.S. life expectancy declined in 2017 as more Americans died of drug overdoses and suicides, furthering a troubling trend of declining lifespans not seen in a century, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a report released Thursday. Life expectancy was 78.6 years in […]

More than 10,000 flee “catastrophic” bushfires in northern Australia as flash floods from historic rains kill two in Sydney – “This is unprecedented, uncharted”

  By Jonathan Pearlman 28 November 2018 SYDNEY, Australia (The Telegraph) – Authorities ordered more than 10,000 people to flee from “catastrophic” wildfires moving across north-east Australia, as heavy rains in the south-east caused flooding that left at least two people dead. In the state of Queensland, a heatwave and strong winds fuelled a massive […]

California wildfires: Trump will say anything to deny the grim facts of global warming

19 November 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – In August 2018, it was “environmental terrorist groups” causing California’s forest fires. Before that, it was water regulations. Now, California just needs to rake its forests and manage them like Finland.Anything to deny the obvious: global warming is causing California’s megafires.Throughout 2018, the Trump administration has undertaken a Stalinist […]

Why California’s wildfires are so destructive, in five charts

By Christie Aschwanden, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Maggie Koerth-Baker, and Ella Koeze 16 November 2018 (FiveThirtyEight) – The Camp Fire in Northern California has already been the most lethal and most destructive in state history, and it continues to burn. The death toll, currently at 63, is expected to grow — more than 600 people are […]

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