Global debt soars to $169 trillion, along with fears of crisis ahead – “We were supposed to correct a debt bubble. What we did instead was create more debt.”

By David J. Lynch 3 September 2018 (The Washington Post) – Ten years after the worst financial panic since the 1930s, growing debt burdens in key developing economies are fueling fears of a new crisis that could spread far beyond the disruption sweeping Turkey. The loss of investor confidence in the Turkish lira, which has […]

As carbon dioxide levels climb, millions at risk of nutritional deficiencies – “We cannot disrupt most of the biophysical conditions to which we have adapted over millions of years without unanticipated impacts on our own health and wellbeing”

BOSTON, Massachusetts, 27 August 2018 (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) – Rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) from human activity are making staple crops such as rice and wheat less nutritious and could result in 175 million people becoming zinc deficient and 122 million people becoming protein deficient by 2050, according to new […]

An inversion of nature: how air conditioning created the modern city

By Rowan Moore 14 August 2018 (The Guardian) – Once, when I was staying in Houston, Texas, my host was showing me round her house. It included a mighty fireplace. “How often does it get cold enough to light a fire?” I asked, as what little I knew about the city included the fact that […]

Air conditioning use emerges as one of the key drivers of global electricity-demand growth

15 May 2018 (IEA) – The growing use of air conditioners in homes and offices around the world will be one of the top drivers of global electricity demand over the next three decades, according to new analysis by the International Energy Agency that stresses the urgent need for policy action to improve cooling efficiency. […]

5th deadliest wildfire globally in past 100 years: 87 dead from fires in Greece on 23 July 2018

Dr. Jeff Masters 27 July 2018 (Weather Underground) – The death toll from the horrific 23 July 2018 fires in Attica, Greece has risen to 87, with dozens more missing. According to statistics from EM-DAT, the international disaster database, this would make the Greek fires of 2018 the deadliest in European history – and fifth […]

Southeast Asian forest loss much greater than expected, with negative implications for climate – 113,000 square miles of forest razed and converted to cropland between 2000 and 2014

By John Sullivan 3 July 2018 (Princeton University) – Researchers using satellite imaging have found much greater than expected deforestation since 2000 in the highlands of Southeast Asia, a critically important world ecosystem. The findings are important because they raise questions about key assumptions made in projections of global climate change as well as concerns […]

New study quantifies the link between smoggy air and diabetes: air pollution triggers diabetes in 3.2 million people each year

By Laurel Hamers 9 July 2018 (Science News) – Air pollution caused 3.2 million new cases of diabetes worldwide in 2016, according to a new estimate. Fine particulate matter, belched out by cars and factories and generated through chemical reactions in the atmosphere, hang around as haze and make air hard to breathe. Air pollution […]

Indonesia villagers kill nearly 300 crocodiles in revenge attack

By Jessica Damiana and Ed Davies; Editing by Nick Macfie 15 July 2018 (Reuters) – Indonesian villagers armed with knives, hammers, and clubs slaughtered 292 crocodiles in revenge for the death of a man killed by a crocodile at a breeding farm, an official said. Photographs released by Antara news agency showed bloodied carcasses of […]

2017 was the second-worst year on record for global deforestation – “We are trying to put out a house fire with a teaspoon”

By Damian Carrington, Niko Kommenda, Pablo Gutiérrez, and Cath Levett 27 June 2018 (The Guardian) – The world lost more than one football pitch of forest every second in 2017, according to new data from a global satellite survey, adding up to an area equivalent to the whole of Italy over the year.The scale of […]

Indonesia to investigate death of journalist being held for defaming palm oil company

By Hans Nicholas Jong 21 June 2018 JAKARTA (Mongabay) – Indonesia’s national commission on human rights has vowed to investigate the death of a journalist who was being held on charges of defaming a palm oil company owned by a powerful tycoon.From November 2017 to March of this year, Muhammad Yusuf wrote at least 23 […]

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