An aerial view of floodwaters flowing from the Tittabawassee River into the lower part of downtown Midland on 20 May 2020 in Midland, Michigan. Thousands of residents have been ordered to evacuate after two dams in Sanford and Edenville collapsed causing water from the Tittabawassee River to flood nearby communities. Photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images

Two Michigan dams breached, thousands evacuated amid “devastating” record flooding – “It’s hard to believe that we’re in the midst of a 100-year crisis – a global pandemic – and a flooding event that looks to be the worst in 500 years”

By Elisha Fieldstadt and Doha Madani21 May 2020 (NBC News) – About 11,000 people in central Michigan were told to evacuate their homes after rapidly rising water overwhelmed dams, creating what the National Weather Service called a “life-threatening situation.” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the destruction in Midland County caused by the failures of the Edenville […]

Trump, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Kushner as Immortan Joe and henchmen from “Mad Max: Fury Road”. “But nowhere has our policy been more evident than backward countries and failed states. Like the U.S. Here, as thousands of people died and got buried in mass graves, Il Duce left you to fight each other over medical equipment by entrusting it to his little shit-goblin-in-law.” Photo: The Juice Media

Honest Government Ad: Pandemic Update – “Scientists have been warning us for decades to prepare for this crisis. Did we? Of course not.”

30 April 2020 (The Juice Media) – The Government has made an ad about its response to the pandemic, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative. Scientists have been warning us for decades to prepare for this crisis. Did we? Of course not. The Machine said there was no profit in preventing future crises. So instead, […]

Mother and son wearing masks stand under a sky tinted red as surrounding bushfires close in, Mallacoota, Australia, 4 January 2020. Photo: Reuters

The age of stability is over, and coronavirus is just the beginning – “Our modern interconnected global economy is much more vulnerable than we thought”

By Wolfgang Knorr 16 April 2020 (The Conversation) – Humanity has only recently become accustomed to a stable climate. For most of its history, long ice ages punctuated with hot spells alternated with short warm periods. Transitions from cold to warm climates were especially chaotic. Then, about 10,000 years ago, the Earth suddenly entered into a […]

Locusts swarm in East Africa, 13 February 2020. Video: Channel 4 News / YouTube

East Africa faces dual shock from coronavirus and locust swarms – “My entire life in the world, I haven’t seen something like this before”

By Elliot Smith 23 March 2020 (CNBC) – Already being ravaged by the worst infestation of desert locusts in 70 years, East African economies are now staring down the barrel of the coronavirus pandemic. The region was the standout performer for economic growth in the subcontinent prior to the locust outbreak, which threatens the food security […]

Confirmed COVID-19 cases on 26 March 2020 in China, Italy, France, the U.S., South Korea, and Japan. Graphic: Mark Handley / UCL

Coronavirus pandemic could have caused 40 million deaths globally if left unchecked – “Health systems in all countries will be quickly overwhelmed”

By Ryan O’Hare 26 March 2020 (Imperial College London) – The outbreak of COVID-19 would likely have caused 40 million deaths this year in the absence of any preventative measures. This is one of the findings of a new analysis by researchers at Imperial College London, which estimated the potential scale of the coronavirus pandemic […]

Aerial view of the eastern expressway in Mumbai after Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a nationwide lockdown on 24 March 2020 in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Photo: Atul Loke / The New York Times

More than 1 billion people in “total lockdown” in India after coronavirus cases spike – “To save India, to save its every citizen, you, your family, every street, every neighborhood is being put under lockdown”

25 March 2020 (BBC News) – India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has imposed a nationwide lockdown in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The restrictions came into force at midnight local time (18:30 GMT) and will be enforced for 21 days. “There will be a total ban on venturing out of your […]

Satellite view of airborne nitrogen dioxide pollution over Washington State in March 2020, compared with March 2019. Pollution is visibly reduced by the cessation of economic activity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Data: Descartes Labs / Sentinel-5P satellite. Graphic: CNN

Satellite images show less pollution over the U.S. as coronavirus shuts down public places

By Madeline Holcombe and Sean O’Key 23 March 2020 (CNN) – As millions of Americans are kept from work, school and most public places as coronavirus is on the rise, satellite images show pollution on the decline.Images taken over the first three weeks of March show less nitrogen dioxide over parts of the United States than […]

An air tanker flies over PG&E power lines en route to drop fire retardant in the valley below during the firefighting operations to battle the Kincade Fire in Healdsburg, California on 26 October 2019. Photo: Philip Pacheco / AFP / Getty Images

PG&E to plead guilty to 84 involuntary manslaughter counts over 2018 wildfire in California

By Jonathan Stempel 23 March 2020 (Reuters) – Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to plead guilty to 84 involuntary manslaughter counts in connection with the 2018 Camp Fire, the most destructive wildfire in California’s history. The plea by California’s largest utility was announced on Monday by its parent PG&E Corp, three days after the […]

Trump (left) and Vice President Mike Pence (right) at a FEMA meeting on Thursday, 19 March 2020. Photo: Evan Vucci / AP Photo

Coronavirus, climate change could stretch FEMA past its limit – “All the other hazards we have in the U.S. will not go away and will only complicate the task of responding to the coronavirus”

By Leslie Kaufman and Brian K. Sullivan 22 March 2020 (Bloomberg) – It wasn’t until Wednesday, five days after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it was “leading the federal coordination” to the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. While the disaster-response agency is better known for its work in the aftermath […]

Workers pick apples in a Wapato, Washington, orchard in October 2019. U.S. farms employ hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers, mostly from Mexico, who enter the country on H-2A visas. The potential impact of the coronavirus on seasonal workers has the food industry on edge. Photo: Elaine Thompson / AP

COVID-19 threatens food supply chain as farms worry about workers falling ill – “We’ve got enough disruption. We don’t need to disrupt our food supply, that would be really catastrophic.”

By Dan Charles 18 March 2020 (NPR) – As Americans scattered to the privacy of their homes this week to avoid spreading the coronavirus, the opposite scene was playing out in the Mexican city of Monterrey. A thousand or more young men arrived in the city, as they do most weeks of the year, filling […]

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