Trial runs for fascism are in full flow – Immigrant babies in cages were no “mistake” by Trump, but test-marketing for barbarism – “The blooding process has begun within the democratic world”

By Fintan O’Toole 26 June 2018 (The Irish Times) – To grasp what is going on in the world right now, we need to reflect on two things. One is that we are in a phase of trial runs. The other is that what is being trialled is fascism – a word that should be […]

2018 had third hottest June in U.S. records, behind 2015 and 2016 – A dozen locations from Arizona to Michigan set or tied all-time records for warmest low temperature on any date

By Bob Henson 9 July 2018 (Weather Underground) – For the third time in four years, the contiguous U.S. saw one of its warmest Junes in more than a century of recordkeeping, as reported by NOAA on Monday. June 2018 came in at third place among all Junes going back to 1895, behind the warmest […]

Slow suicide and the abandonment of the world

By Edward Curtin 22 June 2018 (Counterpunch) – Most suicides die of natural causes, slowly and in silence.But we hear a lot about the small number of suicides, by comparison, who kill themselves quickly by their own hands. Of course their sudden deaths elicit shock and sadness since their deaths, usually so unexpected even when […]

Study finds climate change shareholder resolutions have no impact on shareholder value

By David Blackmon 24 June 2018 (Forbes) – A new study finds that the climate-based shareholder resolutions being so actively pushed by proxy advisory firms and their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-based institutional investors have “no statistically significant impact” on a company’s bottom line, either positive or negative. The study, funded by the National Association […]

Homes destroyed by fires, temperature records shattered as heat wave slams Southern California

By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, Sarah Parvini, Ruben Vives, and Hailey Branson-Potts 7 July 2018 (Los Angeles Times) – A record-setting heat wave sparked brush fires across Southern California that destroyed homes and forced thousands to evacuate from Santa Barbara to San Diego county. The heat wave, coupled with moderate winds, helped fan nearly a dozen fires […]

Appalachia’s $84 billion secret: China and U.S. plan massive petrochemical hub in West Virginia – “Most people have no clue how much more damage is coming if it doesn’t stop. The industry doesn’t want people to know about this.”

By Natalie Stickel 13 June 2018 (Blue Ridge Outdoors) – The biggest energy project you’ve never heard of commonly goes by the acronym ASTH—the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub. This massive petrochemical hub in West Virginia and Pennsylvania would be the largest infrastructure in the region’s history, consisting of hundreds of miles of pipelines, fracked […]

Trump’s Interior Department plans to let people kill endangered red wolves – “FWS is passing a death sentence on an animal as American as the bald eagle”

By Darryl Fears 27 June 2018 (The Washington Post) – In a proposal that would essentially end a 30-year effort to reestablish critically endangered American red wolves in North Carolina, the Interior Department on Wednesday announced a plan that would allow private landowners to kill wolves that stray onto their property from a protected federal […]

Following a devastating pandemic, California’s sea stars are evolving as climate changes – “If we have too many extreme events in a row, maybe that becomes more challenging for species to respond to”

By Jason Alvarez 19 June 2018 (UC Merced) – In 2012, Environmental Systems graduate student Lauren Schiebelhut was collecting DNA from ochre sea stars living along the Northern California coast — part of an effort to study genetic diversity in various marine species that serve as indicators of habitat health. She had no idea that […]

China has refused to recycle the West’s plastics – “An estimated 111 million metric tons of plastic waste will be displaced with the new Chinese policy by 2030”

By Sara Kiley Watson 28 June 2018 (NPR) – For more than 25 years, many developed countries, including the U.S., have been sending massive amounts of plastic waste to China instead of recycling it on their own. Some 106 million metric tons — about 45 percent — of the world’s plastics set for recycling have […]

The Annapolis shooting is another reminder: Globally, it’s getting more dangerous to be a journalist – “The climate of hatred is steadily more visible”

By Ruby Mellen 28 June 2018 (The Washington Post) – On Thursday, 28 June 2018, a gunman stormed the office of a local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, killing at least five people and injuring two others. According to my colleagues, the attack “likely is the deadliest involving journalists in the United States in decades.” Police […]

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