Record flooding affects 16 million in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India – “This is fast becoming one of the most serious humanitarian crises this region has seen in many years”

18 August 2017 (Hindustan Times) – A humanitarian crisis is unfolding across large areas of South Asia, with more than 16 million people affected by monsoon floods in Nepal, Bangladesh and India, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in statement in Kathmandu on Friday.  “This is fast becoming one of […]

How fossil fuel money made climate change denial the Word of God

By Brendan O’Connor 11 August 2017 (Splinter) – In 2005, at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., the National Association of Evangelicals was on the verge of doing something novel: affirming science.Specifically, the 30-million-member group, which represents 51 Christian denominations, was debating how to advance a new platform called “For the Health of a Nation.” […]

How America lost its mind – “A third of us believe not only that global warming is no big deal but that it’s a hoax perpetrated by scientists, the government, and journalists”

By Kurt Andersen 8 August 2017 (The Atlantic) – When did America become untethered from reality?I first noticed our national lurch toward fantasy in 2004, after President George W. Bush’s political mastermind, Karl Rove, came up with the remarkable phrase reality-based community. People in “the reality-based community,” he told a reporter, “believe that solutions emerge […]

Trump has energized the vaccine skeptics, and that’s dangerous – Even a five-percent reduction in vaccine coverage could spark a large measles outbreak

By Julia Belluz 28 July 2017(Vox) – If there was ever a moment to fear the anti-vaxxers could win, this is it.Consider the following: The president courts known anti-vaccine crackpots like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and makes the same kinds of pseudoscience claims about lifesaving immunizations that they do. RFK Jr. has seized on the […]

GOP congressman: God will “take care of” global warming if it exists

By Igor Bobic 31 May 2017 (Huffington Post) – Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told a constituent last week that God can solve the problem of climate change if the global phenomenon truly exists. The 66-year-old Republican, who is a climate change skeptic, made the remark at a town hall in Coldwater, Michigan, on Friday.“I believe […]

U.S. evangelical green groups pan Trump’s climate accord exit – “A thermometer is neither a Republican nor a Democrat”

By Timothy Mclaughlin 3 June 2017 (Reuters) – Evangelical Christian environmental groups on Friday panned President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from a global climate change pact, with leaders saying the political left does not have a monopoly on this issue. Trump’s decision, announced on Thursday, “was an affront to our faith […]

Record drought in Bolivia drains lakes, threatens capital, and kills livestock by the thousands – “The situation in our area is critical”

4 January 2017 (The Associated Press) – Last year, the flowering quinoa plants painted Florencio Tola’s farmlands in vibrant sepia and ochre tones. But this season, all that could be seen was the straw colour of dried-out stalks that never germinated amid Bolivia’s worst drought in 30 years. Nearby a collection of scrawny cows, with […]

Oklahoma crowd gathers to pray for oil industry after governor declares ‘Oilfield Prayer Day’

By Carla Hinton Published14 October 2016 (NewsOK) – More than 400 people gathered Thursday to pray for the oil patch — Oklahoma’s beleaguered energy industry, which is experiencing a downturn critically affecting the state’s economy. The sixth annual Oklahoma City Oilfield Prayer Breakfast at the Tower Hotel featured keynote speaker Harold Mathena, a retired oil […]

Hurricane Matthew leaves ‘catastrophic’ devastation in Caribbean – U.N. calls it the largest humanitarian event in Haiti since 2010 quake

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – A United Nations official says Hurricane Matthew has caused the biggest humanitarian crisis in Haiti since the devastating earthquake of 2010. Deputy Special Representative for Haiti Mourad Wahba says in a statement that many people have been forced from their homes and communications systems have been knocked out in the country’s […]

I stand with Linda Sue Beck: The armed attack on science at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

By Travis Longcore, Ph.D9 January 2016 (Medium) – Linda Sue Beck. It is at her desk that Ammon Bundy, leader of the group of armed anti-government religious fanatics occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, has set up shop. As a federal biologist, like my father was for decades, she works to steward the resources that are […]

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