United States – Page 18 – Desdemona Despair

Projections of GHG emissions under different scenarios to 2050 and indications of emissions gap and global warming implications over this century (medians only). Looking beyond 2030, this figure projects global GHG emissions out to 2050 under different scenarios and indicates the associated global warming implications over this century. The figure illustrates the substantial increase in the emissions gap for 2050 if climate efforts implied by current policies and NDC scenarios are continued without further strengthening. Implementation of net-zero targets by around mid-century would significantly reduce these gaps, but even then, gaps with the 1.5°C scenarios would remain. Graphic: UNEP

November 1, 2022

UN: Inadequate progress on climate action makes rapid transformation of societies only option – “It is a tall, and some would say impossible, order to reform the global economy and almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but we must try”

NAIROBI, 27 October 2022 – As intensifying climate impacts across the globe hammer home the message that greenhouse gas emissions must fall rapidly, a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report finds that the international community is still falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place. However, the Emissions Gap Report […]

Number of fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. involving any opioid, synthetic opioids, heroin or prescription opioids, 1999-2020. Deaths in US involving fentanyl have continued to spike since 2013. Data: CDC WONDER. Graphic: Kavish Harjai / AP News

October 28, 2022

As Halloween approaches and fentanyl drives overdose deaths, mistaken beliefs persist – “No one is trying to addict little kids to fentanyl”

By Geoff Mulvihill 28 October 2022 (AP News) – Lillianna Alfaro was a recent high school graduate raising a toddler and considering joining the Army when she and a friend bought what they thought was the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in December 2020. The pills were fake and contained fentanyl, an opioid that can be 50 […]

Estimated percent difference in all-cause mortality rates when a U.S. State’s policy liberalism score is 1 versus 0, for various lag times between the policies and mortality. Blue dots mean a more liberal version of the policy is associated with lower mortality and red dots mean a more conservative version is associated with lower mortality. Dark blue and red dots indicate that the association is significant at α

October 28, 2022

More Americans die younger in states with conservative policies, study finds – “State policy matters. We always get the promise from conservative states that we’re going to cut your taxes and regulation and make the environment better for business, and it comes with a cost.”

By Adrianna Rodriguez 26 October 2022 (USA TODAY) – The United States has a working-age mortality problem: Americans die younger than people in most other high-income countries. While many blame drug overdoses, rising suicide rates, and bad health habits, a new study suggests policymakers may play a bigger role than previously thought. Researchers looked at policies relating […]

Plastic Waste in Canggu Beach, Bali. A tourist walks along a beach covered in piles of debris and plastic waste in Canggu, Bali, Indonesia, 12 December 2021. Photo: Made Nagi / Greenpeace

October 26, 2022

Plastic recycling is a dead-end street: year after year, plastic recycling declines even as plastic waste increases

WASHINGTON, D.C., 24 October 2022 (Greenpeace USA) – Most plastic simply cannot be recycled, a new Greenpeace USA report concludes. Circular Claims Fall Flat Again, released today, finds that U.S. households generated an estimated 51 million tons of plastic waste in 2021, only 2.4 million tons of which was recycled. The report also finds that no […]

Elevation of the Great Salt Lake, 1850-2022. As of 29 September 2022, lake levels dropped below where the Saltair station could measure. Graphic: Dr. Carie Frantz / Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences / Weber University

October 21, 2022

The Great Salt Lake is on the brink of collapse – “It’s terrifying”

By Carly Cassella 10 October 2022 (Science Alert) – Without urgent and major interventions, America’s Great Salt Lake could experience ecosystem collapse in the next few years. In a worst-case scenario, according to findings presented at the Geological Society of America’s 2022 Connects Conference in Colorado this past weekend, the world-famous body of salt-water has […]

A couple stands on what was an ancient packhorse bridge exposed by low water levels at Baitings Reservoir in Yorkshire as record high temperatures hit Ripponden, England, 12 August 2022. Widespread drought that dried up large parts of Europe, the United States and China this past summer was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study. Photo: Jon Super / AP Photo

October 9, 2022

Climate change made 2022 summer drought 20 times more likely – “The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard, not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan, but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe”

By Drew Costley 5 October 2022 (AP) – Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States, and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study. Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species, […]

Excess U.S. death rates by county vaccination rate relative to 2019, before and after vaccine availability. The graph shows average excess death rates for Republicans and Democrats in each county for Covid Pre-Vaccine (April 2020 to March 2021) and Covid Post-Vaccine (April 2021-December 2021). The circles are each county, and diamonds are binned means for each party. The curves are quadratic fits using least squares. Graphic: Wallace, et al., 2022

October 9, 2022

Anti-vaccine rhetoric in U.S. caused elevated Republican mortality from COVID – “Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 76 percent higher than the excess death rate for Democrats”

By Donald Moynihan 7 October 2022 (Slate) – For at least a year now, there has been strong but largely circumstantial evidence that right-wing anti-vaccine rhetoric was having deadly consequences in the United States. Despite early wide-scale access to COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. has outstripped its peer countries when it comes to the all-important measure of mortality known as “excess […]

World corn stocks in consumption days, 2008-2022 and projected to 2023. Poor weather in key agricultural regions from the United States to France and China is shrinking grain harvests and cutting inventories, heightening the risk of famine in some of the world's poorest nations. Data: International Grains Council. Graphic: Prinz Magtulis / Reuters

September 27, 2022

Droughts, Ukraine war push global grain stocks toward worrying decade low – “It’s lining up to be like 2012. No one wants to admit it, but it’s true.”

By Tom Polansek 26 September 2022 CHICAGO (Reuters) – The world is heading toward the tightest grain inventories in years despite the resumption of exports from Ukraine, as the shipments are too few and harvests from other major crop producers are smaller than initially expected, according to grain supply and crop forecast data. Poor weather […]

U.S. consumer debt excluding mortgages, 1989-2022. The bottom 90 percent of US households by wealth saw a record jump in consumer debt from June 2021 to June 2022 amid historic inflation. Data: Federal Reserve. Graphic: Bloomberg

September 27, 2022

Consumer debt hits record for most Americans, except the wealthy – “If your costs are rising and your wages are not picking up, how are people going to fill that gap?”

By Alex Tanzi 26 September 2022 (Bloomberg) – Most Americans are more indebted than ever, underscoring a persistent and widening wealth divide in the US. Consumer debt, including credit cards, rose to an all-time high for the 118 million US households among the bottom 90%, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest data on the distribution of household […]

Labor force participation impacts of health-related absences event study. The figure plots coefficient estimates βk from Equation 1, which represents the effect of a health-related absence during the pandemic on the probability of labor force participation k months before or after the absence. The blue, orange, and gray lines respectively plot estimates without demographic controls, with demographic controls, and with controls for demographics and labor market status. Gaps between months 3 and 9 are due to sample rotation. The color bands depict pointwise 95-percent confidence intervals. Standard errors are clustered at the worker level. Graphic: Goda and Soltas, 2022 / NBER

September 25, 2022

Study finds some 500,000 people have disappeared from U.S. workforce due to long COVID – “Many who fall ill but survive COVID-19 suffer from enduring health problems”

By Ciara Linnane 14 September 2022 (MarketWatch) – Some 500,000 workers have permanently disappeared from the U.S. workforce because of long COVID, according to a new report from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The report found that most patients who have suffered the lingering effects of the virus for months after infection moved straight from […]