United States – Page 23 – Desdemona Despair

Projected U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by fuel source in the AEO2022 reference case (left) and U.S. Energy-related CO2 emissions by AEO2022 economic growth cases (right). Energy‐related CO2 emissions dip through 2035 before climbing in later projection years. Graphic: EIA

March 12, 2022

U.S. energy projections to 2050: Fossil fuels still most-consumed energy sources through 2050 – Energy consumption increases as population and economic growth outweigh efficiency gains – Energy‐related CO2 emissions dip through 2035 but climb later

3 March 2022 (EIA) – Key takeaways from the Reference case and side cases: Petroleum and natural gas remain the most-consumed sources of energy in the United States through 2050, but renewable energy is the fastest growing Motor gasoline remains the most prevalent transportation fuel despite electric vehicles gaining market share Energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) […]

Global and regional risks for increasing levels of global warming. (a) Global surface temperature change increase relative to the period 1850-1900. (b) Reasons for concern (RFC) impact and risk assessments assuming low-to-no adaptation. (c) Impacts and risks to terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. (d) Impacts and risks to ocean ecosystems. (e) Climate-sensitive health outcomes under three adaptation scenarios. Graphic: IPCC

March 12, 2022

Pacific Northwest heatwave in 2021 was a glimpse of global warming in North America – “We’re exposed to untold damage”

By Gillian Flaccus 1 March 2022 PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) – The U.S. Pacific Northwest was in the throes of a record-shattering heat wave last summer when a woman in her 70s was wheeled into an emergency room with symptoms of a life-threatening heat stroke. Desperate to cool her, Dr. Alexander St. John grabbed a body […]

Map showing the Spring First Leaf Index Anomaly in the United States in 2022. In parts of California and Arizona, this year's spring leaf out is the earliest in the 40-year record. Graphic: National Phenology Network

March 12, 2022

Spring 2022: In parts of California and Arizona, spring leaf out is earliest on record – In parts of Texas, spring bloom is latest on record

9 March 2022 (National Phenology Network) – Spring leaf out continues to progress across the country. Our spring leaf anomaly compares the arrival of spring leaf out this year to a long-term average of 1991-2020. After a slow start to spring across much of the Southeast, spring is progressing more rapidly, arriving a few days […]

Map showing no-contest elections, coups, and power grabs globally in 2021. Numbers indicate score declines for events in 2021, on a 100-point scale, in the 2022 edition of the “Freedom in the World” report. Coups were more common in 2021 than in any of the previous 10 years. Graphic: Freedom House

March 11, 2022

The global expansion of authoritarian rule – “The present threat to democracy is the product of 16 consecutive years of decline in global freedom”

By Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz 24 February 2022 (Freedom House) – Global freedom faces a dire threat. Around the world, the enemies of liberal democracy—a form of self-government in which human rights are recognized and every individual is entitled to equal treatment under law—are accelerating their attacks. Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at […]

February 23, 2022

Graph of the Day: U.S. COVID-19 vaccinations by partisan lean, February 2021 – February 2022

By Charles Gaba 22 February 2022 (ACA Signups) – Last summer, I pulled together the occasional vaccination rate scatter plot graphs I’d been compiling for months into a single animated GIF image to show how both the correlation (R^2) and steepness (slope) of the partisan COVID vaccination divide grew from almost nothing at all to a gaping […]

Weekly average count of “hospital onset” COVID-19 patients in the United States, April 2020 - February 2022. During the Omicron wave, more patients than ever caught COVID-19 at hospitals (nosocomial infections). Data: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Graphic: Allan James Vestal / POLITICO

February 19, 2022

Nowhere is safe: Record number of patients contracted Covid in the hospital in January 2022

By Rachael Levy and Allan James Vestal19 February 2022 (Politico) – More than 3,000 hospitalized patients each week in January had caught Covid sometime during their stay, more than any point of the pandemic, according to U.S. government data analyzed by POLITICO. The record surge demonstrates the virulence of the Omicron variant and how even […]

Generational wealth gap in the United States, 1989-2020. In 1998, the American population under 40 years old held 13.1 percent of America’s total wealth. In 2020, those under 40 hold only 6 percent of the total wealth. This means that millennials and Generation X own less than half of the wealth that older generations owned when they were the same age. Graphic: Self Financial, Inc.

February 19, 2022

Graph of the Day: Generational wealth gap in the United States, 1989-2020

20 December 2021 (Self Financial) – In 2021, the average net worth in an American household aged 64-75 reached over $1.2m [1], while the average household under 35 had a net worth of just $76k. With these massive generational wealth gaps, Self decided to dig deeper into the historical wealth distribution of different generations to understand […]

Maps showing regional sea level linear rates of rise (mm/year) from satellite altimetry over three different time periods: (a) 1993–2006, (b) 2007–2020, and (c) 1993–2020. Linear rates of change of relative sea level (ocean and land height changes) from tide gauges over the same time period are also shown (circles). Graphic: Sweet, et al., 2022 / NOAA

February 19, 2022

U.S. coastline to see up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050 – Report projects a century of sea level rise in 30 years – “These numbers mean a change from a single flooding event every 2-5 years to multiple events each year”

15 February 2022 (NOAA) – The United States is expected to experience as much sea level rise by the year 2050 as it witnessed in the previous hundred years. That’s according to a NOAA-led report updating sea level rise decision-support information for the U.S. released today in partnership with half a dozen other federal agencies. […]

Map showing estimated additional deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic above normal number of deaths, including COVID-19 and other causes. 91 percent of the deaths from COVID-19 are attributed directly to the disease. In the other 9 percent of deaths, COVID-19 was a contributing factor but not the primary cause. Data: CDC. Graphic: Dan Keating / The Washington Post

February 16, 2022

U.S. “excess deaths” during pandemic surpass 1 million, with Covid killing most but other diseases adding to the toll, CDC says – “We did not handle it well. That’s glaringly obvious.”

By Joel Achenbach 15 February 2022 (Washington Post) – The United States has recorded more than 1 million “excess deaths” since the start of the pandemic, government mortality statistics show, a toll that exceeds the officially documented lethality of the coronavirus and captures the broad consequences of the health crisis that has entered its third year. The excess-deaths figure […]

U.S. Drought Monitor map of the U.S. West, 10 February 2022. In February 2022, 95 percent of the Western U.S. was experiencing drought conditions. In summer 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, two of the largest reservoirs in North America — Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both on the Colorado River — reached their lowest recorded levels. Graphic: Deborah Bathke / Richard Tinker NOAA / NWS / NCEP / CPC

February 15, 2022

Megadrought in U.S. West worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years – “We need to be preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this”

By Seth Borenstein 15 February 2022 (AP) – The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds. A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one […]