“We are on the deathbed. Humanity cannot survive – the way it has been behaving with nature – for more than fifty years, sixty years, or, at the most, one hundred years, which is nothing. If the Third World War does not happen, then we will be committing a slow suicide. Within a hundred years, we will be gone. Not even a trace will be left.”¹ Osho

See also: Osho, “Religion: The Crimes Against Nature and the Environment”

And: Priests & Politicians: The Mafia of the Soul

It is becoming increasingly clear that humanity just doesn’t have the consciousness to prevent the inexorable destruction of the only home it has.

Perhaps more fundamentally, this humanity – which is trashing out the land, the oceans, the atmosphere, and the space beyond the atmosphere – is simply being really trashy. We endlessly look outwards for solutions and almost no one is making it clear that unless we fix our trashiness, nothing can fundamentally change. Without this fundamental change in our trashy approach to the world around us, every “solution” we come up with will be deeply compromised by our trashiness!

While waiting for this obvious point to sink in, followed by a clear understanding of how to undo our trashiness, the OSHOTimes can only chronicle the inevitable resultant degeneration of Planet Earth, “and all who sail in her!”

Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere

“Man-made carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect” – was published by the journal Nature in 1972.

Levels of the greenhouse gas have not been as high as today for 3-5m years, when the global temperature was 2-3C warmer and the sea level was 10-20 metres higher: The Guardian

The C02 clock is ticking here: Bloomberg Green Carbon Clock

Human Population

The population clock is ticking here: Worldometre

The Emissions Gap Report 2020

“The world is still heading for a catastrophic temperature rise in excess of 3°C this century – far beyond the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C.” – UN Environment

The Unfolding Story – 2022 – Updated Regularly: 

Read 2021 Edition HERE

December 29, 2022
This year, I only needed to open my window in Brazil to witness the climate crisis
“My snapshot of 2022 shows the Amazon burning – but what it doesn’t communicate is the pain.”  – The Guardian

December 28, 2022
Microplastics can cross placenta into unborn babies, study shows
“Scientists warn it is impossible to stop children ingesting the tiny plastic particles as well as even smaller nanoplastics, which can be found almost everywhere. Microplastics have also been found in newborn children, the researchers add. Infants ingest microplastics from baby bottles, toys, textiles and food packaging. When microplastics end up in household dust, children can ingest them by playing and crawling on the floor. Microplastics contain other harmful chemicals as well as plastic, such as phthalates and metals added for colour, stabilisation or as a biocide.” – Independent

December 27, 2022
BP criticised over plan to spend billions more on fossil fuels than green energy
“BP has been accused of prioritising fossil fuels over green energy as it plans to spend as much as double the amount on oil and gas projects than on renewable investments next year. The FTSE 100 company has earmarked up to $7.5bn (£6.2bn) for oil and gas projects, compared with a range of $3bn to $5bn for green energy.” – The Guardian

December 27, 2022
Biggest climate toll in year of ‘devastating’ disasters revealed
“Most expensive storm cost $100bn while deadliest floods killed 1,700 and displaced 7 million, report finds. The 10 most expensive storms, floods and droughts in 2022 each cost at least $3bn (£2.5bn) in a “devastating” year on the frontline of the climate crisis, a report shows.” – The Guardian

December 24, 2022
El Niño Is Coming—and the World Isn’t Prepared
“According to NASA, 2022 was one of the hottest years ever recorded on Earth. This is extraordinary, because the recurrent climate pattern across the tropical Pacific—known as ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation)—was in its cool phase…. The scary thing is that this La Niña will end and eventually transition into the better-known El Niño, which sees the waters of the equatorial Pacific becoming much warmer. When it does, the extreme weather that has rampaged across our planet in 2021 and 2022 will pale into insignificance. ” – Wired

December 22, 2022
Microplastics deposited on the seafloor triple in 20 years – ScienceDaily

December 22, 2022
Overshooting climate targets could significantly increase risk for tipping cascades
“Temporarily overshooting the climate targets of 1.5-2 degrees Celsius could increase the tipping risk of several Earth system elements by more than 70 percent compared to keeping global warming in line with the United Nations Paris Agreement range, a new risk analysis study by an international team of researchers shows. This tipping risk increases even if in the longer term the global temperature would stabilize within the Paris range.” – ScienceDaily

December 21, 2022
Climate-change content shrinks in US university textbooks
“Sections on climate change have become shorter and moved farther back in biology textbooks since the 2000s. University biology textbooks published in the United States in the 2010s contained less climate-change content than those published in the 2000s, despite the increasing urgency of the climate crisis¹. That’s not the only shift. In a survey of dozens of widely used introductory biology textbooks from the past 50 years, researchers also found that passages on climate change moved farther back in the books, and that the amount of information about its impacts grew, whereas the space devoted to solutions shrank. The work was published on 21 December in PLoS ONE¹.” – Nature

December 19, 2022
In the Horn of Africa, a Climate-Fueled Food Catastrophe Looms
“Climate change-induced drought is exposing cracks in the global food system and overwhelming humanitarian aid…. NEARLY 26 MILLION PEOPLE in the Horn of Africa are facing extreme hunger, with some areas already reaching catastrophic famine levels, according to the United Nations. The situation here is unfolding as a food crisis threatens a record number of people around the world, with nearly 345 million at acute levels of hunger and nearly 50 million people on the brink of famine. ‘We are on the way to a raging food catastrophe,’ U.N. Secretary General António Guterres tweeted recently.” – Undark

December 17, 2022
Disaster scenarios raise the stakes for Colorado River negotiations
“State and federal authorities say that years of overconsumption are colliding with the stark realities of climate change, pushing Colorado River reservoirs to such dangerously low levels that the major dams on the river could soon become obstacles to delivering water to millions in the Southwest.” – The Washington Post

December 16, 2022
Almost 8,000 US shootings attributed to unseasonable heat – study
“Research suggests climate crisis may contribute to increased gun violence by pushing temperatures beyond normal ranges.” – The Guardian

December 15, 2022
Whales could be a valuable carbon sink, say scientists
“Researchers explore how these marine giants can influence the amount of carbon in our air and waters and potentially contribute to the overall reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide.” – ScienceDaily

December 9, 2022
New study highlights urgent need to safeguard deep reefs — one of the largest and least protected ecosystems
“New study finds very few deep reefs have any form of protection, and face a multitude of threats, set only to escalate in the near future…. Deep reefs are biological hotspots, essential for climate change resilience, ocean health and food security, and a refuge for ocean life threatened in shallow waters.” – ScienceDaily

December 9, 2022
Rebel Farmers Are Pushing Back on Climate Action. This is Why
“From farm to fork, the food system generates about 31% of global greenhouse gas emissions…. Cows and sheep emit planet-warming methane simply by digesting food; their manure and urine is a source of nitrogen oxide which, in large volumes, throws ecosystems off kilter. Too many fertilizers and pesticides are poisoning soils and water, while farmers are clearing ever-larger expanses of rainforest for cattle or monoculture, destroying complex systems that shelter wildlife and regulate the Earth’s temperature. Agricultural emissions rose 14% between 2000 and 2018, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. If action isn’t taken fast, researchers estimate that food-related emissions alone would push the Earth past 1.5C of warming that world leaders set as a target in the 2015 Paris Agreement.” – Bloomberg

December 9, 2022
Big oil talks ‘transition’ but perpetuates petroleum, House documents say
“The committee say the industry is misleading the public by advertising a commitment to cleaner energy even as it disproportionately invests in fossil fuels. In a previous release of documents on Sept. 14, the committee accused oil companies of continued deception, following previous revelations about oil companies working to undermine the credibility of climate science. ‘Rather than outright deny global warming, the fossil fuel industry has ‘greenwashed’ its record through deceptive advertising and climate pledges — without meaningfully reducing emissions,’ the committee said in a memo.” – The Washington Post

December 8, 2022
India could become first country to get heatwaves that shatter human survivability limits, World Bank says
“The G20 Climate Risk Atlas that last year warned heatwaves across India are ‘likely to last 25 times longer by 2036-65 if carbon emissions remain high, as in the IPCC’s worst case emission scenario’ and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that has pointed to more frequent and intense heatwaves in the coming decade were also cited…. In a country where two-thirds of the population lives on less than $2 a day and where the average cost of an air-conditioning unit can vary between $260 and $500, air-cooling systems are a luxury. Only 8 per cent of Indian households owned air-conditioning units.” – Independent

December 8, 2022
Qatar’s gas output increase could cause catastrophic global heating, report says
“If Qatar exploits all its reserves it will add 50bn metric tons of CO2 to atmosphere, more than entire annual emissions of whole world…. ‘Fossil fuels are weapons of mass destruction, carbon bombs ticking against the time we have left to avert the very worst of the climate crisis,’ said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International. ‘Fossil fuel companies, the banks that fund them and the governments that support them are complicit in the suffering of millions. It is time to strip them off their social and economic licenses and make them pay up for climate damages.’” – The Guardian

December 8, 2022
Warming seas’ negative impact on giant kelp starts in early life
“Kelp forests are one of the most diverse and productive natural ecosystems on the planet, but in the past 50 to 100 years significant swaths have been lost and many of the remaining systems show a declining trajectory.” – ScienceDaily

December 7, 2022
Soil in midwestern US is eroding 10 to 1,000 times faster than it forms, study finds
“In a discovery that has repercussions for everything from domestic agricultural policy to global food security and the plans to mitigate climate change, researchers recently announced that the rate of soil erosion in the Midwestern US is 10 to 1,000 times greater than pre-agricultural erosion rates. These newly discovered pre-agricultural rates, which reflect the rate at which soils form, are orders of magnitude lower than the upper allowable limit of erosion set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).” – ScienceDaily

December 7, 2022
Democratic senators warn UN secretary general of eroding public trust in Cop
“The highly unusual step comes a month after it was revealed that more than 630 fossil fuel lobbyists attended the 27th annual climate summit, Cop27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Scores more delegates linked to the food industry, mining and the plastics sector – as well as financial institutions that prop up these polluting industries – also participated, despite years of warnings from campaigners about the growing influence of bad faith actors.” – The Guardian

December 7, 2022
UK OKs First Coal Mine in 30 Years, Weakening Climate Push
“The decision, made after two years of consideration by successive governments, is a blow to the momentum of British activists and comes after a UN climate assembly hosted in Scotland said a global agreement on “phasing down” the dirtiest fuel was a key step.” – Bloomberg

December 6, 2022
A dark tale of money corrupting politics — and destroying the climate
“In November 1959 Edward Teller, ‘the father of the hydrogen bomb,’ told a group of oil company executives and scientists gathered at Columbia University that continued burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet, potentially melting the ice caps and submerging New York and other coastal cities — posing a threat to civilization comparable to a global nuclear war.” – The Washington Post

December 6, 2022
‘We are at war with nature’: UN environment chief warns of biodiversity apocalypse
“’We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,’ said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the UN environment programme. ‘As far as biodiversity is concerned, we are at war with nature. We need to make peace with nature. Because nature is what sustains everything on Earth … the science is unequivocal.’” – The Guardian

December 6, 2022
Warming climate spurs harmful oxygen loss in lakes
“New research shows a continually warming world is leading to extended, late-summer weeks of water stratification in lakes, which prompts oxygen deprivation in the water — provoking conditions called hypoxia (low oxygen) and anoxia (no oxygen) — and negative consequences for fish and other species.” – ScienceDaily

December 5, 2022
Scientists thought carbon emissions had peaked. They’ve never been higher.
“According to a report released last month by the Global Carbon Project, carbon emissions from fossil fuels in 2022 are expected to reach 37.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the highest ever recorded. That means that despite the continued fallout from the coronavirus pandemic — which caused emissions to drop by over 5 percent in 2020 — CO2 emissions are back and stronger than ever.” – The Washington Post

December 5, 2022
The dirty road to clean energy: how China’s electric vehicle boom is ravaging the environment
“In neighboring Indonesia, nickel extraction is causing environmental and social devastation…. The nickel-processing factories spew out sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and coal ash, polluting the surrounding villages’ air.” – Rest of World

December 5, 2022
Fossil fuel industry dupes media, quietly funds non-profits to block renewable energy
“Nearly every story neglects to mention these groups are being funded by a far-right think tank that receives funding from fossil fuel companies and billionaires.” – Popular Information

December 2, 2022
#ClimateScam: denialism claims flooding Twitter have scientists worried
“Many researchers are fleeing the platform, unnerved by the surge in climate misinformation since Musk’s chaotic takeover. Twitter has proved a cherished forum for climate scientists to share research, as well as for activists seeking to rally action to halt oil pipelines or decry politicians’ failure to cut pollution. But many are now fleeing Twitter due to a surge in climate misinformation, spam and even threats that have upended their relationship with the platform.” – The Guardian

December 1, 2022
Officials fear ‘complete doomsday scenario’ for drought-stricken Colorado River
“Tom Buschatzke, director of Arizona’s Department of Water Resources… has also been raising the alarm about Lake Powell reaching dead pool — an elevation 120 feet below the threshold for producing power…. If that happens, ‘you’re not going to have a river,’ he added. ‘It would be a catastrophe for the entire system.’… ‘I think I’d probably bet we’ll go below 3,490,’ said Charles Yackulic, a research statistician with USGS who is part of a team that was tasked in August to study how power pool or dead pool would impact the Colorado River…. Ultimately, the Colorado River would ‘become less like a river,’ Yackulic said, ‘and more like an irrigation ditch.'” – The Washington Post

November 30, 2022
From the Amazon to Australia, why is your money funding Earth’s destruction?
“Fossil fuels, fisheries and farming: the world’s most destructive industries are protected – and subsidised – by governments.” – The Guardian

November 29, 2022
The Hidden Costs of Cheap Meat
“The animal rights activist Leah Garcés discusses how modern meat production harms animals, people and the environment.” – The New York Times

November 29, 2022
Air pollution linked to almost a million stillbirths a year
“First global analysis follows discovery of toxic pollution particles in lungs and brains of foetuses.” – The Guardian

November 29, 2022
Big polluters given almost €100bn in free carbon permits by EU
“Free allowances ‘in direct contradiction with the polluter pays principle’, WWF report says.” – The Guardian

November  29, 2022
Scientists Revive 48,500-Year-Old ‘Zombie Virus’ Buried in Ice
“The team of researchers from Russia, Germany and France said… ‘The potential revival of a virus that could infect animals or humans is much more problematic, they said, warning that their work can be extrapolated to show the danger is real. It is thus likely that ancient permafrost will release these unknown viruses upon thawing.'” – Bloomberg

November 26, 2022
The world can’t recycle its way out of the plastics crisis
“The International Energy Agency projects that by 2050, more than half of all oil and gas will be used to make plastics and petrochemicals. This has enormous climate impacts. While civil society voices struggled to be heard at the COP27 United Nations climate talks that ended Sunday in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, the fossil fuel industry faced no such challenge, sending a record 636 lobbyists to the talks. It is not surprising that the countries attending the talks failed to confront fossil fuels that are the primary cause of climate change despite urgent calls from more than 80 nations to do so. Governments and observers alike denounced the outcome as a ‘fiasco’ that did little to avert future climate disasters.”

November 25, 2022
Humans v nature: our long and destructive journey to the age of extinction
“The story of the damage done to the world’s biodiversity is a tale of decline spanning thousands of years. Can the world seize its chance to change the narrative?” – The Guardian

November 24, 2022
Embrace what may be the most important green technology ever. It could save us all
“Never mind the yuck factor: precision fermentation could produce new staple foods, and end our reliance on farming.” – The Guardian

November 22, 2022
Large parts of Europe are warming twice as fast as the planet on average
“As a consequence of human emissions of greenhouse gases, the climate across the continent has also become drier, particularly in southern Europe, leading to worse heat waves and an increased risk of fires.” – ScienceDaily

November 21, 2022
Inside the Saudi Strategy to Keep the World Hooked on Oil
“The kingdom is working to keep fossil fuels at the center of the world economy for decades to come by lobbying, funding research and using its diplomatic muscle to obstruct climate action.” – The New York Times

November 20, 2022
Cop27 deal leaves 1.5C global heating pledge ‘on life support’, says Alok Sharma
“Friends, I said in Glasgow that the pulse of 1.5 degrees was weak,” he said in a speech at the closing plenary session of the UN climate summit. “Unfortunately, it remains on life support.”… ‘Emissions peaking before 2025, as the science tells us is necessary. Not in this text. Clear follow-through on the phase-down of coal. Not in this text. A clear commitment to phase out all fossil fuels. Not in this text,’ he said in his speech.” Independent

November 18, 2022
Sea level rise to dramatically speed up erosion of rock coastlines by 2100
“Senior author Dr Dylan Rood, of Imperial’s Department of Earth Science said: ‘Coastal erosion is one of the greatest financial risks to society of any natural hazard. Some rock cliffs are already crumbling, and within the next century, rock coast erosion rates could increase tenfold. Even rock coasts that have been stable in the last hundred years will likely respond to sea level rise by 2030.’ Globally, coasts are home to hundreds of millions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure like homes, businesses, nuclear power stations, transport links, and agriculture.” – ScienceDaily

November 18, 2022
‘Alarm bell for humanity’: Amazon now ‘alarmingly close’ to critical tipping point of no return
“The worsening climate crisis, deforestation and degradation are all pushing the Amazon towards tipping into a permanently degraded state, with the WWF saying the forest as we know it and may die by 2030 – ‘risking catastrophic consequences for nature.'” – Independent

November 18, 2022
Antimicrobial Resistance Is Growing Because of COVID
“In 2019, the latest year for which data are available, antimicrobial resistance led to 4.95 million deaths globally, making it the third leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases and cancer. After more than two years of COVID, with rampant and inappropriate antibiotic use arising from treatment protocols, public health and health care specialists say antimicrobial resistance is getting substantially worse in many countries.… At the same time, the pharmaceutical industry lacks sufficient interest in developing antibiotics, as the market for them is not lucrative. We stand to lose 10 million people each year worldwide by 2050 from diseases that we could once treat. Unfortunately, 90 percent of these deaths will happen in low- and middle-income countries.” – Scientific American

November 16, 2022
Study touting hydrogen — a technology favored by gas firms — was funded by gas interests, e-mails show
“In a paper published earlier this year in the peer reviewed journal Frontiers in Energy Research, the team offered an endorsement, recommending, among other things, that the state should consider adopting green hydrogen and blending it with natural gas to heat homes and fuel appliances like gas stoves. A similar recommendation wound up in a bill before the Legislature. The trouble is, like magic, not everything is as it seems…. Read the emails here.” – The Boston Globe

November 14, 2022
How has the world’s population grown since 1950?
“The number of people in the world has tripled in 70 years. In this visual explainer, we examine where the growth has been – and how it will change in the future. The world’s population is projected to reach 8 billion people on 15 November – more than three times larger than it was in 1950. Based on current trends, the UN estimates the population could grow to about 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion by 2050 and 10.4 billion by the end of the century.” – The Guardian

November 11, 2022
World has nine years to avert catastrophic warming, study shows
“Nations will likely burn through their remaining carbon budget in less than a decade if they do not significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution, a new study shows, causing the world to blow past a critical warming threshold and triggering catastrophic climate impacts..” – The Washington Post

November 20, 2022
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Increased in 2022 as Crises Roiled Energy Markets
“Global emissions from fossil fuels are likely to reach record highs this year, new data shows, putting nations further off track from stopping global warming… and do not yet show signs of declining, researchers said Thursday.” – The New York Times

November 10, 2022
The twilight of Africa’s glaciers
“They’ve been a source of wonder for generations. A hike up Mount Kenya shows what’s being lost.” – The Washington Post

November 9, 2022
Breaking Birth Control Taboo in Africa
Fertility rates in parts of West Africa are as has high as seven children per mother…. At 5.2 children per woman, or twice the global average, Nigeria’s population is set to more than double by 2050, to 450 million, making it the world’s third most-populous country after China and India… a region where the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) program also focuses its resources. Michael Olawuyi, of WISH, says both groups purposefully avoid words like ‘sexual’ or ‘family planning’ in their work. ‘When you say “family planning,” you strike a response in them: “only Allah should be planning the family,” he says. ‘So “childbirth spacing” is used instead.’” – Bloomberg

November 7, 2022
Climate change to impact mountains on a global scale
Under the threat of climate change, mountain landscapes all over the world have the risk of becoming more hazardous to communities surrounding them…. Research shows climate change will negatively impact mountain landscapes and human activity — including increasing risks such as avalanches, river floods, landslides, debris flows and lake outburst floods.” – ScienceDaily

November 7, 2022
Climate change is costing trillions — and low-income countries are paying the price
“The research, published on 28 October in Science Advances¹, estimates that the global economy lost between US$5 trillion and $29 trillion from 1992 to 2013, as a result of human-driven global warming. But the effect was worst in low-income tropical nations, leading to a 6.7% reduction in their national income on average, whereas high-income countries experienced only a 1.5% average decrease.” – Nature

November 5, 2022
‘It was like an apocalyptic movie’: 20 climate photographs that changed the world
“They are the images that made us sit up and take notice. As world leaders gather for Cop27, these pictures prove that global heating isn’t a distant possibility – it’s already here.” – The Guardian

November 3, 2022
The First Biodegradable Water Bottle Is Coming, for Real This Time
“With backers including James Murdoch and Diplo, Cove says its sustainable water bottle will retail at $2.99 a pop…. Behind the Cove factory, Totterman showed off a storage warehouse stocked full of boxes with Cove’s bottles, ready to ship out when the time is right. ‘We kind of fought to get here, kicking and screaming this into existence,’ the CEO admitted. ‘We’re basically in striking distance now.’ He didn’t give a precise date.” – Bloomberg

November 3, 2022
Fossil fuel burning once caused a mass extinction – now we’re risking another
“The Devon coastline reveals that Earth was in a near-lifeless state for up to five million years after the last extinction event.” – The Guardian

November 2, 2022
Egypt’s Barren Fields Are Dire Bellwether for Climate Summit
‘The Nile Delta, the breadbasket of Egyptian civilization and where Abdel Salam farms, is gradually turning barren. ‘I’ve been working on this land for more than 50 years now. I saw wars, revolutions—big changes,’ he says. “’ut water is my biggest worry.’” – Bloomberg

November 2, 2022
Europe’s climate warming at twice rate of global average, says report
“Trend of faster warming over last 30 years likely to cause exceptional heat, wildfires and floods, warn scientists.” – The Guardian

November 2, 2022
Glaciers in Yosemite and Africa will disappear by 2050, U.N. warns
“Glaciers in at least one-third of World Heritage sites possessing them, including Yosemite National Park, will disappear by mid-century even if emissions are curbed, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization warned in a new report Thursday. Even if global warming is limited to just 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which now seems unlikely, all the glaciers in Yosemite and the ice patches in Yellowstone National Park, as well as the few glaciers left in Africa, will be lost.” – The Washington Post

November 1, 2022
Enormous emissions gap between top 1% and poorest, study highlights
“‘Polluting elite’ responsible for same amount of carbon dioxide in a year as poorest 10% are in more than two decades, data shows.” – The Guardian

October 31, 2022
Marine Life and Ocean Threats 101: Everything You Need to Know
“Our oceans are facing a number of serious threats that put aquatic life and even humans at risk. You’ve seen the images: sea turtles eating plastic, a seahorse tail wrapped around a cotton swab, a shimmering dark spot spreading across the water after an oil spill. From rising sea levels to plastic pollution to toxic waste dumping, human activity is threatening the health of marine environments and, in turn, putting humans around the world in danger.” – EcoWatch

October 28, 2022
Heat waves driven by climate change have cost global economy trillions since 1990s
“…with the world’s poorest and lowest carbon-emitting nations suffering the most. The researchers used newly available, in-depth economic data for regions worldwide to find that from 1992-2013, heat waves statistically coincided with variations in economic growth and that an estimated $16 trillion was lost to the effects of high temperatures on human health, productivity and agricultural output.” – ScienceDaily

October 26, 2022
40% of Likely Student Voters Say Climate Change Motivates Them in Midterms
“A BestColleges survey also reveals the majority of students think climate change threatens their personal safety — and that policymakers should do more to address it. An overwhelming majority (86%) of students experience some amount of climate grief or anxiety, and 60% agree that climate change is an urgent problem. The majority (53%) also believe climate change should be a top priority for policymakers. Only 5% of students agree that climate change is a hoax or fake news. A large majority (65%) disagree. A third (33%) of students think oil and gas companies are most responsible for taking climate change action…. Even so, 92% of students have personally taken actions to address climate change.” – BestColleges

October 26, 2022
Global collaboration saved countries $67 billion in solar panel production costs
“Now, a new study published in the journal Nature has calculated that the globalized supply chain saved countries $67 billion in solar panel production costs. The study also found that if strong nationalistic policies that limit the free flow of goods, talent and capital are implemented going forward, solar panel costs will be much higher by 2030.” – ScienceDaily

October 26, 2022
The New World Envisioning Life After Climate Change
“The I.P.C.C. estimates that more than three billion people live today in places “highly vulnerable” to climate change. How many will move? How many will adapt? How many will suffer? The range of estimates is huge, a sign of how much uncertainty about human response hangs over everything we think we know about the climate future.” – The New York Times

October 26, 2022
Climate warming methane emissions rising faster than ever, study says
“The WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin said that ‘global emissions have rebounded since the COVID-related lockdowns’ and that the increases in methane levels in 2020 and 2021 were the largest since systematic record keeping began in 1983.” – The Washington Post

October 26, 2022
Earth is ‘unequivocally’ in midst of climate emergency, scientists say
International coalition of researchers says in a new report that the Earth’s vital signs have worsened to the point that ‘humanity is unequivocally facing a climate emergency.'” – ScienceDaily

October 26, 2022
World is on crash course to 2.5C warming, UN warns ahead of Cop27
“With days to go until the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt, the UN has published a damning review of current global climate commitments and called for more ambitious action to halt ‘the devastating consequences of runaway climate change.’ Unless national governments significantly strengthen their plans and put them into action immediately, we remain on course for around 2.5C of warming, the UN said.” – Independent

October 25. 2022
Climate change threatens emperor penguins with extinction, officials say
“It is the only animal that dares to breed during the Antarctic winter. It endures gale-force winds and freezing temperatures to lay and protect a single egg. Now climate change threatens Antarctica’s emperor penguin with extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared Tuesday, as melting sea ice upends the habitat it needs to breed, feed and protect itself from predators. ‘This listing reflects the growing extinction crisis,’ Martha Williams, the federal wildlife agency’s director, said in a statement, as the agency gave the iconic seabird protection under the Endangered Species Act. ‘Climate change is having a profound impact on species around the world.'” – The Washington Post

October 24, 2022
Immune system-evading hybrid virus observed for first time
“Researchers found the RSV and influenza viruses fused together to form a new type of virus pathogen.” – The Guardian

October 23, 2022
Climate crisis poses ‘growing threat’ to health in UK, says expert
“The climate crisis poses a ‘significant and growing threat’ to health in the UK, the country’s most senior public health expert has warned. Prof Dame Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said there was a common misconception that a warmer climate would bring net health benefits due to milder winters. But the climate emergency would bring far wider-reaching health impacts, she said, with food security, flooding and mosquito-borne diseases posing threats.” – The Guardian

October 19, 2022
Oceans are warming faster than ever. Here’s what could come next.
“The world’s oceans have been warming for generations, a trend that is accelerating and threatens to fuel more supercharged storms, devastate marine ecosystems and upend the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, according to a new scientific analysis. Published this week in the journal Nature Reviews, it finds that the upper reaches of the oceans — roughly the top 2,000 meters, or just over a mile — have been heating up around the planet since at least the 1950s, with the most stark changes observed in the Atlantic and Southern oceans.” – The Washington Post

October 19, 2022
Next pandemic may come from melting glaciers, new data shows
“Genetic analysis of soil and lake sediments from Lake Hazen, the largest high Arctic freshwater lake in the world, suggests the risk of viral spillover – where a virus infects a new host for the first time – may be higher close to melting glaciers. The findings imply that as global temperatures rise owing to climate change, it becomes more likely that viruses and bacteria locked up in glaciers and permafrost could reawaken and infect local wildlife, particularly as their range also shifts closer to the poles. For instance, in 2016 an outbreak of anthrax in northern Siberia that killed a child and infected at least seven other people was attributed to a heatwave that melted permafrost and exposed an infected reindeer carcass. Before this, the last outbreak in the region had been in 1941…. However, other recent research has suggested that unknown viruses can, and do, loiter in glacier ice. For instance, last year, researchers at Ohio State University in the US announced they had found genetic material from 33 viruses – 28 of them novel – in ice samples taken from the Tibetan plateau in China. Based on their location, the viruses were estimated to be approximately 15,000 years old.” – The Guardian

October 18, 2022
Pesticide use around world almost doubles since 1990, report finds
Agricultural chemicals drive falls of 30% in populations of field birds and butterflies, says Pesticide Atlas. Global pesticide use has soared by 80% since 1990, with the world market set to hit $130bn next year, according to a new Pesticide Atlas. But pesticides are also responsible for an estimated 11,000 human fatalities and the poisoning of 385 million people every year, the report finds. – The Guardian

October 17, 2022
Future emissions from ‘country of permafrost’ significant, must be factored into global climate targets
“By the end of this century, permafrost in the rapidly warming Arctic will likely emit as much carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere as a large industrial nation, and potentially more than the U.S. has emitted since the start of the industrial revolution.” –ScienceDaily

October 14, 2022
East Antarctic glacier melting at 70.8bn tonnes a year due to warm sea water
“Sue Cook, an ice shelf glaciologist at the University of Tasmania, said until relatively recently east Antarctica was not considered likely to experience rapid ice loss because the water in that region was mainly cold. ‘But recently we’ve realised that in some locations relatively warm water can reach the east Antarctic ice sheet and this paper confirms that one of those locations is the Denman glacier,’ Cook said.” The Guardian

October 13, 2022
‘If nature can’t survive then neither can we’: Global wildlife populations plunge 70% since 1970
“Global wildlife populations have plummeted by nearly 70 per cent in less than 50 years, a landmark report has found…. ‘The warnings in this report are stark,” Tanya Steele, the UK chief executive of the WWF, told The Independent. ‘If wildlife and nature can’t survive then neither can we.’” – Independent

October 12, 2022
Researchers Report a Staggering Decline in Wildlife. Here’s How to Understand It.
“The assessment’s latest number, issued Wednesday by 89 authors from around the world, is its most alarming yet: From 1970 to 2018, monitored populations of vertebrates declined an average of 69 percent. That’s more than two-thirds in only 48 years. It’s a staggering figure with serious implications, especially as nations prepare to meet in Montreal this December in an effort to agree on a new global plan to protect biodiversity…. Some scientists think the report actually underestimates the global biodiversity crisis, in part because devastating declines in amphibians may be underrepresented in the data.” – The New York Times

October 11, 2022
Ian is 15th billion-dollar disaster this year so far
“September 2022 was the fifth warmest, 10th driest on record.” – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

October 11, 2022
Billion-Dollar Disasters in 2022
“The frequency of billion-dollar disasters has also increased. In the last five years (2017-2021), there were just 18 days on average between billion-dollar disasters—compared to 82 days in the 1980s.” – Climate Central

October 11, 2022
Extreme heat could make parts of Asia, Africa uninhabitable in decades
“By the year 2100, extreme heat events will make parts of Asia and Africa uninhabitable for up to 600 million people, the United Nations and the Red Cross said Monday. Projected death rates from heat waves are ‘staggeringly high,’ comparable to all cancers or all infectious diseases, according to a report released ahead of next month’s U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt.” – The Washington Post

October 11, 2022
Insects Are Feasting on Plants Like Never Before, And The Consequences Are Unknown
“For eons, plants and insects have lived in a delicate dance, of pollinators giving life to flowering plants and plants feeding the insect masses. But a new study suggests that insects are feasting on plants more so now than in the past 66.8 million years…. What’s clear already is that something has shifted in the seven decades since 1955, the briefest of windows compared to the geological eras that unfolded before we humans started reshaping the biosphere.” – ScienceAltert

October 6, 2022
Kathmandu Finally Got Tap Water. After a Climate Disaster, It Was Gone.
“A disaster that wiped out a decades-long project to bring pipe-borne water to Nepal’s capital shows the mismatch between slow-moving donor-financed efforts and rapid global warming.” – The New York Times

October 6, 2022
Professors call for more research into climate-change related threats to civilization
“An opinion piece published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences, urgently calls for more research into the specific pathways by which civilization could potentially collapse due to climate change. ‘Scientists have warned that climate change threatens the habitability of large regions of the Earth and even civilization itself, but surprisingly little research exists about how collapse could happen and what can be done to prevent it,’ says Dr. Daniel Steel of the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.” – ScienceDaily

October 6, 2022
IMF chief warns world heading towards age of greater instability
The world faces growing recession risks and a “fundamental shift” away from relative stability to an age of breakdown in international relations and more frequent natural disasters, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned. Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said a succession of economic shocks had unleashed persistently high inflation, prompting a cost of living crisis in countries around the world.” – The Guardian

October 6, 2022
Weatherwatch: climate crisis causing tropical viruses to spread
“Infections such as dengue fever on rise in Europe as virus-transmitting mosquitoes expand habitats.” – The Guardian

October 4, 2022
The Monsoon Is Becoming More Extreme
“South Asia’s monsoon is inextricably linked, culturally and economically, to much of Asia. Climate change is making it increasingly violent and erratic…. Across South Asia, climate change is making the monsoon more erratic, less dependable and even dangerous, with more violent rainfall as well as worsening dry spells. For a region home to nearly one-quarter of the world’s population, the consequences are dire.” – The New York Times

October 1, 2022
Nearly Half Of The World’s Bird Species Are In Decline: Report
“Birds tell us about the health of our natural environment — we ignore their messages at our peril.” – HuffPost

September 30, 2022
Fate of Amazon rests on Brazil election, say experts
“Further destruction under Bolsonaro could push vital rainforest past irreversible tipping point.” – The Guardian

September 29, 2022
Scientists find link between fast-melting Arctic ice and ocean acidification
“An international team of researchers has found acidity levels increasing three to four times faster than ocean waters elsewhere and a strong correlation between the accelerated rate of melting ice in the region and the rate of ocean acidification. This threatens the Earth’s climate and the survival of plants, shellfish, coral reefs and other marine life.” – ScienceDaily

September 29, 2022
Observations confirm model predictions of sea-level change from Greenland melt
“Rising sea levels from melting glaciers and ice sheets pose an increasing threat to coastal communities worldwide…. The new study confirms the accuracy of the geophysical predictions of sea-level change and adds confidence to projections of sea level rise across the next decades and century. As Coulson says, ‘It’s a powerful and sensitive approach to monitoring ice sheets and glaciers in our warming world.'” – ScienceDaily

September 29, 2022
Mexico named deadliest country for environmental activists
“The attacks against activists are part of a broader region-wide pattern: A combination of rich natural resources, powerful international companies, violent criminal groups, and entrenched government corruption, including in some cases officials who play a role in killings, has made Latin America a hot spot for violence.” – Boston Globe

September 29, 2022
Over 1,700 environmental activists murdered in 10 years, investigation finds
“Report shows Brazil has been deadliest country for environmental defenders while over three-quarters of attacks in 2021 took place in Latin America.” – Independent

September 29, 2022
Ozone pollution threatens plant health and makes it harder for pollinators to find flowers
“Over the past decades, rising levels of ozone pollution have been interrupting pollination, impacting the livelihood of both plants and the animals that pollinate them. Researchers now explain how an excess of ground-level ozone can damage plant foliage, change plants’ flowering patterns, and act as a barrier to pollinators finding blooms.” – ScienceDaily

September 29, 2022
Methane Might Be a Bigger Climate Problem Than Thought, Study Finds
“Improving efficiency and ensuring that all flares remain lit would result in annual emissions reductions in the United States equal to taking nearly 3 million cars off the road each year, the scientists said.” – The New York Times

September 29, 2022
Scientists Discover Arctic Waters Are Rapidly Becoming Acidic in Dire Climate Warning
“The acidification of the world’s oceans—literally, becoming more acidic—is a concerning trend that’s closely watched by scientists. Indeed, acidification kills wildlife and has been implicated in past mass extinctions on Earth. In a new study, scientists have found that acidification in the western Arctic Ocean is occurring at a rate three to four times higher than in other oceans due to climate change—a finding that could spell trouble for global oceans as well.” – Vice

September 29, 2022
Climate change has come for the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter
“China just finished one of its most disastrous summers on record, with record-breaking heat, drought, and wildfires leading to water shortages even into the fall. More than 900 million people — or about 64 percent of China’s population — faced brutal heat waves alone, highlighting how much further the nation has to go to protect itself against worsening climate-related disasters. As weather historian Maximiliano Herrera told New Scientist magazine last month while the heat waves were ongoing, ‘There is nothing in world climatic history which is even minimally comparable to what is happening in China.’” – Vox

September 28, 2022
Switzerland’s Glaciers Are Melting Like Never Before, Says New Study
“Their ice volume declined by 6 percent in a ‘disastrous’ 2022 amid rising concerns about global warming and a summer heat wave that swept across Europe.” – HuffPost

September 28, 2022
Half of world’s bird species in decline as destruction of avian life intensifies
“State of the World’s Birds report warns human actions and climate crisis putting 49% in decline, with one in eight bird species under threat of extinction.” – The Guardian

September 27, 2022
Trees get overheated in a warmer rainforest
The ability of rainforests to store carbon can decrease in pace with climate change…. Increased heat threatens especially the species that store most carbon.” – ScienceDaily

September 22, 2022
Coastal cities in parts of Asia are sinking fastest, study finds
“Cities along the coasts of South and Southeast Asia are sinking — even faster than similar cities elsewhere — because of rapid, poorly controlled urbanization, scientists say, heightening risks already posed by rising sea levels.” – The Washington Post

September 22, 2022
World Bank Leader, Accused of Climate Denial, Offers a New Response
“David Malpass catapulted onto the international stage three years ago when he was nominated by President Donald J. Trump to become president of the World Bank. He was charged with improving the economies of poor nations, many of which are being battered by extreme weather fueled by climate change…. The uproar began on Tuesday when Mr. Malpass refused to say during a public event at The New York Times whether the burning of oil, gas and coal was driving climate change.” – The New York Times

September 20. 2022
Millions of farmers ‘replumb’ the world’s largest delta
“Collective groundwater pumping by millions of farmers in Bangladesh in the dry season each year has created vast natural reservoirs underground that, over a 30-year-period, rival the world’s largest dams – these sustain irrigation that has transformed this previously famine-prone country to a food-secure nation, according to a new study…. Through this process, which the authors describe as ‘The Bengal Water Machine,’ more than 75 cubic kilometres of freshwater was ‘captured’ over 30-years – a volume equivalent to the combined reservoir capacities of China’s Three Gorges Dam and the Hoover Dam in the US. They highlight this intervention as a sustainable alternative to conventional approaches to seasonal river flow storage for irrigation, including dams and reservoirs, which are challenging to construct in densely populated alluvial plains, like the Bengal Basin, that comprise extensive flat landforms of sand, silt and clay laid down by annual floodwaters.” – ScienceDaily

September 16, 2022
Criticism intensifies after big oil admits ‘gaslighting’ public over green aims
“Fury as ‘explosive’ files reveal largest oil companies contradicted public statements and wished bedbugs upon critical activists.” – The Guardian

September 16, 2022
Governments urged to act after oil giants accused of misleading public
“Documents suggest Shell and BP staff privately downplayed public commitments on climate crisis.” – The Guardian

September 15, 2020
Malthus Was Right
“‘Malthus observed that an increase in a nation’s food production improved the well-being of the population, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, humans had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living […] Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship, want and greater susceptibility to famine and disease….’” – Medium

September 15, 2022
Climate crisis ‘threatens rule of law and civilisation’, lawyers warn, in call to end fossil fuel links
“Major British law firms are contributing to the climate crisis, the letter warns. More than 170 prominent lawyers have signed a letter warning that breaching the 1.5C temperature goal established by the Paris Agreement could cause mass loss of life and the breakdown of the rule of law…. The letter states: ‘The science is clear: continuing on current trajectories will lead us to breach the 1.5C temperature threshold and doing so presents intolerable risks.’ ‘The City is one of the largest global centres for financing fossil fuelprojects, assessed in 2019 as supporting at least 15 per cent of global emissions.'” – Independent

September 15, 2022
‘Existential catastrophe’ caused by AI is likely unavoidable, DeepMind researcher warns
“Researchers from the University of Oxford and Google’s artificial intelligence division DeepMind have claimed that there is a high probability of advanced forms of AI becoming ‘existentially dangerous to life on Earth.’ In a recent article in the peer-reviewed journal AI Magazine, the researchers warned that there would be ‘catastrophic consequences’ if the development of certain AI agents continues.” – Independent

September 14, 2022
Rich countries set to fail in providing $100bn climate finance in 2022 again, report says
“Countries like the US and UK contributed a fraction of their pledged climate finance goals in past years.” – Independent

September 14, 2022
Earth barrelling towards ‘uncharted territory of destruction,’ new climate report warns
“Weather, climate, and water-related disasters have increased by a factor of five over last 50 years, report says…. ‘Using the best estimate of warming since pre-industrial times, the likelihood of the annual mean global near-surface temperature temporarily exceeding 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years is 48 per cent and is increasing with time,’ the WMO report warned.” – Independent

September 14, 2022
Are we missing a crucial component of sea-level rise?
“‘You can’t necessarily assume that everywhere that’s currently frozen will stay frozen,’ said senior study author Dustin Schroeder, an associate professor of geophysics at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. ‘These regions may be under-appreciated potential contributors.’… ‘When you consider the recent theoretical work showing that thermal processes at the bed can be easy to activate – even spontaneous – it makes near-term thawing of the ice-sheet bed seem like a far easier switch to flip than we’d thought.'” – ScienceDaily

September 14, 2022
Private equity still investing billions in dirty energy despite pledge to clean up
“Private equity firms pumping billions of dollars into dirty energy projects are exposing investors, including pensioners, to unknown financial risks as the planet burns and governments face escalating pressure to act, new research finds. The first-of-its-kind climate risks scorecard ranks Carlyle, Warburg Pincus and KKR as the worst offenders among eight major private equity companies with significant fossil fuel portfolios.” – The Guardian

September 12, 2022
TWO NEW CLIMATE REPORTS PAINT A DIRE PICTURE FOR THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY
We are rapidly approaching a number of ‘tipping points’ that will change our world forever.” – MIC

September 13, 2022
Switching to renewable energy could save trillions – study
“Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says.” – BBC

September 13, 2022
Little Ice Age study reveals North Atlantic reached a tipping point
“‘Our latest analysis suggests that the system of ocean currents in the northern North Atlantic could be at risk of a tipping point again now due to global warming, leading once again to abrupt climate change over Europe,’ said Professor Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute.” – ScienceDaily

September 13, 2022
World heading into ‘uncharted territory of destruction’, says climate report
“Governments and businesses failing to change fast enough, says United in Science report, as weather gets increasingly extreme.” – The Guardian

September 12, 2022
Megadrought in the American south-west: a climate disaster unseen in 1,200 years – The Guardian

September 9, 2022
‘A new way of life’: the Marxist, post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan
“Kohei Saito’s book Capital in the Anthropocene has become an unlikely hit among young people and is about to be translated into English…. In practical terms, that means an end to mass production and the mass consumption of wasteful goods such as fast fashion. In Capital in the Anthropocene, Saito also advocates decarbonisation through shorter working hours and prioritising essential “labour-intensive” work such as caregiving.” – The Guardian

September 9, 2022
A breakthrough discovery in carbon capture conversion for ethylene production
“A team of rWeather, climate, and water-related disasters have increased by a factor of five over last 50 years, report saysesearchers has discovered a way to convert 100% of carbon dioxide captured from industrial exhaust into ethylene, a key building block for plastic products…. Ethylene is usually made in a process… [that] generates about 1.5 metric tons of carbon emissions per ton of ethylene created. On average, manufacturers produce around 160 million tons of ethylene each year, which results in more than 260 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.” – ScienceDaily

September 8, 2022
World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds
“Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have passed point of irreversible change.” – The Guardian

September 8, 2022
“Rising seas could swallow millions of U.S. acres within decades
“New research finds an estimated 25,000 properties in Louisiana could slip below tidal boundary lines by 2050. Florida, Texas and North Carolina also face profound economic risks.” – The Washington Post

September 7, 2022
Treasure our trees
“Nearly one-third of tree species are threatened with extinction. This is more than twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined.” – Nature

September 6, 2022
Overall warming of up to 5°C in this century projected for the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East – ScienceDaily

September 5, 2022
Bolsonaro’s war on the Amazon: examining evidence of crimes against Indigenous people– video
“A serial denier of human-driven climate breakdown, Jair Bolsonaro has been criticised in the past for failing to protect the Amazon rainforest and its native communities. Now, with less than a month before Brazilians cast their ballot in the country’s presidential elections on 2 October, using architectural techniques and satellite technologies, researchers at Forensic Architecture, in cooperation with the Climate Litigation Accelerator, have examined evidence of crimes against Indigenous people and the true impact of Bolsonaro’s policies as he seeks a second term.” – The Guardian

September 5, 2022
Faster in the Past: New seafloor images of West Antarctic Ice Sheet upend understanding of Thwaites Glacier retreat
“The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica has been an elephant in the room for scientists trying to make global sea level rise predictions. This massive ice stream is already in a phase of fast retreat; a total loss of the glacier and surrounding icy basins could raise sea level from three to 10 feet…. ‘Our results suggest that pulses of very rapid retreat have occurred at Thwaites Glacier in the last two centuries, and possibly as recently as the mid-20th Century,’ Graham said. ‘Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future-even from one year to the next-once the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed,” said marine geophysicist and study co-author Robert Larter from the British Antarctic Survey.’… According to the United Nations, roughly 40 percent of the human population lives within 60 miles of the coast.” – ScienceDaily

September 5, 2022
Burning forests for energy isn’t ‘renewable’ – now the EU must admit it
Greta Thunberg and others: The EU’s classification of wood fuels is accelerating the climate crisis. Next week, a key vote can change that.” – The Guardian

September 5, 2022
Large parts of Amazon may never recover, major study says
“Swathes of rainforest have reached tipping point, research by scientists and Indigenous organisations concludes. Environmental destruction in parts of the Amazon is so complete that swathes of the rainforest have reached tipping point and might never be able to recover, a major study carried out by scientists and Indigenous organisations has found. ‘The tipping point is not a future scenario but rather a stage already present in some areas of the region,’ the report concludes. ‘Brazil and Bolivia concentrate 90% of all combined deforestation and degradation. As a result, savannization is already taking place in both countries.’” – The Guardian

September 5, 2022
Over-consumption and drought reduce lake in vital Spanish wetland to puddle
“Experts and environmentalists say aquifer feeding Doñana national park, a Unesco heritage site, has been overexploited for tourism and to water fruit farms. The largest permanent lake in Spain’s Doñana national park, one of Europe’s biggest and most important wetlands, has shrivelled to a small puddle as years of drought and overexploitation take their toll on the aquifer that feeds the area and sustains millions of migrating birds.” – The Guardian

September 4, 2022
The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse
“Tech billionaires are buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create, but like everything they do, it has unintended consequences.” – The Guardian

September 2, 2022
Prevent tree extinctions or face global ecological catastrophe, scientists warn
“Scientists have issued an urgent ‘warning to humanity’ about the global impact of tree extinctions…. ‘Without acting now, it will impact humanity, our economies and livelihoods. Ecologically, it will have a catastrophic impact on the planet.'” – The Guardian

September 2, 2022
‘Last-chance saloon’: race to wreck the Amazon as prospect of Bolsonaro defeat looms
“Activists suspect criminals are ramping up destruction in ‘last opportunity to deforest without having to pay the price.’… A chunk of the Amazon larger than Taiwan has already been torn down since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, with an area nearly twice the size of Tokyo destroyed in the first half of this year.” –The Guardian

September

September 1, 2022
Global fish stocks can’t rebuild if nothing done to halt climate change and overfishing
“Their simulations suggest that climate change has reduced fish stocks in 103 of 226 marine regions studied, including Canada, from their historical levels. These stocks will struggle to rebuild their numbers under projected global warming levels in the 21st century.” – ScienceDaily

August 31, 2022
This Hot Summer Is One of the Coolest of the Rest of Our Lives
“Heat waves broke temperature records around the world this past summer, but it will still be one of the coolest summers of the next few decades.” – Scientific American

August 31, 2022
‘We’re going to pay in a big way’: a shocking new book on the climate crisis
“In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen style themselves as heralds of some very bad news: societal collapse on a global scale is inevitable, and those who manage to survive the mass death and crumbling of the world as we know it will have to live in drastically transformed circumstances. According to Jackson and Jensen, there’s no averting this collapse – electric cars aren’t going to save us, and neither are global climate accords. The current way of things is doomed, and it’s up to us to prepare as best we can to ensure as soft a landing as possible when the inevitable apocalypse arrives.” – The Guardian

August 31, 2022
Global fossil fuel subsidies almost doubled in 2021, analysis finds
“Global public subsidies for fossil fuels almost doubled to $700bn in 2021, analysis has shown, representing a ‘roadblock’ to tackling the climate crisis.” – The Guardian

August 30, 2022
Arctic lakes are vanishing in surprise climate finding
“As the region warms nearly four times faster than the rest of the world, glaciers collapse, wildlife suffers and habitats continue to disappear at a record pace…. Now, a new threat has become apparent: Arctic lakes are drying up, according to research published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Webb’s research reveals that over the past 20 years, Arctic lakes have shrunk or dried completely across the pan-Arctic, a region spanning the northern parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, Scandinavia and Alaska. The findings offer clues about why the mass drying is happening and how the loss can be slowed.” – ScienceDaily

August 30, 2022
The Amazon, Undone – A Failure of Enforcement
“Deforesters Are Plundering the Amazon. Brazil Is Letting Them Get Away with It. A Failure of Enforcement.” – The Washington Post

August 30, 2022
A third of Pakistan is underwater from floods, climate chief says
“That would mean an area about the size of Colorado is underwater. Pakistan, home to about 220 million, has a land mass of 307,000 square miles. Flooding caused by eight consecutive weeks of rainfall has killed more than 1,100 people…. The floods could cost Pakistan, which had already been battling an economic crisis, more than $10 billion, the country’s finance minister said, according to Bloomberg News…. The floods have revived an old debate about whether developed, wealthier countries such as the United States — the largest historical emitter of carbon dioxide — should help cover the costs of climate change for poorer countries.” The Washington Post

August 29, 2022
Greenland ice sheet set to raise sea levels by nearly a foot, study finds
The findings in the journal Nature Climate Change project that it is now inevitable that 3.3 percent of the Greenland ice sheet will melt — equal to 110 trillion tons of ice, the researchers said. That will trigger nearly a foot of global sea-level rise…. The finding that 3.3 percent of Greenland is, in effect, already lost represents “a minimum, a lower bound,” Box said. It could be much worse than that, the study suggests, especially if the world continues to burn fossil fuels and if 2012, which set a record for Greenland ice loss, becomes more like the norm.” – The Washington Post

August 27, 2022
Time running out to protect world’s oceans, conservationists say as UN treaty talks stall
A fifth round of negotiations for a UN ocean treaty to protect and manage the high seas failed to reach an agreement on Friday in New York. The treaty has been described as “the most significant ocean protection agreement for four decades’…. ‘Time has all but run out,’ said Laura Meller of Greenpeace in a statement. ‘Failure to deliver a treaty at these talks jeopardises the livelihoods and food security of billions of people around the world.’” – The Guardian

August 25, 2022
Australia fires damaged ozone layer, caused major warming, study says
“Australia’s fire season in late 2019 and early 2020 was extreme. It blew smoke some 20 miles into the sky, not unlike what a nuclear blast might cause. Smoke from the fires circled the globe and hovered in plumes over the Pacific…. Lilly Damany-Pearce, a researcher at England’s University of Exeter who led the study, said that both the stratospheric warming and a sizable ozone hole that spread over most of the Antarctic continent in 2020 were likely to have been caused by the violent fire-induced thunderclouds, or ‘pyrocumulonimbus’ events, which injected enormous plumes of smoke into the lower stratosphere.” – The Washington Post

August 25, 2022
Threat of nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine adds to global energy chaos
“Russia’s invasion shows the immense danger nuclear power can pose in conflict. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Zaporizhzhia, lies in southeastern Ukraine. It has been held by Russian forces since March, but amplified fighting over recent weeks has led to an unprecedented fear of a nuclear catastrophe coinciding with a brutal war.” – The Washington Post

August 24, 2022
China heatwave: scorching temperatures and severe drought – in pictures
“Parts of China are enduring the worst heatwave in decades, affecting crops and power supplies as water levels reach record lows.” – The Guardian 

August 22, 2022
As many as one in six U.S. tree species is threatened with extinction
“Some 100 native tree species could die out amid an onslaught of invasive insects, a surge in deadly diseases and the all-encompassing peril of climate change.” – The Washington Post

August 22, 2022
A historical perspective on glacial retreat
“Researchers have now reconstructed the extent of Switzerland’s glacier ice loss in the 20th century. The researchers used historical imagery and conclude that the country’s glaciers lost half their volume between 1931 and 2016.” – ScienceDaily

August  19, 2022
A new strain of avian flu is decimating wild birds. Humans should worry
“In a pre-Covid 19 world, the deaths of 86mn birds would have been a global news story.” – Financial Times
(Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk – Nature, 28, April, 2022)

August 19, 2022
Climate change likely to raise wheat prices in food-insecure regions and exacerbate economic inequality
“Wheat is a key source of nutrition for people across the globe, providing 20% of calories and protein for 3.4 billion people worldwide. Even if we meet climate mitigation targets and stay under 2°C of warming, climate change is projected to significantly alter the yield and price of wheat in the coming years.” – ScienceDaily 

Augusts 18, 2022
The century of climate migration: why we need to plan for the great upheaval
“People driven from their homes by climate disaster need protection. And aging nations need them. A great upheaval is coming. Climate-driven movement of people is adding to a massive migration already underway to the world’s cities. The number of migrants has doubled globally over the past decade, and the issue of what to do about rapidly increasing populations of displaced people will only become greater and more urgent. To survive climate breakdown will require a planned and deliberate migration of a kind humanity has never before undertaken.” – The Guardian

August 17, 2022
California urges residents to cut power use as searing heatwave grips US west
“A searing heatwave settles over the state and stretches power supplies to a breaking point, in the latest sign of extreme weather conditions in the US west.” – The Guardian

August 17, 2022
Huge volcanic eruptions: time to prepare
“More must be done to forecast and try to manage globally disruptive volcanic eruptions. The risks are greater than people think. The massive eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai volcano this January in Tonga, in the south Pacific Ocean, was the volcanic equivalent of a ‘near miss’ asteroid whizzing by the Earth. The eruption was the largest since Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew in 1991, and the biggest explosion ever recorded by instruments…. The Tongan eruption should be a wake-up call. Recent data from ice cores suggest that the probability of an eruption with a magnitude of 7 (10 or 100 times larger than Tonga) or greater this century is 1 in 6². Eruptions of this size have, in the past, caused abrupt climate change and the collapse of civilizations, and have been associated with the rise of pandemics³.” – Nature

August 15, 2022
Nuclear war would cause a global famine and kill billions
“Even a nuclear conflict between new nuclear states would decimate crop production and result in widespread starvation. More than 5 billion people would die of hunger following a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, according to a global study led by climate scientists that estimates post-conflict crop production.” – ScoienceDaily

August 15, 2022
Irreversible declines in freshwater storage projected in parts of Asia by 2060
“A comprehensive study on water storage in Tibetan Plateau projects near-total loss of freshwater storage in parts of Asia by mid-century under modest climate policy scenario. The Tibetan Plateau, known as the ‘water tower’ of Asia, supplies freshwater for nearly two billion people who live downstream.” – ScienceDaily

August 15, 2022
Why Freya the Walrus is the perfect metaphor for our times
She lived, she laughed, she was cruelly euthanised.” – Dazed

August 12, 2022
Antarctica’s ice shelves could be melting faster than we thought
“A new model illustrates how meltwater from the Antarctic ice can trap heat under ice shelves, increasing melting in a feedback loop.” – ScienceDaily

August 11, 2022
Arctic now warming four times faster than rest of the world, scientists say
“The new research comes a day after staggering findings from the other side of the world. An international team of scientists published research on Wednesday that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, known as the ‘sleeping giant,’ could singlehandedly raise sea levels by up to five metres (16ft) in the next few centuries if planetary heating continues apace.” – Independent

August 11, 2022
Climate change’s impact intensifies as U.S. prepares to take action
“Over the past 40 years, as the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouses gases repeatedly failed to take significant action on the climate, the region surrounding Svalbard has warmed at least four times faster than the global average, according to significant new research published Thursday. The study suggests that warming in the Arctic is happening at a much faster rate than many scientists had expected. And while U.S. lawmakers this summer hashed out the details of a massive bill to speed their nation’s shift toward cleaner energy — the culmination of months of deliberations — the new findings were just the latest visceral reminder that the planet’s changing climate isn’t waiting around for human action.” – The Washington Post

August 10, 2022
Even modest climate change may lead to sweeping changes in northernmost forests
“Even relatively modest climate warming and associated precipitation shifts may dramatically alter Earth’s northernmost forests, which constitute one of the planet’s largest nearly intact forested ecosystems and are home to a big chunk of the planet’s terrestrial carbon.” – ScienceDaily

August 10, 2022
In the Amazon, a U.N. Agency Has a Green Mission, but Dirty Partners
“One of the world’s largest sustainable development agencies has worked with energy companies to quash opposition and keep oil flowing, even in sensitive areas…. In 2017, for example, two years after world leaders adopted the Paris climate agreement, the agency published a report on the positive role the oil and gas industry could play for the world. It listed an Exxon Mobil recycling initiative and Chevron’s promotion of engineering in classrooms.” – The New York Times

August 10, 2022
Fate of ‘sleeping giant’ East Antarctic ice sheet ‘in our hands’ – study
“The fate of the world’s biggest ice sheet rests in the hands of humanity, a new analysis has shown. If global heating is limited to 2C, the vast East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable, but if the climate crisis drives temperatures higher, melting could drive up sea level by many metres. The East Antarctic ice sheet (EAIS) holds the vast majority of Earth’s glacier ice. Sea levels would rise by 52 metres if it all melted. It was thought to be stable, but is now showing signs of vulnerability, the scientists said.” – The Guardian

August 8, 2022
Climate Change Is Supercharging Most Infectious Diseases, New Study Finds
“More than half of all human infectious diseases in recorded history — Lyme, West Nile, hantavirus, typhoid, HIV and influenza, to name a few — have been exacerbated by the mounting impacts of greenhouse gas-driven climate change.” – HuffPost

August 6, 2022
Revealed: BP’s ‘greenwashing’ social media ads as anger over fuel costs rose
“BP has spent more than £800,000 on social media influence ads in the UK this year that champion the company’s investments in green energy, it can be revealed. On Tuesday, BP announced a 14-year high profit of £7bn for the second quarter of this year. In the previous eight days, the company paid about £570,000 to Facebook and Instagram for influence ads that reached tens of millions of viewers in the UK. ‘These ads are intended to create a clean warm glow about the companies concerned, giving them more social licence to operate,’ said Doug Parr, chief scientist for Greenpeace UK.” – The Guardian

August 5, 2022
How Republicans Are ‘Weaponizing’ Public Office Against Climate Action
“A Times investigation revealed a coordinated effort by state treasurers to use government muscle and public funds to punish companies trying to reduce greenhouse gases.” – The New York Times

August 5, 2022
Nuclear weapons a ‘loaded gun’, warns UN chief on Hiroshima anniversary
“’Tens of thousands of people were killed in this city in the blink of an eye. Women, children and men were incinerated in a hellish fire,’ he said. Survivors were ‘cursed with a radioactive legacy’ of cancer and other health problems. ‘We must ask: What have we learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city?’ Around 140,000 people died when Hiroshima was bombed by the United States on August 6, 1945 – a toll that includes those who perished after the blast from radiation exposure. Today, ‘crises with grave nuclear undertones are spreading fast – the Middle East, to the Korean peninsula, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,’ Guterres said, repeating warnings he made this week at a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty conference in New York. ‘Humanity is playing with a loaded gun.'” – AFP

August 4, 2022
The lost nuclear bombs that no one can find
“The US has lost at least three nuclear bombs that have never been located – they’re still out there to this day….. ‘We don’t know as much about other countries. We don’t really know anything about the United Kingdom or France, or Russia or China,’ says Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-proliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies, California. ‘So I don’t think we have anything like a full accounting.'” – BBC

August 4, 2022
‘They are not slowing down’: The rise of billion-dollar disasters – The Washington Post

August 4, 2022
Uniper Warns on German Power Output as Rhine River Dries Up
“Uniper SE warned it may have to cut output at two key coal-fired power plants in Germany as the company struggles to get fuel supplies along the Rhine River, exacerbating an energy crunch that has threatened to push the continent’s largest economies into recession. Water levels on the Rhine have fallen so low that the river may effectively close soon.” – Bloomberg

August 3, 2022
‘Grotesque greed’: immoral fossil fuel profits must be taxed, says UN chief
“Guterres said the ‘grotesque greed’ of the fossil fuel companies and their financial backers had led to the combined profits of the largest energy companies in the first quarter of this year hitting almost $100bn (£82bn). ‘It is immoral for oil and gas companies to be making record profits from this energy crisis on the backs of the poorest people and communities, at a massive cost to the climate,’ he said.” – The Guardian

August 2, 2022
World ‘one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’, UN chief says
“Citing Ukraine, the Korean peninsula and Middle East, António Guterres says: ‘We have been extraordinarily lucky so far. But luck is not a strategy.’” – The Guardian

August 1, 2022
‘Climate endgame’: Potential for environmental crisis to end humanity ‘dangerously underexplored’
“Despite decades of warnings from the world’s best scientists that soaring greenhouse gas emissions are driving the planet ever closer to catastrophe, the magnitude of the perils ahead remain “dangerously underexplored”, experts have warned. An international team of researchers led by the University of Cambridge have said that “catastrophic” scenarios could be triggered by global heating worse than many have predicted, or by cascading impacts of events – or both at once. As a result, they have said the world must start preparing for the possibility of a ‘climate endgame’ for our species.”

August 1, 2022
The big idea: do nations really need borders?
“In an era of global heating, fixed boundaries may soon be unsustainable. What are the alternatives?” – The Guardian

July 30, 2022
‘Soon it will be unrecognisable’: total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert
“The publication of Bill McGuire’s latest book, Hothouse Earth, could not be more timely…. The crucial point, he argues, is that there is now no chance of us avoiding a perilous, all-pervasive climate breakdown. We have passed the point of no return and can expect a future in which lethal heatwaves and temperatures in excess of 50C (120F) are common in the tropics; where summers at temperate latitudes will invariably be baking hot, and where our oceans are destined to become warm and acidic. ‘A child born in 2020 will face a far more hostile world that its grandparents did,’ McGuire insists.” – The Guardian

July 30, 2022
The Gas Industry Is Pumping Money Into A Tiny Local Race To Crush A Climate Champion
“Alex Ramel took the lead on electrifying buildings in Washington state — and fossil fuel interests want to make an example of him.” – HuffPost

July 29, 2022
Brazil approves major road through Amazon rainforest despite illegal logging fears
“A study estimated the project would result in a fivefold rise in deforestation by 2030, the equivalent of an area larger than the US state of Florida. Mr Bolsonaro’s weakening of environmental protections has already spurred soaring deforestation, with clearances of the Brazilian Amazon hitting a record high in 2022. Satellite images taken between January and June this year show 1,500 square miles of forest destroyed, more than in any six-month period in the seven years of record-keeping under the current methodology.” – Independent

July 29, 2022
A window of opportunity for methane to slip by nature’s filters
“Warmer oceans can lead to large amounts of methane being released from the seabeds, which may amplify climate warming.” – ScienceDaily

July 28, 2022
New Antarctic study shows levels of ‘forever chemicals’ reaching the remote continent have been increasing
“Toxic ‘fluorinated forever chemicals’ have increased markedly in the remote environment in recent decades and scientists believe CFC-replacements could be among likely sources.” – ScienceDaily

July 28, 2022
West Virginia punishes banks that it says don’t support coal
“The announcement, made by West Virginia’s treasurer, Riley Moore, is the first time a state has moved to sever banking relationships with major Wall Street firms over objections to their efforts to reduce dangerous planet-warming emissions.” – Boston Globe

July 28, 2022
‘It’s plunder’: Mexico desperate for water while drinks companies use billions of litres
“As drought grips cities like Monterrey, people queue with buckets for brackish water. But Coca-Cola and other firms are still extracting groundwater.” – The Guardian

July 27, 2022
THE AMAZON, UNDONE – THE GOD OF SÃO FÉLIX
“He’s been called a deforester and killer. Now he’s called mayor…. It’s not just that Mayor João Cleber Torres had aligned himself with the land grabbers…. Torres moved to São Félix do Xingu in 1981, when it was little more than dense forest. He is then alleged to have built what federal attorneys described in an internal memo as a large criminal organization that butchered the jungle — first extracting its precious wood, then stealing the land and selling it to be cleared for pasture. Torres, attorneys wrote in the memo, orchestrated ‘dozens of homicides,’ assembled a network of 100 gunslingers, and violently seized territory from the weak and the isolated, including in this very Indigenous territory. Police reports show that he was investigated for homicide in 2002. His criminal file links him to two cases of attempted homicide in 2003 and 2005. Records indicate that he has been charged with illegal deforestation, fined more than $2.4 million for deforestation and accused by federal attorneys, in 2016, of subjecting farmworkers to slavery-like conditions. The catchphrase that one Brazilian journalist and residents attribute to him: ‘Either you sell the land to me, or I’ll buy it from your widow.'” – The Washington Post

July 27, 2022
Destroying the Environment Is a War Crime, Too
“Beneath the human catastrophe Russia has inflicted on Ukraine is an array of environmental disasters that will impact generations to come.” – Foreign Policy

July 27, 2022
Risk of nuclear war from cutting off China and Russia, says security tsar
The west risks the initiation of nuclear conflict with China or Russia because of a “breakdown of communication” with the two countries, the UK’s national security adviser has warned.” – The Guardian

July 27, 2022
Looking for someone to blame for the extreme heat? Try Wall Street
“Banks’ financing of coal, oil, and gas was higher in 2021 than it was in 2016, the year after the Paris agreement was adopted.” – The Guardian

July 26, 2022
Hot on the trail of the causes of rapid ice sheet instabilities in climate history
“A thin freshwater lens lying atop millions of cubic kilometers of water during the Heinrich events is presently considered to be the cause of the disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), or its complete shutdown, with profound regional and global climatic consequences…. A continuous warming of the ocean at this depth was critical for destabilizing the ice shelf from below, and eventually led to the accelerated shedding of icebergs – the Heinrich Events…. ‘If the overturning circulation should weaken in the future due to anthropogenic climate change,” suggests Cristiano Chiessi of the University of São Paulo, ‘we would expect an accelerated warming of the deeper subpolar North Atlantic that could negatively impact both the stability of the present-day Arctic glaciers and the freshwater budget of the North Atlantic.'” – ScienceDaily

July 25, 2022
‘Insect apocalypse’ may cause plants to battle for pollinators and ‘destabilise’ co-existence
“Three fourths of the crops on the face of this earth depend on insect pollinators, yet the insect abundance has dropped 50% worldwide and the number of species has dropped 27%…. We can’t feed seven and a half billion people without these insects…. The biggest problems are chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers… the warmer climate… deforestation.” – Independent

July 25, 2021
The insect apocalypse: ‘Our world will grind to a halt without them’
“Insects have declined by 75% in the past 50 years – and the consequences may soon be catastrophic.” – The Guardian

July 23, 2022
The audacious PR plot that seeded doubt about climate change
“Thirty years ago, a bold plan was cooked up to spread doubt and persuade the public that climate change was not a problem. The little-known meeting – between some of America’s biggest industrial players and a PR genius – forged a devastatingly successful strategy that endured for years, and the consequences of which are all around us…. ‘I think it’s the moral equivalent of a war crime,’ says former US Vice-President Al Gore of the big oil companies’ efforts to block action. ‘I think it is, in many ways, the most serious crime of the post-World War Two era, anywhere in the world. The consequences of what they’ve done are just almost unimaginable.'” – BBC & ScienceDirect

July 23, 2022
How Lyme Disease Became Unstoppable
“There was nothing inevitable about the Lyme epidemic. Then humans disrupted the environment and fueled an era of tick-borne diseases.” – The Nation

July 22, 2022
The bigger the temperature change, the larger the extinction event
“Scientists have unearthed evidence pointing to a strong relationship between the magnitude of mass extinctions and global temperature changes in geologic times.” – ScienceDaily

July 19, 2022
Europe is burning like it’s 2052
“The extraordinary heat wave in Europe is showing what’s possible already, and what lies ahead under climate change.” – Vox

July 19, 2022
Australia’s environment in ‘shocking’ decline, report finds – BBC

July 18, 2022
Lakes in hot water, climate change creating a cauldron of issues
“Research shows consequences of climate change can affect any of the more than 100 million lakes in the world…. Warmer water temperatures lead to changes in stratification regimes, declines in dissolved oxygen, a higher risk of cyanobacterial algal blooms, as well as a loss of habitat for native cold-water fish. It can affect not only water quality and quantity, but also cultural and recreational activities, and local economies. ‘Climate change has far-reaching social and ecological repercussions, but the impacts of climate change, combined with other environmental pressures, are often little understood and the significance of them has not been appreciated at a global level,’ says Sharma of York’s Faculty of Science.” – ScienceDaily

July 18, 2022
Humanity faces ‘collective suicide’ over climate crisis, warns UN chief
“António Guterres tells governments ‘half of humanity is in danger zone’, as countries battle extreme heat.” – The Guardian

July 18, 2022
Water resources to become less predictable with climate change
“Water resources will fluctuate increasingly and become more difficult to predict in snow-dominated regions across the Northern Hemisphere by later this century, according to a comprehensive new climate change study. Even regions that keep receiving the same amount of precipitation will experience more variable and unpredictable streamflow as snowpack recedes.” – Science/Daily

July 18, 2022
This Isn’t Climate Change Anymore — It’s Climate Suicide
Three Facts Everyone Should Know About the Age of Extinction – Eudaimonia and Co

July 18, 2022
State of the environment: shocking report shows how Australia’s land and wildlife are being destroyed
“The health of Australia’s environment is poor and has deteriorated over the past five years due to pressures of climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and mining, according to a government report that warns the natural world holds the key to human wellbeing and survival. The state of the environment report – a review completed by scientists last year but held back by the Morrison government until after the federal election – found abrupt changes in some Australian ecosystems over the past five years, with at least 19 now showing signs of collapse or near collapse.” – The Guardian

July 18, 2022
How climate change will exacerbate China-India tensions
The two countries’ shared river systems are already a source of friction, which will only be worsened by flooding due to an increase in extreme rainfall and enhanced glacier melt. Rising temperatures in the Himalayan region will enable further militarisation of contested border areas. Their shared river systems, the Yarlung Tsangpo (known as the Brahmaputra in India) in the east and the River Indus in the west have become sources tension, as the effects of climate change, such as retreating glaciers, increased precipitation and glacial lake outburst floods, affect the distribution and movement of water in these rivers. The rise in temperature in the erstwhile inhabitable border regions of Ladakh…. These developments are feeding into the conflict dynamics between the rivals.” South China Morning Post

July 17, 2022
Hundreds die as heatwave grips Europe and temperatures soar above 40ºC
“At least 360 people have died in Spain’s scorching heat, while in neighbouring Portugal, 238 more deaths were recorded from July 7-13 than in previous years…. Firefighters in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece battled forest blazes that have ravaged thousands of hectares of land and killed several personnel since the start of the week.” – South China Morning Post

July 17, 2022
As the Planet Cooks, Climate Stalls as a Political Issue
“Joe Manchin’s rejection of a compromise climate bill tells a familiar story: Voters and politicians put a higher premium on immediate issues, such as inflation and the economy, giving politicians a pass on global warming.” – The New York Times

July 15, 2022
Heat emergency declared in England as temperature expected to hit 40C
“Heatwave arriving on Sunday expected to bring most extreme hot weather ever recorded in UK.” – The Guardian

July 13, 2022
As drought shrivels Lake Powell, millions face power crisis
“With water levels falling ‘lower than thought possible’ at Glen Canyon Dam, energy production could halt as soon as July 2023.” – The Guardian

July 12, 2022
Republicans threaten Wall Street over climate positions
“Republican officials across the country, tearing a page from the ongoing culture wars, are launching a broad assault on the movement by big financial firms to use their economic power to curb climate change.” – The Washington Post

July 12, 2022
Nearly $2tn of damage inflicted on other countries by US emissions
“Research puts US ahead of China, Russia, India and Brazil in terms of global damage as climate expert says numbers ‘very stark.’” – The Guardian

July 12, 2022
New Climate Promises, Same Old Global Warming
“Many of the world’s biggest and most polluting corporations have recently promised to stop adding carbon to the atmosphere, saying that they’ll reach ‘net zero’ emissions in the next few decades. These sweeping pledges envision a world where we can have it all: economic growth and global trade without the warming that usually comes with that. But while saving the planet demands something more ambitious than good old incremental change, these corporate fantasies of the future don’t stand up to scrutiny.” – New York Times

July 11, 2022
Pakistan has the largest reservoir of ice outside the polar regions
“Melting glaciers in northern Pakistan blamed for rising number of dangerous outburst floods…. Pakistan is home to more than 7,000 glaciers, more than anywhere else in the world. As ice sheets in northern Pakistan melt at a faster pace because of climate change, nearby areas are being caught up in potentially deadly outburst floods. Glacial lake outburst floods happen when water is suddenly released from a lake fed by glacier melt collecting at the side, front, within, beneath or even on top of the ice sheets. In the first six months of 2022, there were 16 outburst floods, compared with an average of 5-6 per year recorded in Pakistan in the past.” – South China Morning Post 

July 9, 2022
Earth Is On Track To Lose More Than 1,000 Wild Mammal Species, UN Report Says
“Overexploitation, climate change, pollution and deforestation are pushing 1 million species towards extinction, including 12% of the world’s wild tree species.” – HuffPost