The Guardian (September 15)
“Every one of the world’s leading economies, including all the countries that make up the G20, is failing to meet commitments made in the landmark Paris agreement in order to stave off climate catastrophe, a damning new analysis has found.” With COP26 approaching, “none of the largest greenhouse gas emitting countries have made sufficient plans to lower pollution to meet what they agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate accord,” leaving the world “on track for 3C temperature increase if present trends continue.”
Tags: Climate catastrophe, Commitments, COP26, Failing, G20, GHG, Leading economies, Paris Agreement, Pollution
USA Today (October 7)
The “superspreader” event in the Rose Garden will go down in history. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the “maskless Supreme Court nomination ceremony turned into a form of biological attack on the top echelons of U.S. government.” Symbolic of “America’s failing response to the novel coronavirus,” the event was “a sad brew of hubris and misapplied science.” White House officials and guests mistakenly thought “they could frolic in a kind of virus-free bubble, exempted from the preventative measures that have reshaped and constrained the lives of millions of average Americans.”
Tags: Biological attack, Bubble, Ceremony, COVID-19, Failing, Frolic, History, Hubris, Maskless, Nomination, Pandemic, Rose Garden, Superspreader, Supreme Court, U.S.
Washington Post (April 21)
“When the price of oil seemingly stepped through the looking glass Monday and tumbled into negative value, it summoned up an image of the world of petroleum turned wrong-side-round.” This shocker “was fleeting, and symbolic, more than anything, and it won’t have much effect on the price of gasoline at the pump. But it showed just how much the coronavirus pandemic has crushed the world’s energy markets — and how the global effort to stabilize them was failing.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Energy markets, Failing, Fleeting, Gasoline, Negative value, Oil, Pandemic, Petroleum, Price, Symbolic
LA Times (October 4)
“For many Americans the truth too horrible to consider is that Donald Trump could be a criminal, a wildly successful con artist. He may well be disloyal. For those who grasp what Trump is, the corollary truth is that our Constitution’s checks and balances are failing us.”
Tags: Checks and balances, Con artist, Constitution, Criminal, Disloyal, Failing, Horrible, Trump, Truth, U.S.
The Economist (December 9)
“Under President Jacob Zuma, the state is failing. Contracts are awarded through bribes and connections; ruling-party members murder each other over lucrative government jobs; crooks operate with impunity.” South Africa’s “people deserve better” than the Zuma corruption or his wife who now seeks to replace him as President. “The rainbow nation still has the potential to be a beacon of prosperity and good governance in Africa, but memories of its hopeful birth are a melancholy counterpoint to its dark present. The best chance for recovering that optimism is a victory for Mr Ramaphosa.”
Tags: Africa, Bribes, Connections; Ruling party, Corruption, Crooks, Failing, Governance, Impunity, Ramaphosa, South Africa, Zuma
New York Times (August 20)
“With each day, President Trump offers fresh proof that he is failing the office that Americans entrusted to him. The rolling disaster of his presidency accelerated downhill last week…. Since the 1930s it has not typically been a challenge for an American leader to denounce Nazism.” But last week, Trump “chose instead to deliver a defense of white supremacists that raised as never before profound doubts about his moral compass, his grasp of the obligations of his office and his fitness to occupy it.”
Tags: Disaster, Downhill, Failing, Fitness, Grasp, Nazism, Obligations, Trump, White supremacists. Doubts. Moral compass
“Wall Street Journal (November 17)
“Japan is in recession for the fifth time in seven years, and the second time since Shinzo Abe returned to office three years ago. The energetic Prime Minister who promised to end his country’s stagnation is failing at the task. It’s time for a rethink.”
