Investment Week (August 11)
“Climate change mitigation is high on the global agenda, with escalating pressure on governments to take action to prevent a climate catastrophe.” In July, the European Commission “unveiled ambitious plans to deliver a 55% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – relative to 1990 levels. The ‘Fit for 55’ package spans all sectors and could have a significant impact on high-emitting industries.” The plan could prove the “biggest investment story in decades.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Climate change, Cut, Emissions, European Commission, Fit for 55, GHG, Global agenda, Governments, Investment, Mitigation
Moscow Times (August 9)
“Smoke from wildfires burning across Russia’s largest and coldest region has reached the North Pole for what is believed to be the first time in known history.” The forest fires have been “fueled by hot weather and a 150-year record drought” and “already emitted a record 505 megatons of carbon dioxide.”
Tags: Burning, CO2, Drought, First time, Forest fires, Fueled, History, Hot, North Pole, Record, Russia, Smoke, Weather, Wildfires
The Guardian (August 9)
The IPCC’s sixth assessment report “makes for stark reading. It reaffirms that anthropogenic climate change is real, present and lasting: it is now unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land to an unprecedented degree, with effects almost certain to worsen through the coming decades.” With this report, the IPCC “dispels any notion that the effects of the climate crisis are abstract or distant.”
Tags: Anthropogenic, Assessment, Atmosphere, Climate change, Human influence, IPCC, Land, Lasting, Ocean, Present, Reaffirms, Real, Report, Stark, Unequivocal
Washington Post (August 8)
“The flame that burned throughout one of history’s most controversial Games was extinguished Sunday as Japan brought the curtain down on the Tokyo Olympics with Closing Ceremonies that were as unusual as the event itself” because there were very few athletes present. “It was a fitting, bittersweet end to a complicated Games. While the ban on spectators meant the Games looked and felt nothing like the electric showcase of Japan that organizers had hoped for, the Olympics nonetheless provided a much-needed respite, a burst of joy and human wonder, for viewers around the world exhausted by the pandemic.”
Tags: Athletes, Bittersweet, Closing Ceremonies, Complicated, Controversial, Flame, Japan, Joy, Pandemic, Respite, Spectators, Tokyo Olympics, Wonder
Financial Times (August 7)
“As Japan and the US square-off tonight for the gold medal match in Olympic baseball, the Yokohama air will be equal parts thick with history, humidity and the rich possibility of humiliation.” Drastically important, both countries will be competing in what is “a cherished national sport, a national obsession, a mirror to the national soul and a century-old metaphor for the swash and backwash of the two nations’ relationship. A Japanese win in Yokohama will settle and old, old score.”
Tags: Baseball, Cherished, Gold medal, History, Humidity, Humiliation, Japan, Olympic, U.S., Yokohama
Irish Times (August 6)
“Ireland could have winters as cold as Toronto in Canada if a potential collapse in the Gulf Stream happens.” Recent research has found “the currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years” and “may be nearing a shutdown.”
Denver Post (August 5)
“The known total of global coronavirus infections surpassed 200 million Wednesday, a daunting figure that also fails to capture how far the virus has embedded itself within humanity.” Official death figures are also imperfect but useful markers and now stand at over 614,000 deaths in the U.S., 550,000 in Brazil, 425,000 in India, and 4.2 million worldwide.
Tags: Brazil, Coronavirus, Daunting, Death, Embedded, Humanity, India, Infections, Official, Surpassed, U.S., Virus
Seattle Times (August 4)
“In a sign of growing momentum for vaccine mandates, Microsoft has reversed course and will now require employees to be fully vaccinated to enter the company’s U.S. offices and other worksites.” The revised policy “follows similar moves last week by other employers including tech rivals Google and Facebook, along with Disney and Walmart.”
Tags: Disney, Employees, Employers, Facebook, Google, Mandates, Microsoft, Momentum, Offices, Policy, U.S., Vaccine, Walmart, Worksites
Houston Chronicle (August 4)
COVID-19 is striking Texas with a vengeance. Every region is expected to “face surges larger than anything seen so far.” The Houston area is expected to break the hospitalization record on Sunday and “the previous record for ICU patients—947 set July 18, 2020—is predicted to be broken Aug. 15.” But “even more alarming,” the surge will “keep climbing sharply,” with 2,000 ICU patients expected at the end of August.
Tags: COVID-19, Hospitalization, Houston, ICU patients, Record, Surge, Texas, Vengeance
Newsweek (August 2)
“The price of bacon could soar by up to 60 percent in California when an animal welfare proposition kicks in at the start of next year.” Proposition 12 takes effect January 1. It “mandates space requirements for confining certain animals and prohibits the sale of meat and eggs from animals that are kept in places that do not meet this standard.”
Tags: Animal welfare, Bacon, California, Confining, Eggs, Meat, Price, Prohibits, Proposition 12, Sale, Space requirements
