New York Times (June 29)
The twin threats of “dangerous heat baking…the Southeast” and “the wildfire smoke filling the skies” in the Midwest “aren’t connected directly. But a common factor is adding to their capacity to cause misery. Human-caused climate change is turning high temperatures that would once have been considered improbable into more commonplace occurrences. And it is intensifying the heat and dryness that fuel catastrophic wildfires, allowing them to burn longer and more ferociously, and to churn out more smoke.”
Tags: Catastrophic, Climate change, Dangerous, Dryness, Heat, Human-caused, Improbable, Intensifying, Misery, Smoke, Temperatures, Wildfire, Wildfires
Los Angeles Times (August 19)
“With more than a million acres burned fairly early in the fire season, California is entering uncharted territory as the record dry conditions that have fueled so much destruction will soon combine with seasonal winds that fire officials fear will bring unprecedented dangers.” Many experts fear for the *fire-prone state” as the *impending arrival of strong Santa Anas and Diablos — which typically move in around mid-September — could mark even more misery for weary residents and beleaguered fire crews.”
Tags: Beleaguered, Burned, California, Dangers, Destruction, Dry, Early, Fire crews, Fire officials, Fire season, Million acres, Misery, Seasonal winds, Uncharted, Unprecedented, Weary
LA Times (April 29)
“All across India, a trail of death and misery is devastating a country whose leaders boasted of defeating the coronavirus just a few months ago. A surge of new cases fueled by the so-called double mutant variant of the coronavirus first discovered in India is now pushing the nation’s overburdened healthcare system toward collapse” and presenting “a cautionary tale for a world wanting to rush back to its rhythms.”
Tags: Boasted, Collapse, Coronavirus, Death, Defeating, Devastating, Double mutant, Healthcare, India, Leaders, Misery, Surge, Variant
The Guardian (April 24)
“Amid the misery and chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there are some short-term consolations. The precipitous drop in road and air traffic has left the air cleaner and the skies clearer.” Hopefully, when it is finally “safe to emerge from economic survival mode,” we will reflect “on which kinds of productive activity actually enrich our lives – and which among these our planet can sustain.”
Deutsche Welle (March 29)
“Brexit has already taken down two prime ministers. In 10 days, a crisis summit in Brussels will determine whether the United Kingdom deserves one last chance or it is ultimately preferable to choose a hard Brexit and a miserable but quick end to the endless misery of this unending drama.”
Tags: Brexit, Brussels, Crisis summit, Endless, Hard Brexit, Miserable, Misery, UK
USA Today (August 30)
“Climate change didn’t cause Harvey, but it almost surely made the storm worse.” And extreme weather “isn’t just happening in North America. Even as Harvey riveted the nation’s attention this week, the death toll topped 1,000 from unusually severe monsoonal rains half a world away in Bangladesh, India and Nepal.” With such destruction creating “a torrent of human misery, the question isn’t whether the nation can afford to get serious about global warming. We can’t afford not to.”
Tags: Bangladesh, Climate change, Death toll, Destruction, Extreme weather, Global warming, Harvey, India, Misery, Monsoons, Nepal, Rain, U.S.
Financial Times (July 6)
“In Greece the No vote will widen political fissures in a society knocked senseless by an economic slump. Greeks who voted Yes will treat the outcome as a calamity comparable to the 1922 military defeat at Turkish hands that resulted in the annihilation of Greek civilisation in Asia Minor. Greeks who voted No will rapidly learn that there is no salvation, only misery, ahead.”
