Climate change vs. the pandemic
Are we screwed?
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
Hi, everyone! I want to introduce you to another project I created, this one at the Women’s Media Center, where I spent years building and editing the WMC Women Under Siege project, which was spearheaded by one of the organization’s founders, Gloria Steinem. That was about women, war and sexualized violence. This newer one is about how climate change affects vulnerable communities — aka women, indigenous people, people of color and those living in poverty. I made a clickable map to give you some overrall background on the subject, here.
This week, I wrote about what’s happened with the climate crisis during the pandemic, and where we’re at now. It’s not happy-making, just FYI, but I gather you expect that if you’re following Chills. In any case, below is an excerpt. You can click here to read the whole thing.
Have a great weekend.
The Pandemic Brought a Record Plunge in Carbon Emissions! Then There’s the Bad News.
During this pandemic year (which, really, is nearing a year and a half), the world became cleaner: Dolphins swam the canals of Venice! Blue skies lit up normally smoggy Shanghai! Pumas wandered the streets of Santiago!
Global air pollution even fell enough that the northern Himalayas were visible for the first time in 30 years! But — most important — the world saw a record decrease in carbon emissions: a 7 percent drop in 2020 over the year before, the Australia-based Global Carbon Project reported. CO2 is the most dangerous and prevalent greenhouse gas in terms of trapping heat in our atmosphere.
Read the rest of this article at WMC Climate.
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I believe that the pandemic gave us the opportunity to explore new ways to live, traveling less and working from home. Unfortunately, we have pent up demand for travel and seeing people and can't or won't sustain the level of inactivity the pandemic required.
Your new city, Seattle, is the lowest in the country in terms of residential air conditioning. But this weekend they will have 3 days of over 100 degrees. So scary.