“Ten Ways 2018 Brought Us Closer to Climate Apocalypse”

“The 20 warmest years ever recorded have been within the last 22 years, and the four warmest of those have been 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO has stated that if these trends continue (and there is no reason to believe they won’t), global temperatures may rise from between 3-5 degrees Celsius (3-5°C) by 2100. The organization warned that if humans exploit all known fossil fuel reserves, ‘the temperature rise will be considerably higher’ than even those catastrophic levels.’

“Yet even with this stark wake-up call, it may well already be too late, given that we are already living in the Sixth Mass Extinction.”

“The vast majority of governments around the globe are responding in ways that range from laughable to pathetic, given the consequences that are upon us already,” by Dahr Jamail, Truthout.

Read more

–

“Trump’s retreat on the environment is affecting communities across America”

By Eric Lipton, Steve Eder and John Branch, The New York Times News Service.

“Beyond the glare of official Washington, the story of President Donald Trump’s retreat on the environment is unfolding in extraordinarily consequential ways for the health and safety of Americans.

“In just two years, Trump has unleashed a regulatory rollback, lobbied for and cheered on by industry, with little parallel in the past half-century. Trump enthusiastically promotes the changes as creating jobs, freeing business from the shackles of government and helping the economy grow.

“The trade-offs, while often out of public view, are real — frighteningly so, for some people — imperiling progress in cleaning up the air we breathe and the water we drink, and in some cases upending the very relationship with the environment around us.”

Read more