The bad news is that our slow-motion ecological catastrophe demands new ways of thinking. The good news? We’ve faced the end of the world before. MIT Technology Review
For decades, profitable U.S. companies have been able to avoid corporate taxes. But the list of those paying zero roughly doubled last year as a result of provisions in President Trump’s 2017 tax bill that expanded corporate tax breaks and reduced the tax rate on corporate income. New York Times
Climate change creates winners and losers. Norway is among the winners; Nigeria among the losers. New York Times
30 million acres of tropical forest were lost in 2018, according to an analysis of satellite images released by Global Forest Watch, a program of the environmental research group World Resources Institute. This is down from the highs of 42 million acres in 2016 and 39 million acres in 2017. New York Times
Foresters began noticing the patches of dying pines and denuded oaks, and grew concerned. Warmer winters and drier summers had sent invasive insects and diseases marching northward, killing the trees. New York Times
Sexist remarks during a European Parliament session, dogfight in the Parliament’s buildings, Jean-Claude Juncker’s anger and Mark Zuckerberg’s interrogation. EURACTIV
The level of carbon now in the atmosphere hasn’t been seen in 12 million years, Harvard scientist James Anderson warned, and this pollution is rapidly pushing the climate back to its state in the Eocene Epoch, more than 33 million years ago, when there was no ice on either pole. Forbes
The book that helped launch the green movement highlighted the damage caused by pesticides. BBC
We can’t adapt to perils we can’t foresee. So we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions now. New York Times
Companies and governments are gaining new powers to follow people across the internet and around the world, and even to peer into their genomes. The benefits of such advances have been apparent for years; the costs — in anonymity, even autonomy — are now becoming clearer. New York Times
© Stefan P. Schleicher 2019
