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The world has turned its back on the carnage of Idlib

The world has turned its back on the carnage of Idlib

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Kareem Shaheen writes: Close to half a million people in Syria have been displaced from their homes in the past three months, refugees in the making, who would have sought safety with their neighbours across the border if the doors hadn’t been shut in their faces. Let that number sink in for a moment. Half a million rendered homeless, running for their lives. They fled rebel-held areas in the provinces of Idlib and Hama between April and July, trying to…

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Irish unity is now being championed by moderate politicians

Irish unity is now being championed by moderate politicians

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Finn McRedmond writes: In March this year at a St Patrick’s Day parade, Mary Lou McDonald, leader of Sinn Féin in the Republic of Ireland, marched behind a banner that read “England get out of Ireland”. The stunt garnered widespread criticism. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s deputy, Simon Coveney, didn’t mince his words when he called it “offensive, divisive and an embarrassment”. This incident was symptomatic of a party that has misread the room. Growing support for a united Ireland is clear:…

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How ‘dark patterns’ online manipulate shoppers

How ‘dark patterns’ online manipulate shoppers

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Sidney Fussell reports: Dark patterns are the often unseen web-design choices that trick users into handing over more time, money, or attention than they realize. A team of Princeton researchers is cataloging these deceptive techniques, using data pulled from 11,000 shopping sites, to identify 15 ways sites subtly game our cognition to control us. The research builds on the work of Harry Brignull, a London-based cognitive scientist who coined the term dark pattern in 2010, and the authors Richard Thaler…

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Most detailed ever 3D map of Milky Way shows ‘warped’ shape

Most detailed ever 3D map of Milky Way shows ‘warped’ shape

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The Guardian reports: The most detailed three-dimensional map yet of the Milky Way has been revealed, showing that our galaxy is not a flat disc but has a “warped” shape like a fascinator hat or a vinyl record that has been left in the sun. “The stars 60,000 light years away from the Milky Way’s centre are as far as 4,500 [light years] above or below the galactic plane – this is a big percentage,” said Dr Dorota Skowron of…

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July was the hottest month in human history — and our addiction to fossil fuels is only getting worse

July was the hottest month in human history — and our addiction to fossil fuels is only getting worse

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Eric Holthaus writes: July 2019 is now the hottest month in recorded history, the U.N. confirmed on Thursday. At a press conference in New York, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres announced that the month of July had reached 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a figure that “at least equaled if not surpassed the hottest month in recorded history,” according to data released by the World Meteorological Organization. Temperature information from July is still streaming in, but preliminary data show…

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BlackRock lost $90bn investing in fossil fuel companies, report finds

BlackRock lost $90bn investing in fossil fuel companies, report finds

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The Guardian reports: BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has lost an estimated $90bn over the last decade by ignoring the serious financial risk of investing in fossil fuel companies, according to economists. A report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has found that BlackRock has eroded the value of its $6.5tn funds by betting on oil companies that were falling in value and by missing out on growth in clean energy investments. The report found that…

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How climate change could trigger the next global financial crisis

How climate change could trigger the next global financial crisis

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Robinson Meyer writes: A few years ago, Mark Carney, a former Goldman Sachs director who now leads the Bank of England, sounded a warning. Global warming, he said, could send the world economy spiraling into another 2008-like crisis. He called for central banks to act aggressively and immediately to reduce the risk of climate-related catastrophe, taking the warming planet as seriously as they would a cooling economy. Adam Tooze, a history professor at Columbia University, knows quite a bit about…

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Audiences are (finally) paying more attention to climate stories

Audiences are (finally) paying more attention to climate stories

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Andrew McCormick writes: For years, conventional wisdom has held that climate coverage is not especially good for business. The story always seemed too abstract, or too technical, to command attention. “It was pathetic,” David Gelber, who for decades was a producer at CBS’s 60 Minutes, says, reflecting on the consistent absence of environmental reporting in mainstream outlets. “It baffles me. This is such a dramatic story. When they write the history of journalism, this is going to be a very…

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Majority of House Democrats now support impeachment inquiry

Majority of House Democrats now support impeachment inquiry

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Politico reports: The impeachment dam has broken. More than half of House Democrats say they would vote to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, a crucial threshold that backers said will require Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconsider her steadfast opposition. Though Pelosi has given no indication that even a significant majority of House Democrats embracing impeachment proceedings would shift her view, supporters of an inquiry argue that crossing the halfway mark among the caucus isa symbolic boost that could…

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FBI warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat

FBI warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat

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Jana Winter reports: The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents…

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Facing harsh prison sentences, Iran’s courageous women continue defying their cowardly rulers

Facing harsh prison sentences, Iran’s courageous women continue defying their cowardly rulers

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Her name is #YasamanAryani she is one of the youngest women’s right activist who joined #WhiteWednesdays movement against #ForcedHijab .Today Yasaman & her mother #MonirehArabshahi each got 16 yrs jail sentence for their Peaceful activities. Be her voice. pic.twitter.com/cXobnww8ds — Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) July 31, 2019 The Independent reports: Iranian women are sharing videos of themselves removing their headscarves in public, despite a recent ruling they could face 10 years in jail for doing so. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian…

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Greenland is melting away before our eyes

Greenland is melting away before our eyes

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Eric Holthaus reports: Amid an ongoing heat wave, new data show the Greenland ice sheet is in the middle of its biggest melt season in recorded history. It’s the latest worrying signal climate change is accelerating far beyond the worst fears of even climate scientists. The record-setting heat wave that sweltered northern Europe last week has moved north over the critically vulnerable Greenland ice sheet, triggering temperatures this week that are as much as 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit warmer…

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Alaska’s sweltering summer is ‘basically off the charts’

Alaska’s sweltering summer is ‘basically off the charts’

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The Washington Post reports: Steve Perrins didn’t see the lightning, but he couldn’t miss the smoke that followed. It was around dinnertime on July 23 at Alaska’s oldest hunting lodge, nestled in the wilderness more than 100 miles northwest of Anchorage. What began as a quiet evening at the Rainy Pass Lodge soon turned frantic as Alaska’s latest wildfire spread fast. The Alaska National Guard soon evacuated 26 people and two dogs by helicopter from the lodge, which serves as…

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White House ‘undercutting evidence’ of climate crisis, says analyst who resigned

White House ‘undercutting evidence’ of climate crisis, says analyst who resigned

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The Guardian reports: A former senior government analyst has accused the Trump administration of “undercutting evidence” of the threat to national security from the climate crisis after his report on the issue was blocked by the White House. Rod Schoonover, who worked as an intelligence analyst for the federal government for 10 years before resigning earlier this month, submitted a written testimony on the “wide-ranging implications” of global heating over the next 20 years, for submission to the House intelligence…

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