A big solar company may be collapsing
by Alana Semuels in Time….One of the largest residential solar installers in the U.S. appears to be on the cusp of failing, the latest sign of the troubled industry’s struggles.
Outage for Microsoft users knocks out systems for airlines and hospitals in chaotic day
by Adam Satariano, et al in The New York Times…Companies across the world reported disruptions, citing technical issues from a cybersecurity software update.
Extreme wildfires have doubled in frequency and intensity in the past 20 years
by Victor Fernandez Garcia & Christina Santin in Wired.com….The doubling in extreme wildfires adds to a complex picture of fire patterns and trends. This new evidence underscores the urgency of addressing the root causes behind worsening wildfire activity, such as land cover changes, forest policies and management, and, of course, climate change. This will better prepare us for these extreme fires, which are near-impossible to combat using traditional firefighting methods.
The new hot wars
by Jeremy Brecher in Znetwork…The most blatant marker of the polycrisis is the burgeoning of war and preparation for war.
Is there a future in the doomsday economy?
by Alexander Nazaryan in The New York Times….With Fortitude Ranch, the entrepreneur Drew Miller is betting on franchised timeshares for people who are worried about the end of the world.
Chartbook 297: The American migration crisis.
by Adam Tooze in Chartbook….As the World Migration Report for 2024 confirms, the Mexico-US border is by some margin the largest single corridor of country-to-country migration in the world.
Long Covid Research Roundup: What have we learned in the first half of 2024?
by Katelyn Jetelina in Your Local Epidemiologist…What we knew: The number of people who get LC after infection has ranged dramatically from 2% to 75%. Reasons for this include differing definitions—for example, some define LC as persistent symptoms 4 weeks after infection, while some use 3 months, and others 6 months.
Positive Pathways report
by Michael Lawrence and Megan Shipman …..The Cascade Institute’s analysis on positive pathways through polycrisis
NEOM is a city of the future. The land is the cost.
by K.O. in Atmos….NEOM has been hailed as the future of the climate-resilient, smart city. But, for local communities, its construction threatens displacement and exploitation.
Denmark unveils ‘groundbreaking’ roadmap towards plant-based food
by Daniel Clark in Plant Based News…Plant-based foods are “the future,” according to the country’s Minister for Food
Insufficient pollinator visitation often limits yield in crop systems worldwide
by Katherine J. Turo in Nature….Declining pollinator populations could threaten global food production, especially if current crop yields are limited by insufficient pollinator visitation to flowers, in a phenomenon referred to as ‘pollinator limitation’.
The status of U.S. oil production: 2024 update everything shines by dimming
by Roger Blanchard in Resilience.org…To maximize profitability of deep water fields, the industry cranks up production rapidly to a high production level, say 100,000 b/d or more, but peak production is reached within a year or two and generally followed by rapid decline.
Ray Kurzweil still says he will merge with A.I.
by Cade Metz in The New York Times….The big leap, of course, is imagining how human consciousness would merge with a machine, and people like Mr. Kurzweil struggle to explain how exactly this would happen.
The view from Nairobi-Washington
by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie in Phenomenal World…It is good for Southern elites to win such technology investments. But while the New Washington Consensus delivers full employment and trillions in deficit-financed welfarism and public investments in the North, the Nairobi-Washington vision for which Ruto is a stand-in is insufficient for fostering prosperity across the South—where debt-stressed countries with soaring joblessness are imposing class war austerity and privatization, amid Western intransigence in delivering touted financial architecture reforms.
Canada’s 2023 wildfires outsmoked global aviation, yet emissions go uncounted
by Liz Kimbrough in Mongabay….The climate crisis appears to be driving this trend toward more extreme fire seasons. Higher temperatures caused by climate change dry out the landscape and make forests more susceptible to fire. The researchers point out that Canada and other northern regions are warming up about twice as fast as the rest of the world.
Reporting on Doomsday Scenarios
from 60 Minutes….From 2022, Jon Wertheim’s report on “preppers” who are gearing up for extreme catastrophes.