Bits ’n’ Pieces

From east, west and beyond

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact. A recent sampling:

Under a new president in Brazil, rainforest deforestation dropped 35% in six months, according to The Lever. The Amazon rainforest — 60% of which is in Brazil — is one of the world’s largest carbon sinks; deforestation there is linked to drought, reduced rainfall and changes in global ocean currents.

It cost $22 million to craft the Project 2025 plan, which the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch calls “a blueprint for destroying the planet,” since the rightwing plan includes stopping the transition to clean energy and electric vehicles, and letting the fossil fuel industry proceed with business-as-usual.

Climate change has fed exorbitant heat in many areas of the U.S. — the highest temps in recorded history — and that’s affected business, The New York Times reported. High heat impairs work performance and can reduce hours worked. A study in 2021 found more than 2.5 billion hours of labor were lost due to high temps that year. Similar conditions in 2020 cost the economy $100 billion. According to The Times, when the mercury hits 90 degrees Fahrenheit, productivity drops 25%, then 70% at 100 degrees F. Climate change costs include dying crops, insurance rates hikes and mistakes people make under heat duress. Air conditioning doesn’t always help: Some commercial kitchens with AC show 100 F temps.

There are no national extreme heat regulations at this time. Some states have set their own standards. In Texas — a standout for heat-related loss of productivity — the governor recently eliminated municipally-established standards that included water breaks for construction workers. Some businesses are objecting to national heat standards, saying they are too expensive, according to The Times.

The Times also reported that residents in Phoenix, with the most 115-degree days in a calendar year, are experiencing heat stroke, burns from falling onto asphalt (which can be as hot as 180 F), heat-induced fatigue, heat cramps and death. Saguaro cactuses have collapsed and desert plants have turned yellow. Phoenix faces another two months of summer. Europe is also experiencing life-threatening heat waves.

Dogs being transported from Chicago to Indiana to a police dog training facility recently met a horrifying fate when their air conditioning failed. Some died in their crates, some convulsed and some were

By Lorraine H. Marie Reader Columnist

euthanized after transport to veterinary care, according to The Times.

Smoke, from an unprecedented number of Canadian wildfires, is also triggering air quality alerts for a third of the U.S. population.

The Atlantic Ocean’s Meridional Overturning Current could collapse as early as 2025, the journal Nature reported. That could profoundly affect the way the Gulf Stream influences weather events.

There were 18 climate-related disasters in 2022 at a cost of more than $1 billion each, the National Centers for Environmental Information reported. Those costs affect individuals, insurance companies and taxpayers. So far, no big oil company has been held accountable; but, in that year, oil and gas industry lobbyists spent $124.4 million blocking U.S. government climate action, according to OpenSecrets.org.

New charges against former-President Donald Trump relating to accusations regarding retention of classified documents have been brought by special counsel Jack Smith. They allege that after the Department of Justice subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago security camera footage, Trump plotted to delete video from the cameras.

According to Reuters, Trump’s $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN has been dismissed.

The second quarter gross domestic product report shows annual growth higher than projected, at 2.4%. Inflation rose at a slower rate of 2.6%. The economy is now 6% larger than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to analyst Steven Rattner. He notes that at the same time in the recovery from the 2011 Great Recession the economy was just 0.7% larger than it had been in 2007.

Meanwhile, U.S. corporate profits are up by 49%, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The Biden administration announced a $100 million grant program for subsidizing carbon recycling purchases by state and local governments, and by public utilities, according to NBC News. Carbon recycling can embrace the production of car parts, sustainable aviation fuel and plastic products like sunglasses. The deal requires submission of technology to the Energy Department to verify that it will reduce carbon output.

Blast from the past: “The one who plants trees, knowing they will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” — Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet and philosopher (18611941). He received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913.