“A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.” -James Baldwin
I’m a news junkie. As a child, I listened to the news on the radio with my mom while we had breakfast. All my life I have read several newspapers, now as online publications. The comings and goings in the news confirm James Baldwin’s idea of the instability of the world, that day-to-day seemingly small events can build up to bigger, sometimes terrible things. 366 Days 2020 is a project about these small daily events as they relate to the climate crisis and other matters that occurred in 2020. This book is the first volume of two, the first half of the year 2020. In 2019, as I was writing my MFA thesis, I needed to update the news about climate change with each draft as new, accelerating climate-related events occurred. In January 2020 I started this project about climate change news. Each day I recorded something I’d read or heard about climate change, the news I felt was most important that day, and created an 11X15 inch painting related to that event. I did not try to illustrate but instead to convey an emotional response in the paintings. In February, the novel coronavirus in Wuhan China began to dominate the news. In March, as the virus spread around the world, these paintings took a turn to Covid-19. Covid-19 is related to the climate crisis. Both have the same root cause of human interference in the world. Loss of habitat and our food system have brought us closer to pathogens that can jump from animals to humans. Environmental disasters such as air pollution make people more vulnerable to respiratory infection. With the murder of still another black man, George Floyd, by police, I could not help but include the protests in this work. The protests are both painful and hopeful. I feel it’s all related. Environmental conditions such as air pollution are a cause of the disproportionate numbers of people of color dying from Covid-19. Any solution to the climate crisis needs to address this urgent public health issue--including discrimination in policing, housing, healthcare and economic opportunity.
This project has been eye-opening for me. Daily events, sometimes small events, accumulate in this work, building up to an picture of our present and our future. Sometimes these events were heartbreaking and there were a few times I felt I needed to stop, but also that I had to continue. Like the Today Series of On Kawara, the act of creating these daily paintings confirm my existence and its potential loss, which has become an ever-present possibility. The paintings express pain, but also express hope. These paintings are humble. Each painting is 11X15 inches on paper with writing about the news across the painting. They are mainly watercolor, but also include other media such as gouache, pencil, crayon, acrylic, and collage. In creating the project, I set some rules for myself, including the size and type of paper, and the need to record the news on the day it happens. I always recorded the news on the day it happened, but often made the painting the next day. My preferred paper was not available during part of the project due to manufacturing delays when the paper mill shut down, so I had to break that rule. The news I report is, of course, curated in the sense that it is my personal interpretation of what I considered most important on a given day. This project was done as a part of my MFA in Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts. I started the project not knowing that it would be my MFA project, I started it to help my own understanding of how events accumulate to form the crisis we are in. I planned and created larger paintings on stretched canvas for my thesis project, but Covid-19 and my changing sense of what matters led to this project of daily paintings seeming the most important to my art practice. I decided that these small paintings would form the backbone of my project. I feel privileged to have been part of the Art Practice program and have the opportunity to experience the passion and guidance of the faculty and students. I hope that the paintings convey both concern about our present situation and hope for the future.
Disclaimer: In this work, I have tried to verify statements by looking at primary sources. My background as a medical researcher made that possible. However, what we consider to be a fact changes over time as new data emerges. With Covid-19, these changes have come quickly, as more data was available. I have also tried to identify my sources, but sometimes the news came from a compilation of what I read and heard over the course of a day. I apologize if I have missed citations and I am grateful for those news-people who are trying to keep democracy alive through their reporting.
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Text from the Paintings
1 January 2020 Apocalyptic scenes in Australia as fires turn skies blood red. 2 January 2020 Listening to Bill McKibben about Greenland ice melting. What was solid ice 5 years ago is now navigable water. 3 January 2020 Heat and dryness led to unprecedented wildfires in the Australian bush. Koalas are dying. 4 January 2020 Australia fires spread. Choking on smoke. Australia deploys military. 5 January 2020 Almost a billion animals have been killed in Australia fires. Bush fires reached the suburban fringes of Sydney. Coastline towns in the states of New South Wales and Victoria were consumed by the blaze, leaving thousands homeless. (NPR.org) 6 January 2020 The British Museum will display 28,000-year-artifacts discovered in north-east Siberia. The rare items were excavated from rapidly thawing ice. (articinstitute.org) 7 January 2020 Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses. 8 January 2020 EU Climate Panel found 2019 was the second hottest year in Earth’s recorded history. 9 January 2020 Trump is set to alter the National Environmental Protection Act, NEPA, and upend years of climate planning. 10 January 2020 Historic expedition finds a 'new Arctic' the fastest warming region on Earth. (Scientific American) 11 January 2020 Delivery vehicles choke cities with pollution Recommend replace with drones. (scientificamerican.com) 12 January 2020 Airdropping carrots to koalas on parched ground in Australia. 13 January 2020 Chinese paddlefish extinct. Ocean temperatures hit record high as rate of heating accelerates. (theguardian.com) 14 January 2020 Scientists say Australia fires are harbinger of planet’s future. 15 January 2020 Australia, an entire continent may be uninhabitable. 25 million people live in Australia. The 2010’s were the hottest decade in history. Germany announces it will quit coal. 16 January 2020 Warming climate makes it harder to grow coffee. Coffee in the wild is disappearing. (Nytimes.com)
17 January 2020 Greta Thunberg: “You have not seen anything yet”. US Federal Court 9th Circuit rules children cannot sue US govt over climate change saying it is an issue for lawmakers not the courts. 18 January 2020 Winter is shortening but becoming more intense. More polar vortex events. (Nytimes.com) 19 January 2020 Mean temperature in Bradenton Fl was 3.5 degrees F above average and in NYC was 0.7 degrees above average in 2019 (nytimes.com) 20 January 2020 In Australia, there were heavy storms with golfball-sized hail but bushfires continue. 21 January 2020 The bush fires in Australia mean just breathing hurts your throat. (Washington Post) 22 January 2020 Record high oceanic temperatures triggered an unprecedented global-scale coral bleaching event from 2014 to 2017, which was the longest-lasting and most severe. 23 January 2020 From Somalia to South Sudan, torrential rains have devastated crops and made roads impassable, sending the cost of food soaring. The island of Madagascar had severe floods killing at least 12 people. 24 January 2020 The rains have drowned or destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of cropland in Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya. They have flooded roads, making it difficult to transport surviving crops, and forced many farmers to abandon their homes and fields. Food is scarce. 25 January 2020 World’s super rich meet in Davos to discuss the climate change problem they created. (mronline.org) 26 January 2020 Australia day, the ultimate day for toxic patriotism, is the perfect to call for change. (theguardian.com) 27 January 2020 NOAA has a new report on the Arctic revealing that the rapidly thawing region is releasing as much carbon pollution per year as entire countries like Mexico, Canada, and South Korea (email from NRDC) 28 January 2020 Australia is 'ground zero' in climate crisis and must show leadership, top researchers say (guardian.com) 29 January 2020 The rhetoric around climate change is shifting but it’s not leading to action. People worry but don’t want to pay for it. (vox.com) 30 January 2020 Trump Administration Moves to Relax Rules Against Killing Birds (nytimes.com) 31 January 2020 Guardian stops accepting fossil fuel ads. 1 February 2020 People coming home after Australia fires find a charred wasteland.
2 February 2020 Scientists debating climate change models +3 vs. +5 degrees C for 2100. (climatenews.org) 3 February 2020 Fireflies can’t reproduce because of light pollution. 4 February 2020 In the State of the Union Address Trump promised to “plant a trillion” trees and at the same time expand the oil and gas industries. 5 February 2020 Climate change is altering US snow patterns. (washingtonpost.com) 6 February 2020 The bee population declined by 46 % in North America and 17% across Europe when compared to a base period of 1901 to 1974. The biggest declines were in areas where temperature spiked above the historical range. 7 February 2020 Antarctica temperature hit 65 degrees F, the highest recorded temperature ever in the continent. (washingtonpost.com) 8 February 2020 The Thwaites Glacier, sometimes called the Doomsday Glacier in Antarctica is melting faster than predicted. It is the size of Florida and fully melted could raise sea levels 2 feet. 9 February 2020 Energy Markets Need Winter, and Climate Change Is Taking It Away. The warmest January on record is making life difficult for oil and gas traders. (Bloomberg green) 10 February 2020 An iceberg twice the size of the District of Columbia broke off Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica (called a calving event). The Pine Island Glacier is near the Thwaites Glacier. This region contains enough highly vulnerable ice to raise global sea levels by four feet.11 February 2020 Pacific Islanders gather with First Nations people at the Parliament House in Australia. In the last 10 years, the Pacific Islands have experienced 77 intense tropical cyclones, which claimed a total of 141 lives….For years now, Pacific Island governments have been pleading with more developed countries to phase out the use of fossil fuels and rapidly transition to cleaner sources of energy. It is the larger industrialized countries that are most responsible for emitting large numbers of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, causing climate change and wreaking havoc upon our nations in the Pacific (Guardian.com) 12 February 2020 Ocean currents in have accelerated over the last two decades, driven primarily by faster, more intense winds. On average, researchers found that global ocean circulation has accelerated by 36 percent since the early 1990s, much faster than expected. These underwater highways affect land temperature, warming the north and cooling the Tropics. 13 February 2020 The more education Republicans have the less they believe in climate change. (nytimes.com) 14 February 2020 January 2020 was the hottest January in recorded history. 15 February 2020 Bumblebees are disappearing at rates consistent with mass extinction. (USA Today)
16 February 2020 Storm Dennis, 2nd-strongest bomb cyclone on record in North Atlantic, causes severe flooding in U.K. At its peak, Dennis produced individual waves at least 112 feet tall, along with sustained winds of hurricane-force. (washingtonpost.com) 17 February 2020 Severe rainfall and flooding in Mississippi. 18 February 2020 Jeff Bezos commits $10 billion to fund climate scientists and activists.19 February 2020 Borneo is burning. The demand for palm oil causes deforestation in all of Indonesia. The Bornean orangutan has become a critically endangered species. (cnn.com) 20 February 2020 Methane is a hard-hitting greenhouse gas. Now scientists say we’ve dramatically underestimated how much we’re emitting. (Washingtonpost) 21 February 2020 The Colorado River, the West’s most vital river has lost more than a billion tons of water due to climate change that has caused mountain snowpack to disappear, leading to increased evaporation. Its flow is more than 20% below its historic average. 40 million Americans in the West depend on water from the Colorado River. 22 February 2020 The first two months of winter, December and January were the warmest on record. 23 February 2020 Officials at the Group of 20 Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, agreed Sunday on the wording of a final communique which references climate change, despite the United States' reported objection to its inclusion. The draft contains language concerning the implications of climate change on financial stability, but climate change no longer appears on a list of downside risks to global economic growth. 24 February 2020 Canada oil sands project abandoned over investor concerns over oil’s future and political fault lines between economic and environmental priorities. 25 February 2020 NASA shows photographs of Antarctica melting over 9 days between February 4 and 13. (npr.org) 26 February 2020 The Amazon is reaching a rainforest-to-savannah tipping point. 27 February 2020 A short break from global warming to write about COVID-19. Corona virus is now a pandemic with more than 80,000 cases in 53 countries. The death rate is unknown but estimated to be 2%. The stock market has fallen 10%, and the Trump administration has appointed Mike Pence the Corona Czar and is “controlling the messaging”. 28 February 2020 Plans to drill newly discovered Congo peatbog, the world’s largest tropical peatlands could result in the release of 30 billion tons of carbon, making it impossible to reach Paris climate accord targets (guardian.com) 29 February 2020 Miami’s beaches are filling with fecal material based on testing of water samples, which show increasingly frequent levels of enterococcus. Aging sewer systems, leaking septic tanks are increasing water temperature due to climate change are responsible. (local10.com)
1 March 2020 Australian summers are now effectively twice as long as its winters as climate change has increased temperatures since the middle of the last century. Research. by the Australia Institute, a Canberra-based think tank, compared data from the past two decades with mid-20th century benchmarks of temperatures. Over the last two decades, summer across most of Australia has been on average one month longer than half a century ago, while winter has contracted by an average three weeks. (usnews.com) 2 March 2020 An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign that has inserted misleading language about climate change — including debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial — into the agency’s scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times (nytimes.com) The misleading language appears in at least nine reports, including environmental studies and impact statements on major watersheds in the American West that could be used to justify allocating increasingly scarce water to farmers at the expense of wildlife conservation and fisheries. 3 March 2020 California had its driest February on record. Parts of the state received no rainfall at all last month and the number of wildfire calls were above average as well. (nytimes.com) 4 March 2020 We interrupt this project to bring you the coronavirus. Covid-19 is a respiratory virus that can cause acute pulmonary fibrosis. It originated in Wuhan China but is spreading and is likely to kill tens to hundreds of thousands of people. The 21st Century Plague. 5 March 2020 Blood snow invades Antarctica. The red snow, caused by an algae, has appeared in northernmost Antarctica, where it has never been recorded before due to warmer temperatures. The red snow doesn’t reflect as much light, causing further melting. (mother nature network) 6 March 2020 A global pollution pandemic: Air pollution is killing more people than war, malaria or cigarettes. In a paper published this week it was found that in 2015, the one year investigated, 8.8 million excess deaths could be attributed to air.
7 March 2020 The journal Nature reported that trees in the Congo Basin untouched by human activity are absorbing less carbon dioxide due to increased temperature and reduced rainfall. By 2035 they won’t absorb carbon dioxide at all, releasing more than they take up. 8 March 2020 While worldwide average temperature climbed about 1°C (1.8°F) since 1900, the Arctic warmed by 1.6°C (2.9°F) over the same period. (Museum of Natural History NY) 9 March 2020 Air France, citing the coronavirus, has called for relief from taxes designed to curb global warming emissions. Other efforts could be disrupted as well (nytimes.com) 10 March 2020 The UK’s CO2 emissions fell 2.9% in 2019 to levels last seen in 1888. (world economic forum)
11 March 2020 The White House announced Tuesday that it plans to veto the PFAS Action Act of 2019, which aims to keep harmful forever chemicals out of groundwater (Newsweek)
12 March 2020 We’ve officially passed 1.1 degrees C of global warming. 13 March 2020 Satellite images show pollution is plummeting in China and Italy as a result of the coronavirus. (Washington post) 14 March 2020 Trump declared national state of emergency yesterday evening. 15 March 2020 As of yesterday CDC reported more than 200 cases and 50 deaths from Covid 19. Countries across Europe shut down as the number of infected spreads. 16 March 2020 'Tip of the iceberg': is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19? As habitat and biodiversity loss increase globally, the destruction of animal habitats is bringing people into closer contact with animal species they may never have been near before. The resulting transmission of disease from wildlife to humans is now “a hidden cost of human economic development”. (guardian.com) 17 March 2020 Air pollution likely to increase coronavirus death rates (guardian.com) 18 March 2020 Coronavirus halts climate change demonstrations. 19 March 2020 183,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled in Fort Meyers, possibly the biggest spill in the city’s history. 20 March 2020 A Harvard Expert on Environment and Health Discusses Possible Ties Between COVID and Climate. Air pollution makes people more vulnerable to respiratory infections; climate change brings people in closer contact with animals that can spread disease. Dr. Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician and expert on environmental health has seen firsthand how climate change can harm children, mostly through the burning of fossil fuels. (Harvard Health) 21 March 2020 Satellite images show resurgence of pollution over China as manufacturing ramps up. FEMA issues major disaster declaration for NY over corona virus. 22 March 2020 Satellite images show less nitrogen dioxide pollution over the US as coronavirus shuts down public places Nitrogen dioxide comes mainly from the burning of fuel and vehicle emissions. 23 March 2020 Scientists just discovered a massive new vulnerability in the Antarctic ice sheet. Denman Glacier is retreating into the deepest valley in all Antarctica. Nearly 5 feet of sea level rise is at stake. (Washingtonpost) 24 March 2020 Trump says he wants to end social distancing by Easter.
25 March 2020 In India, Day 1 of COVID-19 lockdown for 1.3 billion people, 1/5th of humanity. In New York, cases exceeded 25,000. 26 March 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic reached its first 100,000 infected in 67 days, then doubled to 200,000 within the next 11 days, and double again reaching 400,000 by March 24. Today March 26 more than 1000 people in the US have died from the virus. 83,000 known infected in the US. As of today we lead the world. 27 March 2020 Nurses say coronavirus has turned hospitals into “war zones” Kentucky, South Dakota and West Virginia quietly pass laws criminalizing fossil fuel protests amid coronavirus chaos. (huffpost.com) 28 March 2020 EPA suspends enforcement of environmental laws amid coronavirus Trump administration, citing coronavirus, will not enforce clean air and water acts. 29 March 2020 You could almost imagine the earth taking a great, deep breath these past weeks. If the global containment and the attendant human misery have produced the thinnest of thin silver linings, it is that the world is ever so slightly cleaner—if only briefly—than it was before the coronavirus outbreak began. (Graydon Carter) 30 March 2020 Coronavirus lockdown saved 77,000 lives in China just by reducing pollution (forbes.com) 31 March 2020 Trump finalizes rollback of auto fuel economy standards, gutting Obama climate effort. 1 April 2020 Observations from 11 satellite missions monitoring the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have revealed that the regions are losing ice six times faster than they were in the 1990s. If the current melting trend continues, the regions will be on track to match the "worst-case" scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of an extra 6.7 inches (17 centimeters) of sea level rise by 2100. (climate.nasa.gov) 2 April 2020 The coronavirus outbreak is starting to spread more quickly outside China. 3 April 2020 Bats make up about 50 percent of mammals in the most biodiverse tropical regions, and while they are valuable pollinators and pest eaters, they are also astounding virus vessels. Bats have a superhero-like immune system that allows them to become “reservoirs to many pathogens that do not impact them but can have a tremendous impact on us if they’re able to make the jump,” said Thomas Gillespie, a disease ecologist at Emory University. (Washington post) When viruses jump to humans there is potential for a pandemic. 4 April 2020 US Coronavirus cases over 300,000 with over 8000 deaths. 5 April 2020 Severe flooding throughout the Midwest—which triggered a delayed growing season for crops in the region—led to a reduction of 100 million metric tons of net carbon uptake during June and July of 2019, according to a new study. For reference, the massive California wildfires of 2018 released an estimated 12.4 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. (climate.nasa.gov) 6 April 2020 NY extends coronavirus “pause” until April 29. 7 April 2020 Trump removes watchdog overseeing pandemic fund. Yesterday the US crossed the threshold of over 10,000 COVID-19 deaths.
8 April 2020 799 people died today in NYC from coronavirus, a one-day high. (nytimes.com) 9 April 2020 The Great Barrier Reef suffers the third mass bleaching event in five years. Coral turns white as a stress response to warmer waters. (cnn.com) 10 April 2020 In Delhi, people can see the sky without haze for the first time. 11 April 2020 Over 20,000 people in the US dead from coronavirus. 12 April 2020 A global recession caused by coronavirus could stall the shift to clean energy. Recovery packages could drive emissions up-in China the government is indicating it will relax environmental supervision and in the US the Trump administration is gutting environmental regulations. (nytimes.com) 13 April 2020 We learn from a New York Times article that Trump was so concerned about the “deep state” that he failed to listen to the government and take steps that would slow the virus and save lives 14 April 2020 Unnecessary deaths. There was a huge cost of waiting to contain the pandemic. The current projection is for 60,000 deaths in the US. Shutting down one week earlier the projection is 23,000 death, and 2 weeks earlier, 6000 deaths. In Florida, the stay at home order was April 3. Current projections are for 4000 death, intervening one week earlier the projections would have been for 1000 deaths. (nytimes) 15 April 2020 The coronavirus spread continues. The US is not testing enough because of flawed tests and limited access to open the country, while Trump is insisting that it open. 16 April 2020 WHO said they alerted the world to coronavirus. Trump tried to blame WHO for his inadequate response. As of today, in the US there were 675,243 confirmed cases, 55, 561 recovered, and 34,562 dead. This is almost surely an underestimate. We have been at home now almost completely for over 30 days, since March 17. We are living out of time. Days no longer matter. It is sometimes hard to fathom all the death. Yet I can see the birds, the plants. Beauty is still here. I am still alive. 17 April 2020 Climate driven megadrought is emerging in Western US. 18 April 2020 “There’s no pandemic”. People across the US, many of them Trump supporters, are protesting stay-at-home orders. Trump tweeting LIBERATE Wisconsin, LIBERATE Ohio, Liberate Virginia. 19 April 2020 40,000 Americans dead from coronavirus as of today. States plead for testing capability as the Trump administration comandeer orders by the states of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are exposing themselves to the virus because of lack of essential equipment. 20 April 2020 We Are Living in a Failed State. The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken. (George Packer, Atlantic)
21 April 2020 It’s been 10 years since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of more than 3 million barrels of oil into the Gulf waters off the coast of Louisana. The US is still vulnerable, as the Trump administration has weakened safety and environmental regulations while pushing to expand oil dripping in nearly all American waters. (nytimes) 22 April 2020 The 50th anniversary of Earth Day. 23 April 2020 President Trump recommends injections of disinfectant for coronavirus. 24 April 2020 Needing a root canal in the pandemic. On the way to the endodontist I saw a 15-foot snake crossing the road. 25 April 2020 An estimated 90% FEWER people in the U.S. would have died from COVID-19 if the Trump White House had put social distancing policies in effect 2 weeks earlier than it did on March 16, say scientists. Act even 1 week earlier, and some 60% of U.S. deaths from the virus could have been avoided. So far, the U.S. has over 670,000 known COVID-19 cases. Over 50,000 deaths. And rising. 26 April 2020 Shortages of pork are expected as meat plants shut down with workers infected with coronavirus. Wait‌why is this a problem? 27 April 2020 The Feel-Good Animal Comeback. Naturalist Bruce Beeher writes that although pictures of the effects of the coronavirus pause on nature offer consolation, they mean little in the larger scheme of things. In the Amazon rainforest illegal deforestation is increasing as local authorities are unable to patrol. A major coral bleeching event is taking place in Australia. The pandemic has its roots in wild animal trade. The pandemic has halted most environmental research. (washingtonpost) 28 April 2020 Trump declares that meat packers must work by using emergency declaration to keep meat plants open. Meat Processing plants have become Covid-19 hot spots. (washingtonpost) Does the country really need meat? 29 The U.S. coronavirus death toll topped 60,000 on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University. COVID-19 has already claimed more American lives than the Vietnam War. But despite the mounting toll, more state and city leaders plan to ease restrictions aimed at curbing the virus' spread. Scientists warn that dropping the measures too soon could bring new waves of COVID-19. (cbs news) 30 As the 21st century progresses, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations will cause urban and indoor levels of the gas to increase, and that may significantly reduce our basic decision-making ability and complex strategic thinking, according to a new CU Boulder-led study. (sciencedaily.com) 1 May 2020 Pedestrians have taken over city streets, people have almost entirely stopped flying, skies are blue for the first time in decades, and global CO2 emissions are on-track to drop by ‌ about 5.5 percent. Why so low? We are still using power from utilities to generate electricity for our homes and the internet. That power comes largely from fossil fuels. (grist.com) 2 May 2020 The US just reported its deadliest day for coronavirus patients with 2909 confirmed deaths. This occurred as some states reopen despite the fact that their death rates are higher than when they started lockdown. (cnbc.com)
3 May 2020 For the next few years, life will not look the way we remember. We’ll talk to each other behind sheets of Plexiglas, behind face masks, with well-scrubbed hands that carry the astringent smell of hand sanitizer. We’ll continue to walk and work 6 feet apart. Meetings will be Zoomed. This summer will go on more quietly than usual, without the roar of crowds in stadiums, or at concerts. (webmd.com) 4 May 2020 For thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. A new study demonstrates that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 years, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that are compatible with human life. (Xu, et.al., PNAS) 5 May 2020 America’s renewable energy sources have produced more electricity than coal every day for 40 days straight. (newsweek.com) 6 May 2020 As of yesterday over 70,000 Americans are dead from Covid-19. Andre Solzhenitsyn (1970 Nobel Lecture) said “Falsehood can hold out against much in this world, but not against art. (The Atlantic 7 May 2020 The polar vortex is back with freak snowstorms across the upper Midwest and the Northeast which will see record low temperatures for May. Scientists theorize that warming Arctic temperatures could disturb atmospheric circulation patterns, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events across the Northern Hemisphere. (motherjones.com) 8 May 2020 Murder hornets are invading North America. The venom of this Asian giant hornet kills dozens of Japanese each year, where they are called killer hornets. 9 May 2020 A Harvard study showed coronavirus patients living in counties with higher levels of air pollution were more likely to die from the respiratory disease. 10 May 2020 Today, Mother’s Day we exceed 80,000 deaths in the US. Worldwide, over 280,000 people have died from Covid-19. 11 May 2020 There is an ongoing debate mainly split on political lines in the US as to how to emerge from lockdown. The Trump administration and many Republican states are pushing for opening despite the risk of rapid escalation of the virus. This is currently being seen in Wuhan and South Korea as they re-open. 12 May 2020 Prior to the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hovered around 280 parts per million. A doubling would amount to about 560 ppm. Concentrations today are more than 400 ppm and steadily climbing. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas: a gas that absorbs and radiates heat. The last time the atmospheric CO2 amounts were this high was more than 3 million years ago, when temperature was 2°–3°C (3.6°–5.4°F) higher than during the pre-industrial era, and sea level was 15–25 meters (50–80 feet) higher than today. (Climate.gov) 13 May 2020 Man has been defined as “modern” largely to the extent that he attempts to control, as opposed to adjust himself to, nature. In this relationship with nature, modern humanity has generally been the aggressor, and a daring one at that, altering the flow of rivers, building upon geological faults, and today, even engineering the genes of existing species. Nature has generally been languid in its response, although contentious once aroused and occasionally displaying a flair for violence. (The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, John M. Barry)
14 May 2020 A whistleblower undergoes testimony in Congress, warning of “unprecedented illness and fatalities” if the US does not step up its virus response. 15 May 2020 Climate activist Bill McKibben considers whether when COVID-19 is over, society might change in ways that will enable us to move to an environmentally different future. He asks can our habits change, can we think differently about the world, and behaving differently in it? (e360.yale.edu) 16 May 2020 2020 could be the Atlantic’s fifth above average hurricane season in a row. NOAA models suggest increased odds of a La Niña event causing cooler than average water temperatures in Likewise, the cooler-than-average waters of La Niña are associated with atmospheric subsidence; this supports easterly winds over the Atlantic and thus makes tropical cyclones more likely to form. 17 May 2020 In the midst of economic shocks and border closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Pacific region was yet again ravaged by a Category 5 cyclone that left a trail of destruction across four Pacific island countries in a span of four days from April 5 to 8. Oxfam reports that the economic, social and environmental impacts of the pandemic, exacerbated by climate-induced disasters such as tropical Cyclone Harold, will reverberate well into the future for these countries. (Aljazeera.com) 18 May 2020 Over 90,000 people in the US have died from coronavirus. The rising death rates no longer makes headlines. 19 May 2020 Hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are becoming stronger, according to a study published by NOAA and University of Wisconsin. 20 May 2020 UNICEF states: At least 19 million children in parts of Bangladesh and India are at risk as Cyclone Amphan makes landfall and is expected to make a direct hit on the state of Bengal. (timesofindia) 21 May 2020 A study by Columbia University shows that social distancing a week earlier could have saved 36,000 lives. 22 May 2020 Severe flooding in the Midwest with water flooding downtown Chicago and two dams breached in Midland Michigan. 23 May 2020 California’s third major heat wave this year is expected to bring temperatures over 100 degrees F and accelerated melting of snowpack in the mountains. 24 May 2020 Unprecedented heat wave hits the Arctic, raising temperatures to 86 degrees this week due to climate change and a high-pressure system. 25 May 2020 Memorial Day. People crowd beaches despite warnings about coronavirus. The US death toll approaches 100,000. 26 May 2020 The wetlands at the base of the Mississippi River in Louisana have crossed a "tipping point," and could disappear, according to a new study published in Science Advances, which is based on hundreds of measurements of the Mississippi Delta
27 May 2020 As of today, 100,000 people in the US have died of coronavirus. 28 May 2020 Planting trees may help the climate crisis, but compared to cutting fossil fuels, it would only play a small role. While trees might help the planet survive in the long run, scientists say, first we have to save them. Global warming is a threat-multiplier for drought, fires and pests that have killed trees across millions of acres in the last 20 years. And forests all over the world are already in the full grip of the climate crisis. Insideclimatenews.org 29 May 2020 Locusts swarm over north India and Africa, darkening the skies, eating crops and threatening famine for millions of people. New swarms are forming from Kenya to Iran. It is likely that climate change led to habitat changes and changes in locusts’ usual migration routes. (bbc.com) 30 May 2020 This is the 5th night of protests both peaceful and violent in many US cities over the violent murder of George Floyd, a black man by a white Minneapolis policeman. George Floyd was murdered with his hands cuffed behind his back, laying on the ground by a neck hold. The murderer held George Floyd down for over 9 minutes. 31 May 2020 I had intended this art to be about the climate crisis, but I feel that on the topic of racism I must not remain silent. I stand with Black Lives Matter. And I feel there is a relationship between the killing of Black people, the coronavirus and the climate crisis. The same racist colonial system that has brought massive inequality and the climate crisis also makes Black people more vulnerable to the effects of pollution, climate change and coronavirus. 1 June 2020 Trump ordered military police to fire tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protestors outside the White House so he could go to a church and hold a bible upside down for a photo op. 2 June 2020 In Washington DC US troops are positioned throughout the city. 3 June 2020 Carbon dioxide in the Earth’s air hits a record high, 417 ppm. According to Scripps Institute, CO2 emissions reductions on the order of 20 to 30 percent would need to be sustained for six to twelve months for the increase in atmospheric CO2 to slow in a detectable way. 4 June 2020 Coronavirus deaths exceed 110,000 in the US. This is barely noticed. 5 June 2020 The Trump White house has erected a 2 mile barricade around its perimeter. In the meantime, Trump, citing the economic havoc from the pandemic has weakened two key environmental protection laws, limiting regulation of infrastructure projects and impact on air pollution. 6 June 2020 Last month was the hottest May on record worldwide, a European climate agency has reported, with temperatures in Siberia rising 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) above their normal levels. Globally, May was 0.63 degrees Celsius warmer than the average May between 1981 and 2010, making it the warmest May in this data record, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said. (cnn.com)
7 June 2020 Tens of thousands of people in cities in the US and around the world are protesting police racism and brutality. This is the tenth day of protests. 8 June 2020 Heavy flooding and storm surge from tropical storm Cristobal continue to batter the Louisana gulf coast, breaching a levee and eroding miles of sand. 9 June 2020 “Zombie fires” are erupting in Alaska and likely Siberia, signaling a severe Arctic fire season may lie ahead. Zombie fires burrow into peatbogs, rich organic material beneath the snowpack and somlder throughout the winter (washingtonpost) 10 June 2020 Destruction of tropical rainforests increased again last year, with over 30 million acres lost and with Brazil leading deforestation. (nytimes)
11 June 2020 Emissions fell by a quarter when the lockdowns were at their peak, and in early April global daily carbon dioxide emissions were still down by 17% compared with the average figure for 2019, research published last month in the journal Nature Climate Change found. Now daily carbon emissions are still down on 2019 levels, but by only 5% on average globally, according to an updated study. Less people taking public transportation due to Covid 19 may lead to further increase. (guardian) 12 June 2020 Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve, the best place to see wild bears, is in the process of permitting for a mine that is predicted to cause a catastrophic decline in wild salmon and the bears that rely on them for their diet. Trump has endorsed the mine, which is owned by a Canadian company. 13 June 2020 Airborne plastic is everywhere. More than 1000 tons of tiny fragments rain down each year on national parks in the American West, according to a new study from the University of Utah. (nytimes.com) 14 June 2020 Michael Mendez, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, has a new book called “Climate Change from the Streets”, about the struggle of low-income and minority communities to have a voice in shaping environmental policy. Mendez writes about how low-income communities are disproportionately affected by pollution. African Americans have an over 50% greater risk of pollutions’ impact on health. 15 June 2020 The Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay and transgender rights, saying that employers cannot fire a person for being gay or transgender. A momentous victory. 16 June 2020 PG&E pleads guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter in the 2018 California Camp Fire case. The fire was started by a power transmission line that PG&E failed to maintain. (nytimes 17 June 2020 Mass extinctions are accelerating. The Sixth Extinction is happening faster than expected with hundreds of species on the brink of extinction. Humans are to blame, according to a study reported by the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 18 June 2020 The Vatican calls for the 1.2 billion Catholics to divest from fossil fuels and arms investments. (@billmckibben
19 June 2020 The number of deaths in the US exceeds 120,000. Although the number of new cases is declining, in some states that opened early, such as Florida, Texas, and Georgia, the case number continues to rise. 20 June 2020 India considers auctioning the licenses to open 41 coal mines to private companies. However, the demand for coal is decreasing as sustainable energy becomes cheaper. (climatehomehews) 21 June 2020 Trump’s rally in Tulsa Oklahoma, his rebooting of his campaign, was sparsely attended. 22 June 2020 Women exposed to high temperatures or air pollution are more likely to have premature, underweight or stillborn babies. Black mothers and babies are harmed at a much higher rate than the population at large. Pollution with ozone and tiny particles called PM 2.5 are becoming more common as climate change continues. 3 June 2020 Anthony Fauci, the US top infectious disease expert, testified before Congress, saying that the coronavirus is not under control. 24 June 2020 Yesterday there was a record number of new coronavirus cases in the US. There were 34,700 new cases with the biggest increases in California, Texas and Florida, the three most populous states in the US. 25 June 2020 NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) unveil a dashboard of satellite data showing impacts on the environment and socioeconomic activity caused by the global response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. (climate.nasa.gov) 26 June 2020 Record heat in the Northeast US and eastern Canada with temperatures in the high 90’s. (washingtonpost) 27 A historic plume of dust and sand from the Sahara is heading towards the United States and Mexico. The skies are filled with the red dust, which coats everything. 28 CDC data shows actual coronavirus infections are vastly undercounted and in the US are probably 10X the reported numbers. 29 June 2020 A mutation of the coronavirus, called the D variant, has taken over most of the infections in the world. Scientists think that it may spread more easily than the original coronavirus in Wuhan China. 30 June 2020 The Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing major public health challenges due to a confluence of major outbreaks of Ebola virus disease, measles, and COVID-19. These include the tenth Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo, the world’s worst measles outbreaks with 311,471 cases in 2019, and Covid-19.