Deforestation

Global Forest Watch is a way to track deforestation worldwide.  Fifty soccer fields per minute for the past 13 years.

Update (November 19, 2019):  Deforestation in the Amazon was the highest in a decade last year at nearly 3800 square miles. That was a 30 percent increase over the previous year. The figure doesn't even include the damage from this year's fires.

Update (November 24, 2019):  A paper published in Science Advances notes that "full carbon accounting requires the consideration of forgone carbon sequestration, selective logging, edge effects, and defaunation". This meant that the total calculated carbon impact of clearing intact forests increased by over six times.

Inequality Overview

The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality has released The Poverty and Inequality Report 2014.  I think I've seen similar data on the trend for share of real income before, but the report goes into other aspects of inequality as well.

Update (February 23):  Thomas Frank says we all need to start talking about class.

Update (March 28):  Matt Bruenig collects a series of graphs depicting the impact of class from childhood to death.

Update (April 2):  Lynn Stuart Parramore describes how the upcoming generational transfer of wealth through inheritance is going to make inequality worse.

Update (April 12):  Anat Shenker-Osorio writes about how to frame the political discussion on inequality. A lot of people don't respond to the fact that there's an income or wealth "gap".  More effective was to talk about how inequality destabilizes the economy.  And I think that does get at a better understanding of the issue.  It's not necessarily the case that someone having more is inherently "unfair", but rather the extremes we're heading toward put all of us at risk.

Update (April 13):  Jason Linkins explains why most Americans are not "making it" after the Great Recession.

Update (April 20):  Could there be a connection between high inequality in the United States and low rankings in the Social Progress Index?

Update (May 4):  David Atkins describes four ways by which the top has disguised the upward transfer of wealth by making the rest of us feel better off than we are.

1) Push people away from defined-benefit pensions and into stocks and 401(k)s. 

2) Push more people into buying real estate, and increase home prices by all means possible. 

3) Democratize consumer debt, especially through credit cards. 

4) Reduce the cost of goods through free trade policies.

Update (July 3, 2016):  Nancy Isenberg describes five myths about class in the U.S.

The working class is white and male. 

Most Americans don’t notice class differences. 

Class mobility is uniquely American. 

With talent and hard work, you can rise above your class. 

Class oppression isn’t as significant as racial oppression.

Oceans Warming Rapidly

Data from the National Oceanographic Data Center shows that the heat content of the global ocean is increasing at a rate three times as fast as the average for the previous 16 years.  The so-called pause in atmospheric warming really means that a lot of heat is being absorbed by the ocean.

Update (July 22):  A study by Shaun Lovejoy at McGill University describes the so-called pause as no more than natural variability.

Update (July 24):  Joe Romm reports on work showing that the temperature rise of the past 15 years has been underestimated due to missing data from the arctic.  Most heat does go into the oceans, but land temperatures may be set to rise rapidly.

Update (August 26):  James Conca explains that there is "more than one way to heat a planet".

Update (January 25, 2015):  The heat content of the oceans continues to go up and in 2014 the Earth had the greatest amount of thermal energy than any year on record.

Update (January 18, 2016):  A study published in Nature Climate Change finds that half of additional heat content of the oceans has been absorbed in the past 18 years. In that time, the portion of additional heat found in the deep ocean has increased from 20 to 35 percent--which means three and a half times as much heat.

Update (January 28, 2018):  A study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences announced that 2017 was the largest thermal energy anomaly on record in the global ocean. For comparison, the amount of energy increase in the ocean equals about 700 times the total annual electrical generation in China.

37th Year

Depending on which report you read, 2013 was either a tie for the fourth warmest or a tie for the seventh warmer year since 1880 with a temperature anomaly of about 0.6 degrees Celsius above the 20th century baseline.  In either case, the mean global temperature was above that baseline for the 37th consecutive year.

Update (February 13):  Coastal flooding may cost $100 trillion per year by 2100.

85 Equals Half of the World

An Oxfam report indicates that the richest 85 people control $1.7 trillion of wealth, equivalent to the wealth of the bottom half of the world's population.  The wealth of the top one percent is $110 trillion, nearly half the wealth in the entire world.

Update (January 22):  Emily Lodish points out that the Oxfam report documents how the wealth gap in the United States has grown more, and is now greater than just about any other developed country.

Update (January 30):  Michael Moran wonders if concern about inequality among the super rich is more than just talk.  The intention isn't clear when it's described as "the number one threat to global security".

Update (February 5):  Paul Buchheit describes inequality in the United States which is, in some ways, relatively worse than other parts of the world.

Update (April 1):  Research by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman show that the top 0.01 percent have increased their share of national wealth more than the "bottom" 99 percent of the top 1 percent over the past 40 years.

Update (April 12):  Gabriel Zucman also has a paper demonstrating that a lot of wealth is hidden in off-shore tax havens.  Paul Krugman thinks that would be the norm rather than the exception.

Update (April 19):  Felix Salmon argues that indebtedness distorts any calculation of wealth.

Update (May 18):  Sean McElwee reports on how wealth inequality makes it harder for those at the bottom to save thus turning to debt as a safety net.

Update (June 20):  Paul Buchheit writes about greed and puts together a couple of interesting facts:  The Oxfam report indicates that the wealthiest one percent in the U.S. captured 95 percent of the gains since the recession ended.  And a Credit Suisse report shows that U.S. wealth grew from a recent low of $46.7 trillion at the end of 2008 to $72.1 trillion by mid-2013.  If we "generously" distribute about $24 trillion to about 13 million U.S. millionaires (not quite the same as the top one percent), we get an increase of about $2 million per person.

Update (June 28):  Sean McElwee interviews Gabriel Zucman.

Update (August 12):  More about Zucman's research on how wealth is undercounted.

Update (November 23):  Oxfam calls for action to end extreme inequality with their Even It Up campaign.

Make governments work for citizens and tackle extreme inequality

Promote women’s economic equality and women’s rights

Pay workers a living wage and close the gap with skyrocketing executive reward

Share the tax burden fairly to level the playing field

Close international tax loopholes and fill holes in tax governance

Achieve universal free public services by 2020

Change the global system for research and development (R&D) and pricing
of medicines so everyone has access to appropriate and affordable medicines

Implement a universal social protection floor

Target development finance at reducing inequality and poverty,
and strengthening the compact between citizens and their government

Update (November 30):  Sean McElwee describes how the financial sector makes inequality worse and endorses a financial transaction tax.

Update (December 30):  The 400 richest people gained $92 billion in wealth during 2014 for a total of $4.1 trillion.

Update (January 28, 2015):  Mona Chalabi has the list of the 80 wealthiest people in the world.

Update (December 4, 2015):  A report from the Institute for Policy Studies finds that the 20 wealthiest Americans own as much as the bottom half of the country (152 million people).

Update (December 23, 2015):  Sue Sturgis collects facts about inequality.

Number of the richest U.S. households whose wealth exceeds that of the country's entire 42 million African Americans: 100

Number of the richest U.S. households whose wealth exceeds that of the country's more than 55 million Latinos: 186

The total wealth of those on the Forbes 400 list of richest people in the U.S.: $2.34 trillion

Update (January 17, 2016):  Apparently it now only takes 62 people to equal half of the world.

The wealth of the richest 62 has increased an astonishing 44 percent since 2010, to $1.76 trillion. Meanwhile, the wealth of the bottom half of the world dropped by 41 percent.

Update (January 20, 2016):  More from the Oxfam report--soon the world's richest one percent will own fully half of all the wealth. The top twenty percent own 94.5 percent of the wealth.

Update (April 17, 2016):  Lynn Stuart Parramore argues that the top one-tenth percent are much different than even the rest of the top one percent.

Drought

In 2013, California experienced the driest year on record.  Wildfires are now a danger even in winter.

Update (February 22):  More about the California drought.

Update (March 2):  Dealing with the drought.

Update (March 10):  The drought could get worse.

Update (March 30):  Kathleen Sharp reports on looming problems due to the drought.

Update (April 12):  Joe Romm reports on two studies that show climate change is drying out the US southwest and other regions.  He points out that because of the effect on agriculture, this will be the most consequential impact of climate change.

Update (April 20):  More bad news for the drought.

Update (April 21):  Lake Mead, which supplies water to Las Vegas, is drying up.

Update (April 28):  The news for California keeps getting worse.

Update (May 16):  Wildfires are already starting and a collection of drought related stories.

Update (June 10):  Drought and population growth are creating water problems in Texas.

Update (June 20):  And still worse in California.

Update (July 9):  Lake Mead in Nevada is approaching a record low depth.

Update (July 17):  California is pumping 62 percent more groundwater than usual.

Update (August 1):  Unbelievable.

Update (September 15):  And now fire.

Update (September 24):  Zero Percent Water

Update (October 1):  Now entering the fourth year of the drought.

Update (October 26):  The state of Sao Paulo is facing a water shortage.

Update (December 6):  A study concludes that the cumulative impact of California's drought is the worst in 1200 years.

Update (January 13, 2015):  Improved drought conditions in California, but a long way to go.

Update (February 14, 2015):  Computer models forecast megadroughts for much of the U.S.

Update (March 7, 2015):  California had the warmest February since records began in 1895.

Update (March 15, 2015):  Jay Famiglietti states that California has one year of water left and calls for rationing.

Update (April 11, 2015):  Lindsay Abrams interviews Karen Piper about dealing with a water crisis. One idea is to stop exporting virtual water.

Update (April 29, 2015):  A look at California's future.

Update (May 6, 2015):  If, in fact, extinction looms in our relatively near-term future, perhaps it will have been set off by the end of agriculture in California.

Update (June 28, 2015):  Looking at the larger water crisis.

Update (August 17, 2015):  Millions of trees are dying due to the drought.

Update (August 18, 2015):  William deBuys explains the mega-drought to come.

Update (August 22, 2015):  A study published in Geophysical Research Letters estimates that the California drought is 15 to 20 percent worse than it would have been due to climate change.

Update (September 15, 2015):  Fifty-two percent of the United States is abnormally dry or in some level of drought.

Update (August 2, 2016):  Adventures In Mapping illustrates five years of data.

Update (April 25, 2020):  Although the severe drought is past, a study published in Science finds that the years from 2011 to 2017 in California are part of a megadrought. From 2000 to 2018, the southwestern United States experienced the driest period in 400 years.

[R]esearchers from Columbia University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Idaho identified 40 prolonged drought incidents from the last 1,200 years. Only four are as severe as the megadrought we’re currently experiencing.

War on Poverty

Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson gave his first State of the Union address.

Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope -- some because of their poverty, and some because of their color, and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity.

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort.

 President Reagan later declared that the war had been lost.  But there is evidence of progress.

Paul Krugman makes the point that persistent poverty is caused by high inequality of incomes. Republicans want people to get jobs, but low income jobs aren't enough to raise people out of poverty.  The United States is much richer than 50 years ago, but most of that wealth has gone to the top.

And so the middle class is in danger of disappearing.  Lynn Stuart Parramore offers a new anti-poverty agenda:

1. Make the rich pay their fair share by ending unfair tax breaks.
2. Expand Social Security, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others have demanded.
3. Protect people from going hopelessly into debt through medical expenses. Obamacare has failed to put a tight lid on potential total medical costs. Eventually, we must join the civilized world with single payer healthcare.
4. Increase state-supported education. It’s absurd that people have to go into debt just to pay for their educations.
5. Strengthen regulation so irresponsible companies do not rob ordinary Americans.
6. Restore the rights of workers, like collective bargaining and protection from wage theft.
7. Understand that austerity policies do not work, and only exacerbate economic woes.
8. Aggressively attack unemployment and remember the lesson learned in the Great Depression: when the private sector can’t come up with jobs, the government must fill the breach.
9. Protect the reproductive rights of women.
10. Protect civil rights, such as access to voting, in places where such rights are under attack.

Update (July 2):  A Census Bureau report, "Changes in Areas With Concentrated Poverty: 2000 to 2010" shows that the number and proportion of people living in poverty has increased during that period.

Update (July 14, 2018):  Jeff Stein and Tracy Jan present what seems to be a new Republican tactic to attack spending on social programs.

The White House in a report this week declared the War on Poverty “largely over and a success,” arguing that few Americans are truly poor — only about 3 percent of the population — and that the booming economy is the best path upward for those who remain in poverty.

The new messaging comes as the White House and Republicans in Congress pursue their long-held goal of adding work requirements for recipients of food stamps, Medicaid and housing subsidies.

It depends on how you want to define "poverty"--problem solved!

The most recent census data says that in 2016, 12.7 percent of Americans — about 41 million people — were in poverty compared with 19 percent in 1964. A separate census measure, known as the “supplemental” poverty rate, takes into account federal assistance flowing to households as well as regional differences in cost of living. By that measure, about 14 percent of Americans are in poverty.

Rather than measuring resources coming into households, conservative scholars prefer to use “consumption” statistics that rely on surveys of how much people report spending. Using the spending measure, poverty is closer to the 3 percent figure [von Clownstick's] economic council used, said Robert Rector, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Poverty measured by consumption has fallen dramatically since the 1990s, while data from the Census Bureau shows poverty remaining relatively flat.