Up to 70% of California beaches could disappear by end of the century

Stephan: 

The beaches disappear, what do you think will happen to those beach communities? When do you think the insurance companies will stop insuring the houses of the people that live there? What will happen to their economies?

Newport Beach in Orange county was among those deemed particularly at risk of severe coastal erosion. 
Credit: Marcio José Sánchez / AP

California is known for golden sands and endless waves, but much of the state’s famous shoreline could vanish in the future. That’s according to a new study, which found that between 25% and 70% of California beaches might be washed away by the end of the century, leaving only cliffs or coastal infrastructure in their wake.

The study used satellite data collected over the past two decades to examine California’s 1,100-mile-long coast. Researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) used those satellite images, combined with models of climate crisis-driven sea level rise ranging from 1.6 to 10ft, to estimate the shape and position of the state’s coastline by 2100. The amount of sea level rise will depend on how much carbon is pumped into the atmosphere now and in the future.

The paper, which is in the process of being peer-reviewed for publication, follows on from a 2017 study conducted by the same researchers focused on the rate of […]

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Disney’s Orlando Campus Cancellation a Blow to Neighboring Projects

Stephan: 

Ron DeSantis, in my opinion, is not only a vulgar rather nasty fascist, he is the governor of a state whose wellbeing based on the evidence is of little interest to him. His has crippled healthcare for women, violated the wellbeing of the LGBTQ community, attempted to trash the state’s public education system, damaged the libraries, made a terrible business decision in his fight with Disney, as this article describes, and grossly underserved his constituents in preparing for what is going to happen to the state as climate change advances.

Lake Nona is a roughly 11,000-acre planned community in Orlando, Fla. Credit: Lake Nona

Walt Disney’s decision to scrap a proposed $900 million office park in Orlando, Fla., creates a 60-acre hole inside an 11,000-acre master planned community, clouding the near-term future of many other real-estate projects already under way there. 

The company cited changing business conditions and new leadership when it announced this month that it wasn’t proceeding with plans for the office space or the relocation of 2,000 employees from California. 

In 2021, Disney purchased the nearly 60 acres in the Orlando community known as Lake Nona for about $46 million. It was moving forward with the campus project as recently as March, when it sought city approval for the plan. The company’s plans included 1.8 million square feet of space across eight buildings and three parking garages, according to city records. 

It is unclear what Disney will do with the land now that it has canceled the office complex. Lake Nona’s developer, Tavistock Development Co., has the right to buy back the land eventually under […]

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How pollution is causing a male fertility crisis

Stephan: 

Our greed and stupidity as a species is making it harder and harder for us to reproduce, as this article describes. Maybe not being able to have children will finally wake us up to the fact that the only way to get through what is happening is to make fostering wellbeing at every level our highest and most compelling priority.

Credit: Edward Berthelot / Getty

Sperm quality appears to be declining around the world but is a little discussed cause of infertility. Now scientists are narrowing in on what might be behind the problem.

“We can sort you out. No problem. We can help you,” the doctor told Jennifer Hannington. Then he turned to her husband, Ciaran, and said: “But there’s not much we can do for you.”

The couple, who live in Yorkshire, England, had been trying for a baby for two years. They knew it could be difficult for them to conceive as Jennifer has polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that can affect fertility. What they had not expected was that there were problems on Ciaran’s side, too. Tests revealed issues including a low sperm count and low motility (movement) of sperm. Worse, these issues were thought to be harder to treat than Jennifer’s – perhaps even impossible.

Hannington still remembers his reaction: “Shock. Grief. I was in complete denial. I thought the doctors had got it wrong.” He had always known he wanted to be […]

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These billionaires have more money than the US Treasury right now

Stephan: 

Think about this for a moment, in a nation of 334,233,854 people 24 billionaires each have more money than the U.S. Treasury today. Median household income in America can vary widely depending on the state. For 2021, the median household incomes range was $46,637 to $97,332, and in 2022 family income actually went down. Would you call that differential between the billionaires and middle class, wealth inequality? Do you think those 24 individuals live in a different world, with different values, than the rest of us? Do you think this inequality represents a healthy country?

Meta — the parent company of Facebook — co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, two of the 24 having more money than the U.S. Treasury Credit: Associated Press/Mark Lennihan/Nati Harnik, File

As time winds down on how long lawmakers have to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling to avoid the U.S. defaulting on its debt, the Treasury Department’s cash balance has been dropping. 

Data from the department’s website shows that its cash balance fell to $49.473 billion on Wednesday, a drop from about the $76.5 billion that it had at the close of Tuesday. 

The White House and congressional Republicans are in the midst of negotiations to try to raise the debt limit before it is reached, potentially as soon as June 5. 

As the Treasury’s cash balance drops, an increasing number of individuals in the United States and other countries throughout the world are worth more than what the government has.

The Bloomberg Billionaire Index, which issues a daily ranking of the world’s wealthiest people based on […]

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‘Murderers’ and ‘criminals’: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

Stephan: 

Anti-climate change rightwing conspiracists attacking meteorologists because they think they are making climate change up. There is an anti-intellectualism to the fascist right, a failure to face reality, that is beyond their stupidity. These people are dangerous and there are a lot of them worldwide, as this report describes.

Meteorologists around the world are facing what agencies say is unprecedented harassment and online abuse from people who accuse the experts of overstating, lying about or even controlling the weather.

“Murderers.” “Criminals.” “We are watching you.”

These are just a handful of the threats and abuse sent to meteorologists at AEMET, Spain’s national weather agency, in recent months. They come via social media, its website, letters, phone calls – even in the form of graffiti sprayed across one of its buildings.

Abuse and harassment “have always happened” against the agency’s scientists, Estrella Gutiérrez-Marco, spokesperson for AEMET, told CNN.

But there has been a rapid rise recently, coinciding with extreme weather in Spain. A severe drought has shrunk water levels to alarming lows, exacerbated by record-breaking April temperatures.

The abuse got so bad that in April, AEMET posted a video on Twitter calling for an end to the harassment, and asking for respect. Even the government intervened. Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for the ecological transition, posted on Twitter in support […]

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