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Arctic Ice and Global Warming

An article from this past February, Rapid warming and disintegrating polar ice set the stage for ‘societal collapse’ – Carbon pollution is destabilizing both the Arctic and Antarctic, provides a nice overview of issues of warming and ice. For instance, there is the albedo feedback loop: Climate models have long …

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Who eats more fast food the poor or wealthy?

Data helps us understand the world as it really is as opposed to what we think is true. The article Do poor people eat more junk food than wealthier American? uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics longitudinal data, accessible in the article, to answer the question. Because it’s considered relatively inexpensive, …

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Fact Checking Coal Mining Jobs

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker article Pruitt’s claim that ‘almost 50,000 jobs’ have been gained in coal includes links to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data for each of their three screen shots of spreadsheets that back up their statements. The article notes: In the last four months of the Obama administration, September …

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Glacier Pairs

NASA’s Global Ice Viewer for Glaciers provides stunning pairs of images of glaciers taken many years apart at the same location. The viewer starts with a map of the world with links for seven locations. Each link brings you to glacier pair images from that location with information about the images. For …

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Employment Report for the Class of 2017

EPI released a must read report early this month titled the Class of 2017. This is a long report with 17 graphs of historical trends, with data, related to employment of recent college grads. For example, figure F provides unemployment rates for young college graduates by race and ethnicity (Black, …

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A Feedback Loop: The Alaska Tundra

A recent NASA report Alaska tundra source of early-winter carbon emissions provides another example of a feedback loop. Global warming has slowed the refreezing of the Alaska tundra allowing for increased CO2 releases. A new paper led by Roisin Commane, an atmospheric researcher at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, finds the …

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April Second Warmest on Record

A NASA report notes that April 2017 was second-warmest April on record. April 2017 was the second-warmest April in 137 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. Last month (meaning April) was …

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Pay Inequality

A recent EPI report notes: Straight out of college, women make about $3 less per hour than men. Right out of college, young men are paid more than their women peers—which is surprising given that these recent graduates have the same amount of education and a limited amount of time to gain …

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Larsen C Update

Project MIDAS recently posted Larsen C takes another step towards calving. In the largest jump since January, the rift in the Larsen C Ice Shelf has grown an additional 17 km (11 miles) between May 25 and May 31 2017. This has moved the rift tip to within 13 km (8 …

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