intelligencer chats
Mar. 30, 2022
How Bad Is the Ukraine War for Climate Change? Russia’s brutal invasion may hasten the West’s clean-energy transition, but its short-term effects on the planet will be damaging.
COVID Is Not Over Yet What new data from Hong Kong and Britain could tell us about the pandemic’s evolution.
Chuck Klosterman Lived Through This In his book The Nineties , he tried to write about the decade as it felt at the time — at least to some people.
omicron variant
Feb. 3, 2022
Why Are So Many Americans Still Dying of COVID? John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times says small differences in vaccination rates can make a big difference.
COVID Is a Vibe After Omicron, the pandemic will be what we make of it.
Two Paths for Omicron Depending on how you look at the U.S. data for this new variant, the story it tells inspires either relief or dread.
America’s Omicron Wave Already Looks More Severe Than Europe’s New York’s hospitalization data may not bode well for the rest of the country.
life after warming
Jan. 1, 2022
The Return of the Urban Firestorm Climate scientist Daniel Swain explains that what happened Thursday in Colorado wasn’t a wildfire, but something potentially much scarier.
intelligencer chats
Dec. 29, 2021
Schools Might Be Heading for a January ‘Omicron Break’ Unless we radically rethink pandemic protocols, there will be a lot of absences in a lot of places.
The Best News About Omicron May Not Be About Severity The size of the Omicron wave is likely more important in determining its ultimate toll — and there are signs it will be much smaller than feared.
Is Omicron a New Wave or a Parallel Pandemic? If the new variant is spreading preferentially among the vaccinated, it may not mean much for the future course of the pandemic.
omicron variant
Dec. 18, 2021
South Africa’s Omicron Wave Looks Like It’s Already Peaking. Why? Virologist Trevor Bedford helps make sense of what is happening with the new variant in South Africa, and what it might mean for other countries.
omicron variant
Dec. 17, 2021
How Mild Is Omicron, Really? The early data is conflicting. But there are encouraging signs.
Omicron Is About to Overwhelm Us The new COVID variant has all the makings of a massive wave.
Can Anything Stop the Omicron Wave? At this point, America has limited options.
this endless pandemic
Dec. 2, 2021
Waiting for Omicron The new variant comes to a country that still does not have the pandemic under control.
life after warming
Nov. 17, 2021
This Is What Happens When One Climate Disaster Follows Another Just look at these images of flooding and landslides in British Columbia.
The New Politics of Climate Hyperbole Are the world’s leaders talking a big game on climate because they want to take action, or because they don’t?
There Is Finally a Visible Way Out of the COVID Pandemic With promising therapeutic drugs on the horizon and parents now able to get their kids vaccinated, the real U.S. endgame may at last be near.
The Case for Climate Reparations A trillion tons of carbon hangs in the air, put there by the world’s rich, an existential threat to its poor. Can we remove it?
intelligencer chats
Oct. 18, 2021
Just How Disastrous Is Manchin’s Climate Obstruction? U.S. credibility is on the line, not to mention the fate of the planet.
intelligencer chats
Sept. 30, 2021
Why Has the Delta Variant Been This Bad in the U.S.? Relatively low vaccine uptake is a major factor, but it may not fully explain why America is such an outlier among rich countries.
The Public Continues to Underestimate COVID’s Age Discrimination In the breakthrough era, age matters as much as vaccination status.
Don’t Panic, But Breakthrough Cases May Be a Bigger Issue Than You’ve Been Told The vaccines work very well, but current public-health communications may be understating the frequency of infections among the vaccinated.
Too Many People Are Dying Right Now The trend of U.S. hospitalizations and deaths amid the Delta wave appears to be far worse that what many had expected.
delta variant
Aug. 1, 2021
The U.K.’s Delta Surge Is Collapsing. Will Ours? Why the variant’s spread may be less pervasive than we currently expect.
What Happens When All the Bugs Die? Bee ecologist Dave Goulson imagines a world without creeping things.
What If Vaccines Don’t Really Stop the Virus From Spreading? Unpacking the CDC’s head-snapping new guidance on the vaccinated and masks.
delta variant
July 24, 2021
How Bad Could the Delta Variant Get? The scientist Eric Topol explains why we can expect a dangerous wave of cases this fall.
The Kids Were Safe the Whole Time Why we should rethink COVID safety protocols for children — and everyone else.
life after warming
July 1, 2021
How to Live in a Climate ‘Permanent Emergency’ Death Valley temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and Canada show we’ve entered the era of climate adaption.
intelligencer chats
June 24, 2021
How Bad Could the Delta Variant Get in the U.S.? It is set to become the dominant COVID strain in a matter of weeks.
life after warming
June 16, 2021
California’s Last Fire Season Was a Historic Disaster. This One Could Be Worse. The conditions are already set for eclipsing recent records — which themselves would have been unthinkable not long ago.
The Implications of the Lab-Leak Hypothesis The epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch explains the risks of the virus research done at the Wuhan Institute.
The Invisible Dead of COVID Colonialism As the global north vaccinates, the rest of the world is in a grimly familiar place.
Is 1.5 Degrees Still Possible? Sudden decarbonization seems tantalizingly close to reality, but steep challenges to limiting global warming remain.
What Really Happened With That Weird Yankees COVID Outbreak The infections are not a surprise. They may even be a good thing.
intelligencer chats
May 14, 2021
The Future of COVID in America Vaccination rates may determine whether the virus becomes a seasonal nuisance sooner rather than later.
How the West Lost COVID How did so many rich countries get it so wrong? How did others get it so right?
intelligencer chats
Mar. 11, 2021
Maybe the Variants Aren’t So Scary After All Assessing the risk of another major COVID wave as optimism begins to rule the day.
intelligencer chats
Feb. 17, 2021
America’s Brittle Infrastructure Is on Display in Texas More system failures loom as the weather becomes more extreme. But disasters can also serve as needed wake-up calls.
How Long Can COVID Cases Keep Plummeting? There’s a mysterious element to the good news.
What If the COVID Pandemic Never Really Ends? The latest math on herd immunity is looking grim.
Brazil’s New Covid Strain Raises Big – and Scary – Questions The biggest pandemic news may not be from Johnson & Johnson but the Amazonian city of Manaus.
life after warming
Jan. 19, 2021
After Climate Alarmism The war on denial has been won. And that’s not the only good news.
coronavirus
Dec. 30, 2020
America’s Vaccine Rollout Is Already a Disaster Vaccines should bring the end of the pandemic, but we’re bungling their distribution just as badly as the rest of our coronavirus response.
intelligencer chats
Dec. 17, 2020
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