"We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts."
The western United States is likely being gripped by an "emerging" megadrought partly fueled by the climate crisis, says a study published Friday.
Researchers claim the region's 19-year drought, from 2000–2018, already rivals that of any over the past 1,200 years.
For decades Noam Chomsky has been a leading intellectual troublemaker. His books and speeches have helped to explain how a world run by corporations and billionaires has led to endless war and catastrophic climate change. Now he is helping to explain how corporations and billionaires are actually making the coronavirus pandemic worse by pursuing savage policies that benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else.
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the world before our very eyes. In less than 3 months, it has exposed the grotesque nature of the capitalist system to millions, ground the world economy to a halt, and revealed how truly interconnected our little planet really is.
In the 1980s, US hospitals began to transform from institutions providing comprehensive care, no matter how long it took, to healthcare factories intent on shuffling patients in and out as quickly as possible. While this was meant to save money, shortages of basic equipment during the coronavirus outbreak have revealed the high price of these cost-cutting measures.
The catastrophe demonstrates the results when public health is subordinate to private profit and to a governmental apparatus that adulates the superiority of private over public administration. The catastrophe we are living through was caused by a capitalist system that could not anticipate, plan for, or cope with the coronavirus. To “get through” this catastrophe yet leave the system intact will guarantee the next catastrophe.
