2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15

Editor's Choice

Jennifer Nuzzo: “We’re Definitely Not Overreacting” to COVID-19

Johns Hopkins epidemiologist and infectious disease expert Jennifer Nuzzo on why vaccines aren’t the answer, how COVID-19 is unique, and how to stay safe.

We are living in strange times. The streets and highways that run through busy cities around the world are uncharacteristically empty. Schools are closed. Storefronts are boarded up. Many people are just trying to figure out how to survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Preparation is key, says epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo. But that doesn’t mean stockpiling paper goods and cleaning supplies. Each country needs to be prepared, and it is now clear that many were not.

Nuzzo’s work at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security has focused on pandemics and outbreaks. Less than three months before the earliest reported case of humans infected with COVID-19, Nuzzo and her colleagues published a WHO/World Bank-commissioned report about a “high-impact respiratory pathogen” that “would likely have significant public health, economic, social, and political consequences.” What we’re experiencing now, she says, exceeds “some of the grimmest expectations” highlighted in that report.

Still, Nuzzo sees a light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel. In our interview, she explained why vaccines aren’t the answer, how the novel coronavirus is unique, and what we can do to keep ourselves healthy. A supporter of social distancing, Nuzzo spoke to me from the protection of her home in Maryland, where she, like many of us, is balancing remote work with homeschooling two young kids. 

Jennifer Nuzzo: “We’re Definitely Not Overreacting” to COVID-19 by Yvonne Bang, JSTOR Daily, Apr 6, 2020

Click here to access the entire article. 

Articles Linked to on Facebook

Sun, Apr 5, 2020

• A classic 'Twilight Zone' episode warns us how not to behave during a pandemic by& Blake, CNN, Apr 4, 2020
• Rescuing the Great Barrier Reef: how much can be saved, and how can we do it? by Graham Readfearn, Environmental Investigations, Guardian Australia, Apr 4, 2020
• Aware, confused, leaderless: How Irish people feel about climate change now by Ian McShane, Life & Style, Irish Times, Apr 4, 2020
• Big Oil is using the coronavirus pandemic to push through the Keystone XL pipeline, Opinion by Bill McKibben, Comment is Free, Guardian, Apr 5, 2020
• Prepare or Panic: URI Professor's Advice for Addressing a Global Pandemic and the Climate Crisis by Tim Faulkner, ecoRI News (Rhode Island), Apr 4, 2020
• Under Cover of Pandemic, Fossil Fuel Interests Unleash Lobbying Frenzy by Dana Drugmand, DeSmog, Apr 2, 2020

Mon, Apr 6, 2020

• How Coronavirus Could Help Us Fight Climate Change: Lessons From The Pandemic by David Vetter, Energy, Forbes, Mar 30, 2020
• As Himalayas Warm, Nepal’s Climate Migrants Struggle to Survive by Bhadra Sharma & Kai Schultz, Asia Pacific, New York Times, Apr 5, 2020
• Central banks must target a green recovery after coronavirus, Opinion by Nick Bryer, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Apr 4, 2020
• Essential' but Unprotected, Farmworkers Live in Fear of Covid-19 but Keep Working by Evelyn Nieves, InsideClimate News, Apr 3, 2020
• The collapse of the US fracking industry, in seven charts by Tim McDonnell, Quartz, Apr 3, 2020
• Great Barrier Reef suffers its most widespread mass bleaching event on record by Maddie Stone, Capital Weather Gang, Washington Post, Apr 6, 2020
• Alberta’s $5.3 Billion Backing of Keystone XL Signals Vulnerability of Canadian Oil by Nicholas Kusnetz, Inside Climate News, Apr 6, 2020
• 'Creating Our Legacies': The Elders Fighting for Climate Justice by Alex Schwartz, Earther, Gizmodo, Apr 6, 2020

Tue, Apr 7, 2020

• Gutting fuel economy standards during a pandemic is peak Trump by David Roberts, Energy & Environment, Vox, Apr 2, 2020
• Sorry to disappoint climate deniers, but coronavirus makes the low-carbon transition more urgent by John Hewson, The Conversation AU, Apr 6, 2020
• 5 Ways the Economic Upheaval of Coronavirus May Impact CO2 Emissions by Benjamin Storrow, E&E News/Scientific American, Apr 6, 2020
• What the Coronavirus Pandemic Can Teach Us About the Climate Emergency by Charles Komanoff & Christopher Ketcham, The Intercept, Apr 4, 2020
• In a Race Against Global Warming, Robins Are Migrating Earlier by Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate News, Apr 7, 2020
• What We Pretend to Know About the Coronavirus Could Kill Us, Opinion by Charlie Warzel, Sunday Review, New York Times, Apr 3, 2020
• The Green New Deal Is Cheap, Actually by Tim Dickinson, Politics, Rolling Stone Magazine, Apr 6, 2020

Wed, Apr 8, 2020

• Airlines urge UN body to ease climate goals for 2020s as traffic collapses by Chloé Farand, Climate Home News, Apr 6, 2020
• Five trees or a latte? Coastal communities seek crowdfunding for mangroves by Michael Taylor, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Apr 6, 2020
• Crossbreeding corals: the hunt for ways to heal the Great Barrier Reef by Johan Augustin, Environment, Guardian, Apr 4, 2020
• Pope says coronavirus pandemic could be nature's response to climate crisis by Delia Gallagher, CNN, Apr 8, 2020
• Climate change: UK forests 'could do more harm than good' by Roger Harrabin, Science & Environment, BBC News, Apr 8, 2020
• Why Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories Flourish. And Why It Matters. by Max Fisher, The Interpreter, New York Times, Apr 8, 2020
• Unchecked Global Warming Could Collapse Whole Ecosystems, Maybe Within 10 Years by Bob Berwyn, InsideClimate New, Apr 8, 2020
• Oil Companies Are Collapsing, but Wind and Solar Energy Keep Growing by Ivan Penn, Energy & Environment, New York Times, Apr 7, 2020

Thu, Apr 9, 2020

• Homeschooling during coronavirus: five ways to teach children about climate change by William Finnegan. Education, The Conversation UK. Ap 7, 2020
• A.I. Is Helping Scientists Understand an Ocean's Worth of Data by Tatiana Schlossberg, New York Times, Apr 8, 2020
• Trump EPA’s ‘Secret Science’ Rule Would Dismiss Studies That Could Hold Clues to Covid-19 by Marianne Lavelle, InsideClimate News, Apr 8, 2020
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #14, 2020 by Doug Bostrom, Skeptical Science, Apr 8, 2020
• Deep emissions cuts this decade could prevent ‘abrupt ecological collapse’ by Daisy Dunne, Carbon Brief, Apr 8, 2020
• Cranky Uncle video: FLICC by John Cook, Cranky Uncle, Apr 4, 2020
• The Earth Is Telling Us We Must Rethink Our Growth Society, Analysis by William E Rees, The Tyee (Vancouver, BC), Apr 6, 2020
• Decades of Science Denial Related to Climate Change Has Led to Denial of the Coronavirus Pandemic by Neela Banerjee & David Hasemyer, InsideClimate News, Apr 8, 2020

Fri, Apr 10, 2020

• Climate Change and Infectious Diseases, Opinion by Arthur Wyns, Observations, Scientific American, Apr 9, 2020
• The Carbon Brief Profile: South Korea by Josh Gabbatiss, Carbon Brief, Apr 6, 2020
• Chile to peak emissions by 2025, under strengthened climate pledge by Megan Darby, Climate Home News, Apr 9. 2020
• Coronavirus collides with climate action - our chance to build a better world for all, Opinion by Rachel Kyte, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Apr 9, 2020
• How A Trillion More Trees Could Combat Climate Change by Robert Rapier, Energy, Forbes Magazine, Apr 9, 2020
• Animal Viruses Are Jumping to Humans. Forest Loss Makes It Easier. by Catrin Einhorn, Climate, New York Times, Apr 9, 2020
• Jennifer Nuzzo: “We’re Definitely Not Overreacting” to COVID-19 by Yvonne Bang, JSTOR Daily, Apr 6, 2020

Sat, Apr 11, 2020

• The US has a collective action problem that’s larger than the coronavirus crisis by Patrick Sharkey, Vox, Apr 10, 2020
• Illegal loggers uncowed by coronavirus as deforestation rises in Brazil by Jake Spring, Reuters, Apr 10, 2020
• Cities Are Flouting Flood Rules. The Cost: $1 Billion by Christopher Flavelle & John Schwartz, Climate, New York Times, Apr 9, 2020
• Opinion: Why carbon pricing is not sufficient to mitigate climate change—and how “sustainability transition policy” can help by Daniel Rosenbloom, Jochen Markard, Frank W. Geels & Lea Fuenfschilling, PNAS Journal, Apr 8, 2020
• What the Coronavirus Pandemic Teaches Us About Fighting Climate Change by Alice C Hill, In Brief, Council of Foreign Relations, April 10, 2020
• As Africa looks for clean power, nuclear interest grows by Farai Shawn Matiashe, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Apr 10, 2020
• The Best-Case Scenario for Coronavirus Is That It’s Way More Infectious Than We Think by David Wallace-Wells, Intelligencer, New York Magazine, Apr 10, 2020

Posted by John Hartz on Saturday, 11 April, 2020

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