This post is updated daily.
You can also follow the Reddit Live thread here.
 
COVID-19 has now infected more than 803,313 people. There have been 39,014 confirmed deaths and 172,657 confirmed recoveries attributed to the virus.
 
Do you think you have COVID-19?
The CDC has a new online tool that allows people to "self-check" for COVID-19. Click here to use the "Coronavirus Self-Checker" tool.
 
Recent Updates
(Note: These are the updates from the last 48-72 hours.)
 
MARCH 30 -
General:

• Coronavirus death rate is lower than previously reported, study says, but it's still deadlier than seasonal flu. The research, published in the medical journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, estimated that about 0.66% of those infected with the virus will die. That coronavirus death rate, which is lower than earlier estimates, takes into account potentially milder cases that often go undiagnosed -- but it's still far higher than the 0.1% of people who are killed by the flu. When undetected infections aren't taken into account, the Lancet study found that the coronavirus death rate was 1.38%, which is more consistent with earlier reports. Read more here.

Updates from around the world:

• Portugal has temporarily given all migrants and asylum seekers full citizenship rights, granting them full access to the country's healthcare as the outbreak of the novel coronavirus escalates in the country. The move will "unequivocally guarantee the rights of all the foreign citizens" with applications pending with Portuguese immigration, meaning they are "in a situation of regular permanence in National Territory," until June 30. Read more here.
  
• Sweden is open for business during its coronavirus outbreak; the Scandinavian country believes its distinctive high-trust culture will protect it from needing to shut down for the pandemic. It's now the only country in Europe to not have restricted movement. Read more here.
  
• Brazil’s governors are defying President Jair Bolsonaro over his call to reopen schools and businesses, dismissing his argument that the “cure” of widespread shutdowns to contain the spread of the coronavirus is worse than the disease. Read more here.
  
• Panama has announced new movement restrictions: Starting April 1, women will circulate Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and men Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On Sundays everyone should stay at home. The same schedule is used with the last ID number and exceptions established in Decree 507 remain. See the tweet here.
  
• Netherlands: A painting by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh was stolen in an overnight smash-and-grab raid on a museum that was closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, police and the museum said Monday. Read more here.
  

Updates from the United States:

• A 1,000-bed Navy ship, the Comfort, has arrived in New York City. The ship has 12 operating rooms, a medical laboratory and more than 1,000 officers. See the video here.
  
• Federal judges block 3 states from enforcing abortion bans tied to the pandemic. Ohio, Iowa, Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma are among the other states that recently moved to suspend access. The judges on Monday lifted restrictions Texas, Ohio and Alabama imposed on abortion during the coronavirus pandemic in decisions that could have repercussions for several more Republican-led states that have deemed the procedure non-essential during the crisis. Read more here.
  
• Arizona, Virginia, and Washington D.C. have now joined dozens of other states in issuing stay-at-home orders. You can see all the states that currently have stay-at-home orders and advisories here.
  

 
MARCH 29 -
Updates from around the world:

• Hungary: Parliament passes bill that gives PM Orbán unlimited power & proclaims:

• State of emergency w/o time limit
• Rule by decree
• Parliament suspended
• No elections
• Spreading fake news + rumors: up to 5 yrs in prison
• Leaving quarantine: up to 8 yrs in prison. See the tweet here.

The former Italian Prime Minister calls for Hungary to reverse its dictatorship law or else be expelled from the EU. See the tweet here.

• The postponed Tokyo Olympics have been rescheduled and will now be held from July 23 to August 8 in 2021. Read more here.
  
• Global oil benchmark Brent crude plunged to its cheapest in 18 years on Monday, while U.S. crude briefly tumbled below $20 per barrel, on heightened fears that the global coronavirus shutdown could last months and demand for fuel could decline further. Read more here.
  
• Spain's Princess Maria Teresa of Bourbon-Parma has become the first royal to die from the novel coronavirus. The 86-year-old was a cousin of Spain’s King Felipe VI. She died after contracting COVID-19. Read more here.
  
• Australia: Two Australian states close gun shops. Read more here.
  
• Japan will deny entry to people coming from the U.S., China, South Korea, and most of Europe. See the tweet here.
  
• Argentina, Honduras, and Guatemala are all extending their quarantines through to at least mid-April.
  
• Mexico is calling on all residents in Mexico to stay at home until April 19, saying it was the only way to reduce the transmission rate of the coronavirus.Read more here.
  
• Belarus president refuses to cancel anything - and says vodka and saunas will ward off COVID-19. Read more here.
  
• Netherlands: In a national address to the Dutch nation on Monday, March 16th, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his country would aim to develop immunity to the novel coronavirus among its population by allowing large numbers to contract the illness at a controlled pace. In the past week, Rutte has since walked back the herd immunity policy line by introducing what could be characterized as lockdown light. The country's pragmatic balancing act doesn't seem to be working as well as intended...The confirmed case fatality rate in the Netherlands of approximately 7% stands in stark contrast to its neighbor Germany’s 0.7%. Read more here.
  
• Indonesia may soon quarantine almost 30 million people in its capital and surrounding areas and limit people’s movement between regions to contain the spread of the coronavirus that’s killed more than 100 people in the world’s fourth-most populous nation. Read more here.
  
• South Korea: Around 14 million South Korean households will qualify for financial assistance under the government’s newly announced disaster support fund. The level of support depends on the number of people in the household, with one person households qualifying for 400,000 won ($327), while households with four or more people will receive 1 million won ($817) in support. Read more here.
  
• Nigeria: Both Nigeria's largest city and its capital city will be under a "cessation of movement" for 14 days, said Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in a Sunday address, which was published on Twitter. See the tweet here.
  

Updates from the United States:

• President Trump extends social distancing guidelines to April 30. See the tweet here.
  
• CDC issues domestic travel advisory for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Read more here.
  
• The Justice Department has started to probe a series of stock transactions made by lawmakers ahead of the sharp market downturn stemming from the spread of coronavirus, according to two people familiar with the matter. The inquiry, which is still in its early stages and being done in coordination with the Securities and Exchange Commission, has so far included outreach from the FBI to at least one lawmaker, Sen. Richard Burr, seeking information about the trades, according to one of the sources. Read more here.
  
• Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke to reporters Sunday morning saying Americans should start to see checks from the $2 trillion stimulus bill direct deposited into their accounts over the next three weeks. Read more here.
  
• New York City builds emergency field hospital in Central Park. The mayor announced the construction of a 68-bed emergency field hospital in Central Park's East Meadow. Read more here.
  
• Maryland has now joined other U.S. states in announcing a stay-at-home order. Read more here.
  
• Michigan: State Rep. Isaac Robinson, D-Detroit, died Sunday. Crain’s reported that Robinson died of “suspected coronavirus infection,” but the cause of his death was not immediately confirmed late Sunday. Read more here.
  
• Liberty University reopened last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. An additional eight were told to self-isolate. Read more here.
  

 
MARCH 28 -
Updates from around the world:

• Germany: Mr Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany's Hesse state, has committed suicide apparently after becoming "deeply worried" over how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus. Mr Schaefer, 54, was found dead near a railway track on Saturday. Read more here.
  
• India is planning to turn some railway coaches into isolation wards for patients with coronavirus, as authorities scramble to prepare the country's health infrastructure for an expected surge in cases. Read more here.
  
• United Kingdom: Fruit and veg ‘will run out’ unless Britain charters planes to fly in farm workers from eastern Europe. UK urgently needs to fill 90,000 positions to pick crops that will otherwise die in the fields. Read more here.
  
• Spain's quarantine measures have been extended until April 9. Read more here. Meanwhile, the regional government of Madrid is planning to set up a second makeshift morgue, which could start receiving coffins on Monday. The facility is located inside a failed development project called the City of Justice that was launched in 2005 to bring together all of Madrid’s judicial institutions. Read more here.
  
• France: A French former cabinet minister and former president of the Parisian Haut-de-Seine administrative district has become one of the first high-profile politicians to die of COVID-19. Patrick Devedjian was 75. Read more here.
  
• Vietnam has started closing non-essential services and restricting religious activities, parts of measures under a directive signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc that runs from Saturday until April 15. Provincial and municipal leaders will decide which specific services are to be shut down. Read more here.
  
• Mexico: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been criticized at home and abroad for what many called a lackadaisical posture — urging people to hug, shaking hands and kissing well-wishers as he stumped and extolling his personal good-luck charms such as Catholic scapulars, a shamrock and $2 bill. But the president and his team have shifted their message radically in recent days, as virus cases have begun surging, urging people to stay home and to practice social distancing — and warning of dire results if that advice is ignored. Although the Mexican government still hasn't instituted curfews or mandatory stay-at-home orders. Read more here. This change comes after a Mexican governor sparked outrage earlier in the week by claiming that poor people are immune to the virus. Read more here.
  

Updates from the United States:

• Kansas joins dozens of other states in issuing a stay-at-home order. Read more here.
  
• Rhode Island sparked outrage with the state's new coronavirus measures, which include stopping and screening passengers in cars wtih New York license plates, and going door-to-door to inform any New Yorkers who may have come to the state that they must self-quarantine for 14 days. Read more here. In response, NY Governor Cuomo has threatened to sue Rhode Island. Read more here.
  
• Meanwhile, President Trump and Governor Cuomo got into a constitutional slapfight about whether or not a federal quarantine would be mandated for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In the end, President Trump backed down and instead requested the CDC issue a "strong travel advisory" for the area, which has now happened. Read more here.
  

 
Tracking COVID-19

• Johns Hopkins University has a live trackemap of the global spread of COVID-19 here.
  
• The CDC is tracking US cases here.
  
• Today's situation report from the WHO.
  
• The CDC's COVID-19 Situation Summary.
  
• There are tons of travel bans globally right now. CNN has put together a full list here.
  

 
Reputable Sources for Information:

• The CDC's Dedicated Coronavirus Resource,
  
• The WHO's Dedicated Coronavirus Resource,
  
• The University of Chicago School of Medicine's handy FAQ style resource.
  

 
Previous Megathreads

• March 19-25: Megathread 7
  
• March 14-18: Megathread 6
  
• March 10-13: Megathread 5
  
• March 1-9: Megathread 4
  
• Feb 9-29: Megathread 3
  
• Feb 6-9: Megathread 2
  
• Jan 29-Feb 6: Megathread 1
  

Rainbow flags in window displays, limited edition rainbow products, big statements of proud CEOs about how everyone should be treated equally. Just as June, the month of embracing and celebrating anyone who doesn’t conform to heteronormativity, has ended, we have to ask ourselves and them: What are you going to do until June 2021? Are you even going to do something?
The Hydroelectric City Pride Festival of 2017 was a colourful crowd of individuals of all ages, sexual orientations, genders – and employers. When I spotted several people seemingly scattered randomly across the parade, all with the same shirts displaying their company’s logo in big, rainbow-coloured, shiny sequins, a suspicion came over me: That was a high street fashion shop, selling the hottest trends at ridiculously low prices for a piece of garment. Apologizing for scandals is part of their daily routine. Do they only pretend to care once again? What if even now that the general public in our society, the one that is consuming their products, wants to encourage fair and equal treatment and demands that of the economy as well, are they just playing with us to gain more and more profit while not doing anything? I mean, it sounds quite obvious to anyone who has even just touched on the concept of capitalism, and still, you have hope that just once management decides to show they are humane, too.
The minute my hands could grab hold of my laptop again, I frantically started researching. The brand’s current Pride-themed collection consists of ten pieces and of 10% of all profit made from it will go to the UN human rights office "Free & Equal", just like it was in 2017! Sounds good? Wrong. The donation is meaningless or at the very least not nearly enough since the online shop offers almost 7000 products for women alone, the men’s, kids’ and home department not even taken into the calculation yet. Combined with the suspiciously low prices of fast fashion nowadays the brand isn’t donating in as big of a socially conscious scale as it like to present it as. I took a closer look at the product details, maybe there was really something more, something good to this collection that could improve my current take on it. All ten pieces are produced in China. China, a country that does not allow homosexual marriages and adoptions, conversion therapy (therapy that aims to make people who do not fit into a heteronormative standard conform to these with questionable and even dangerous methods) is legal. Thus, the brand is knowingly contributing to the economy of a country whose government outright denies rights to the LBGT+ community. They support the side of the oppressors, superficially gaining a progressive image for all those who do not want to or do not have the time to look deeper into the issue. And they are not the only ones guilty of this.
The strengthening of the homosexual lobby over the last 30 years has apparently led to increased marketing to this target group, and it has come with companies using surface-level acceptance just to make a profit, reducing the buyer in their identity to merely a mindless consumer, ignoring everything else. It leads to the attention and financial resources being taken away from the initiatives and organisations that actually stand up for the rights of the underprivileged group. This phenomenon is called “pinkwashing”, I learned.
I found more and more, the stream of new information seemingly never-ending: The same company also sold shirts with feminist slogans printed onto them while having the clothes be made by underpaid and overworked women in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, women who are reported to have to face sexual assault and gender-based discrimination while the brand is looking the other way over here and praising itself for its support, like a generous billionaire sneering and celebrating their victory with a glass of champagne, the bottle stained with the blood of women all around the world. Empty words in a room filled with despair, anger, and violence. “Purplewashing” is the term given to this infuriating and tone-deaf issue.
How do you avoid this? For US-Americans for example, the “Corporate Equality Index” published annually by the Human Rights Foundation is a good start to choosing companies that practice what they preach. The index evaluates and ranks the biggest companies’ internal policies on equal rights, proper dealing with discrimination amongst employees, and equal benefits for LGBT workers and their families. Still, I felt mentally exhausted by that point, and wondered: “Can anyone truly escape this? Don’t they say that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism?” The answer is surprisingly easy. They’re right. It’s not possible to change everyone’s consumption to 100% ethical. Not many have the resources to do so, and especially not at the level we consume at currently. However, this does not mean we should just accept our planet’s current fate and not aspire to change the world for the better. No matter the topic, if we just keep saying that we will never be able to achieve the perfect state and that therefore it would be unnecessary to even try, millions are going to keep suffering at the hands of cruel capitalism. Anything we can do to lower the number of people affected is a great contribution to progress, however small it may be.
I took a look at my closet again, realized I had been part of the chain of suffering for so long. And statistics show I wasn’t alone with that: People don’t wear about 50% of what their closets contain, we buy so much that we don’t know what to do with it and it is estimated that the average household spends about 1,700$ annually on clothes, while a single person throws away 65 pounds of clothing in the same timeframe. Fast fashion apparel being so cheap and so low in quality has its fair share of responsibility in this issue by targeting consumers who are not so well off and thus cannot easily invest in quality pieces that will last them longer. This leads to less money being spent at that very moment but way more money being spent in the long run. According to Forbes Magazine, the average woman owns 30 outfits — one for every day of the month. In 1930, that figure was nine. Men own less clothes than women do on average, however still many times more than what men used to own. It is time we question the reason we buy so much yet use so little, so we can stop and make the most of our purchases. Not only will the planet thank you, your wallet will as well. You can rent, repair, go thrifting (even electronics can be purchased second-hand), buy locally, and spread the knowledge! With tiny steps and a lot of endurance we as a community can go a long way. We cannot change what we did in the past but we can certainly do our best to give the children of tomorrow a better world.
Even though I had this revelation three years ago, I am sharing it now because I have the amazing opportunity to do so by publishing these articles, addressing a way bigger audience than I would’ve ever dreamed of back then. The cause I want to support is very dear to my heart as so many in our town are part of the LGBT community or they are our allies, and we need to remember to fight for fundamental human rights not only in one month of the year but to support it at the best of our abilities the other eleven ones as well. The fact alone that terms like “pinkwashing” and “purplewashing” even exist already shows the general public is slowly getting more aware of the subtle nuances of injustice. We need to stick together, stand together, rise together. And if achieving something of this magnitude demands letting go of my favourite brands, then I will gladly do that. This is not about my personal comfort. This is about staying loyal to my principles, my friends, myself. And together we can lead the world to a brighter, more hopeful and more equal future.
This article was brought to you by Marina Elettra Leonardis. It is part of her weekly column in the Southwest University Times. For more articles about lifestyle, town events, and politics, please head over to our website.

Good morning from the UK. For those people whose days blur into one another, today is a Wednesday. For any fellow Brits who haven’t realised yet, this Friday is Good Friday which means Monday is a bank holiday. 4 day weekend for us!
The UK and US continue to grab most of the global headlines - the UK due to the plight of its prime minister Boris Johnson (the TLDR there is that he’s still in intensive care, his condition is unchanged). The US is grabbing the headlines because of the sheer volume of cases / deaths in the country plus also for some of the quotes being given and actions being taken by President Trump.
Today’s round up is Guardian heavy. Sorry if you’re not a fan of them, I was pushed for time.

Virus news in depth

​
Coronavirus: UK will have Europe's worst death toll, says study - If you’re British like me this is rather frightening; the Guardian reports (Link) that “world-leading disease data analysts” (their phrase not mine) have projected that the UK will become the country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, accounting for more than 40% of total deaths across the continent. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle predicts 66,000 UK deaths from Covid-19 by August, with a peak of nearly 3,000 a day, based on a steep climb in daily deaths early in the outbreak. The analysts also claim discussions over “herd immunity” led to a delay in the UK introducing physical distancing measures, which were brought in from 23 March in England when the coronavirus daily death toll was 54. Portugal, by comparison, had just one confirmed death when distancing measures were imposed. The IHME modelling forecasts that by 4 August the UK will see a total of 66,314 deaths. Spain is projected to have 19,209 deaths by the same date, Italy 20,300 and France 15,058. All three countries have imposed tougher lockdown measures than the UK. (Personal note for fellow Brits, 66k = a town the size of Paignton in Devon, Rochester in Kent, Loughborough in Leicestershire, Dewsbury in W Yorks or Washington in Tyne and Wear. I expect we will hear a lot more about this herd immunity and in particular Dominic Cummings once the pandemic ebbs away; Cummings will probably be thrown under the bus for it).
​
Fears of crisis in global car finance markets as owners seek payments help - Fears are growing of a crisis in the UK’s £75bn car loan market, where 6.5m vehicles have been financed through leasing deals with monthly payments that are already proving unaffordable for some laid-off as a result of the coronavirus says the Guardian (link). The Finance and Leasing Association (FLA), which represents the credit arms of the car manufacturers as well as the banks, said: “It’s early days in terms of quantifying the impact on arrears, but the number of forbearance requests has grown significantly in recent weeks.” Britain’s car market rests on billions in debt taken out by consumers, many of whom may now struggle to pay. Around nine out of 10 of the 2.3m new cars sold in a typical year in Britain are paid for using some sort of financing provided by an FLA member. The most common purchase method has been personal contract plans (PCP), where a buyer puts down a deposit and then rents the vehicle for two to three years at a monthly cost, typically around £250. Problems in the UK car loans market may pale into insignificance compared with the colossal scale of auto lending in the US, which totals $1.3tn (£1tn). Some of it has been securitised into bonds that bear echoes of “subprime” lending common before the financial crisis of 2007-08. Around $30bn of new subprime vehicle loans were issued in 2019, and there have been reports of some lenders verifying the income of just 8% of borrowers – whose loans are then bundled into bonds sold on Wall Street as an income stream for investors. However, the US Federal Reserve has already stepped in with a programme to support “asset-backed securities”, including bonds holding auto loans.
​
Trump threatens to hold WHO funding, then backtracks, amid search for scapegoat - The Guardian has written a critical article on Trump again, saying he hunted for a new scapegoat on Tuesday in an increasingly frantic attempt to shift blame for thousands of American deaths from the coronavirus, accusing the World Health Organization (WHO) of having “called it wrong” and being “China-centric”. Trump’s early inaction has come under renewed scrutiny in the past day after a New York Times report that Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, warned in a memo in late January that the virus could put millions of Americans at risk and cost trillions of dollars. Susan Rice, a former national security adviser, told the Washington Post that Trump’s missteps “cost tens of thousands of American lives”. The president has repeatedly denied responsibility and sought to blame China, the Obama administration and the media. On Tuesday, with the US death toll exceeding 12,000, he unleashed a tirade at the WHO, even though it raised the alarm in January, after which he made statements downplaying it and comparing it to the common flu. “They’ve been wrong about a lot of things,” Trump said at the daily White House coronavirus task force briefing. “And they had a lot of information early and they didn’t want to – they seemed to be very China centric” – implying that the WHO had toed the line of Beijing’s early efforts to minimise the scale of the outbreak.
​

Virus news in brief

​
Source: Guardian daily blog or CNN daily blog unless specified otherwise.

• The number of countries not yet in lockdown continues to dwindle; Indonesia is the latest to announce a partial shutdown (link)

​

• The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is planning to furlough a third of its staff and is warning that its lifeguards may only be able to patrol the busiest beaches this summer if the lockdown is suddenly lifted (link).

​

• The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is returning to port due to an outbreak of the virus onboard. 40 sailors are currently said to be under strict medical observation.

​

• A small antarctic cruise ship with 217 people on board is marooned off the coast of Uruguay at the moment because 60% of people on board have been infected by the virus (CNN).

​

• New Zealand has recorded its lowest number of new coronavirus cases in a fortnight, one day after testing a record number of people.

​

• Damage, injuries and deaths reports are still pending from Vanuatu after Cyclone Harold hit it as a category 5 two days ago but it’s now hit Fiji as a category 4. Videos coming in show significant flooding. Harold is moving on and expected to hit Tonga within the next 48 hours. The Matangi Tonga website reported that Harold’s arrival in the country would coincide with a king tide and a supermoon early on Thursday morning. An extreme high tide warning is in force for Tonga for Thursday and Friday. Rescue and support for the Solomon islands, Vanuatu and Fiji will be difficult due to the need to check incoming supporters for viral infections.

​

• Authoritarian Turkmenistan gathered thousands of citizens for mass exercise events to mark World Health Day, state media said, ignoring the global trend for social distancing to fight the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. A state television broadcast late on Tuesday showed hundreds of people wearing identical coloured tracksuits cycling in close formation on a cold, damp day in the capital Ashgabat.

​

• The cofounder of Twitter Jack Dorsey has announced he is donating $1bn USD to fighting the virus with any funds left after it subsides going to girls health, education and universal basic income (link). Forbes suggests that this is nearly ⅓ of his wealth.

​

• Trains have started running to and from Wuhan again following a lifting of the lockdown.

​

• Tottenham Hotspur football/soccer players have been seen jogging together in local parks in London in a breach of the distance separation guidelines (link).

​

• Fifa has approved plans to extend player contracts and move transfer windows to allow seasons on hold due to coronavirus to be completed (link).

​

• Several major horse race meetings in the UK that are due soon have been cancelled while Royal Ascot (in mid June) is trying to see if it can host its races behind closed doors (link).

​

• USA - MLB is exploring options to launch its league behind closed doors early in Arizona according to a piece on ESPN (link). The plan calls for a start potentially as early as May with players residing in hotels and only venturing out for training or games. Any players that sign up could face being away from their families for up to 4.5 months. The idea is attracting a lot of noise on social media with the senior LA Times journalist Matt Pearce calling it “insane”.

​

• An Australian Rugby League Is Thinking About Putting 500 Players on a Luxury Quarantine Island says Vice (link). The sport, one of Australia’s most popular is proposing to quarantine about 500 rugby league players and training staff on a luxury resort island and then ferry them back to the mainland to play televised matches in empty stadiums. “Can someone tell me why a bunch of meat heads and their hangers on should unnecessarily use a huge amount of COVID-19 test kits so that they can get back onto their already ridiculous salaries,” wrote one Twitter user. Another was just as blunt and called the tournament “the very definition of a non-essential service.”

​

• USA - Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned on Tuesday, a day after leaked audio revealed he called the ousted commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt "stupid" in an address to the ship's crew. “When I walked on the quarterdeck of the TR I lost situational awareness and decided to speak with them as if I was their commander, or their shipmate, rather than their Secretary," Modly wrote. "They deserved better, and I hope that over the passage of time that they will understand the words themselves rather than the manner in which they were delivered. But what's done is done. I can't take it back, and frankly I don't know if I walked back up that quarterdeck today if I wouldn't have the same level of emotions that drove my delivery yesterday." he wrote in his resignation. (CNN link for more)

​

• USA - As the United States hit another record for most deaths from coronavirus in a single day, President Donald Trump said the country was "way under" any coronavirus models. “We’re way under any of the polls or any of the models as they call them,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Tuesday night. “We are way under, and we hope to keep it that way, in terms of death.” The US has recorded at least 398,809 coronavirus cases, including 12,895 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Some 30,613 new cases and 1,909 deaths were reported on Tuesday. The President, who seemed to be taking what could turn out to be a premature victory lap, said that New York “is getting ready, if not already, getting ready to peak.” Trump also said that he would love to start the economy back up “with a big bang,” opening the entire country to business all at once. But he said the administration is also considering opening up in sections. (CNN link)

​

• Trump tweet: “The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?” Factcheck.org says that US travel restrictions were announced 31st Jan and came into force Feb 2, a day after the WHO recommended travel restrictions.

​

• USA; 3.5 million Americans are thought to have lost healthcare coverage in the past two weeks according to the economic policy institute (link). The institute says that many of the newly unemployed will suddenly face prohibitively costly insurance options. The linkage between specific jobs and the availability of health insurance is a prime source of inefficiency and inequity in the U.S. health system.

​

• Vatican - The coronavirus outbreak is one of “nature’s responses” to human beings ignoring the ecological crisis, said Pope Francis Wednesday. “We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods?" the Pope told British Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh in an email interview published Wednesday in The Tablet and Commonwealth magazines. “I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses.”

​

Supply chain news in depth

​
Coronavirus: The Road to Economic and Social Recovery; We will recover, but how will we know when? - Descartes Labs, a geospatial imagery analytics startup based in California has written an interesting piece on medium.com (link) on how we may be able to use big data to understand when the economy will begin to recover. Remote sensing refers to data collected from satellites, aircraft, and distributed sensors that can provide information about the earth and help us understand human activities at a macro scale. While it is possible to understand the economic consequences of coronavirus through news reports and surveys, remote sensing provides direct observations that can be aggregated on a large scale and automatically processed for real-time insights. Descartes Labs, has developed a set of tracking and monitoring tools that can be used by businesses to understand consumer and supply chain activities that are critically important to revenues which harness aggregated mobility tracking, location-specific activity tracking, regional NO2 tracking and supply-chain tracking.
​
Logistics Manager Editor’s Blog: Has COVID-19 shown we have an e-commerce problem? - The editor of Logistics manager magazine (which has a UK lean in the topics it covers) has written an article reviewing the ecommerce sector. “If there is an area of the economy that is thriving right now it the supermarket sector. Yet limited delivery slots meant that only 14.6% of households received an online delivery in the four weeks to 22 March, up from 13.8% in March 2019 but most-likely well below actual demand. The truth is that as much as the logistics sector likes to celebrate its considerable achievements in the migration to e-commerce, some businesses were too stuck in the tried and traditional ways of working to actually reach the peaks. COVID-19 will change well-understood behavioural economics. Consumers won’t be the same after a global pandemic the likes of which we have never seen in our lifetimes.” He argues that businesses must immediately fully adapt to ecommerce channel fulfilment or they will most likely fail to survive. We were quick to celebrate the achievements of the sector, particularly in replacing the 30% of calories consumed outside the home with sales in bricks and mortar supermarkets. We were quick to celebrate that existing e-commerce infrastructure did not entirely fall apart. Yet there wasn’t enough capacity to deliver food to homes that wanted it, and in some cases needed it. There were not enough drivers and not enough vehicles, even if the right volume of food was in the system.
​

Supply chain news in brief

​

• Major UK supermarket chain Tesco has announced that sales jumped 30% in the first few weeks of the coronavirus outbreak as shoppers stockpiled in the run-up to the lockdown but additional costs involved in feeding the nation could reach almost £1bn. The UK’s biggest supermarket group said the full financial impact of the crisis this year was “impossible to predict” but that extra payroll, distribution and store expenses could add anywhere between £650m and £925m to costs. The UK’s biggest private sector employer said no member of staff had been furloughed but 50,000 staff were currently absent on full pay. In the last fortnight the company said it had recruited more than 45,000 people to keep its shelves full (link).

​

• Singapore has announced new plans to boost food production, including by turning car park rooftops into urban farms, as the Covid-19 pandemic disrupts global supply chains according to the Guardian daily live blog (link above). The city-state only produces around 10% of its food needs, but restrictions on population movement are wreaking havoc on farming and food supply chains – raising concern of shortages and price increases.

​

• Easyjet has secured £600m ($739m USD) in government funding to help it survive plus requested to fully draw down on its $500 million revolving credit facility, secured against its planes. Combined, the funding will give it access to £2.3bn ($2.8bn USD) equivalent in cash. (Source Airlive.net)

​

• Austrian airlines is pessimistic about the recovery time after the pandemic is over. In a series of tweets, it states that it assumes that it will have 25-50% of the demand in summer 2020 compared to 2019 and that pre-corona level will not be reached until 2023 at the earliest. It’s still reviewing what action to take but it’s likely that fleet reductions will occur.

​

• Austrian airlines’ parent company Lufthansa has announced plans to retire 42 of its Lufthansa and Germanwings branded fleet. Six out of forteen of its A380s will go whilst all Germanwings operations will be discontinued with some merged into the Eurowings brand. The restructuring programs already initiated at Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines will be further intensified due to the coronavirus crisis and both companies are also working on reducing their fleets as is SWISS International Air Lines which will also adjust its fleet size by delaying deliveries of new short haul aircraft and consider early phase-outs of older aircraft. In addition, the Lufthansa Group airlines have already terminated almost all wet lease agreements with other airlines. The reductions will significantly reduce the groups’ presence at its key airports in Frankfurt, Vienna, Zurich and Munich.

​

• CNN has a piece questioning whether US retail stalwarts Sears, JCPenney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew will survive the epidemic. Many were forced to close stores in the face of declining sales even as unemployment reached a 50-year low. Now with a record number of Americans filing for jobless benefits, unemployment is likely to be elevated for months if not years to come, further cutting into Americans' appetite and ability to shop. Sears filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and its future has been in doubt ever since. JCPenney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew are burdened by crushing debt loads. They're also at risk from declining market share, too many stores, limited online sales and a focus on selling discretionary items, analysts say.

​

• A formerly closed General Motors plant where workers once built transmissions for the Chevrolet Malibu is reopening as a surgical mask production facility. The plant, which closed last August, began making Level 1 surgical masks on Monday as demand for face masks climbs across the nation. GM said machines needed to make the masks were delivered to the Warren, Michigan, plant last week. Workers will ratchet up production over the next two weeks so the facility can manufacture 50,000 masks a day (CBS link).

​

• Several meat processing plants around the U.S. are sitting idle this week because workers have been infected with the coronavirus. Tyson Foods, one of the country's biggest meat processors, says it suspended operations at its pork plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, after more than two dozen workers got sick with COVID-19. National Beef Packing stopped slaughtering cattle at another Iowa plant, and JBS USA shut down work at a beef plant in Pennsylvania. NPR has more (link).

​

• Customs brokers applaud US Customs keeping borders open to cargo - Members of the Washington, D.C.-based National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) interviewed by American Shipper this week generally praised CBP for permitting the flow of legitimate trade across the continent says Freightwaves (link). “The CBP commercial traffic operations have not been affected other than the reduction of operations at plants in Mexico, which are shutting down due to safety concerns and government mandates on the closing of non-essential businesses,” said Jose D. Gonzalez, who operates his own customs brokerage firm at Laredo, Texas. “CBP has been pro-trade and understands the importance of the supply chain process,” he added. “They are working with the trade stakeholders to ensure the flow continues.”

​

• Politco says that President Donald Trump on Monday attacked his health department's watchdog for a new report revealing supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals responding to the coronavirus crisis, claiming the findings were inaccurate and politically motivated. "It's just wrong," Trump said during a briefing of the White House coronavirus task force, without providing evidence detailing what was incorrect. One hospital administrator said his mask supply would be depleted in three days. Another respondent said his system's regular supplier would take three to six months to obtain more masks and other gear due to the global rush for limited supplies. A third administrator said he fears tight supplies “endangers [staff] lives and the lives of their families.”

​

• Major apparel retailer Primark says it will help to fund the salaries of people working for its suppliers (link)

​

• The Loadstar says that forwarders are reporting concerns that shipments of medical supplies may not get through to their intended destination, as countries impound them en route for their own needs (link). The US has been particularly busy on this front, according to various media reports – so much so, in fact, that the Germans have accused it of “modern piracy”.

​

• Forwarders are also starting to abandon air cargo in favour of road transport in some cases says The Loadstar (link). InstaFreight, a road specialist, is one forwarder offering trucking services across Eurasia and claims that, with congestion affecting Chinese exports, the delivery times are similar to air – but cheaper and “more stable”. Depending on the number of drivers and the origin and destination, InstaFreight claims a transit of between 20 and 22 days, but this could be shortened by a few days if customers pay a surcharge to use two drivers.

​

• Forwarders are tearing their hair out over air shipment bookings. The Loadstar also reports (link) that there are significant issues for forwarders trying to move airfreight. “Capacity and space is a disaster, and we are seeing massive swings in rates from five- to 20-times the normal level. We have made bookings and then been advised the flights are cancelled,” said the chief executive of one mid-sized Canadian forwarder. “You book, plan, cancel, book another flight; sometimes three times in an hour,” he said, but so far, using freighter lift has been more straightforward, as all-cargo schedules have been reliable, he added.

​

• If you’ve ever wondered how you ground - and then maintain - an airline fleet, KLM (which certainly has a large fleet to think about) has written a fascinating blog just for you (link).

​

Good news section

​
The Easter Bunny Is An Essential Worker, New Zealand's Ardern Says - New Zealand prime minister has clarified (link) to the nation’s children that the government considers the easter bunny and tooth fairies as essential workers and are thus able to continue doing their jobs. Ardern announced the exemption in response to rampant speculation by New Zealand's youngest citizens, who had wondered how the coronavirus crisis might affect the traditional arrival of colorful eggs, chocolates and other treats. The prime minister however warned that in some cases, the pair might not be able to provide the level of service young people have come to expect. "So I say to the children of New Zealand, if the Easter Bunny doesn't make it to your household, then we have to understand that it's a bit difficult at the moment for the bunny to perhaps get everywhere," Ardern said.

Hi /collapse! I don't usually post my series on here because it's a bit of preaching to the choir, but I thought that for once I will try it out, and you can praise it or rip it apart if you want to. I don't feel like much more needs to be said, this is my selection of collapse related news that I've come across during the year and that has been published this year.
Previous posts:

• Signs of collapse 2018 Q3
  
• Signs of collapse 2018 Q2
  
• Signs of collapse 2018 Q1
  
• Signs of collapse 2017
  
• Signs of collapse 2016
  

Signs of Collapse 2018 Summary

Human well-being & non-specific climate change

• Caravan Provides a Preview of Climate Migrations, Experts Say
  
• Climate change is exacerbating world conflicts, says Red Cross president | World news
  
• The number of undernourished people in the world is rising again
  
• A new publication in Nature demonstrates that the world’s oceans have warmed far more than we had thought. The last UN report that warned of a global climate catastrophe by 2040 was underestimating how much heat the Earth had gained.
  
• The Seafloor Is Dissolving Because of Climate Change
  
• Rotting hydrogen sulphide producing seaweed in the Caribbean kills marine life, disrupt turism, causes skin irritation and nausea, and corrodes metals, destroying TV:s and other electrical equipment. | Environment
  
• New study has mapped 467 pathways by which human health, water, food, economy, infrastructure and security have been recently impacted by climate hazards amplified by climate change.
  
• Global food system is broken, say world’s science academies | Environment
  
• CDC says life expectancy down as more Americans die younger due to suicide and drug overdose
  
• Global warming today mirrors conditions leading to Earth’s largest extinction event, UW study says
  
• California’s droughts limit hydropower production, forcing continued fossil fuel emissions
  
• Toxic algae a slimy mess for Florida's Lake Okeechobee
  
• Over 700 migrants make violent border crossing into Ceuta
  
• Japan flood toll nears 200 amid disease outbreak fears
  
• Heatwave made more than twice as likely by climate change, scientists find | Environment
  
• Humans have depleted the Earth's natural resources with five months still to go in 2018
  
• As temperatures rise, Earth's soil is 'breathing' more heavily
  
• Planet at Risk of Heading Towards Apocalyptic, Irreversible ‘Hothouse Earth’ State
  
• Scientists have begun researching whether the worst effects of climate change can no longer be avoided
  
• World sinks to 10-year happiness low
  
• World 'nowhere near on track' to avoid warming beyond 1.5C target | Environment
  
• CO2 is Regularly Exceeding 410 Parts Per Million for First Time in Human History
  
• Climate Change Costs a Lot More Than We Recognize
  
• Global warming: April was 400th straight warmer-than-average month
  
• Suicide Is Rising Among American Farmers As They Struggle To Keep Afloat : NPR
  
• India lightning strikes and winds kill 50 - Authorities shocked by the ferocity of the storms: "It is one of the worst storms we've seen."
  
• Top Climate Scientist: Humans Will Go Extinct if We Don't Fix Climate Change by 2023
  
• Murders in Puerto Rico Surge as Hurricane Maria Recovery Continues
  
• India most vulnerable country to climate change - HSBC report
  

Economy, Politics & Industry

• Doomsday clock ticks ½ min closer to midnight due to lack of action to counter nuclear war and climate change.
  
• 'At home, we couldn't get by': more Venezuelans flee as crisis deepens | World news
  
• Mad Max violence stalks Venezuela's lawless roads
  
• Extreme cold results in severe agricultural damage across Europe, food prices rising
  
• Hotter, Drier, Hungrier: How Global Warming Punishes the World’s Poorest
  
• Some millennials aren’t saving for retirement because they don’t think capitalism will exist by then
  
• As The UN Warns Of Climate Catastrophe By 2030, The EU Is Pulling Back Climate Ambition
  
• The Australian government is still supporting coal, despite warnings of climate catastrophe
  
• UK growers warn of vegetable shortages as extreme weather halves crops
  
• Mother had 'no other choice' but to sell her 6-year-old daughter
  
• Black Friday climate report: Trump waves white flag and fails to protect American people
  
• Melbourne's water supply at risk due to 'collapse' of forests caused by logging | Environment
  
• Drought-induced slaughters begin: Norway currently lacks feed for around 12,000 cattle due to drought
  
• Potatoes stop growing in parched earth of north County Dublin
  
• Trump administration lifts ban on pesticides linked to declining bee numbers
  
• Australia Wilts From Climate Change. Why Can’t Its Politicians Act?
  
• Swedish reindeer herders call for rescue package after drought
  
• Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise
  
• Europe Wants to Devastate Forests to Double Its 'Renewable' Energy
  
• 90 per cent of the world's fisheries have collapsed
  
• The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017
  
• British farmers in turmoil as delayed spring plays havoc with growing season | Environment
  
• 'Nothing More That Can Be Said,' Warns Famed Social Scientist, Humanity 'Doomed' by Capitalism and Fossil Fuels
  
• Madagascar's vanilla wars: prized spice drives death and deforestation | Environment
  
• Listless And Lonely In Puerto Rico, Some Older Storm Survivors Consider Suicide
  
• Trump administration cancels NASA plan to track greenhouse gases
  
• Trump administration refuses to consider that 97% of climate scientists could be right
  

Biodiversity

• Mammals cannot evolve fast enough to escape current extinction crisis: Unless conservation efforts are improved, so many mammal species will die out during the next 50 years that nature will need 3-5 million years to recover
  
• Sea turtles, "the canaries of the ocean", face extinction; population of green sea turtles down 50-80% since 1900
  
• Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds | Environment
  
• Just 23 percent of the world’s landmass can now be considered wilderness, with the rest – excluding Antarctica – lost to the direct effects of human activities.
  
• 'Fish are vanishing' - Senegal's devastated coastline
  
• Shark numbers crashed by 92% over past half century, report finds
  
• One million South African bees 'poisoned'
  
• Building blocks of ocean food web in rapid decline as plankton productivity plunges | CBC News
  
• Acidic oceans cause fish to lose their sense of smell
  
• Enormous penguin population crashes by almost 90%
  
• Trump’s New Climate Plan Will Kill People, According to the Trump Administration
  
• Dolphins forced to break into nets to find food by overfishing in the Mediterranean, report says
  
• ‘Dead zone’ larger than Scotland found by underwater robots in Arabian sea
  
• Amazon river dolphins in steep decline: study
  
• Acres of shellfish dead in north Auckland estuary
  
• 'Shocking': Fish stocks in Australian waters drop a third in a decade
  
• Top UN panel paints bleak picture of world’s ecosystems
  
• Some of Africa's oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died in the past decade. The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years may have fallen victim to climate change
  
• UK's favourite wildlife species at risk of extinction 'without revolution in disastrous modern food farming' - Skylarks, nightingales and birds of prey all at risk, but officials ‘blame climate change instead of tackling vested interests destroying nature’
  
• Mass die-off of sea creatures follows freezing UK weather | Environment
  

Pests, viruses and bacterial infections

• As Venezuela’s health system collapses, disease spreads beyond its borders
  
• Los Angeles Hit With Flea-Borne Typhus Outbreak, Some Parts At Epidemic Levels
  
• New tick species capable of transmitting deadly disease is spreading in the U.S.
  
• ‘We’re Out of Options’: Doctors Battle Drug-Resistant Typhoid Outbreak
  
• Africa struggles for weapons against armyworm curse
  
• Deadly superbug just got scarier - It can mysteriously thwart last-resort drug
  

Coral reefs

• 'Warning Bells Going Off' as NOAA Forecasts Entire Great Barrier Reef at Risk of Coral Bleaching and Death
  
• Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead
  
• Fish populations in Great Barrier Reef collapse after devastating coral bleaching events
  
• Only 1% of Japan’s Largest Reef Still Healthy After Historic Bleaching Catastrophe
  

Ice and water

• Flash floods in southern France kill at least 12 people: Up to seven months’ rain fell in just a few hours overnight. The worst flash flood in a century turned rivers into raging torrents that engulfed homes and swept away cars.
  
• 'We've never seen this': massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly | World news
  
• Cry me a river: Low water levels causing chaos in Germany
  
• Drought 'displacing more Afghans than war'
  
• Greenland is losing ice at fastest rate in at least 350 years
  
• Japan Reels From Heavy Rains; Dozens Killed and Millions Urged to Evacuate
  
• India's water crisis: West Bengal on the brink of becoming a parched state in absence of preservation measures
  
• More than 350 people have died in the southern Indian state of Kerala in the worst flooding in nearly a century
  
• Exclusive: Some Arctic Ground No Longer Freezing - Even in Winter
  
• Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record
  
• Gulf Stream current at its weakest in 1,600 years, studies show | Environment
  
• Extreme rain causes increase in sink holes and rockslides in Rome
  
• Taps run dry in Ivory Coast city
  
• “When it rains, my heart sinks”: Climate change takes a toll in Uganda
  
• Popular SE Iceland glacial lagoon a ticking time bomb: Catastrophic mountain collapse looms
  
• In the Arctic, the Old Ice Is Disappearing
  
• IRSA issues warning of looming water crisis in Pakistan
  
• Deadly Tropical Cyclone Mekunu brings up to 8 years worth of rainfall to parts of Oman
  
• The Global Water Crisis: Why Are India’s Taps Running Dry?
  
• Invading seawater jeopardizes South Florida’s delicate drinking water source, but we can lessen the threat
  
• Antarctic ice melting faster than ever, studies show | Environment
  
• In recent years, the rising bedrock at Antarctica has led researchers to underestimate the rate of vanishing ice by as much as 10 percent
  
• Meet America's new climate normal: towns that flood when it isn't raining | Environment
  
• Pakistan water crisis: Rawal Lake dries up
  
• In 2017, the oceans were by far the hottest ever recorded | John Abraham | Environment
  
• Oxygen Levels in Oceans Are Dropping Dangerously
  
• Cape Town faces Day Zero, with officials predicting water will run out in April
  
• First ship crosses Arctic in winter without an icebreaker as global warming causes ice sheets to melt. "Crossing of polar region is becoming easier due to warming global temperatures and thinning sea ice."
  

Hurricanes, storms and winds

• Hurricane Leslie Injures 27 and Leaves 300,000 Without Power as It Slams Into Coast of Portugal
  
• Typhoon Jebi: Japan hit by strongest storm of 25 years | World news
  
• Climate change means Hurricane Florence will dump 50% more rain | World news
  

Heat waves, forest fires and tree loss

• At least nine dead, Paradise ‘pretty much destroyed’ as wildfire rages in Northern California
  
• Extreme heat wipes out almost one third of Australia's spectacled flying fox population
  
• Australia heatwave to break Christmas weather records with temperatures up to 47C forecast | Australia news
  
• Southeast Asian forest loss greater than expected, with negative climate implications
  
• The world is losing vital forests quicker than ever
  
• Heat wave kills 33 in Canadian province
  
• Ireland in state of ‘absolute drought’ as heatwave continues
  
• Three Hundred Foot Tall ‘Fire Tsunami’ Burns Through Colorado
  
• 53 And Counting! Heat Wave Breaks Records In Iran, Across The Caucasus
  
• Thousands of people without power in LA area amid heat wave
  
• Drought creates a perfect storm for wildfires in U.S. West
  
• Sweden is battling a historic wildfire outbreak. Here's what you need to know
  
• Greeks urged to leave homes as wildfires near Athens rage out of control
  
• Japan declares heatwave a natural disaster
  
• Six of California's Most Destructive Wildfires Have Struck in the Past 10 Months
  
• Record-breaking temperatures leave 29 dead in South Korean heatwave
  
• Firefighters battle to save communities from epic California fire
  
• Glacier National Park is on fire — and yes, warming is making things worse
  
• New South Wales issues the earliest declaration of a total fire ban in the regions in almost a decade amid out of control bush fires
  
• B.C. declares state of emergency as hundreds of wildfires burn across province | CBC News
  
• All the heat records broken this summer on one map
  
• August in Europe 'was the warmest on record'
  
• Dozens faint as Nawabshah sizzles at 50C, Larkana at 49C
  
• Peruvian Amazon Loses Over a Million Hectares: Official
  
• 3 deaths, an economic boost and melting traffic lights from heat wave
  
• 48,000 homes across Victoria without power from heat
  
• North Pole surges above freezing in the dead of winter, stunning scientists: It’s never been this extreme
  
• Some of the World's Biggest Lakes Are Drying Up. Here's Why. - Warming climates, drought, and overuse are draining crucial water sources, threatening habitats and cultures.
  
• Two Instances of Once-In-A-Generation Floods Leave Many Questioning Region Preparedness
  
• Trees are dying at the fastest rate ever seen: In 2016, the world lost a New Zealand-sized amount of trees, the most in recorded history.
  
• These ‘crazy, crazy’ Arctic winter stats are staggering scientists
  

Pollution

• Scientists discover plastic in faeces of every person who took part in Europe-wide study
  
• WHO study finds over 90% of people breathe toxic air every day | Environment
  
• Oxygen loss in the coastal Baltic Sea is 'unprecedentedly severe'
  
• Asthma deaths rise 25% amid growing air pollution crisis | Environment
  
• Millions in Indonesia are eating fibres from used DIAPERS: Plastics from nappies dumped in the River Brantas are being passed up the food chain from fish to humans, warn scientists
  
• Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals: Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’
  
• 93% of bottled water tested contained microplastics: Study | CBC News
  
• More than 95% of world's population breathe dangerous air, major study finds | Environment
  
• Record levels of plastic discovered in Arctic sea ice
  
• One out of six deaths worldwide were pollution-related in 2015
  

State of the European Union 2018

Reddit Live Thread HERE (NOW OVER)

Location: Strasbourg, France.
TL;DR: The State of the European Union speech will be on Wednesday, 12 September, from 09:00 CEST to 10:00 CEST. It will be presented by Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. The parliamentary debate will be held after the speech.
Official live video feeds

• EBS+ schedule
• EBS+ live streaming
• European Parliament
• Facebook Live (Original Language)
• EUTUBE Live
• European Parliament (Youtube)
• Twitter Periscope
• Focus page on SOTEU on the Commission’s AV Portal

Other live coverage

• European Parliament News Hub - live ticker for social media posts by Members of the European Parliament

Live Blogs

• Euractiv Live Blog
• Politico Live Blog
• BBC Live Blog

Hashtags on social media
#SOTEU, #FutureOfEurope
Articles

• EU President Demands Higher Emissions Reduction Target In Final State Of The Union, Forbes
• Juncker paints ‘big picture’ of EU’s global role, Euractiv
• Juncker scorns Chequers proposals in state of union speech, The Guardian
• Juncker's state of the union speech to European Parliament, Reuters
• Juncker Warns of ‘Knee-Jerk’ Nationalism in Last Big EU Speech, Bloomberg
• Juncker to propose breaking dollar’s dominance in global markets , Euractiv
• Rated: Did Juncker deliver on his State of the Union promises?, Euronews
• "He lost touch with the citizens of Europe", Euronews
• Judging Juncker: From first speech to last, Euractiv
• The unstately state of Europe’s union, Politico
• The core of Juncker’s State of the Union speech: A federal border police, Euractiv
• Commission prepares fightback against populists on migration, Politico
• EU’s autumn obstacle course, Politico
• Oettinger: EU in ‘mortal danger’ from inside and out, Politico

Programme

The State of the European Union is an annual speech delivered each September by the President of the European Commission before the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).
At 9:00 Brussels time, President Jean-Claude Juncker, will deliver his speech before a plenary session of the European Parliament. The speech reviews the successes and failures of the Union, declares its general political direction, and sets out the legislative agenda of the European Commission for the year.
Once the hour-long speech has concluded, the European Parliament then holds an open debate, going over the State of the European Union speech, and the political situation throughout the European Union.

Summary of Upcoming Commission Proposals:

• Improving the detection and removal of terrorist content online within one hour by companies like Google, or they will face fines
• New rules on stopping data misuse by EU political groupings (EPP, ALDE etc.)
• Scrapping the biannual clock change in the European Union
• Upgrading the mandate and resources of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency to a “genuine border police” with 10,000 officials by 2020
• Upgrading the European Asylum Support Office (future EU Asylum Agency)
• A new policy on returning migrants, including common conditions and timelines for returns
• Africa package (creating more paths for legal migration, tackling root causes of migration, trade agreement with Africa etc.)
• Strengthening the European Banking Authority to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing through more resources and greater enforcement powers
• Creating a European Cybersecurity Research and Competence Centre
• Commission initiative to strengthen the enforcement of the rule of law in the European Union
• Commission communication on the possible extension of the tasks of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to include the fight against cross-border terrorism
• Commission communications on enhancing the use of qualified majority voting in common foreign and security policy and the internal market
• Single Market implementation and enforcement report
• Commission communication on the future of EU Energy and Climate policy, including the future of the Euratom Treaty
• Long-term EU strategy for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
• "Towards a Sustainable Europe by 2030, on the follow-up to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including on the Paris Agreement on Climate Change" reflection paper

The President of the European Commission

Jean-Claude Juncker
Term: 1 November 2014 - 31 October 2019
Jean-Claude Juncker started as a deputy in Luxembourg in 1984. Soon after, he started taking on various governmental roles. He because Luxembourg’s minister of finances in 1989, and subsequently became Prime Minister of Luxembourg, holding the office between 1995 and 2013.
Juncker held the Eurogroup presidency from 2005 to 2013, serving 3 terms. He was then chosen as the European People’s Party lead candidate for the 2014 European Parliament elections. He was proposed by the European Council afterwards, and the European Parliament voted in favour of him being President. He has previously announced he will not stand for a second term as President, meaning his tenure will end on the 31st October 2019.

Current European political topics

European Parliament Elections

Between May 23rd to the 26th 2019, elections to the European Parliament will be held. Following Brexit, the amount of MEPs will be reduced to 705, with some of the UK’s MEPs being redistributed to other member states and some being held in reserve for any potential enlargements of the EU.
The European Parliament has confirmed that it will follow the “Spitzenkandidaten” process once more. The European political parties will endorse ‘lead candidates’ ahead of the vote which will compete to be President of the European Commission. The European Council officially proposes a candidate for Commission President, ‘taking into account’ the results of the Parliament elections. However, the European Parliament has already stated it will reject any candidate who was not designated as a ‘lead candidate’ ahead of time.
Candidates:

Candidate	Date Announced	European Political Party
Maroš Šefčovič	4th June 2018	Party of European Socialists
Ska Keller	9th July 2018	European Greens
Manfred Weber	5th September 2018	European People's Party
Petra de Sutter	12th September 2018	European Greens

The European Commission is set to propose rules that could result in the political parties at the EU level (European People’s Party, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe etc.) being fined up to 5% of their annual budget if they misuse personal data in a similar way to how Cambridge Analytica operated, trying to influence elections with this data.
As part of a broader package to counter online voter manipulation and personal data misuse for political purposes, the European Commission will recommend that governments should crack down on “micro-targeting”, the practice of sending personalised political messages to users without their consent. It will also be recommended that member states introduce stricter transparency requirements on online political advertising.
Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Vera Jourova has said that voters should be able to “always understand when something is an online campaign, who runs the campaign, who pays for it and what they want to achieve.” However, she said that the EU wouldn’t go as far as regulating the online activity of any political grouping, stating that the internet is a “zone for free expression.”
Overview of the European Parliament elections, 2019

Eurozone

In the 2017 SOTEU speech, Juncker proposed an EU minister of finance, who would be a Vice-President of the Commission and also President of the Eurogroup, the informal meeting of Eurozone finance ministers. By extension, they would also be Chair of the board of the European Monetary Fund. This minister could oversee the use of EU budgetary instruments and represent the euro area at a global level.
In December 2017, the Commission proposed to integrate the European Stability Mechanism (to become the European Monetary Fund) and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance into EU law. The possibility of introducing an EU finance minister who would be a Vice President of the Commission as well as chair of the Eurogroup was also floated. They could oversee the budgetary instruments of the EU and represent the Euro area at a global level.
The Meseberg Declaration agreed between France and Germany calls for establishing a eurozone budget for competitiveness, convergence and stablisation within the framework of the EU. Resources would come from national contributions, allocation of tax revenue and European resources. However, 12 EU member states including Austria, Finland and the Netherlands questioned the need for any “fiscal capacity”, saying that there is “wide divergence” on the need for any budget, or at least what form it may take.
More recently, Germany’s deputy finance minister Jörg Kukies has stated that talks on a Eurozone budget should not distract from talks on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU’s multi-annual budget. The “most pressing issue” was to figure out how the EU budget can contribute to stabilization, competitiveness and convergence. “This is a more relevant question than carving out a separate budget for the Eurozone”.
Under the Commission’s MFF Proposals, the European Commission proposed a €30 billion European Investment Stabilisation Function, which would provide back-to-back loans to a member state experiencing financial difficulties, provided they adhered to relevant EU budgetary rules beforehand.
A Convergence Facility for Member States actively trying to join the euro will be introduced, assisting member states with the reforms needed to do so. Bulgaria is actively attempting to join the euro, and will have to join the system of EU banking supervision (banking union) as well as the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) for 2 years before it can join the euro area.
A Reform Support Programme of €25 billion has also been proposed, which would provide financial incentives and also provide technical assistance for EU member states to carry out structural reforms. This programme is voluntary, and the money could be claimed back if the reforms are reversed.
In June 2018, EU leaders agreed in principle on making the European Stability Mechanism the backstop to the Single Resolution Fund. The Fund is used to wind down/resolve banks that have been declared failing or likely to fail by the European Central Bank, and shall reach the target level of at least 1% of the amount of covered deposits of all credit institutions within the Banking Union by 2024. The backstop should effectively double its capacity, providing around €55 billion of support.
Eurozone countries will work towards an agreement in December 2018 to change how the ESM functions, including creating the backstop to the Single Resolution Fund and how the ESM is governed. In future it could be integrated into EU law following the Commission’s proposal.
Eurozone finance ministers also agreed to work towards adopting a roadmap on starting political discussions on a European Deposit Insurance Scheme in December 2018. This Scheme would guarantee deposits of up to €100,000. When a bank is placed into insolvency or in resolution and it is necessary to pay out deposits, the national schemes and the European Deposit Insurance Scheme could intervene.
Factsheets on Deepening Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union

Migration

In June 2018, the European Council adopted conclusions on migration, calling on, among other things, for vessels operating in the Mediterranean to respect international law and not impede the work of the Libyan Coast Guard. Disembarkation platforms in third countries from which some asylum seekers could be relocated and voluntary controlled centres in EU member states were an option agreed to, though no country has currently agreed to host either. There was also agreement on the need to have dedicated funds to manage external migration in the next MFF.
The aim of ‘controlled centres’ inside the EU would be to improve the process of distinguishing between those individuals who qualify for refugee status, and those who don’t. The centres would be managed by a Member State with support from EU agencies. The Commission has offered to assist any member state granting access to their ports for disembarkation through a disembarkation team, which could include around 500 people from Frontex, Europol and the European Asylum Support Office. The EU budget could also cover all infrastructure and operational costs. The initial registration and asylum screening process could be as short as 72 hours.
For those Member States which agree to process a share of those disembarked from sea, the Commision is offering to allocate €6,000 per person relocated and will cover the transfer costs of €500 per person given to the country of disembarkation.
The European Commission intends to propose an upgrade to the European Border and Coastguard Agency (Frontex) to have 10,000 officiers by 2020, though most of them could be from a pool of national border guards to start with, with 50% of staff being permanent by 2027. It will have the power to bear arms, and would aim to intercept new arrivals, stop unauthorised travel between EU states and accelerate the return of rejected asylum seekers to their countries of origin, even without the consent of the member state. The agency would also gain more powers to exchange information with third countries. A senior EU official has been quoted as saying “we want to federalise external border protection as much as possible and help out countries on the front line.” However, certain EU member states such as Malta are reluctant about further competence shifts to Frontex.
The Italian government has recently been rejecting NGO vessels rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean from docking in Italy, though other member states such as Malta and France have done this as well. Italy has also rejected permission for Italian navy ships to dock in Italy to disembark rescued migrants, and threatened to torpedo Operation Sophia (the EU’s naval mission in the Mediterranean to combat people smuggling) if the rules weren’t changed to stop the automatic disembarkation of rescued migrants in Italy. The possibility of simply rejecting Sophia vessels from docking in Italian ports was also floated.
On 24th August, the Italian government threatened to withhold its EU budget contribution if other EU countries didn’t agree to taking migrants from the Italian Coast Guard ship Diciotti, currently stranded in an Italian port. The European Commission called a meeting of 12 EU member states, but no agreement was found at that meeting.
Only Ireland and Albania agreed to take in some of the migrants, and Italy also threatened to veto the EU’s next multi-year budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework if the EU didn’t start to share in the intake of migrants. The MFF is adopted by unanimous approval among member states following the approval of the European Parliament.
Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources Günther Oettinger pointed out that Italy refusing to pay its budgetary contribution would be the first time that event happened in the history of the European Union, and Italy would potentially face both late interest payments and sanctions.
The reform of the Common European Asylum System, comprising 7 proposals, may be touched upon:

Proposal	Description	Stage of legislative process
Dublin Regulation	Determines which member state is responsible for processing an application for international protection	EP adopted position, Council yet to adopt a position
Eurodac Regulation	Strengthen the Eurodac fingerprint database by collecting more data such as facial images to facilitate returns and help tackle irregular migration	Political agreement
EU Asylum Agency	Upgrading the European Asylum Support Office to a full EU Asylum Agency, providing guidance and assistance for assessments of asylum applications	Agreement, but won’t be adopted until other proposals finalised
Asylum Procedure Regulation	Aims to achieve a fully harmonised EU procedure for granting and withdrawing international protection	EP adopted position, Council yet to adopt a position
Qualification Regulation	Harmonised protection standards and rights for asylum seekers, ensuring asylum seekers are treated in the same way in all member states	Negotiations between EP and Council
Reception Conditions Directive	Harmonised EU reception standards for asylum seekers	Negotiations between EP and Council
EU Resettlement Framework	Common framework for EU member states resettling recognised refugees from outside EU territory	Negotiations between EP and Council

There will be a report on progress during the October 2018 European Council.
The latest proposals from the Austrian presidency are to have a form of “mandatory” solidarity whereby member states are free to help with migration either by taking in migrants, giving experts and equipment or contributing in some other way. However, Italy reportedly rejects this plan and wants more relocation of migrants. Background information: Finding solutions to migratory pressures
Background information: Reform of EU asylum rules
Commission factsheets on migration

Trade

In July 2018, President Trump and President Juncker came to an agreement on trade which provided for negotiations which would explore the possibility of negotiating a deal facilitating zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods. Tariffs on automobiles are stopped for as long as there is suitable progress on negotiations, with the tariffs on steel and aluminium being reviewed.
Trump later dismissed the EU’s offer on tariffs as “not good enough” and said the EU’s trade policies were almost as bad as China’s after Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström said the EU was “willing to bring down...our car tariffs to zero”, provided the USA did the same. The USA is holding out on the prospect of a partial trade deal within the next two months.
If tariffs on cars were to be introduced, the European Commission has been working on a list of US products that would face retaliatory tariffs.
Italy has threatened to veto the ratification of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiated with Canada. Currently, the trade deal is provisionally applied, meaning most of its provisions are in force pending the ratification of all member states. If a member state fails to ratify, provisional application has to be terminated.
In last year’s SOTEU speech, Juncker announced that all proposed negotiating mandates for future trade and investment details would be published, starting for the negotiations with Australia and New Zealand.
The status of the EU’s trade deal negotiations is as follows:

Country	Status
Australia	Negotiation, 2nd round in November
Canada	Provisionally applied since 21st September 2017, but CJEU case pending on the compatibility of its court system with EU law. Austria’s and Belgium’s ratification depend on the outcome of this case.
Chile	Negotiation, 3rd round concluded in June 2018, no new date set.
Indonesia	Negotiation, 6th round in October 2018
Japan	Signed, but yet to be ratified by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. Aim to be applied by April 2019, before Brexit. No national ratification is needed.
Singapore	Commission has proposed decision to sign and ratify the EU-Singapore agreements. The FTA will only need European Parliament and Council of Ministers approval, while the Investment Protection Agreement will need that in addition to national ratification.
Mercosur	Negotiation, next round September 10th - 14th, will require national ratification.
New Zealand	Negotiation, 1st round concluded in July 2018
Mexico	Agreement in principle, aim to finish the legal text by the end of 2018.
Vietnam	Currently undergoing translation into all EU languages, Commission will then propose to sign and ratify the deal. Also split into a Free Trade Agreement (EP/Council approval) and an Investment Protection Agreement (requiring national ratification).

Rule of Law

In December 2017, the European Commission activated Article 7(1) for the first time in the history of the EU, citing threats to the rule of law and judicial independence in Poland. Infringement proceedings have also been launched against the Law on Ordinary Courts, and most recently against the Law on the Supreme Court, which may have forced around 40% of Supreme Court judges to retire. The Supreme Court has suspended the law as it awaits the results of a CJEU case on the law.
The European Parliament will vote on whether or not to Article 7(1) against Hungary later today, determining a clear risk of a serious breach of the EU’s values, after the Civil Liberties committee adopted a report recommending its activation. The European Parliament will have to vote by a ⅔ majority to trigger the article, though abstentions will not count towards this threshold. The European People’s Party, of which the governing party of Hungary Fidesz is a member, will be given a free vote on the matter.
Following this, a hearing will be conducted of Hungary where the Council can address recommendations to it. The Council needs to vote by a ⅘ majority to actually determine a clear risk of a serious breach of the EU’s values. This is separate from Article 7(2), which is the process leading to sanctions.
As part of the 2021-2027 MFF proposals, the Commission has proposed a mechanism whereby EU funding could be suspended to member states that don’t have independent judiciaries or flout the rule of law. The Commission would propose to suspend funding, and the decision is presumed to be adopted unless a qualified majority of EU countries votes against it. Individual beneficiaries of EU funding through schemes such as Erasmus+ should not be affected.
In October 2018, the Commission intends to produce a mechanism to promote the rule of law in the European Union, though it is not yet clear what form this may take.
The Commission will also produce a document which discusses the possibility of expanding the competences of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to fight cross-border terrorism, which currently has a mandate to fight fraud against the EU budget. 22 member states (all bar Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Sweden & the United Kingdom) are currently part of the project.

Brexit

The United Kingdom and the European Union have reached agreement on at least 80% of the draft withdrawal agreement text, including issues such as the rights of EU citizens post Brexit and the budgetary settlement that the UK will pay. Agreement was also reached on a transition period, where the UK would follow EU law and pay into the budget as if it was a member until December 31st, 2020. The UK can negotiate and sign deals during this period but not implement them unless authorised by the European Commission.
Negotiations are still needed on certain issues, such as the Protocol on Northern Ireland and the way a hard border can be avoided between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus, Gibraltar, data protection, ongoing police and judicial cooperation, the role of the EU Court of Justice and geographical indicators are other areas that are yet to be resolved.
The UK Government published a White Paper (also referred to as the ‘Chequers’ agreement) on July 12th, 2018, leading to the resignation of Cabinet ministers Boris Johnson and David Davis from the government. The EU has also opposed this agreement, with Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier stating that accepting it could be “the end of the single market and the European project.” It is still controversial in the UK as well, with a former Brexit minister Steve Baker predicting up to 80 Conservative MPs could vote against the agreement. The UK government may even scrap the agreement if the EU gives way on its hard position on the Irish border.
Some EU member states are considering giving Barnier a new mandate to help close a Brexit deal, which will be discussed at the Salzburg summit in a week's time. The planned timing of a deal and the remaining sticking points such as the Irish border will be discussed. Formal guidelines would be adopted by the October European Council, and talks would aimed to be concluded at a hypothetical special Brexit summit in November. However, other sources have said that the current guidelines are sufficient and that the UK may not like the content of hypothetical new guidelines.
The Brexit withdrawal agreement will need the consent of the European Parliament and a reinforced qualified majority vote (72% of the states representing 65% of the population) in the Council of Ministers. It will be accompanied by a political declaration on the future relationship between the UK and the EU, though negotiations can’t properly start until the UK becomes a third country.
Background information: Brexit
Background information: Brexit negotiations

Internal Market

Following a public consultation in which 4.6 million European citizens replied, the European Commission will propose to scrap the biannual change in the clocks. 84% of those who responded were in favour of scrapping the change. Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc has stated the change was unlikely to happen before 2021 at the earliest. EU countries are free to decide on their own time zones.
A “digital tax” was proposed by the European Commission whereby EU member states would charge a 3% levy on large companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google. This idea has proved controversial, with countries such as Ireland preferring a solution adopted at a global level to avoid stifling investment and innovation.
To facilitate agreement on the file, France has said it could consider ways to compensate Ireland for possible lost revenues from the proposal, and a "sunset clause" has been suggested where by the EU tax would no longer have effect once the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) comes up with a global solution. The aim is to agree on the EU tax by the end of 2018.

Foreign Relations

High Representative Federica Mogherini wants to see a binding agreement on relations between Serbia and Kosovo by the end of her mandate in November 2019. Recently, there have been suggestions of ‘border swaps’ between Kosovo and Serbia to agree on a deal. Some have been receptive to the idea, but countries such as Germany have rejected any border changes.
Germany has begun construction of Nord Stream II in German coastal waters, a controversial gas pipeline with Russia, despite the threat of US sanctions on the companies involved in financing the pipeline and the objection of some Eastern European states. President Trump has started that the project would make Germany a “captive” of Russia.
Germany, Finland, Sweden and Russia have given approval for the pipeline to pass through their territorial waters, but Denmark’s approval is still pending. Nord Stream 2 filed an application to Denmark for a new route that would avoid Denmark’s territorial waters altogether.
The European Commission also published a plan to provide €18 million in aid to Iran following some US sanctions being re-introduced on August 6th. In November, the US will introduce sanctions on oil. The EU has introduced a ‘blocking statute’ which forbids companies from complying with US sanctions. If firms are wanting to pull out of Iran to comply with US sanctions, they should get EU authorisation, but not if it is a business decision.
A communication on extending the use of qualified majority voting (QMV) in foreign policy will be produced, exploring the possibility of introducing QMV rules on human rights, sanctions, and joint civilian mission decisions. Certain sanctions regimes may keep unanimity rules, but it could be used especially when the EU has to implement UN sanctions. It will require unanimous agreement among all member states to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting rules.

Environment

On Monday, the European Parliament’s Environment committee voted for cutting emissions for cars and vans by 20% by 2025 and 45% by 2030, above the targets of 15% and 30% proposed by the Commission. The plenary of the European Parliament will vote on the issue next month.
Carbon prices under the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) hit a decade high in August 2018 at €20 a tonne, following reforms to introduce a Market Stability Reserve that removes excess credits from the market.
The ETS provides ‘licences’ to pollute a certain amount each year. Those businesses that don’t have enough licences for the amount of pollution they give off are required to purchase more else they are fined, while those who have more licences than needed can sell the excess. The cap is progressively reduced over time so as to reduce carbon emissions within the EU.
The European Commission will potentially produce a long-term EU strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in November 2018.

Previous State of the European Union Speeches

2017

President Juncker presented a much more upbeat picture of the state of the EU, saying "the wind is back in Europe's sails." He rejected calls for a multi-speed Europe, stating that “Europe must breathe with both lungs. Otherwise our continent will struggle for air.” He also stated that now was the time for completing the “European House” as the “sun is shining”.
He announced various proposals, such as creating an EU Cybersecurity Agency, trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand, reforms of the Eurozone, opening up Schengen to Bulgaria and Romania, and moving to more qualified majority voting for certain decisions.

2016

For Juncker’s second SOTEU speech, he again put forward a somewhat gloomy picture of the state of the EU, stating that “our European Union is, at least in part, in an existential crisis”. This speech followed the UK’s vote to leave the European Union in June 2016.
He mentioned how the EU was currently facing many “unresolved problems”, and revealed proposals the Commission would be putting forward over the next year to try to resolve them, attempting to create a Europe that “protects, empowers and defends”.

2015

Juncker’s first SOTEU speech as Commission President mentioned how there was “not enough Union in this Union”, painting a somewhat dark picture of the state of the European Union at the time.
The main topics of his speech were migration, the Eurozone crisis, the UK’s (then) future referendum on EU membership, EU-Ukraine relations and addressing climate change.

2014

There was no State of the Union speech, as it was the year of the European Parliament elections.

Hi /Sustainability! I have been working on an ongoing project for 3 years now nick-named “Signs of collapse”. Even if we strive for and dream of a sustainable world, a lot of things are becoming worse. And I think in order to reach a world that is truly sustainable, it's imperative that we fully understand where we are now and which path we are on. To progress, we have to identify the problems and accept them for what they are if we wish to have any chance addressing them.
I try my best to not make this series into a rant about every little problem or mishap that’s going on. Even in a sustainable society accidents would happen and natural catastrophes would occur, seasons would vary in intensity from year to year and so on. So what I present here is my best attempt at distilling out anthropogenic anomalies.
I define a “sign of collapse” as a negative market externality that the current socioeconomic system for whatever reason hasn’t dealt with and is now ending up hurting people or the ecosystem. I try to pick studies and news that shows the occurring consequences of the current system’s failure to deal with externalities.
I’m also trying to make the argument, and feel free to disagree with me and have a discussion, that urgent action is needed now and there's close to no upper limit to how radically environmentalist one can reasonably become at the present time. If you want to do something, you better hurry before it’s too late.
Feel free to share any of the material or repost this on other suitable subreddits. If you would like to get involved in this project, don’t hesitate to chat me up.
Previous posts:

• Signs of collapse 2018 Q3
  
• Signs of collapse 2018 Q2
  
• Signs of collapse 2018 Q1
  
• Signs of collapse 2017
  
• Signs of collapse 2016
  

Signs of Collapse 2018 Q4 and Summary

Human well-being & non-specific climate change

• Caravan Provides a Preview of Climate Migrations, Experts Say
  
• Climate change is exacerbating world conflicts, says Red Cross president | World news
  
• The number of undernourished people in the world is rising again
  
• A new publication in Nature demonstrates that the world’s oceans have warmed far more than we had thought. The last UN report that warned of a global climate catastrophe by 2040 was underestimating how much heat the Earth had gained.
  
• The Seafloor Is Dissolving Because of Climate Change
  
• Rotting hydrogen sulphide producing seaweed in the Caribbean kills marine life, disrupt turism, causes skin irritation and nausea, and corrodes metals, destroying TV:s and other electrical equipment. | Environment
  
• New study has mapped 467 pathways by which human health, water, food, economy, infrastructure and security have been recently impacted by climate hazards amplified by climate change.
  
• Global food system is broken, say world’s science academies | Environment
  
• CDC says life expectancy down as more Americans die younger due to suicide and drug overdose
  
• Global warming today mirrors conditions leading to Earth’s largest extinction event, UW study says
  
• California’s droughts limit hydropower production, forcing continued fossil fuel emissions
  
• Toxic algae a slimy mess for Florida's Lake Okeechobee
  
• Over 700 migrants make violent border crossing into Ceuta
  
• Japan flood toll nears 200 amid disease outbreak fears
  
• Heatwave made more than twice as likely by climate change, scientists find | Environment
  
• Humans have depleted the Earth's natural resources with five months still to go in 2018
  
• As temperatures rise, Earth's soil is 'breathing' more heavily
  
• Planet at Risk of Heading Towards Apocalyptic, Irreversible ‘Hothouse Earth’ State
  
• Scientists have begun researching whether the worst effects of climate change can no longer be avoided
  
• World sinks to 10-year happiness low
  
• World 'nowhere near on track' to avoid warming beyond 1.5C target | Environment
  
• CO2 is Regularly Exceeding 410 Parts Per Million for First Time in Human History
  
• Climate Change Costs a Lot More Than We Recognize
  
• Global warming: April was 400th straight warmer-than-average month
  
• Suicide Is Rising Among American Farmers As They Struggle To Keep Afloat : NPR
  
• India lightning strikes and winds kill 50 - Authorities shocked by the ferocity of the storms: "It is one of the worst storms we've seen."
  
• Top Climate Scientist: Humans Will Go Extinct if We Don't Fix Climate Change by 2023
  
• Murders in Puerto Rico Surge as Hurricane Maria Recovery Continues
  
• India most vulnerable country to climate change - HSBC report
  

Economy, Politics & Industry

• Doomsday clock ticks ½ min closer to midnight due to lack of action to counter nuclear war and climate change.
  
• 'At home, we couldn't get by': more Venezuelans flee as crisis deepens | World news
  
• Mad Max violence stalks Venezuela's lawless roads
  
• Extreme cold results in severe agricultural damage across Europe, food prices rising
  
• Hotter, Drier, Hungrier: How Global Warming Punishes the World’s Poorest
  
• Some millennials aren’t saving for retirement because they don’t think capitalism will exist by then
  
• As The UN Warns Of Climate Catastrophe By 2030, The EU Is Pulling Back Climate Ambition
  
• The Australian government is still supporting coal, despite warnings of climate catastrophe
  
• UK growers warn of vegetable shortages as extreme weather halves crops
  
• Mother had 'no other choice' but to sell her 6-year-old daughter
  
• Black Friday climate report: Trump waves white flag and fails to protect American people
  
• Melbourne's water supply at risk due to 'collapse' of forests caused by logging | Environment
  
• Drought-induced slaughters begin: Norway currently lacks feed for around 12,000 cattle due to drought
  
• Potatoes stop growing in parched earth of north County Dublin
  
• Trump administration lifts ban on pesticides linked to declining bee numbers
  
• Australia Wilts From Climate Change. Why Can’t Its Politicians Act?
  
• Swedish reindeer herders call for rescue package after drought
  
• Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism's Imminent Demise
  
• Europe Wants to Devastate Forests to Double Its 'Renewable' Energy
  
• 90 per cent of the world's fisheries have collapsed
  
• The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017
  
• British farmers in turmoil as delayed spring plays havoc with growing season | Environment
  
• 'Nothing More That Can Be Said,' Warns Famed Social Scientist, Humanity 'Doomed' by Capitalism and Fossil Fuels
  
• Madagascar's vanilla wars: prized spice drives death and deforestation | Environment
  
• Listless And Lonely In Puerto Rico, Some Older Storm Survivors Consider Suicide
  
• Trump administration cancels NASA plan to track greenhouse gases
  
• Trump administration refuses to consider that 97% of climate scientists could be right
  

Biodiversity

• Mammals cannot evolve fast enough to escape current extinction crisis: Unless conservation efforts are improved, so many mammal species will die out during the next 50 years that nature will need 3-5 million years to recover
  
• Sea turtles, "the canaries of the ocean", face extinction; population of green sea turtles down 50-80% since 1900
  
• Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds | Environment
  
• Just 23 percent of the world’s landmass can now be considered wilderness, with the rest – excluding Antarctica – lost to the direct effects of human activities.
  
• 'Fish are vanishing' - Senegal's devastated coastline
  
• Shark numbers crashed by 92% over past half century, report finds
  
• One million South African bees 'poisoned'
  
• Building blocks of ocean food web in rapid decline as plankton productivity plunges | CBC News
  
• Acidic oceans cause fish to lose their sense of smell
  
• Enormous penguin population crashes by almost 90%
  
• Trump’s New Climate Plan Will Kill People, According to the Trump Administration
  
• Dolphins forced to break into nets to find food by overfishing in the Mediterranean, report says
  
• ‘Dead zone’ larger than Scotland found by underwater robots in Arabian sea
  
• Amazon river dolphins in steep decline: study
  
• Acres of shellfish dead in north Auckland estuary
  
• 'Shocking': Fish stocks in Australian waters drop a third in a decade
  
• Top UN panel paints bleak picture of world’s ecosystems
  
• Some of Africa's oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died in the past decade. The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years may have fallen victim to climate change
  
• UK's favourite wildlife species at risk of extinction 'without revolution in disastrous modern food farming' - Skylarks, nightingales and birds of prey all at risk, but officials ‘blame climate change instead of tackling vested interests destroying nature’
  
• Mass die-off of sea creatures follows freezing UK weather | Environment
  

Pests, viruses and bacterial infections

• As Venezuela’s health system collapses, disease spreads beyond its borders
  
• Los Angeles Hit With Flea-Borne Typhus Outbreak, Some Parts At Epidemic Levels
  
• New tick species capable of transmitting deadly disease is spreading in the U.S.
  
• ‘We’re Out of Options’: Doctors Battle Drug-Resistant Typhoid Outbreak
  
• Africa struggles for weapons against armyworm curse
  
• Deadly superbug just got scarier - It can mysteriously thwart last-resort drug
  

Coral reefs

• 'Warning Bells Going Off' as NOAA Forecasts Entire Great Barrier Reef at Risk of Coral Bleaching and Death
  
• Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead
  
• Fish populations in Great Barrier Reef collapse after devastating coral bleaching events
  
• Only 1% of Japan’s Largest Reef Still Healthy After Historic Bleaching Catastrophe
  

Ice and water

• Flash floods in southern France kill at least 12 people: Up to seven months’ rain fell in just a few hours overnight. The worst flash flood in a century turned rivers into raging torrents that engulfed homes and swept away cars.
  
• 'We've never seen this': massive Canadian glaciers shrinking rapidly | World news
  
• Cry me a river: Low water levels causing chaos in Germany
  
• Drought 'displacing more Afghans than war'
  
• Greenland is losing ice at fastest rate in at least 350 years
  
• Japan Reels From Heavy Rains; Dozens Killed and Millions Urged to Evacuate
  
• India's water crisis: West Bengal on the brink of becoming a parched state in absence of preservation measures
  
• More than 350 people have died in the southern Indian state of Kerala in the worst flooding in nearly a century
  
• Exclusive: Some Arctic Ground No Longer Freezing - Even in Winter
  
• Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record
  
• Gulf Stream current at its weakest in 1,600 years, studies show | Environment
  
• Extreme rain causes increase in sink holes and rockslides in Rome
  
• Taps run dry in Ivory Coast city
  
• “When it rains, my heart sinks”: Climate change takes a toll in Uganda
  
• Popular SE Iceland glacial lagoon a ticking time bomb: Catastrophic mountain collapse looms
  
• In the Arctic, the Old Ice Is Disappearing
  
• IRSA issues warning of looming water crisis in Pakistan
  
• Deadly Tropical Cyclone Mekunu brings up to 8 years worth of rainfall to parts of Oman
  
• The Global Water Crisis: Why Are India’s Taps Running Dry?
  
• Invading seawater jeopardizes South Florida’s delicate drinking water source, but we can lessen the threat
  
• Antarctic ice melting faster than ever, studies show | Environment
  
• In recent years, the rising bedrock at Antarctica has led researchers to underestimate the rate of vanishing ice by as much as 10 percent
  
• Meet America's new climate normal: towns that flood when it isn't raining | Environment
  
• Pakistan water crisis: Rawal Lake dries up
  
• In 2017, the oceans were by far the hottest ever recorded | John Abraham | Environment
  
• Oxygen Levels in Oceans Are Dropping Dangerously
  
• Cape Town faces Day Zero, with officials predicting water will run out in April
  
• First ship crosses Arctic in winter without an icebreaker as global warming causes ice sheets to melt. "Crossing of polar region is becoming easier due to warming global temperatures and thinning sea ice."
  

Hurricanes, storms and winds

• Hurricane Leslie Injures 27 and Leaves 300,000 Without Power as It Slams Into Coast of Portugal
  
• Typhoon Jebi: Japan hit by strongest storm of 25 years | World news
  
• Climate change means Hurricane Florence will dump 50% more rain | World news
  

Heat waves, forest fires and tree loss

• Irish freshwater temperatures 'lethal' in 2018 - fisheries body
  
• 91 dead, Paradise ‘pretty much destroyed’ as wildfire rages in Northern California
  
• Extreme heat wipes out almost one third of Australia's spectacled flying fox population
  
• Australia heatwave to break Christmas weather records with temperatures up to 47C forecast | Australia news
  
• Southeast Asian forest loss greater than expected, with negative climate implications
  
• The world is losing vital forests quicker than ever
  
• Heat wave kills 33 in Canadian province
  
• Ireland in state of ‘absolute drought’ as heatwave continues
  
• Three Hundred Foot Tall ‘Fire Tsunami’ Burns Through Colorado
  
• 53 And Counting! Heat Wave Breaks Records In Iran, Across The Caucasus
  
• Thousands of people without power in LA area amid heat wave
  
• Drought creates a perfect storm for wildfires in U.S. West
  
• Sweden is battling a historic wildfire outbreak. Here's what you need to know
  
• Greeks urged to leave homes as wildfires near Athens rage out of control
  
• Japan declares heatwave a natural disaster
  
• Six of California's Most Destructive Wildfires Have Struck in the Past 10 Months
  
• Record-breaking temperatures leave 29 dead in South Korean heatwave
  
• Firefighters battle to save communities from epic California fire
  
• Glacier National Park is on fire — and yes, warming is making things worse
  
• New South Wales issues the earliest declaration of a total fire ban in the regions in almost a decade amid out of control bush fires
  
• B.C. declares state of emergency as hundreds of wildfires burn across province | CBC News
  
• All the heat records broken this summer on one map
  
• August in Europe 'was the warmest on record'
  
• Dozens faint as Nawabshah sizzles at 50C, Larkana at 49C
  
• Peruvian Amazon Loses Over a Million Hectares: Official
  
• 3 deaths, an economic boost and melting traffic lights from heat wave
  
• 48,000 homes across Victoria without power from heat
  
• North Pole surges above freezing in the dead of winter, stunning scientists: It’s never been this extreme
  
• Some of the World's Biggest Lakes Are Drying Up. Here's Why. - Warming climates, drought, and overuse are draining crucial water sources, threatening habitats and cultures.
  
• Two Instances of Once-In-A-Generation Floods Leave Many Questioning Region Preparedness
  
• Trees are dying at the fastest rate ever seen: In 2016, the world lost a New Zealand-sized amount of trees, the most in recorded history.
  
• These ‘crazy, crazy’ Arctic winter stats are staggering scientists
  

Pollution

• Scientists discover plastic in faeces of every person who took part in Europe-wide study
  
• Oxygen loss in the coastal Baltic Sea is 'unprecedentedly severe'
  
• Asthma deaths rise 25% amid growing air pollution crisis | Environment
  
• Millions in Indonesia are eating fibres from used DIAPERS: Plastics from nappies dumped in the River Brantas are being passed up the food chain from fish to humans, warn scientists
  
• Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals: Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’
  
• 93% of bottled water tested contained microplastics: Study | CBC News
  
• More than 95% of world's population breathe dangerous air, major study finds | Environment
  
• Record levels of plastic discovered in Arctic sea ice
  
• One out of six deaths worldwide were pollution-related in 2015