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Can $500M Save a Deteriorating Greenland Glacier? (Maria)
The author writes, “For scientists, [Greenland’s glacier] Jakobshavn elicits urgency. Glaciologists have identified it as one of the fastest-deteriorating glaciers in the world. And as waves lap higher on the shores of cities like Miami Beach and New York, this far-off ice is partly the reason. Jakobshavn alone was responsible for 4 percent of the rise in global sea levels during the 20th century. … ‘Geoengineering’ commonly refers to human interventions in Earth’s natural systems in order to reap societal benefits, even in the face of unclear risks.”
Hundreds of Convictions, but a Major Mystery Is Still Unsolved 3 Years After the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot (Reader Steve)
The authors write, “One of the biggest remaining mysteries surrounding the riot is the identity of the person who placed two pipe bombs outside the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees the day before the Capitol attack. Last year, authorities increased the reward to up to $500,000 for information leading to the person’s arrest. It remains unclear whether there was a connection between the pipe bombs and the riot.”
The Man Supposed to Stop Donald Trump Is an Unpopular 81-Year-Old (Reader Jim)
From The Economist: “American politics is paralyzed by a contradiction as big as the Grand Canyon. Democrats rage about how re-electing Donald Trump would doom their country’s democracy. And yet, in deciding who to put up against him in November’s election, the party looks as if it will meekly submit to the candidacy of an 81-year-old with the worst approval rating of any modern president at this stage in his term. How did it come to this?”
The GOP’s Most Trump-Skeptical Bloc Starts Falling in Line (Sean)
From Politico: “Donald Trump is making serious headway with a bloc of the GOP that’s among the most skeptical of his 2024 bid: Republican senators. In some cases, Trump is breaking through thanks to the sort of personal attention that he’s known to lavish on allies and supporters. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), for example, endorsed home-state Gov. Doug Burgum for president in June — but even before Burgum dropped out of the primary, Trump was already in Hoeven’s ear.”
Putin’s Drive to Rewrite History Snares a Retired Lithuanian Judge (Russ)
The author writes, “A few years ago, Kornelija Maceviciene ruled against Soviet officers for a brutal crackdown on pro-independence protesters in her country in 1991. That has made her a target for a Russian court.”
Why Does Global Warming Cause More Extreme Weather? (Gerry)
The author writes, “Heat waves make intuitive sense, but the connection to hurricanes, snowstorms, heat waves and cold snaps is confusing. … But there’s an intuitive way to think about it. The greenhouse effect is adding more and more energy into Earth’s systems. When that happens, like shaking a snow globe, old patterns are bound to change.”
A Library of the ‘Future’: Can It Make the World a Better Place? (Laura)
From Al Jazeera: “Every May, literature lovers from all over the world walk 40 minutes through the hilly Nordmarka Forest outside of Norway’s capital Oslo and stop at a place where 1,000 Norwegian spruce, planted in 2014, are slowly growing. Here, the foresters make coffee on a fire and people gather around as a writer hands over a manuscript that will not be read until 2114. This is the site of the Future Library, a century-long project conceived by Scottish artist Katie Paterson. The vision is to get 100 carefully chosen authors to submit a manuscript each, one a year, and safeguard the works, unread, for a century, when they will be unsealed and published as a testament to the passage of time, mankind’s endurance and the hope that was imbued in the project by the generations that came before.”
