Juan Convers

The 2008 Crisis, with the collapse of Iceland’s banking system, spread primarily to Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain in 2009. 10 years later most of this countries have bounced back, but still unemployment is high in countries like Greece and Spain, compared to points before the crisis started.

The US democratic primaries are around the corner with the first state voting next monday. I was curious how the Google Search Trends in the last 7 days, reflect on each one of top tier candidates. Bernie Sanders is clearly winning on that “interest” field. Interesting to see what will happen in the actual Iowa caucuses.

The 2019-nCoV coronavirus have been in the news headlines lately because of the human-to-human transmission and its rapid spread both in China and outside its borders. This virus apparently originated in animals and it was first identified in seafood and animals markets in Wuhan, China

As of yesterday there are 9776 cases confirmed affecting 20 countries already, with the vast majority in China. The John Hopkins university is maintining this world cases dashboard, using the most recent data available.

A couple of days ago I stumble into the headline ‘Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds from midnight’, published by space.com. I wasn’t aware but this clock is a metaphor for close we are in the world to a man-made global catastrophe. This device was setup in 1947 by the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, when nuclear weapons were considered the main threat. Today the global warming issue is also considered in the equation on how to calculate this time.

Unfortunately but not surpising this time around in 2020, it’s the closest it has been to midnight. 2019 was the second hottest year in history, the growing inestability in the middle east and even the possible AI use in warfare don’t help to move this time backwards. The picture is not a pretty one but there is at least one more voice reminding world leaders what is at stake here.

Last summer felt really hot! There were quite a few days when most of the headlines in the news were about how the thermometer was about to break historic records in many cities. It is no surprising therefore that the earth temperature change measured by NASA during the months of June and July was the highest ever recorded.

The "breaking record" headlines are following the same pattern year after year. I don't remember anytime in my lifetime when the global warming was such a clear and present danger!.

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