Month: May 2019

Humans Threaten a Million Species With Extinction

Globe
Jason Tate

Matt McGrath, writing at BBC News:

From the bees that pollinate our crops, to the forests that hold back flood waters, the report reveals how humans are ravaging the very ecosystems that support their societies.

Three years in the making, this global assessment of nature draws on 15,000 reference materials, and has been compiled by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It runs to 1,800 pages.

The brief, 40-page “summary for policymakers”, published today at a meeting in Paris, is perhaps the most powerful indictment of how humans have treated their only home.

It says that while the Earth has always suffered from the actions of humans through history, over the past 50 years, these scratches have become deep scars.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Rolling Stone to Launch Its Own Music Charts in Challenge to Billboard

Rolling Stone
Jason Tate

Henry Chu, writing at Variety:

The new “Rolling Stone Charts” will encompass the top 100 singles and the top 200 albums in the U.S.. the singles chart will be updated daily instead of weekly. The lists are also expected to incorporate more information on streaming and offer more transparency about how the rankings are derived. Rolling Stone, which is owned by Penske Media Corp. (which also owns Variety), is hoping that those innovations will help it muscle onto turf that Billboard has ruled for decades.

They start next Monday.