Welcome to The Now

 Looks like a very positive move : Singapore launched a research facility on Thursday to find long-term solutions to protect it from the rise in sea levels from climate change that could put the country's low-lying land at risk of inundation. Singapore's new Coastal Protection and Flood Resilience Institute (CFI Singapore) aims to bring in expertise and innovation to head off what government officials describe as the "existential threat" posed by rising sea levels, now increasing at a rate of around 3-4 millimetres a year. Average sea levels are forecast to rise by 1 metre (3.3 feet) by the end of the century, but experts say the effects could be exacerbated by changing rainfall patterns, higher tides and more intense storm surges. "If we don't do this well, our lives are at stake," Grace Fu, Singapore's environment minister, said during an opening ceremony. Nearly a third of the Southeast Asian island nation's territory is only 5 metres or less ...

 "When the incompetence and arrogance of its creator was revealed, the jokes began in earnest, as the internet is the perfect place to make light of serious issues. The readiness to make fun of the feckless and arrogant is understandable. In fact, there is a positive side in the willingness to engage in schadenfreude over the deadly debacle. After all, no one should argue against hostility to rule by the wealthy. Yet there is a missing side of this story about the wealthy and how they create suffering and death. The concentration of wealth grows more and more extreme and depends entirely upon exploiting millions of people and putting their lives at risk." -- Margaret Kimberley, talking about how the connection between OceanGate incident and other capitalism-driven disasters .

 There's a reason the story of five rich people in a shoddy sub controlled by a video game console is getting more eyeballs than other maritime tragedies:

  What climate crisis ? Hundreds of thousands of fish washed up dead along Texas beaches over the weekend as a "perfect storm" of weather, water, and temperature conditions depleted the oxygen they needed to survive. While die-offs like these are naturally occurring, the climate crisis can make them ever more likely. "As we see increased water temperatures, certainly this could lead to more of these events occurring," Katie St. Clair, who manages the sea life facility at Texas A&M University at Galveston, told The New York Times Sunday, "especially in our shallow, near-shore or inshore environments." Thousands of dead fish began washing up on local beaches in Texas' Brazoria County Friday, Quintana Beach County Park wrote on Facebook. The park wrote that the fish were mostly Gulf menhaden. The carcasses continued to wash in on Saturday. Park supervisor Patty Brinkmeyer told CNN that the dead fish numbered in the "hundreds of thousands...

  "Build Back Better" my big butt : On Thursday, Judge William H. Alsup of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco threw out a June 2020 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule changing the Clean Water Act Section 401 certification process to allow federal agencies to approve large projects—including fossil fuel pipelines, hydroelectric dams, industrial plants, wetland developments, and municipal facilities—against the wishes of states and Native American tribes. In July 2020, 20 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over the rule change. That September, Indigenous tribes and green groups also filed suit against the administration, claiming the new rule would jeopardize tribal and state efforts to protect their water quality. "We feel vindicated by this win today," Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) attorney Sangye Ince-Johannsen said in a statement following the ruling. "The ...