Grist reports: Climate scientists have long warned that global warming would lead to extreme heat in many parts of the world. But the 120 degree Fahrenheit temperatures brought on by the heatwave in the Pacific Northwest in June were more in line with what researchers had imagined would occur later this century. “Astonished” is the… Read More »
Inside Climate News reports: Scientists know that global warming is changing clouds, but they haven’t been sure whether those changes would heat or cool the planet overall. It’s an important question, because clouds have been the main source of uncertainty in projecting just how sensitive the climate is to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, and because… Read More »
The Guardian reports: New York City air quality was among the worst in the world as cities across the eastern US were shrouded in smoke from wildfires raging several thousand miles away on the country’s west coast. State officials in New York advised vulnerable people, such as those with asthma and heart disease, to avoid… Read More »
The Washington Post reports: As viewed on a weather map of the globe, no fewer than five powerful heat domes are swelling over the landmasses of the Northern Hemisphere. These zones of high pressure in the atmosphere, intensified by climate change, are generating unforgiving blasts of heat in North America, Europe and Asia simultaneously. The… Read More »
Chris McGreal reports: When Royal Dutch Shell published its annual environmental report in April, it boasted that it was investing heavily in renewable energy. The oil giant committed to installing hundreds of thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles around the world to help offset the harm caused by burning fossil fuels. On the same… Read More »
The Guardian reports: Governments must step up their regulation of businesses to tackle the climate crisis, the former Bank of England governor Mark Carney has urged, because the financial free markets will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions alone. Carney, who left the Bank of England last year before the first Covid-19 lockdown, is now one… Read More »
The New York Times reports: For the third year in a row, residents of northeastern Siberia are reeling from the worst wildfires they can remember, and many are left feeling helpless, angry and alone. They endure the coldest winters outside Antarctica with little complaint. But in recent years, summer temperatures in the Russian Arctic have… Read More »
The New York Times reports: Last September, a wildfire tore through one of Dario Sattui’s Napa Valley wineries, destroying millions of dollars in property and equipment, along with 9,000 cases of wine. November brought a second disaster: Mr. Sattui realized the precious crop of cabernet grapes that survived the fire had been ruined by the… Read More »
The Washington Post reports: One wildlife rehabilitation center in rural Oregon says it got “three months’ worth of birds” in three days. Another, in northern California, declared a “hawkpocalypse” in June. And earlier in the summer, Portland Audubon, a nonprofit environmental organization, took in more than 100 Cooper’s hawks over four days as temperatures soared… Read More »
The Wall Street Journal reports: The European Union and China presented sweeping plans to limit greenhouse-gas emissions that will increase costs for industry and consumers, though they drew criticism from environmentalists as not going far enough to slow climate change. The moves, while both long discussed and still months or years from full implementation, show… Read More »
Mongabay reports: The Amazon has long done its part to balance the global carbon budget, but new evidence suggests the climate scales are tipping in the world’s largest rainforest. Now, according to a study published July 14 in Nature, the Amazon is emitting more carbon than it captures. “The Amazon is a carbon source. No… Read More »
Bloomberg reports: As unprecedented heatwaves sweep across large parts of the Northern Hemisphere, China is telling its people to brace for another summer of dangerous floods and droughts. China’s National Climate Center this month predicted “generally poor weather conditions” for the rest of the summer and warned that the country will face more extreme weather… Read More »
Rebecca Solnit writes: Human beings crave clarity, immediacy, landmark events. We seek turning points, because our minds are good at recognizing the specific – this time, this place, this sudden event, this tangible change. This is why we were never very good, most of us, at comprehending climate change in the first place. The climate… Read More »
The New York Times reports: Dead mussels and clams coated rocks in the Pacific Northwest, their shells gaping open as if they’d been boiled. Sea stars were baked to death. Sockeye salmon swam sluggishly in an overheated Washington river, prompting wildlife officials to truck them to cooler areas. The combination of extraordinary heat and drought… Read More »
Juniper trees, common in Arizona’s Prescott National Forest, have been dying with the drought. Benjamin Roe/USDA Forest Service via AP By Daniel Johnson, University of Georgia and Raquel Partelli Feltrin, University of British Columbia Like humans, trees need water to survive on hot, dry days, and they can survive for only short times under extreme… Read More »
Jeffrey Sachs writes: Four interconnected pieces of climate change-related news from the past two weeks reveal America’s predicament. And they also show the way forward, which ultimately must include oil companies’ paying restitution for damage that they have done to the climate and humanity for decades. The first of the four pieces of climate news… Read More »