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Category: Climate Change

As wildfires rage, smoke chokes out farmworkers and delays some crops

As wildfires rage, smoke chokes out farmworkers and delays some crops

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NPR reports: On Mike Pink’s potato farm at dawn, the sun is an angry red ball low in the sky. This summer, wildfire smoke has blanketed much of the West for days and weeks. And that smoke has come between the sun and ripening crops. Pink watches as his year’s work tumbles onto a fast-moving belt and into a waiting semi truck. He’s got most of his 1,600-acre potato fields yet to harvest on his 3,000-acre farm, spread over about…

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Fires rage from British Columbia to California as the Trump administration’s shortsighted climate policies make things worse

Fires rage from British Columbia to California as the Trump administration’s shortsighted climate policies make things worse

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Rob Jackson writes: I woke to a blood-red sky and air choked with smoke last week in the British Columbia wilderness. The Shag and Tweedsmuir fires burning just eastward may have been the closest, but I’d seen a dozen others from a float plane over the Coast Range the day before. Five-hundred-plus fires are torching British Columbia, which has declared a state of emergency. Fires are raging in Montana, Oregon and California, too. As someone who studies the earth for…

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California advances an ambitious climate policy that should be a model for the world

California advances an ambitious climate policy that should be a model for the world

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MIT Technology Review reports: California is accelerating its rollout of clean energy, even as the White House is racing to unravel climate regulations. On Tuesday evening, the California Assembly passed a bill requiring 100 percent of the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by the end of 2045, putting one of the world’s most aggressive clean-energy policies on track for the governor’s desk. Given the size of California’s economy and the bill’s ambitions, it “would be the most important…

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Climate change will make hundreds of millions more people suffer from nutritional deficiencies

Climate change will make hundreds of millions more people suffer from nutritional deficiencies

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The Guardian reports: Rising levels of carbon dioxide could make crops less nutritious and damage the health of hundreds of millions of people, research has revealed, with those living in some of the world’s poorest regions likely to be hardest hit. Previous research has shown that many food crops become less nutritious when grown under the CO2 levels expected by 2050, with reductions of protein, iron and zinc estimated at 3–17%. Now experts say such changes could mean that by…

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Death toll from Hurricane Maria higher than 9/11

Death toll from Hurricane Maria higher than 9/11

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CBS News reports: Hurricane Maria killed far more people in Puerto Rico than initially thought, accounting for an estimated 2,975 deaths on the island from September 2017 through February 2018, according to a new analysis. The study found that those in low-income areas, and elderly men, were at greatest risk of dying. The independent analysis was commissioned by the governor of Puerto Rico and conducted by researchers at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. CBS News obtained…

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Big oil asks government to protect it from climate change

Big oil asks government to protect it from climate change

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The Associated Press reports: As the nation plans new defenses against the more powerful storms and higher tides expected from climate change, one project stands out: an ambitious proposal to build a nearly 60-mile “spine” of concrete seawalls, earthen barriers, floating gates and steel levees on the Texas Gulf Coast. Like other oceanfront projects, this one would protect homes, delicate ecosystems and vital infrastructure, but it also has another priority — to shield some of the crown jewels of the…

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Wildfires causing air quality to worsen across much of the western United States

Wildfires causing air quality to worsen across much of the western United States

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Vox reports: Ash and smoke are choking Seattle’s air for the second week in a row, as wildfires smolder in the Cascades and in British Columbia. The air quality in Seattle this week has been worse than in Beijing, one of the world’s most notoriously polluted cities. As of Wednesday morning, the Air Quality Index in Seattle was at 190, a rating classified as “unhealthy.” In parts of the city, the index rose as high as 220, which is “very…

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Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record

Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record

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The Guardian reports: The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This phenomenon – which has never been recorded before – has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere. One meteorologist described the loss of ice as “scary”. Others said it could force scientists to revise their theories about which part of…

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As Trump dismantles clean air rules, an industry lawyer delivers for ex-clients

As Trump dismantles clean air rules, an industry lawyer delivers for ex-clients

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The New York Times reports: As a corporate lawyer, William L. Wehrum worked for the better part of a decade to weaken air pollution rules by fighting the Environmental Protection Agency in court on behalf of chemical manufacturers, refineries, oil drillers and coal-burning power plants. Now, Mr. Wehrum is about to deliver one of the biggest victories yet for his industry clients — this time from inside the Trump administration as the government’s top air pollution official. On Tuesday, President…

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EPA is set to roll back restrictions on coal-burning power plants

EPA is set to roll back restrictions on coal-burning power plants

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The Wall Street Journal reports: The Trump administration is escalating an effort to revive the flagging U.S. coal industry with a planned move next week to replace restrictive Obama-era climate policies with new rules designed to help coal-burning plants run harder and stay open longer. The proposed new rules, which the Environmental Protection Agency plans is expected to release within days, would be the latest in a series of reversals of policies the Obama administration adopted to slow climate change….

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Trump administration says conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative

Trump administration says conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative

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The Associated Press reports: Conserving oil is no longer an economic imperative for the U.S., the Trump administration declares in a major new policy statement that threatens to undermine decades of government campaigns for gas-thrifty cars and other conservation programs. The position was outlined in a memo released last month in support of the administration’s proposal to relax fuel mileage standards. The government released the memo online this month without fanfare. Growth of natural gas and other alternatives to petroleum…

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Interior secretary’s school friend crippling climate research, scientists say

Interior secretary’s school friend crippling climate research, scientists say

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The Guardian reports: Prominent US climate scientists have told the Guardian that the Trump administration is holding up research funding as their projects undergo an unprecedented political review by the high-school football teammate of the US interior secretary. The US interior department administers over $5.5bn in funding to external organizations, mostly for research, conservation and land acquisition. At the beginning of 2018, interior secretary Ryan Zinke instated a new requirement that scientific funding above $50,000 must undergo an additional review…

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More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow

More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow

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Science News reports: Freshwater is crucial for drinking, washing, growing food, producing energy and just about every other aspect of modern life. Yet more than 2 billion of Earth’s 7.6 billion inhabitants lack clean drinking water at home, available on demand. A major United Nations report, released in June, shows that the world is not on track to meet a U.N. goal: to bring safe water and sanitation to everyone by 2030. And by 2050, half the world’s population may…

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The next five years will be ‘anomalously warm,’ scientists predict

The next five years will be ‘anomalously warm,’ scientists predict

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The Washington Post reports: The past four years have been the four warmest ever recorded — and now, according to a new scientific forecast, the next five will also probably be “anomalously warm,” even beyond what the steady increase in global warming would produce on its own. That could include another record warmest year, even warmer than the current record year of 2016. It could also include an increased risk of heat extremes and a major heat event somewhere in…

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California burning

California burning

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William Finnegan writes: On the northwestern edge of Los Angeles, where I grew up, the wildfires came in late summer. We lived in a new subdivision, and behind our house were the hills, golden and parched. We would hose down the wood-shingled roof as fire crews bivouacked in our street. Our neighborhood never burned, but others did. In the Bel Air fire of 1961, nearly five hundred homes burned, including those of Burt Lancaster and Zsa Zsa Gabor. We were…

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Heat — the next big inequality issue

Heat — the next big inequality issue

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The Guardian reports: When July’s heatwave swept through the Canadian province of Quebec, killing more than 90 people in little over a week, the unrelenting sunshine threw the disparities between rich and poor into sharp relief. While the well-heeled residents of Montreal hunkered down in blissfully air conditioned offices and houses, the city’s homeless population – not usually welcome in public areas such as shopping malls and restaurants – struggled to escape the blanket of heat. Benedict Labre House, a…

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