Tag: climate change

Two new studies warn that a hotter world will be a more violent one

Washington Post logoAs the planet warms, experts have increasingly sounded the alarm over the potential for increased climate-driven geopolitical conflict. Two new studies underscore how rising temperatures are likely to increase aggression and violent behavior at the individual level as well. They arrive at a similar conclusion using two very different data sets: crime in Los Angeles and terrorist attacks around the world.

The first study, released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, examines the relationship between daily high temperatures and incidents of violent crime in Los Angeles between 2010 and 2017. Criminologists have known for decades that murder and other violent crimes tend to be more frequent in the hot summer months. Here, for example, is a comparison between monthly homicides and average high temperatures in the city of Chicago. Continue reading “Two new studies warn that a hotter world will be a more violent one”

Global warming led to scorching heat in Europe. Leaders must take it seriously.

Washington Post logoWHEN THE Red Sox and Yankees faced off in London Stadium this past Saturday, the players no doubt expected something different. Instead of a typically dreary and cool British summer day, they got a 93-degree scorcher. Pitchers struggled to keep the ball in the park.

But busted ERAs were the least of the concerns as record temperatures swept across Western Europe, where previous heat waves had been surprisingly deadly. France recorded its highest temperature ever — nearly 115 degrees in Gallargues-le-Montueux, near Montpellier — on June 28. Temperatures in the country were 28 degrees above normal. Major school exams were postponed. In Germany, authorities sprayed down trees to keep them cool. Heat damaged Swiss train tracks. Wildfires blazed in Spain. Experts warn that the final toll will take weeks to determine.

What is already clear, however, is the heat wave’s potential connections to human-caused global warming. We do not say this simply because climate change makes heat waves in general more likely, though that is true. It is also because an international consortium of scientists released on Tuesday a report seeking to quantify how global warming may have played into last week’s highs in particular.

View the complete July 5 commentary Editorial Board on The Washington Post website here.

UMN study finds climate change is helping some crops, but hurting more

It’s likely that climate change already is affecting world crop production — hurting it in some areas, helping it in others, but on balance pushing it lower, according to a new University of Minnesota-led study.

“There are winners and losers, and some countries that are already food insecure fare worse,” said lead author Deepak Ray of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.

The study, conducted with researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Copenhagen, used weather and reported crop data to evaluate the potential impact of observed climate change on 10 crops: barley, cassava, maize, oil palm, rapeseed, rice, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane and wheat. The 10 accounted for a combined 83% of all calories produced on cropland.

View the complete July 1 article by Jonathan Knutson on The Pioneer Press website here.

Trump says he won’t take climate action because it threatens corporate profits: ‘I’m not willing to do that’

AlterNet logoAtmospheric carbon dioxide is at a record high, Europe is in the midst of a hellish heat wave, and extreme weather is ravaging large swaths of the globe, but President Donald Trump dismissed the need for climate action during the G20 summit in Japan on Saturday and falsely claimed that air and water in the U.S. are the “cleanest” they have ever been.

Trump told reporters during a press conference Saturday morning that he is not ignoring the threat of the climate crisis, but he doesn’t want to take action to confront the emergency because such a move would threaten corporate profits.

“So we have the best numbers that we’ve ever had recently,” Trump said. “I’m not looking to put our companies out of business.”

View the complete June 30 article by Jake Johnson from Common Dreams on the AlterNet website here.

Expect to pay at least $400 billion over next 20 years to protect U.S. from rising seas, study warns

Protecting our coastlines will cost almost as much as it did to build the interstate highway system — but needs to be done in half the time.

It is going to cost the United States at least $400 billion over the next 20 years to protect the nation’s public infrastructure — everything from roads and rail lines to bridges, airports, and sewage treatment systems — to withstand the impacts of sea level rise.

That’s the finding of a new report out Thursday which looks at the cost of moderate sea level rise along the contiguous United States. The price tag is almost as much as it took to build the original interstate highway system, which cost $114 billion at the time ($521 billion when accounting for inflation) over 36 years and now spans over 48,000 miles.

In comparison, the report by Resilient Analytics and the Center for Climate Integrity states that to prepare for sea level rise, more than 50,000 miles of coastal barriers, or seawalls, will need to be constructed along 22 states. Moreover, all of this vital work would need to be done in half the amount of time it took to build the nation’s highway system.

View the complete June 20 article by Kyla Mandel on the ThinkProgress website here.

Military bases unprepared for gathering climate change storm

Responses to hurricanes, flooding already raising alarm bells in Congress and beyond

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — A mangled red, white and blue patrol plane still lies across what was once a park here where families played and picnicked, nine months after Hurricane Michael stormed out of the Gulf of Mexico with its 155-mile-per-hour winds.

And beyond that wreckage and other detritus, about 300 of this Air Force base’s nearly 500 damaged buildings are slated to be razed. The Air Force wants at least $4.25 billion to rebuild Tyndall at its current location on the Florida panhandle, a process the 325th Fighter Wing commander, Col. Brian Laidlaw, said could take several years.

“The Air Force doesn’t have financial resources in the bank to do all the repairs we need to do,” he said. Without mentioning climate change, and saying he’s not a meteorologist, Laidlaw added, “I don’t know that any of us ever plans to get hit by Category 5 hurricanes.”

View the complete June 12 article by Elvina Nawaguna on The Roll Call website here.

Dangerous Irrationality: Climate Deniers Jeopardize Humanity’s Survival

You don’t have to be a physicist or geologist to know that the Earth’s climate is changing in ways that are destined to make the landscape less hospitable for humans. Just look around. The dangers are evident.

In the final weeks of May, tornadoes ripped through the center of the United States day after day, destroying homes and schools, hurling trees as if they were mere matchsticks, inflicting countless injuries across communities and leaving some families to mourn their dead. This virulent tornado season is just one example of extreme weather: The past few months have also seen record cold, record heat and record flooding.

If human beings were rational, our top scientists and political leaders would be huddled together, hashing out plans and policies to try to mitigate the damage from greenhouse gases — with the goal of salvaging human life. Faced with an existential threat, a fierce peril that will alter the planet in significant ways, presidents and premiers and prime ministers would overcome their traditional enmities, as they do in the movies, and come together to save humanity.

View the complete June 2 article by Cynthia Tucker on the AlterNet website here.

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science

WASHINGTON — President Trump has rolled back environmental regulations, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, brushed aside dire predictions about the effects of climate change, and turned the term “global warming” into a punch line rather than a prognosis.

Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault.

In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.

View the complete May 27 article by Coral Davenport and Mark Landler on The New York Times website here.

Senate Republicans Oppose Efforts to Address Climate Change

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — Today, Senate Republicans blocked efforts broadly supported by Minnesotans to address the threat of climate change despite overwhelming scientific evidence showing that Minnesota is one of the fastest warming states in the country.

“Minnesotans see the reality of the changing climate and know that it threatens their future,” said Rep. Jean Wagenius (DFL – Minneapolis), Chair of the House Energy and Climate Finance and Policy Division. “Minnesota youth came from all over the state to tell us they are scared, even terrified. They asked us to take the climate crisis as seriously as they do. Republicans chose the fossil fuel industry over our children’s future.”

The House DFL energy budget took significant steps to prevent further consequences of climate change and build a thriving clean energy economy. It set Minnesota on a path to achieve 100 percent clean energy by 2050, while ensuring that electricity was affordable and reliable. It established a Solar on Schools program that would save school districts money and provide learning opportunities and helped colleges and universities expand their use of clean energy. The budget also helped accelerate the creation of clean energy jobs, reduced transportation emissions, and supported more efficient buildings and community solar gardens. Continue reading “Senate Republicans Oppose Efforts to Address Climate Change”

Dean Phillips’ case for a carbon fee to tackle climate change

Rep. Dean Phillips, who represents Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, announced last month that he’s sponsoring the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.

The bipartisan legislation aims to address climate change through market forces. It would attach a fee to fuels that emit carbon, discouraging their use.

View the complete May 8 article by Paul Huttner on the MPR News website here.