Tag: climate change

How Global Warming Fueled Five Extreme Weather Events

The following article by Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich was posted on the New York Times website December 14, 2017:

A wildfire in Azusa, Calif., in 2016. New research has analyzed 27 extreme weather events from that year for links to climate change. Credit Gene Blevins/Reuters

Extreme weather left its mark across the planet in 2016, the hottest year in recorded history. Record heat baked Asia and the Arctic. Droughts gripped Brazil and southern Africa. The Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst bleaching event in memory, killing large swaths of coral.

Now climate scientists are starting to tease out which of last year’s calamities can, and can’t, be linked to global warming.

In a new collection of papers published Wednesday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers around the world analyzed 27 extreme weather events from 2016 and found that human-caused climate change was a “significant driver” for 21 of them. The effort is part of the growing field of climate change attribution, which explores connections between warming and weather events that have already happened. Continue reading “How Global Warming Fueled Five Extreme Weather Events”

The most accurate climate change models predict the most alarming consequences, study finds

The following article by Chris Mooney was posed on the Washington Post website December 6, 2017:

The government’s National Climate Assessment cited human influence as the “dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

The climate change simulations that best capture current planetary conditions are also the ones that predict the most dire levels of human-driven warming, according to a statistical study released in the journal Nature Wednesday.

The study, by Patrick Brown and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif., examined the high-powered climate change simulations, or “models,” that researchers use to project the future of the planet based on the physical equations that govern the behavior of the atmosphere and oceans. Continue reading “The most accurate climate change models predict the most alarming consequences, study finds”

Protesters Jeer as Trump Team Promotes Coal at U.N. Climate Talks

The following article by Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer was posted on the New York Times website November 13, 2017:

Demonstrators at a presentation by the United States delegation to the United Nations climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, on Monday. Credit Philipp Guelland/European Pressphoto Agency

BONN, Germany — The Trump administration made its debut at a United Nations conference on climate change on Monday by giving a full-throated defense of fossil fuels and nuclear energy as answers to driving down global greenhouse gas emissions.

The forum — the only official appearance by the United States delegation during the annual two-week climate gathering of nearly 200 nations — illustrated how sharply the administration’s views are at odds with those of many key participants in the climate negotiations.

George D. Banks, special adviser to President Trump on international energy issues, led a panel with top American energy executives. “Without question, fossil fuels will continue to be used, and we would argue that it’s in the global interest to make sure when fossil fuels are used that they be as clean and efficient as possible,” Mr. Banks said. “This panel is controversial only if we chose to bury our heads in the sand.” Continue reading “Protesters Jeer as Trump Team Promotes Coal at U.N. Climate Talks”

Trump administration releases report finding ‘no convincing alternative explanation’ for climate change

The following article by Chris Mooney, Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis was posted on the Washington Post website November 3, 2017:

The government’s National Climate Assessment released on Nov. 3 cited human influence as the “dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

This story has been updated.

The Trump administration released a dire scientific report Friday calling human activity the dominant driver of global warming, a conclusion at odds with White House decisions to withdraw from a key international climate accord, champion fossil fuels and reverse Obama-era climate policies.

To the surprise of some scientists, the White House did not seek to prevent the release of the government’s National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by law. The report affirms that climate change is driven almost entirely by human action, warns of a worst-case scenario where seas could rise as high as eight feet by the year 2100, and details climate-related damage across the United States that is already unfolding as a result of an average global temperature increase of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900. Continue reading “Trump administration releases report finding ‘no convincing alternative explanation’ for climate change”

Trump’s Inaction On Climate Change Will Cost Taxpayers Bigly

The following article by Evan Halper through the Tribune Content Agency’s Washington Bureau was posted on the National Memo website October 25, 2017:

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s reluctance to confront climate change threatens to create a massive burden on taxpayers, as a lack of planning by federal agencies leaves the government ill-equipped to deal with the fallout from rising temperatures, according to independent congressional investigators.

The report released Tuesday from the Government Accountability Office presents a bleak picture in which the economic costs of climate change spiral ever further upward in the coming decades. While the report finds that coordination among federal agencies in confronting climate change has long been inadequate, it now comes at a time when the White House is making an unprecedented retreat on environmental protection. Continue reading “Trump’s Inaction On Climate Change Will Cost Taxpayers Bigly”

Trump Takes a First Step Toward Scrapping Obama’s Global Warming Policy

The following article by Lisa Friedman was posted on the New York Times website October 4, 2017:

A power plant in Homer City, Pa. President Trump has vowed since the campaign to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to cut emissions from the power sector. Credit Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will repeal the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s effort to fight climate change, and will ask the public to recommend ways it could be replaced, according to an internal Environmental Protection Agency document.

The draft proposal represents the administration’s first substantive step toward rolling back the plan, which was designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, after months of presidential tweets and condemnations of Mr. Obama’s efforts to reduce climate-warming pollution. Continue reading “Trump Takes a First Step Toward Scrapping Obama’s Global Warming Policy”

Why Do People Still Believe Limbaugh About Climate — Or Anything?

If the American people, collectively speaking, had enough sense to come in out of the rain, the climate “debate”—long settled almost everywhere else on  earth—would be over. No, it’s not possible to assert with mathematical certainty that hurricanes Harvey and Irma were caused by global warming.

It’s also not possible to stipulate exactly which carton of Camels brought about my father’s lung cancer. Only that his 40 year two-packs-a-day tobacco habit shortened his life by a decade or more. Although the tobacco companies once resisted the evidence as vigorously (and dishonestly) as Koch Industries and the rest now fight climate science, nobody argues about it anymore. Continue reading “Why Do People Still Believe Limbaugh About Climate — Or Anything?”

Scott Pruitt says it’s not the time to talk climate change. For him, it never is.

The following article by Philip Bump was posted on the Washington Post website September 9, 2017:

Update: On Friday, during an interview with CNN, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said that it was inappropriate to discuss the effect of climate change on the intensity of Hurricane Irma.

“What we need to focus on is access to clean water, addressing these areas of superfund activities that may cause an attack on water, these issues of access to fuel,” he said. “Those are things so important to citizens of Florida right now, and to discuss the cause and effect of these storms, there’s the… place (and time) to do that, it’s not now.”

As EPA administrator, Pruitt has given no indication that he thinks there’s ever a time to consider the role of climate change. The article below originally ran on Thursday. Continue reading “Scott Pruitt says it’s not the time to talk climate change. For him, it never is.”

Emails show Trump appointees undermined Facebook CEO Zuckerberg’s Glacier visit

The following article by Lisa Rein was posted on the Washington Post website September 7, 2017:

A hiker in Glacier National Park. Credit: Ben Herndon

When Facebook’s communications chief approached the National Park Service to ask the agency to show company founder Mark Zuckerberg how the warming climate is melting ice sheets at Glacier National Park, scientists, park rangers and public affairs staff were giddy with excitement.

“This is going to be great!” wilderness specialist Kyle Johnson wrote in an email June 21 to Facebook’s Derick Mains as planning for a July 15 tour got underway. When Mains had approached him two days earlier, Johnson responded, “I think something like this would be outstanding for all. … Thanks for helping us showcase Glacier.”

The U.S. Geological Survey’s public affairs office was thrilled to make the park’s top climate scientist, a USGS staffer, available to Zuckerberg to explain how global warming is altering the ecosystem of the northern  Rockies. Continue reading “Emails show Trump appointees undermined Facebook CEO Zuckerberg’s Glacier visit”

The Trump administration just disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change

The following article by Juliet EIlperin was posted on the Washington Post website August 20, 2017:

President Trump speaks about the U.S. role in the Paris climate change accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in June, 2017. (AP)

The Trump administration has decided to disband the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group aimed at helping policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government’s climate analysis into long-term planning.

The charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment — which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives — expires Sunday. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting administrator, Ben Friedman, informed the committee’s chair that the agency would not renew the panel.

The National Climate Assessment is supposed to be issued every four years but has come out only three times since passage of the 1990 law calling for such analysis. The next one, due for release in 2018, already has become a contentious issue for the Trump administration. Continue reading “The Trump administration just disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change”