Climate Change

Bloomberg News reports: Republicans plan to kill a special committee focused on climate change when they take control of the House next year, the top GOP member of the panel said Thursday. “The climate crisis committee will not exist,” Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, the top GOP member of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, said in an interview. …

Via press release from the United Nations: On 15 November 2022, the world’s population is projected to reach 8 billion people, a milestone in human development. This unprecedented growth is due to the gradual increase in human lifespan owing to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine. It is also the result of high and persistent levels of …

The Washington Post reports: As a celebrity TV doctor, Mehmet Oz used his platform to spread awareness of how climate change is harming public health by fueling extreme heat, wildfires, floods and infectious-disease outbreaks. But as a Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, a key battleground in the fight for control of Congress, Oz is now denying the …

CNN reports: The Treasury Department announced on Tuesday it is launching an assessment of worsening extreme weather and its impact on the cost of insurance. As climate change is making storms stronger and more destructive, Treasury officials told CNN they want to take a hard look at how climate-related disasters are driving up insurance rates around the country. The department’s …

Via press release from the US Air Force: The Department of the Air Force released its Climate Action Plan Oct. 4, which defines how it will preserve operational capability, increase resiliency, and do its part to help mitigate future climate impacts through specific and measurable objectives and key results. It lays out its enterprise-wide approach to ensuring policies, technology innovation, …

“The one thing you don’t do is immediately jump forward to score some sort of cheap and sleazy political point from it. That used to be obvious. But for the past several years, it’s been clear it’s no longer obvious — at least to one political party. “You saw this happen after the forest fires in California two years ago. …

Reuters reports: New York state plans to adopt California’s rules approved in August that would require all new vehicles sold in the state by 2035 to be either electric or plug-in electric hybrids, Governor Kathy Hochul said on Thursday. Hochul said in a statement that she has directed a state environmental agency to propose and finalize rules adopting California’s plan …

The Daily Beast reports: Antarctica’s “doomsday glacier” is “retreating”—or collapsing—at a rate that has stunned scientists to the point they claim the potential impact is “spine-chilling”. Scientists have been studying the Thwaites Glacier, which is approximately the size of Florida, in order to predict the impact of global sea rise levels. In a study published Monday in the journal Nature …

Bloomberg News reports: California declared a power grid emergency Monday as a blistering and sustained heat wave threatens to push the state’s electricity system beyond its limit. With millions of homes and businesses cranking air conditioners to cope with temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius), electricity use in the largest US state is forecast to hit the highest level …

CNN reports: Rainfall in parts of northwest Georgia Sunday has been so heavy, CNN Weather estimates it is at least a one-in-200 year event. “Portions of Chattooga and Floyd counties have received 10-13 inches, with more rain coming. These amounts have resulted in catastrophic flash flooding and a Flash Flood Emergency continues in that area,” the National Weather Service office …

Reuters reports: It is too early to say when a water treatment plant in Mississippi’s state capital of Jackson that failed last week leaving tens of thousands of people without clean tap water can be fixed, the head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said on Sunday. Complications from recent floodwaters knocked Jackson’s O.B. Curtis Water Plant offline …

“The Europeans have discovered that the real threat to human civilization is not global warming, it never was global warming. The real threat to people is global cooling, otherwise known as winter. “Far more people freeze to death every year than die of heat. In 2019, for example, four times as many people died of cold as of heat. That’s …

The Associated Press reports: Zombie ice from the massive Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10 inches (27 centimeters) on its own, according to a study released Monday. Zombie or doomed ice is ice that is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but is no longer getting fed by those larger glaciers. That’s …

Media Matters has the transcript: KAYLEIGH MCENANY (FOX NEWS HOST): That was actor Harrison Ford preaching at a climate conference just last year, but now the Indiana Jones star is getting called out for his carbon footprint. His private jet has made at least eight trips in the last two months alone. Just last week, Prince Harry was spotted arriving …

Axios reports: The Biden administration announced Friday it will nominate an ambassador-at-large for the Arctic, raising the profile of American policymaking for the region. The move comes at a time of increased militarization in the far north, with NATO members squaring off against Russia, and at a time of rapid climate change that is making the Arctic more accessible. In …

The New York Times reports: California is expected to put into effect on Thursday its sweeping plan to prohibit the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, a groundbreaking move that could have major effects on the effort to fight climate change and accelerate a global transition toward electric vehicles. “This is huge,” said Margo Oge, an electric vehicles expert …

The Texas Tribune reports: Gov. Greg Abbott signed a state disaster declaration Tuesday for 23 counties after the Dallas area experienced what he described as the city’s second-worst rainstorm and flooding on record. Some parts of the area saw more than 10 inches of rainfall Monday, flooding streets and homes in what Abbott called “an extraordinary challenge.” A 60-year-old woman …

The Associated Press reports: Flash floods struck the Dallas-Fort Worth area overnight into Monday, with flooded roads requiring rescue efforts as images showed abandoned cars floating down inundated streets. In some areas, the rainfall totals would be considered a 1-in-1,000-year flood. Rain continues to fall in and around Dallas; some rainfall gauges in the area have recorded more than 10 …

The Associated Press reports: Europe’s worst drought in years has pushed the mighty river Danube to one of its lowest levels in almost a century, exposing the hulks of dozens of explosives-laden German warships sunk during World War Two near Serbia’s river port town of Prahovo. Months of drought and record-high temperatures have snarled river traffic on vital arteries in …

Bloomberg News reports: So you think it’s hot out there now? Consider the summer of 2053. That’s what researchers at First Street Foundation, a New York nonprofit that studies climate risk, have done in a report published today. They predict that in three decades, more than 100 million Americans will live in an “extreme heat belt” where at least one …