Climate Change

The Oregonian reports: Organizers of the Oregon Republican Party’s drive to recall Gov. Kate Brown conceded Monday that they did not manage to gather the necessary 280,050 valid voter signatures to put the recall on the ballot. Party Chairman Bill Currier did not return phone calls to The Oregonian/OregonLive, but he said on Monday’s Lars Larson Show that “we did …

USA Today reports: The world’s oceans and mountains are in peril, and so are we, according to a major new report from United Nations climate scientists released early Wednesday. The “Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere” offers a bleak picture. It warns that the world’s oceans have reached or are nearing critical tipping points: Oceans have gotten warmer, more …

Buzzfeed News reports: Fox News apologized to 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday after a conservative pundit called her a “mentally ill Swedish child”. Thunberg, who has Asperger’s syndrome, delivered a powerful speech at the United Nations earlier in the day about the impact of climate change on her generation. The speech was then the subject of a segment …

The Daily Beast reports: Greta Thunberg shocked the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Monday with an angry, accusatory tone and direct, frank talk. “This is all wrong,” said the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, fighting back tears. “I shouldn’t be up here – I should be in school, across the ocean.” Taking an angry tone, she continued, “You come …

“She sells fear. It worked in Sweden, it’s working in Europe and now it’s coming to the U.S., the message of fear sells. There are reports now in Europe where kids are getting anti-anxiety medication. They believe they are going to die. It’s the Greta effect. “She is causing and instilling fear in millions of kids around the world and …

The Associated Press reports: A wave of climate change protests swept across the globe Friday, with hundreds of thousands of young people sending a message to leaders headed for a U.N. summit: The warming world can’t wait for action. Marches, rallies and demonstrations were held from Canberra to Kabul and Cape Town to Copenhagen, and more were set to follow …

Vox reports: The word “trillion” doesn’t appear anywhere in Buttigieg’s plan, but his campaign told Vox it estimates the government will spend $1.5 to $2 trillion for the proposal, in addition to investments in modernizing, roads, railways, water mains, and bridges. That’s relatively modest compared to plans from candidates like former Rep. Beto O’Rourke ($5 trillion) or Vermont Sen. Bernie …

CNN reports: Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday announced she would adopt Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s 10-year climate plan, while also expanding on his blueprint with a series of additional investments costing $1 trillion to offer additional protections to workers and help fund a radical transition of American infrastructure and industry away from fossil fuels. The Warren proposal, which would cost …

ABC News reports: The government agency that manages Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has downgraded its outlook for the corals’ condition from “poor” to “very poor” due to warming oceans. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s condition report, which is updated every five years, is the latest bad news for the 345,400 square kilometer (133,360 square miles) colorful coral network …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is set to announce on Thursday that it intends to sharply curtail the regulation of methane emissions, a major contributor to climate change, according to an industry official with knowledge of the plan. The Environmental Protection Agency, in a proposed rule, will aim to eliminate federal government requirements that the oil and …

Forbes reports: U.S. President Donald Trump did not show up for a workshop on environmental issues at the G7 Summit here today, but French President Emmanuel Macron said it came as no surprise. “When it comes to the Paris Agreement, we know his position, it has always been clear, and it is not an objective of the French presidency to …

McClatchy reports: The United Nations General Assembly opens next month with a major summit on climate change – but at least one head of state will be absent from the global stage. Three senior administration officials told McClatchy that President Donald Trump plans to skip the U.N. Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23 hosted by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. Environmental …

Via press release: Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced the appointment of Dr. Julia Nesheiwat as Florida’s first Chief Resilience Officer (CRO). The CRO is tasked with preparing Florida for the environmental, physical and economic impacts of sea level rise. The CRO reports to the Executive Office of the Governor and will work in partnership with the Florida Department of Environmental …

The Washington Post reports: July was Earth’s hottest month ever recorded, “on a par with, and possibly marginally higher” than the previous warmest month, which was July 2016, according to provisional data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service. This European climate agency will have a full report for all of July on Monday, but a spokesperson said enough data (through …

The Washington Post reports: An extraordinary melt event that began earlier this week continues on Thursday on the Greenland ice sheet, and there are signs that about 60 percent of the expansive ice cover has seen detectable surface melting, including at higher elevations that only rarely see temperatures climb above freezing. July 31 was the biggest melt day since at …

NPR reports: For the first time ever, wind has surpassed coal as an energy source in Texas. Data released this month by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas shows wind created 22 percent of the electricity used in the first half of the year, edging out coal by 1%. Texas is the largest consumer of coal in the country, according …

Vox reports: New York senator and 2020 presidential contender Kirsten Gillibrand’s new plan to fight climate change takes aim at the institutions that have caused and profited off the problem. The proposal aims to hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable for damages stemming from a warmer world. “I’ll make climate polluters pay, transform our economy with good-paying green jobs, and …

Science Magazine reports: A March news release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) touted a new study that could be useful for infrastructure planning along the California coastline. At least that’s how President Donald Trump’s administration conveyed it. An earlier draft of the news release, written by researchers, was sanitized by Trump administration officials, who removed references to the dire …

Axios reports: Anchorage, Alaska, saw sizzling temperatures on Thursday, hitting 90ºF degrees and toppling the city’s all-time record-high temperature by 5 degrees, as well as the daily record of 77ºF for July 4, according to Weather.com. Why it matters: The Arctic region has pushed into an entirely new climate. The last 6 years have been the warmest Alaska has experienced …

The Independent reports: June was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, the EU’s satellite agency has announced. Data provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the EU, showed that the global-average temperature for June 2019 was the highest on record for the month. The data showed …