Climate Change

Politico reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to assure nations at the U.N. conference in Madrid today that the U.S. would join its efforts to fight climate change despite President Donald Trump’s move to pull the U.S. out the Paris agreement. “By coming here we want to say to everyone, we’re still in,” Pelosi said at a press conference in …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a prominent climate scientist to pursue a defamation lawsuit against a conservative magazine and a think tank that compared him to a convicted child molester. The justices declined to hear appeals filed by National Review magazine and the Competitive Enterprise Institute seeking to overturn a lower court’s ruling that allowed the …

CNN reports: Veneto regional council, which is located on Venice’s Grand Canal, was flooded for the first time in its history on Tuesday night — just after it rejected measures to combat climate change. The historic Italian city has been brought to its knees this week by the worst flooding there in more than 50 years. And the council chamber …

USA Today reports: Fix global warming or cook dinner on a gas stove? That’s the choice for people in 13 cities and one county in California that have enacted new zoning codes encouraging or requiring all-electric new construction. The codes, most of them passed since June, are meant to keep builders from running natural gas lines to new homes and …

CBS News reports: A 25-year-old New Zealand lawmaker shut down a heckler during a climate change speech with a two-word comeback aimed at older people. Chlöe Swabrick, who belongs to the Green Party, silenced a fellow Parliament member by retorting, “OK, boomer” — a phrase popularized by young people to call out folks from the baby boomer generation. The phrase …

Reuters reports: The United States’ withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement “won’t change the course of things” and is a “marginal” choice, according to French President Emmanuel Macron. “When China, the European Union and Russia commit to [the Paris Agreement], the isolated choice of this or that [country] isn’t enough to change the course of things,” Macron said in a …

Courthouse News reports: Scientists around the world – 11,000 of them from 153 nations – have declared a state of climate emergency, calling on the world to make urgent and meaningful changes to avoid serious and unknown consequences. The scientists made their declaration Tuesday in the journal Bioscience, on the 40th anniversary of the first world climate conference held in …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration formally notified the United Nations on Monday that it would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, leaving global climate diplomats to plot a way forward without the cooperation of the world’s largest economy. The action, which came on the first day possible under the accord’s complex rules …

The Associated Press reports: The Weather Channel is moving beyond cold fronts and heat waves to wade into the politics of climate change, with a special planned for early next month that includes interviews with nine presidential candidates on the topic. The campaign’s most prominent climate change skeptic — President Donald Trump — declined an invitation to participate. The hour-long …

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 …