Climate Change

The Washington Post reports: It’s summer in Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s most populous towns, which made what happened there over the weekend all the more surprising. Sunday morning, residents woke to their roads, yards and even cars buried under more than three feet of icy slush from a freak hailstorm that had blanketed the city. Jalisco Gov. Enrique Alfaro said …

The Independent reports: Donald Trump has again dismissed the need to tackle climate change by saying the US has the cleanest air and water “ever”. The president, speaking at the G20 Summit in Japan, also claimed that wind power “does not work” because it has to be heavily subsidized. “I’m not sure that I agree with certain countries with what …

AccuWeather reports: The extreme heat wave that is suspected in killing several people this week set an all-time high in France on Friday. Relief is on the horizon but not before the heat strengthens its grip across Europe this weekend. The highest temperature ever measured across France in the entirety of record keeping was set on Friday afternoon. Temperatures soared …

USA Today reports: Record-shattering temperatures are scorching much of Europe this week as searing heat from northern Africa overspreads the normally mild continent. Germany broke its all-time heat record for June on Wednesday when the temperature soared to 101.5 degrees in Coschen, which is about 65 miles southeast of Berlin, according to the German meteorological service. Authorities in Germany also …

Oregon Live reports: Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney said on Tuesday morning that the climate change bill at the center of Republicans’ walkout lacks the votes necessary to pass, because not enough Democrats support it. Senate Republicans fled the state last week to block a vote on the carbon capping plan. Courtney appeared to be laying groundwork for Republicans to …

Politico reports: The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department’s acclaimed in-house scientists. The studies range from a groundbreaking discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment — a potentially serious health concern for the …

The Associated Press reports: As Democratic presidential hopefuls prepare for their first 2020 primary debate this week, 74 medical and public health groups aligned on Monday to push for a series of consensus commitments to combat climate change, bluntly defined by the organizations as “a health emergency.” The new climate change agenda released by the groups, including the American Medical …

Portland’s ABC News affiliate reports: “I don’t think you’re going to see us anytime soon.” That’s what Herman Baertschiger Jr., the Oregon Senate Minority Leader, told KATU News reporter Dan McCarthy in a phone interview late Saturday regarding the 11 Republican senators who walked out in defiance of House Bill 2020, the cap-and-trade bill. He also addressed the GoFundMe account …

The Associated Press reports: New York’s attorney general says the state will sue to block the Trump administration’s rollback of an Obama-era rule designed to wean the nation’s electrical grid off coal-fired power plants and their climate-damaging pollution. Attorney General Letitia James announced the state’s intentions on Twitter shortly after the Environmental Protection Agency replaced the rule with a less …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Wednesday finalized a package of new rules to replace the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature effort to reduce planet-warming emissions from coal plants. The new measure, known as the Affordable Clean Energy rule, will very likely prompt a flurry of legal challenges from environmental groups that could have …

The Washington Post reports: Ice is melting in unprecedented ways as summer approaches in the Arctic. In recent days, observations have revealed a record-challenging melt event over the Greenland ice sheet, while the extent of ice over the Arctic Ocean has never been this low in mid-June during the age of weather satellites. Greenland saw temperatures soar up to 40 …

The Washington Post reports: White House officials barred a State Department intelligence agency from submitting written testimony this week to the House Intelligence Committee warning that human-caused climate change could be “possibly catastrophic” after State officials refused to excise the document’s references to the scientific consensus on climate change. The effort to edit, and ultimately suppress, the State Department’s Bureau …

Axios reports: Resolutions pushing ExxonMobil and Chevron to get more aggressive on climate change were soundly defeated at annual shareholder meetings on Wednesday. The meetings were the latest example of growing investor pressure on oil giants over global warming. At Exxon’s meeting, a resolution calling for a new board committee on climate won just 7.4% support. At Chevron’s meeting, roughly …

The New York Times reports: The federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit …

ABC News reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday praised the Arctic region — and its rapidly shrinking levels of sea ice — for its economic opportunities, despite continued warnings about the catastrophic effects of climate change. “The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance,” Pompeo said in remarks in Rovaniemi, Finland. “It houses 13 percent of …

NBC News reports: A sweeping report assessing the state of the natural world found that humans are having an “unprecedented” and devastating effect on global biodiversity, with about 1 million animal and plant species now threatened with extinction. A summary of the report’s findings was released Monday by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which was established …

The Hill reports: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told those gathered at a Dallas-based sustainability conference that President Trump has a long way to go in acknowledging the science behind climate change. “Climate change is real, the science is sound and the solutions are available,” Graham said, adding jokingly, “If I told Trump that [special counsel Robert] Mueller thinks climate change …

Just in from the White House: Earth Day is a celebration of the abundant beauty and life-sustaining bounty of our natural environment. On this day, we reaffirm our responsibility to protect God’s wondrous creation for future generations. From the Appalachian Mountains to the golden shores of California, America is blessed with some of the most beautiful scenery on Earth. As …

Sara Nelson, president of the 50,000 member International Association of Flight Attendants, writes for Vox: “Pretty much everyone on the plane threw up” is not a sentence most travelers want to hear. But that’s a direct quote from the pilots’ report after United Express Flight 3833 operated by Air Wisconsin hit extreme turbulence on approach to Washington, DC, in 2018. …

Reuters reports: Royal Dutch Shell on Tuesday became the first major oil and gas company to announce plans to leave a leading U.S. refining lobby due to disagreement on climate policies. In its first review of its association with 19 key industry groups, the company said it had found “material misalignment” over climate policy with the American Fuel & Petrochemical …