Climate Change

Ron Johnson: “A Warming Globe Is Actually Beneficial” Because That Means Fewer People Will Freeze To Death

Raw Story reports: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who narrowly won his recent reelection, complained that global climate change didn’t really matter because his state could use a little less snow. Speaking in the Senate Budget Committee Wednesday, economist Michael Greenstone addressed the health costs of climate change. Johnson picked up one of the maps that were part of the exhibits …

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Fort Lauderdale Rainfall Broke Single-Day Record Set During 1980 Hurricane, Schools Still Closed, FLL Open

CNN reports: More storms could strike South Florida on Friday after monumental flooding wreaked havoc on Fort Lauderdale and surrounding communities, closing schools and government buildings and sending hundreds of residents to seek refuge at emergency shelters. Many streets turned into lakes across Fort Lauderdale Wednesday and Thursday when a historic volume of rain exceeding 2 feet inundated the South …

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Florida Sees Rash Of Wildfires Amid “Severe Drought”

The Orlando Sentinel reports: With less than 2 inches of rain this year, Orlando is enduring its second driest stretch from Jan. 1 to April 5 since the late 1800s and also its hottest on record for that period. The city, Central Florida and much of the state’s peninsula are experiencing a widening severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought …

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House Republicans Approve Doomed Fossil Fuels Bill

Politico reports: House Republicans passed a sprawling energy bill Thursday, delivering their biggest legislative win since they took control of the chamber in January and setting up a clash with Democrats by pitting fossil fuels against President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda. The bill passed by a 225-204 vote, with four Democrats joining Republicans to pass the bill and one …

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Illinois GOP State Rep: God’s Trees Fix Climate Change

“We’re not having a climate crisis, but what we are having is a crisis of common sense. If you think about it, CO2 – man-made CO2 – collectively adds up to one-one-hundredth of one percent of the atmosphere around the globe. “If you think about the entire CO2, it’s about four-one-hundredths of one percent. And there’s one thing that I …

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Carlson: Climate Change Gives Us More Farmland

“Of course, climate does change, it has always changed. In fact, the landscape we live in now is formed by climate change. The glaciers are a product of climate change. The climate is changing now, it never stops changing. “That is a process that we didn’t cause and that we can’t control to any great degree. We will never be …

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Southern California Gets Rare Blizzard Warning [VIDEO]

Axios reports: A rare, powerful winter storm is directing a firehose of moisture at large parts of California, including causing blizzard conditions in the hills and mountains near Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. This storm prompted the first blizzard warnings in L.A. and Ventura Counties since 1989, and the first-ever blizzard warning issued by the Weather Service’s San …

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Mild And Snowless Winter Continues For Mid-Atlantic

Axios reports: Temperatures will sizzle toward record territory for many in the Mid-Atlantic on Thursday. Baltimore and Washington, D.C., could reach 80°F.  The freakishly mild winter in the East has led to a sense of unease. This is February, when Nor’easters normally churn the Atlantic, dumping heavy snow for millions. Instead, the only thing that has been heavy in New …

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US Census: 3.4M Displaced By Climate Events In 2022

NBC News reports: Natural disasters forced an estimated 3.4 million people in the U.S. to leave their homes in 2022, according to Census Bureau data, underscoring how climate-related weather events are already changing American communities. The overwhelming majority of these people were uprooted by hurricanes, followed by floods, then fires and tornadoes. Nearly 40% returned to their homes within a …

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Florida To Produce Smallest Orange Crop In 90 Years

Axios reports: Florida orange growers are facing what’s forecast to be their smallest crop in nearly 90 years. Florida is expected to produce 18 million 90-pound boxes of juicing oranges this year, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast last month. That’s less than half of last year’s crop and a 93% decline from the 1998 peak, the Wall …

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GOP House Science Chair Could Gut Funding For NOAA

Axios reports: A key House Republican is putting forward a plan to make the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) an independent agency outside the Department of Commerce. Removing the agency from a Cabinet-level department could diminish its clout when it comes to securing funding and weighing in on key policy decisions, former senior NOAA officials tell Axios. It would …

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Cultists Rage Over New “Woke” Xbox Power Mode

From a January 11th Ars Technica report: Microsoft is rolling out an update to Xbox consoles starting today that will automatically switch them to a power-saving Shutdown mode, instead of the usual energy-hungry Sleep mode. It’s part of a broader effort by Microsoft to make Xbox the “first carbon aware console.” Blaine Hauglie, technical program manager at Xbox, writes in …

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Constituents Pressure McCarthy On CA Water Crisis

CNN reports: In the middle of the day, the water pressure would drop completely. Cranking up both hot and cold could only coax a little drip out of the faucet. Then there was the water itself, contaminated with chemicals from agriculture runoff. Throughout McCarthy’s tenure, this region of California has spent more time than any other part of the country …

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Boebert To Speak At FL Climate Change Denial Event

Florida Politics reports: Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado will be among the speakers at the 15th International Conference on Climate Change, a three-day event in Orlando hosted by conservative and libertarian think tank The Heartland Institute. The event runs Feb. 23-25 at the Hilton Lake Buena Vista in the Disney Springs area. Its title: “The True Climate Crisis: …

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Study Reveals Exxon’s Hypocrisy On Climate Change

The New York Times reports: A new study published Thursday in the journal Science found that over the decades, Exxon’s scientists made remarkably accurate projections of just how much burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. Their projections were as accurate, and sometimes even more so, as those of independent academic and government models. Yet for years, the oil giant …

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2022 Climate Disasters Caused $165 Billion In Damage

NBC News reports: The United States experienced 18 extreme weather events last year that each caused at least $1 billion in damages, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Weather and climate disasters across the country resulted in more than $165 billion in damages in 2022, making it the third-costliest year on record, NOAA …

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Scientists: Last Eight Years Were Hottest On Record

The New York Times reports: The world remained firmly in warming’s grip last year, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China and elsewhere contributing to 2022 being the fifth-hottest year on record, European climate researchers said on Tuesday. The eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, the scientists, from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported, …

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Say “Bye Felicia” To Senate’s Biggest Climate Denier

The Huffington Post reports: Search for Jim Inhofe on Google, and you’ll immediately see pictures of the Republican senator from Oklahoma proudly holding a snowball on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Inhofe’s career in elected office spans nearly six decades, but the snowball is perhaps his most famous stunt — one of pure, unabashed climate idiocy that will follow …

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NOAA Scientists Issue Alarming “Arctic Report Card”

NOAA reports: A typhoon, smoke from wildfires and increasing rain are not what most imagine when thinking of the Arctic. Yet these are some of the climate-driven events included in NOAA’s 2022 Arctic Report Card, which provides a detailed picture of how warming is reshaping the once reliably frozen, snow-covered region which is heating up faster than any other part …

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House Republicans To Disband Climate Committee

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. …

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