Climate Change

The Guardian reports: The plan to break up NOAA is laid out in the Project 2025 document written by more than 350 right wingers and helmed by the Heritage Foundation. Called the Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, it is meant to guide the first 180 days of presidency for an incoming Republican president. The document bears the fingerprints of …

Nexstar reports: You may want to clean out the kiddie pool and dust off the patio furniture early this year. We’re in for a hot start to summer, according to a national weather outlook released Thursday by the National Weather Service. All but two states on the new national forecast map are show in shades of orange and red. The …

USA Today reports: An “extremely active” hurricane season is likely, top forecasters from Colorado State University announced Thursday. In fact, the forecast includes the highest number of hurricanes ever predicted in an April forecast by Colorado State since the team began issuing predictions in 1995. Colorado State hurricane forecaster Phil Klotzbach, the author of the forecast, knows what the models …

The New York Times reports: The Triassic was the dawn of the dinosaurs. The Paleogene saw the rise of mammals. The Pleistocene included the last ice ages. Is it time to mark humankind’s transformation of the planet with its own chapter in Earth history, the “Anthropocene,” or the human age? Not yet, scientists have decided, after a debate that has …

The Guardian reports: Ferocious winds continue to thwart firefighters across a broad swathe of Texas on Sunday where the second largest wildfire in US history is only 15% contained after six days. As of Sunday morning the Smokehouse Creek Fire has so far scorched almost 1.1m acres – 1,700 sq miles – across the Texas Panhandle in the north of …

ABC News reports: Several large wildfires continue to tear through the Texas Panhandle, including one that has grown into the largest blaze in state history. At least two people have died in the blazes so far, as the fire threat is expected to continue into the weekend. The largest of the blazes — the Smokehouse Creek Fire — covers an …

Axios reports: Leading climate scientist Michael Mann was awarded $1 million in damages after winning his defamation lawsuit against two conservative writers over their response to his pivotal work on global warming. The University of Pennsylvania professor sued Rand Simberg, a former adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Mark Steyn [photo], a contributor to National Review over their …

Axios reports: Hurricanes are getting so strong in a warming world that a Category 6 intensity should be added to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind scale, a new study finds. The paper, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, does not represent an official move by the National Hurricane Center to add another hurricane category. Instead, …

The Washington Post reports: President Biden will tap senior adviser John D. Podesta to replace outgoing U.S. special climate envoy John F. Kerry once Kerry steps down this spring, Podesta and other White House officials confirmed to The Washington Post on Wednesday. Podesta now oversees implementation of Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The law devoted billions of …

The BBC reports: Protesters have thrown soup at the glass-protected Mona Lisa in France, calling for the right to “healthy and sustainable food”. The 16th Century painting by Leonardo da Vinci is one of the world’s most famous artworks, and is held at the Louvre in central Paris. The Louvre said the work was behind protective glass and was not …

The Hill reports: Climate protestors interrupted GOP Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy during his event in Iowa Friday night, screaming in his face and calling the biotech entrepreneur “a liar.” Ramaswamy, who has called climate change “a hoax” in the past, was targeted by climate activists during his West Des Moines, Iowa event. Some protestors held yellow signs that said “Vivek: …

The Associated Press reports: Earth last year shattered global annual heat records, flirted with the world’s agreed-upon warming threshold and showed more signs of a feverish planet, the European climate agency said Tuesday. In one of the first of several teams of science agencies to calculate how off-the-charts warm 2023 was, the European climate agency Copernicus said the year was …

NPR reports: As 2023 draws to a close, it’s going out on top. “It’s looking virtually certain at this point that 2023 will be the hottest year on record,” says Zeke Hausfather, climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit that analyzes climate trends. Though temperature records from December have yet to be finalized, climate scientists at the National Oceanic and …

Austin’s NBC affiliate reports: Attorney General Ken Paxton had announced he filed a lawsuit to stop the federal Department of Transportation’s new greenhouse gas reporting measure. According to the AG’s office, the U.S. Department of Transportation does not have the authority to establish the rule. “The mandate violates the Administrative Procedure Act. Further, the rule is arbitrary and capricious and …

The Washington Post reports: For the past several years, a small group of scientists has warned that sometime early this century, the rate of global warming — which has remained largely steady for decades — might accelerate. Temperatures could rise higher, faster. The drumbeat of weather disasters may become more insistent. And now, after what is poised to be the …

The Washington Post reports: King Charles III’s annual festive address saw the British monarch posing next to a replantable tree festooned with dried oranges while delivering a message that acknowledged the “growing awareness” of the need to protect the planet. Charles is a noted conservationist known for his strong opinions on climate change. He also made sustainability a key point …

Axios reports: Forget the chance of a white Christmas in the Midwest and much of the East this year. Instead, record warmth is on tap. Temperatures from Dallas to Minneapolis, and north into Canada, are likely to range from 20°F to 35°F above average during Christmas week. Temperature records, particularly overnight lows, could be smashed by 5°F to 10°F or …

Gothamist reports: The 124th annual Christmas bird count concluded on Sunday with a tally of 9,673 birds in Central Park – including many species whose ranges have moved northward by as much as 200 miles due to climate change, according to scientists. A review of data since 2012 from the National Audubon Society’s Central Park count shows birds once thought …

Axios reports: Much of the U.S. is likely to see temperatures of 10 to 20°F above average for the time of year during the last two weeks of December — including Christmas. “Temperatures will be above average across the West and the northern tier of the nation through at least this weekend,” per a National Weather Service forecast discussion Thursday …

Reuters reports: Representatives from nearly 200 countries agreed at the COP28 climate summit on Wednesday to begin reducing global consumption of fossil fuels to avert the worst of climate change, a first of its kind deal signaling the eventual end of the oil age. The deal struck in Dubai after two weeks of hard-fought negotiations was meant to send a …