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Climate Change

Page Updated:
May 19, 2025

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• • Toxic Wildfire Pollution Infiltrates Homes of 1bn People a Year

  Dangerous Indoor Pollution Could Be Tackled With Air Purifiers But Costs are Too High For Many
  
  

  May 14, 2025 -Toxic pollution from wildfires has infiltrated the homes of more than a billion people a year over the last two decades, according to new research.

  The climate crisis is driving up the risk of wildfires by increasing heatwaves and droughts, making the issue of wildfire smoke a “pressing global issue”, scientists said.

• • Congress Begins Repeal of Clean Energy
  Tax Credits With ‘Sledgehammer Approach’

  The Potential Climate Consequences are Profound
  
  

  May 14, 2025 -Congress began tearing down the most consequential climate policy it had ever passed as torrents from a 1,000-mile-long atmospheric river lashed Washington, D.C.

  The worst impacts of Tuesday’s storm were far up the Potomac River. Any concerns about how the United States would grapple with the increasingly intense weather of a warming world receded to background noise, less audible than the rain pelting the Capitol dome.

• • How the World’s Most Powerful Corporations
  Have Fought Accountability for Climate Change

  The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Decades-Long Campaign to Mislead the Public and Avoid Paying for Their Products’ Harms
  
  

  May 14, 2025 -A new report draws on decades of internal documents and court records to lay out how some of the world’s most powerful corporations misled the public about the dangers of climate change—and how their efforts to avoid responsibility for the harms caused by their products have evolved in recent years.

  The Report’s Authors Say They are the First to Aggregate and Analyze Those Documents in a Comprehensive Way.

• • Farmers Sued Over Deleted Climate Data

  So the Government Will Put It Back
  
  

  May 13, 2025 -The Agriculture Department will restore information about climate change that was scrubbed from its website when President Trump took office, according to court documents filed on Monday in a lawsuit over the deletion.

  The deleted data included pages on federal funding and loans, forest conservation and rural clean energy projects. It also included sections of the U.S. Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service sites, and the U.S. Forest Service’s “Climate Risk Viewer,” which included detailed maps showing how climate change might affect national forests and grasslands.

• • Antarctica: Climate Crisis Threatens the Banana,
  The World’s Most Popular Fruit

  Fourth Most Important Food Crop In Peril as Latin America and Caribbean Suffer From Slow-Onset Climate Disaster
  
  

  May 12, 2025 -The climate crisis is threatening the future of the world’s most popular fruit, as almost two-thirds of banana-growing areas in Latin America and the Caribbean may no longer be suitable for growing the fruit by 2080, new research has found.

  Rising temperatures, extreme weather and climate-related pests are pummeling banana-growing countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, reducing yields and devastating rural communities across the region, according to Christian Aid’s new report, Going Bananas: How Climate Change Threatens the World’s Favorite Fruit.

• • Where it Will Soon Get Much More Humid in the United States

  Summer-like Levels of Humidity are Coming to Central and Eastern Parts of the Country
  
  

  May 12, 2025 -It’s about to get much more humid across the central and eastern United States, with many areas getting a taste of summer-like mugginess this week.

  A total of 37 contiguous states, as far north as Vermont, are forecast to experience high humidity.

• • North America Could Experience Record Heat as High Pressure Builds

  Temperatures Set to Soar 19C Above Seasonal Average – as Parts of Europe Edge Closer to Drought Conditions
  
  

  May 12, 2025 -North America could experience record-breaking heat this week as scorching daytime temperatures hit from south Manitoba in Canada all the way to Texas in the southern US.

  A powerful ridge of high pressure has built up over the continent, with a strong southerly flow amplifying high temperatures this week as it drags up a hot, dry, air mass. Environment and Climate Change Canada and the National Weather Service in the US have both issued heat alerts across their respective countries due to how extreme the temperatures are for the time of year.

• • U.K. Funds Geoengineering Experiments as Global Controversy Grows

  Critics Say U.K. Investment in Research on Climate-Cooling Interventions, Such as Refreezing Sea Ice and Brightening Clouds, Distracts From the Need to Cut Planet-Warming Emissions
  
  {Scientific American}
  
  

  May 12, 2025 -As temperatures fall and sunlight wanes this winter, scientists will gather in the Canadian Arctic with drills and pumps in tow. Their mission: to refreeze the region’s melting sea ice.

  Known as Re-Thickening Arctic Sea Ice, or RASi, the project aims to pump seawater from the ocean and spray it over the top of existing ice floes, where the cold air will freeze it solid. Researchers hope that the process will create a thicker layer of sea ice, helping undo some of the damage caused by rising global temperatures.

• • Antarctica: Climate Change Isn’t Some
  Far-Off Problem – It’s Here and Hitting Hard

  How the Ocean Shapes Our World. For Australia and Other Nations, the Lesson Is Urgent
  
  

  May 10, 2025 -Antarctica is often viewed as the last truly remote place on Earth – frozen, wild and untouched. But is it really as untouched as it seems?

  This vast frozen continent is encircled by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the only current in the world that connects all the oceans, showing how closely linked our planet really is.

• • Today’s Children Face a Lifetime of Extreme Heat

  Young People Today Will be Exposed to a Number of Heat Waves That No One Would Have Experienced Before the Burning of Fossil Fuels Started Raising Global Temperatures
  
  {Scientific American}
  
  

  May 9, 2025 -Just over half of the children born in 2020 will face unprecedented exposure to heatwaves over their lifetime — even under a conservative projection for how climate change will unfold over the next 75 years.

  The figure rises to 92% of today’s five-year-olds if more pessimistic climate predictions come to pass, and compares with just 16% of people born in 1960 under any future climate scenario.

• • Why are All of America’s Biggest Cities Sinking?

  A New Study Finds that the Country's 28 Most Populous Metros are Losing Elevation, from New York City to Seattle
  
  

  May 8, 2025 -Cities sit unmoving on the landscape — a sprawling collection of roads, sidewalks, and buildings designed to last for generations. But across the United States, urban areas are silently shifting: The land beneath them is sinking, a process known as subsidence, largely because people are using too much groundwater and aquifers are collapsing. The sheer weight of a metropolis, too, compacts the underlying soil.

  Click now to read more.

• • Climate Change Is Breaking the Insurance Industry

  Climate Related Problems, From Storms to Health Issues, are Causing a Wave of Change in the Insurance Industry
  
  

  May 8, 2025 -In early 2025, UK insurers paid a record £226 million in weather-related home insurance claims in just three months. The storm Eowyn battered Ireland and Scotland, knocking out power to nearly a million homes. This marked the eighth consecutive quarter where property claims exceeded £100 million ($133 million USD).

  The UK isn’t an exception. Across the Atlantic, Texas homeowners are facing a 43% surge in insurance premiums since 2023. By 2025, the average policy is expected to cost $500 more annually. Insurers have paid out $41 billion in catastrophe losses over five years, largely from hailstorms, hurricanes, and floods. In California, major insurers like State Farm and Allstate have stopped issuing new policies altogether, largely due to wildfire risks.

• • Trump Administration Decommissions Sea Ice
  Data That Sounded an Alarm on Arctic Climate Change

  Cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are Now Degrading the Datasets Used to Monitor the Most Rapidly Warming Parts of the Planet
  
  

  May 7, 2025 -Key datasets used to monitor the impacts of climate change in the Arctic have emerged as the latest victim of cost-cutting by the Trump administration at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

  The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), based at the University of Colorado Boulder, announced Tuesday that NOAA was ending its support for data products that document the extent and thickness of sea ice, the accumulation of snow and the retreat of melting glaciers.

• • Trump’s Gutting of US Climate Report
  Prompts Science Groups to Step Up

  Two Science Organizations Said They’ll Offer a Platform for the Research
  
  {Bloomberg}
  
  

  May 5, 2025 -Two US science organizations are launching a new climate research initiative after the Trump administration dismissed expert authors of the National Climate Assessment.

  The initiative will publish peer-reviewed manuscripts on climate change in the US, aiming to create a library of information for government, academia, philanthropy, and business.

• • New ‘Climate Superfund’ Laws Face Widening Legal Challenges

  The Trump Administration Sued to Block Two State Laws Designed to Force Oil Companies to Pay the Costs of Climate Change
  
  

  Apr. 16, 2025 -Vermont made history last year when it enacted the country’s first climate superfund law. It’s designed to let the state recover money from fossil fuel companies to help pay the rising costs of climate change.

  If the law can survive intensifying legal challenges, that is.

• • Pakistan May Hit 120 Degrees This Week

  It Could Be a Global Record
  
  

  Apr. 29, 2025 -Remarkable heat across South Asia may challenge global temperature records this week.

  Temperatures in central and southern Pakistan rose to 118 degrees Fahrenheit last weekend and are forecast to climb through Wednesday, possibly nearing the global April record of 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

• • All Authors Working on Flagship
  U.S. Climate Report Are Dismissed

  The Trump Administration Told Researchers they were “Released” from their Roles
  
  

  Apr. 28, 2025 -The Trump administration has dismissed the hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s flagship report on how global warming is affecting the country.

  The move puts the future of the report, which is required by Congress and is known as the National Climate Assessment, into serious jeopardy, experts said.

• • Ice All But Disappeared from this Alaskan Island

  It Changed Everything
  
  

  Apr. 27, 2025 -This tiny island in the middle of the Bering Sea had recently completed its longest winter stretch in recorded history with above-freezing temperatures — 343 consecutive hours, or 14 days — when Aaron Lestenkof drove out to look at Sea Lion Neck.

  It was another warm February day. He saw no sea ice; scant snow on the ground.

  Lestenkof is one of the sentinels on the island, a small team with the Aleut tribe who monitors changes to the environment across these 43 square miles of windswept hills and tundra. He is also one of 338 residents who still manage to live on St. Paul, something that has become significantly more complicated as the Bering Sea warms around them.

• • Why Does the US Rank Low on Demands for Climate Action?

  Support for Climate Action is Growing in the US, but Partisan Divides and Fossil Fuel Interests Hold Sway
  
  

  Apr. 23, 2025 -Over the last 12 months, the United States has endured a rash of disasters worsened by the climate crisis: devastating wildfires in southern California, a catastrophic hurricane in western North Carolina, and deadly heatwaves across the country.

  Americans increasingly believe global heating is a serious threat that will affect them personally – and 74% want to see more climate action. Yet while that sounds high, it is still lower than most other countries around the world. What explains this disparity?

• • Xi Contrasts China’s Clean Energy Promises with Trump Turmoil

  Virtual Meeting of Leaders Also Hears UN’s António Guterres Proclaim ‘No Group or Government’ Can Stop Green Revolution
  
  

  Apr. 23, 2025 -China will continue to push forward on the climate crisis, Xi Jinping has said while appearing to criticise the “protectionism” of Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

  The Chinese president was attending a closed-door virtual meeting with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and about a dozen other heads of state and government to discuss the climate crisis.

• • Climate Activists Interrupt New York City Ballet Performance

  Protesters Interrupted an all-Balanchine Program on the Company’s Spring Season Opening Night, which Coincided This Year with Earth Day
  
  

  Apr. 22, 2025 -A small group of climate change activists interrupted a New York City Ballet performance at the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center on Tuesday, the opening night of the company’s spring season.

  The protest occurred shortly before 9 p.m., as dancers and orchestra musicians performed George Balanchine’s “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” the third ballet on an all-Balanchine program.

• • How Pope Francis Helped Inspire the
  Global Movement Against Climate Change

  Francis Framed Climate Change as an Urgent Spiritual Issue and Helped Push the World to Take Action
  
  

  Apr. 21, 2025 -In a shift for the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, who died on Monday at 88, was a strong and vocal environmental advocate and used his papacy to help inspire global efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. He framed climate change as a spiritual issue, emphasizing the connections between global warming, poverty and social upheaval throughout his 12-year leadership.

  Within the church, taking such a stance was seen by some as unnecessarily injecting politics into church matters. For environmentalists, the support of Francis was immensely meaningful.

• • How Is Climate Change Harming Health?

  Studying That Just Got Harder
  
  

  Apr. 17, 2025 -With frequent and severe disasters repeatedly underscoring the dangers of climate change, scientists across the country have been working to understand the consequences for our hearts, lungs, brains and more — and how to best mitigate them.

  The work has relied largely on hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. But since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took charge of H.H.S., the Trump administration has indicated that it will stop funding research on the health effects of climate change.

• • Is the Planet Losing One of Its Best Ways to Slow Climate Change?

  Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Hit “Next-Level” Highs, Scientists Say. Earth’s Ecosystems Breaking Down Under Extreme Temperatures Could Be the Cause
  
  

  Apr. 16, 2025 -The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere last year grew at the fastest rate in recorded history — a dramatic spike that scientists fear may indicate that Earth’s ecosystems are so stressed by warming they can no longer absorb much of the pollution humanity emits.

  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Laboratory on Monday released data showing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 3.75 parts per million in 2024. That jump is 27 percent larger than the previous record increase, in 2015, and puts atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at a level not seen in at least 3 million years.

• • Climate Change Is Stressing the World’s Blood Supplies

  Extreme Weather Disasters, Increasing as the Planet Warms, Can Curb Blood Donations While Increasing Demand
  
  

  Apr. 16, 2025 -Climate change is coming for something surprising: the world’s blood supply.

  Warming and extreme weather can slow blood donations, disrupt blood transport and risk the safety of transfusions, according to a new study published on Wednesday in The Lancet Planetary Health.

• • "Hands Off!" Protesters Across US Rally Against Trump and Musk

  Protestors Rally World-Wide
  
  {CNN US}
  
  

  Apr. 16, 2025 -Dozens of people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo after torrential rains flooded the capital, Kinshasa, in the last few days, and destroyed hundreds of homes.

  The Ndjili River running through the megacity of 17 million people, one of the largest on the continent, burst its banks and submerged major roads, including Lumumba Boulevard, the main road leading to the airport.

• • Rewiring Britain for an Era of Clean Energy

  National Grid, Which Owns the High-Voltage Electricity Grid in England And Wales, Is Rebuilding It In a Government-Backed Drive to Attract Investment and Tackle Climate Change
  
  

  Apr. 14, 2025 -In a career spanning more than 30 years, John Pettigrew has seen big changes in the electricity industry. He started out in 1991, working to introduce natural-gas-fired power plants to the grid, gradually replacing polluting coal plants.

  Now, once again, he is managing a tectonic shift to an electrified economy that runs on renewable energy like wind and solar power. But these sources of power generation are far trickier to manage than their coal and gas predecessors.

• • Trump Administration Cuts Climate Research Funding

  Claiming It Creates ‘Climate Anxiety
  
  

  Apr. 9, 2025 -The Trump administration announced it is cutting nearly $4 million in federal funding for climate change research at Princeton University, saying that the work promoted “exaggerated and implausible climate threats” and increased “climate anxiety” among young Americans.

  The cuts to programs that study topics like sea-level rise and coastal flooding were announced Tuesday by the Commerce Department, which houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the world’s premier climate science agencies.

• • Climate Change Could Slash Personal Wealth by 40%

  Global Warming’s Economic Toll May Be Nearly Four Times Worse Than Once Believed
  
  

  Apr. 9, 2025 -By the end of this century, climate change may not just rewrite weather patterns and redraw coastlines—it could reach into wallets everywhere. A drought in India might send food prices soaring in Africa. A U.S. heatwave could rattle supply chains across Europe. Until now, economic models have treated nations like self-contained islands, untouched by climate chaos unfolding elsewhere. A new study published in Environmental Research Letters, also looks at these connections.

• • The World's Getting Hotter, Resulting in
  Severe Hurricanes, Thunderstorms and Floods

  Climate Change is Showing Its Claws
  
  {Munich RE}
  
  

  Apr. 8, 2025 - Natural disasters 2024 – a loss-heavy year for the insurance market: US$ 140bn in insured losses – since 1980, only two years have been more expensive

  Weather catastrophes dominant – powerful hurricanes, severe thunderstorms and floods driving the losses.

  North America with an even higher proportion of losses than usual – extreme flooding in Europe

• • In 15 Years, 80,000 Homes in
  the New York Area May Be Lost to Flooding

  But by 2040, Dozens of Neighborhoods and Suburbs are Likely to have Lost Thousands of Homes to Floods
  
  

  Apr. 7, 2025 -More than 80,000 homes on Staten Island, in southeast Queens and in the suburbs east of New York City could be lost to floods over the next 15 years, according to a new report that serves as a warning of how climate change could make the housing crisis even worse.

  The report, released Monday by the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit civic organization, said that swaths of land in every borough were likely to become impossible to develop, helping push the area’s housing shortage to a staggering 1.2 million homes.

• • New Delhi Sweats Through Its Hottest Recorded Day

  For Weeks Now, temperatures in several States in Northern India have Been Well Over 110
  
  

  Mar. 29, 2025 -New Delhi recorded its highest temperature ever measured on Wednesday — 126 degrees Fahrenheit, or 52.3 degrees Celsius — leaving residents of the Indian capital sweltering in a heat wave that has kept temperatures in several Indian states well above 110 degrees for weeks.

  In New Delhi, where walking out of the house felt like walking into an oven, officials feared that the electricity grid was being overwhelmed and that the city’s water supply might need rationing.

• • Climate Change Is Must-See Theater in London

  Meet the Playwrights Behind “Kyoto”
  
  

  Mar. 29, 2025 -Negotiations over the 1997 United Nations climate agreement might not seem the sort of stuff that could draw sold-out audiences to London’s West End. Think again. “Kyoto,” a play that dramatizes the first legally binding global pact to set emission targets is a hot ticket.

  Kyoto” premiered in 2024 in Stratford-Upon-Avon and opened in January in London at @sohoplace.

• • It’s About to Feel More Like June than March Across the U.S.

  Summer-Like Temperatures Will Sweep Across the Country Over the Next Two Weeks, Along With Increasing Humidity and More Severe Weather
  
  

  Mar. 26, 2025 -More than 120 million people across 33 states are forecast to experience temperatures higher than 80 degrees over the next two weeks.

  On Wednesday, the most unusual heat, and rare severe thunderstorms, will bubble up over the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West, with more than two dozen record-high temperatures possible. June-like warmth will reach the Plains on Thursday, where it may break records, before hitting the Midwest on Friday and the East Coast on Saturday.

• • Global Sea Ice Hits a New Low

  The data Comes After Researchers Reported that the Past 10 Years Have Been the 10 hHottest on Record
  
  

  Mar. 25, 2025 -Earth is missing a lot of sea ice this year. Enough to cover the entire United States east of the Mississippi.

  That was announced by researchers at NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center on Thursday, who said the amount of sea ice on the planet had reached the lowest level ever recorded in March.

• • This Muggy City Keeps Cool with Minimal AC

  Palava City, a 5,000-Acre Experimental Community Northeast of Mumbai, Hopes to Provide a Model for Adapting to a Climate-Transformed World
  
  

  Mar. 25, 2025 -The wind ruffled Aun Abdullah’s hair as he strolled along a path paved through lush grasses circled by apartments more than 20 stories high. Large gaps between the towering buildings channeled the winds, providing relief from the muggy heat.

  “This breeze you’re feeling, you wouldn’t feel without the master plan,” said Abdullah, who works for the Lodha Group, a prominent real estate developer in India.

• • Buying Carbon Credits to Fight Climate Change?

  Problems of Additionality and Leakage Mean You Might Not Be Making the Contribution You Think
  
  

  Mar. 24, 2025 -Taylor Swift may not be the first person who comes to mind when you think about climate change. But more than once, the singer has found herself in the middle of a media storm over her carbon di­oxide emissions.

  Swift regularly hops aboard her private jet, as she did in 2024 to get from a concert in Tokyo to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas the next day. A spokesperson said that Swift purchases more than enough carbon credits to offset her jet-setting. But fans and haters alike want to know: Is it enough?

• • A Huge Iceberg Broke Off Antarctica

  What Scientists Found Under it Startled Them
  
  

  Mar. 20, 2025 -Researchers were working off the coast of Antarctica when it happened: A gigantic iceberg about 19 miles long cracked off the ice sheet on Jan. 13, revealing a swath of ocean that had not seen daylight in decades.

  The team aboard a research vessel called the Falkor (too) decided to search the seafloor under the freshly exposed ocean. No human had ever explored the deep sea there before.

• • A Personal Finance Reporter Ponders His Own Climate Change Risk

  A Times Reporter Co-Wrote a Guide to Buying a Home in an Era of Record Heat, Floods and Billion-Dollar Disasters
  
  

  Mar. 20, 2025 -It’s kind of a lot to live with a personal finance reporter like me. Everything is diversification and risk, prudent investing and delayed gratification.

  So it was not a surprise a few years ago when my wife started asking open-ended questions about what constitutes smart real estate decision-making as the planet warms and the weather gets more severe.

• • Alexandria is Sinking. Why Don’t Local Fishers Believe It?

  The Ancient Mediterranean City is at Risk as Sea Levels Rise
  
  

  Mar. 20, 2025 -Alexandria is one of the world’s sinking cities, along with Venice, Miami, Lagos, Jakarta and others. An IPCC report predicts that with global sea levels rising at the current rate, and without adequate preventive measures, thousands of kilometres of the Nile delta could be fully submerged by 2100.

  Like the rest of Egypt’s Mediterranean coast around the delta, El Max also faces several other environmental risks, including land subsidence, soil erosion, earthquakes and water pollution from nearby petrochemical plants, which all add to the increasing vulnerability of the area.

• The National Climate Change Assessment
• 6 Things We Can Do About Climate Change
• Climate Change Positive Thoughts (free e-Book)
• Get the Climate Lab Book
• Interactive Climate Map 2050 (CC Consequences)
• The People's Dosier on Climate Change

• Global Warming Report from NOAA
• Another Good Global Warming Resource
• More Climate Change Resources
• NY Times Climate Forward: (Climate Change Q&A)
• Carbon Fee & Dividend Video
• Interactive Air Pollution Map 2100