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Climate Change

Page Updated:
Sept. 17 2024

• • Schools Are Ripping Up Playgrounds Across the U.S.

  Replacing Them With Trees, and Shade Structures
  
  

  Sep. 14, 2024 -As a girl growing up here, Natalie McHugh used to play on the vast expanses of asphalt and concrete that coated the city’s schoolyards.

  She didn’t question as a student why there weren’t more trees or think twice about the blacktop during her decades as an educator at Southwark Elementary School in South Philadelphia...

• • Reviving a Landmark Climate Lawsuit

  Youth Group Asks Supreme
  Court to Do Just That
  
  

  Sep. 12, 2024 -A group of young people who filed a landmark climate change lawsuit in 2015 against the federal government, only to have their suit thrown out, are turning to the Supreme Court in an attempt to revive the case and get their day in court.

• • Pope Francis Calls For Climate Change
  Action on His itiqlal Mosque Visit

  Bringing Other Religions
  Into the Fold
  
  

  Sep. 4, 2024 -Pope Francis on Thursday invited Muslims and Catholics to push global leaders to confront the dangers of climate change and extremism, and spoke of the common roots of different religious beliefs as he visited Southeast Asia's largest mosque in Jakarta.

• • Biden’s Top Climate Negotiator to Visit China This Week

  John Podesta is Expected to {ush for China to Set More Ambitious Greenhouse Gas Targets
  
  

  Sep. 3, 2024 -John Podesta, President Biden’s top climate diplomat, is traveling to Beijing on Tuesday where he is expected to press Chinese leaders to make more ambitious plans to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

• • Climate Change Can Cause Bridges to ‘Fall Apart Like Tinkertoys,’

  Extreme Heat and Flooding are Accelerating the Deterioration of Bridges, Engineers Say, Posing a Quiet But Growing Threat
  
  

  Sep. 2, 2024 -On a 95-degree day this summer, New York City’s Third Avenue Bridge, connecting the Bronx and Manhattan, got stuck in the open position for hours. As heat and flooding scorched and scoured the Midwest, a steel railroad bridge connecting Iowa with South Dakota collapsed under surging waters. In Lewiston, Maine, a bridge closed after the pavement buckled from fluctuating temperatures.

• • Climate Change Comes to the Tetons

  Melting Glaciers and Warmer Temperatures Raise Fears of Ecological Tipping Points
  
  

  Aug. 29 2024 - The signs of a warming planet are everywhere here in Grand Teton National Park. With retreating glaciers, lakes depleted by drought and forests parched by hotter temperatures, climate change is upending one of the great intact ecosystems in North America.

• • Time is Running Out to See These Frozen Sites

  Thousands of Glaciers Have Already Met Their Demise. For the First Time, Scientists are Documenting the Ones Vanishing Around the Globe
  
  

  Aug. 25 2024 -Venezuela is now glacier-free, losing its last one this year. New Zealand has lost at least 264 glaciers. The western United States has lost about 400 glaciers since the middle of the 20th century. Swiss researchers tallied more than 1,000 small ones lost. East Africa has less than 2 square kilometers of total glacial ice remaining.

• • Another Outer Banks Home Collapses Into Ocean

  A Stark Reminder of Climate Change
  
  

  Aug. 17, 2024 - In the community of Rodanthe on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, residents witnessed on Friday an event that was not new and is unfortunately becoming more frequent: A house on the picturesque shoreline collapsed into the ocean.

• • The World Prepares To Cross Dangerous Warming Tipping Point

  Here Are 10 Grim Climate Scenarios
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2024 - The summer of 2023 was intense: deadly wildfires, massive storms, and record-breaking heat. Although scientists exercise great care before linking individual weather events to climate change, the rise in global temperatures caused by human activities has increased the severity, likelihood, and duration of such conditions.

• • Saving the Panama Canal From Drought

  A Disruptive Fix Is Needed
  
  

  Aug. 14, 2024 - Ricaurte Vásquez Morales is a man obsessed with water. An app on his phone displays the fluctuating level of Lake Gatún, the artificial reservoir that is the centerpiece of the Panama Canal system. He checks it constantly, the way a gambling addict monitors football scores. He keeps a vigilant eye on the weather.

  Last year, a drought dropped the lake to critical levels, prompting canal authorities to limit traffic. At the worst point, in December, only 22 ships a day were allowed to pass through the canal, down from the usual 36 to 38. More than 160 ships were stuck at anchor at both ends.

  Click now for the list.

• • Coffee is Threatened By Climate Change

  But There May Be a ‘Robust’ Solution
  
  

  Aug. 16 2024 -About 60% of the coffee we drink is sourced from Coffea arabica, a delicate variety that experts predict could dwindle by up to 80% by 2050, under the effects of climate change.

  But the solution may be in plain sight—and the clue’s in its name: Coffea robusta, which makes up the remainder of coffee consumption worldwide, also happens to be more adaptable to variable climate conditions, and continues to produce high yields.

• •  Tropical Storm Ernesto

  Track Where the storm is Heading in the Latest Models
  
  

  Aug. 13, 2024 < USA Today > -Tropical Storm Ernesto formed Monday as it moved toward the Caribbean islands and the forecast suggest Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands could experience tropical storm conditions beginning Tuesday.

  You can track the storm's path with the latest maps and models below and follow along with USA TODAY's coverage of Tropical Storm Ernesto as the fifth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season moves through the Caribbean.

• • Climate Measures Saved Almost
  40,000 Lives in 2023 in Europe Alone

  A Modeling Study Shows That Without Climate Adaptation, Plenty Of People Would Lose Their Life Every Year
  
  

  Aug. 12, 2024 - The summer of 2023 was one for the record books — both in temperature highs and the devastating human toll it exacted. It was the hottest year on record and a testament to what’s to come with global heating. According to recent research, over 47,000 heat-related deaths may have occurred in Europe in the year 2023. However, we are not helpless: without climate adaptation, the figure would have increased by around 80%.

• • Can Dirt Clean the Climate?

  An Australian Start-Up is Hoping Fungi Can Pull CO2 From the Air and Stash it Underground
  
  

  Aug. 10, 2024 - Across 100,000 acres in the vast agricultural heartland of Australia, an unusual approach is taking root to slow down the wrecking ball of climate change. Farmers are trying to tap the superpowers of tiny subterranean tendrils of fungus to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and stash it underground.

• • Record-breaking Coral Sea
  Temperatures Threaten the Great Barrier Reef

  Coral Analyses Show the Region is Sweltering Under the Highest Ocean Heat in Four Centuries
  
  

  Aug. 7, 2024 -Australia’s Great Barrier Reef faces critical danger from back-to-back bouts of extreme ocean heat.

  Ocean heat in the Coral Sea is at its highest in four centuries, scientists report in the Aug. 8 Nature. The researchers drilled into coral skeletons from in and around the region and analyzed the chemical makeup of those samples to reconstruct sea surface temperatures from 1618 to 1995, alongside modern instrumental sea surface measurements spanning 1900 to 2024.

• • Photos Taken 15 Years Apart Show Melting Swiss Glaciers

  Photos that Show ‘Staggering’ Changes in the Alps
  
  

  Aug. 6, 2024 -A tourist has posted “staggering” photos of himself and his wife at the same spot in the Swiss Alps almost exactly 15 years apart, in a pair of photos that highlight the speed with which global heating is melting glaciers.

  Duncan Porter, a software developer from Bristol, posted photos that were taken in the same spot at the Rhône glacier in August 2009 and August 2024. The white ice that filled the background has shrunk to reveal grey rock...

• • Tropical Glacier Decline in the Andes

  They're the Smallest They’ve Been in 11,700 Years
  
  

  Aug. 3, 2024 -Along a valley of the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, Emilio Mateo set out on a 10-mile hike up to the Queshque Glacier. Following the tracks of llamas and cattle, Mateo, a researcher at the Aspen Global Change Institute, and his research assistant were on their way to collect glacier samples.

  Armed with a hammer and chisel, and empty backpacks to carry back 35 pounds of bedrock samples, their goal was to get as close as possible to the glacier and reach a still-forming glacial lake that wasn’t there 15 years ago.

• • Aggressive Algae Bloom Clogged DC Area Water System

  Prompting Boil Water Advisory
  
  

  July 30, 2024 -A severe algae bloom clogged equipment at one of the treatment facilities providing drinking water in the Washington region, forcing officials to declare a boil-water advisory on the night of July 3—as thousands of visitors arrived to celebrate Independence Day.

  The advisory was lifted the morning of July 4. But the incident was an ominous sign of how warming water temperatures caused by climate change can disrupt essential civic services.

• • Trees in the Amazon are “Running”
  Uphill to Escape from Climate Change

  Trees are Searching for Colder Temperatures, With Far-Reaching Consequences For the Entire Ecosystem
  
  

  July 25, 2024 -In the heart of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, an ancient ecosystem with a unique biodiversity, climate change is causing a subtle yet significant shifts. Species of trees are moving around, searching for more suitable conditions.

  When climate change starts to hit and temperatures get hotter year after year, individual trees can’t move around. It’s different with tree populations, however. These populations have been shown to “migrate” over time. And this is exactly what’s happening now in the Amazon.

• • How the Park Fire Got So Big, So Fast

  The Blaze, Now the Fifth-Largest In California History, Has Been Fed By Exceptionally Dry Vegetation Following More Than A Month of Extreme Heat
  
  

  July 30, 2024 -The Park fire, which started on July 24 near Chico, Calif., quadrupled in size within just a few days. It now covers an area more than 12 times the size of San Francisco. On Tuesday, it became the fifth-largest blaze in California history.

  The fire has destroyed at least 192 structures, with 4,200 more threatened, Cal Fire said on Tuesday morning. Thousands of people are under evacuation orders.

• • They Were 4 Hottest Days Ever Observed
  

  Raising Fears of a Planet
  Nearing ‘Tipping Points'
  
  

  July 27, 2024 -As global temperatures spiked to their highest levels in recorded history on Monday, ambulances were screaming through the streets of Tokyo, carrying scores of people who had collapsed amid an unrelenting heat wave.

  A monster typhoon was emerging from the scorching waters of the Pacific Ocean, which were several degrees warmer than normal. Thousands of vacationers fled the idyllic mountain town of Jasper, Canada ahead of a fast-moving wall of wildfire flames.

• • The Inense Heat in One Arizona County

  Hundreds May have Died From It
  
  

  July 24, 2024 - Hundreds of people may have died from heat in Arizona’s Maricopa County amid another record-breaking summer in the state.

  Heat has killed 27 people in the county, which is home to Phoenix, and is suspected as the cause of 396 other deaths so far this year, according to figures released Tuesday.

• • A Mosquito That's Flourishing Thanks to Climate Change

  CDC Researchers Create
  a Test Learn More
  
  

  July 23, 2024 -For years, climate scientists have cautioned that the warming world could create conditions where animals, insects and other creatures would establish themselves in places they had not been found before—and bring diseases harmful to humans with them.

  That scenario is now playing out in Africa, where a mosquito native to Asia has found a new home on the planet’s second-largest continent—and, as a prime carrier of the parasite that causes malaria, poses an increased public health threat to nearly 130 million people.

• • Could Geo-engineering, Help Save the Planet?

  Conspiracy Theories Swirl
  
  

  July 20, 2024 -If we can’t control rising global temperatures by drastically cutting carbon emissions, could something called geo-engineering be a way to cool the planet?

  In what is already a multi-billion-dollar industry, scientists around the world, including in the UK, are researching geo-engineering - ways of manipulating the climate to tackle global warming.

• • The Era of China’s Soaring
  Carbon Emissions Might Be Ending

  There Are Promising Signs From the World’s Biggest Emitter of Greenhouse Gases
  
  

  July 18, 2024 -China, the world’s biggest source of planet-warming greenhouse gases for most of the past two decades, is seemingly on the verge of bending its emissions curve from years of steep growth into a flat plateau.

  The implications for climate change could scarcely be greater. Since China’s emissions surpassed those of the United States in 2006, China’s global share has grown to almost a third — a huge number, even with population differences taken into account.

• • Amtrak Passengers Face Record
  Delays From Extreme Weather

  The Dated U.S. Rail Infrastructure Struggles to Stay Operational as Climate Change Accelerates...
  
  

  July 17, 2024 On June 20, after millions of Americans had suffered through a sweltering heat wave for three days, Amtrak sent an ominous warning over social media: Trains connecting the largest cities in Northeast could face up to an hour of delay from high temperatures.

  Click to read all about it.

• • Brutal Heat is Blasting the East Coast

  Here’s a City-By-City Forecast
  
  

  July 15, 2024 -After a 10-day siege of record high temperatures in the western United States, the core of extreme heat has shifted toward the East Coast. To start the new week, about 100 million people are under heat alerts from Florida to Maine, and relief is not expected for several days.

  Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and much of eastern North Carolina and Southeast Virginia are under excessive-heat warnings, the highest level alert. In these areas, highs are expected to rise to near 100 with heat indexes — a measure of how hot it feels factoring in humidity — reaching 105 to 110.

• • After Hurricane Beryl’s Destruction,
  Climate Scientists Fear for What’s Next
  

  Experts Say Devastating Hurricane So Early in Season is ‘Big Wake-Up Call’
  
  

  July 13, 2024 -The poignancy was unmistakable: prognosticators at Colorado State University amended their already miserable seasonal tropical cyclone forecast on Monday precisely as Hurricane Beryl was filling Houston’s streets with floodwater and knocking out power to more than 2m homes and businesses.

  “A likely harbinger of a hyperactive season” was how CSU researchers characterized Beryl, which set numerous records on the way to its Texas landfall, including the earliest category 5 hurricane, strongest ever June storm, and most powerful to strike the southern Windward Islands.

• • Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.

  Dangerous Levels of Heat are Forecast Across Many Areas of the Contiguous United States
  
  

  July 11, 2024 -About 111.2 million people — 34 percent of the population of the contiguous United States — live in the areas expected to have dangerous levels of heat.

  Click now for the story and a graph.

• • Rescue Helicopters Struggle to Fly in the Extreme Heat

  These Extreme Temperatures Are Affecting How Rescue Choppers Carry Out Their Missions
  
  

  July 10, 2024 -The call came at 2 p.m. Sunday: A driver suffered a brain injury in a traffic accident and needed to be flown to a different hospital as soon as possible.

  Lead helicopter pilot Douglas Evans noted the 116.6-degree temperature in Redding, Calif., where he would need to land. The tarmac was probably even hotter...

• 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