Our Neighborhood

Earth

Keeping It Green

Climate Change

Page Updated:
Sept. 23, 2023

• • Climate Change and California Insurance

  More Carriers Are Leaving
  Disaster-Prone States
  
  

  Sep. 22, 2023 -California top leaders announced Thursday that they are making reforms to the state’s insurance system to stabilize the market, a big shift in one of the nation’s most disaster-prone states with one of the world’s largest insurance markets.

  The state’s action, using executive decrees, came after seven out of the state’s top 12 carriers, including giants Allstate and State Farm, have pulled back coverage in the last year due to wildfires and the rising costs of such risks.

• • How AI Predicted Hurricane Lee a Week in Advance

  The Technology is Rapidly Advancing
  
  

  Sep. 21, 2023 -As Hurricane Lee tracked slowly westward in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 10, three new weather models developed in the private sector predicted the storm would make landfall in Nova Scotia about a week later. With the storm still thousands of miles from North America, the forecasts turned out to be an astonishingly accurate achievement for technology not long ago considered to be in its infancy.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Are We Addicted to Cool?

  How the Dream of Air
  Conditioning Turned into the
  Dark Future of Climate Change
  
  

  Sep. 21, 2023 -In 2023, Jeep rolled out a new edition of its popular four-wheel-drive SUV. For the first time since the company introduced the car in 1986, air conditioning wasn’t an option, it was a must. This appears to be the end of an era: “The last car in the U.S. without standard air conditioning,” read the headline of an article in the automotive press, “finally gives up the fight against refrigerant.”

  Click now for the whole story.

• • A Saltwater Wedge Climbs the Mississippi

  Drinking Water is Threatened
  
  

  Sep. 21, 2023 -For six generations, Ricky Becnel’s family has run the massive tree nursery on the banks of the Mississippi River near Belle Chasse, La. Its 20 acres and half a million trees, most of them citrus, require pumping about 100,000 gallons a day of fresh water from the river during the warm season.

  But in recent days, as salt water from the Gulf has crept steadily up the drought-stricken river he has scrambled to prepare for the very real possibility that the farm’s lifeblood might soon be unusable.

• • Climate Forward Live Event

  Discussing the Threats of
  a Rapidly Warming Planet
  
  

  Sep. 21, 2023 -The Climate Forward live event on Thursday brought together some of climate’s most vital newsmakers to share ideas, work through problems and answer tough questions about the threats presented by a rapidly warming planet.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • The Reach of Wildfire Smoke Goes Global

  Undoing Progress on Clean Air
  
  

  Sep. 20, 2023 -On the heels of an exceptionally fiery and smoky summer, two new reports released Wednesday confirmed what many Americans have been already seeing and breathing.

  Smoke from increasingly frequent and increasingly large fires has started to undo decades of hard-won gains in air quality, and the problem is expected to only get worse, not just in the United States but also around the world.

• • How to Cool Down a City

  Singapore Rethinks its Sweltering
  Urban Areas to Dampen
  the Effects of Climate Change
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2023 -Singapore’s prime minister has described climate change as “life and death.” He has reason to worry: Stifling temperatures and humidity already last all year, and the city-state has warmed at twice the global average over the past six decades.

  Rapid urbanization has made Singapore hotter. A big part of the problem is how almost every global city is built.

• • Shaming Without Naming the World’s Climate Delinquents

  Test For the U.N. Chief
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2023 -The world’s top diplomat, António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, on Tuesday told world leaders their efforts to address the climate crisis had come up “abysmally short” and called on them to do what even climate-ambitious countries have been reluctant to do: stop expanding coal, oil and gas production.

  Click now for the rest of the story.

• • Exxon and Oil Sands Go on Trial in New York

  A Climate Fraud Case
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2023 -In late 2013, ExxonMobil faced increasing pressure from investors to disclose more about the risks the company faced as governments began limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Of the many costs climate change will impose, oil companies face a particularly acute one: the demand for their product will have to shrink.

  Click now for the full story.

• • Australia: 'Black Summer' Predicted

  Scarred by Bushfires,
  and On High Alert
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2023 -Four years since bushfires destroyed wide swathes of southeastern Australia, killing 33, the country is once again on high alert, bracing for what weather experts say will be the hottest, driest period since the so-called Black Summer.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • More Than 100 Climate Protesters Arrested in New York City

  Calling on the Federal Reserve to End Fossil Fuel Financing
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2023 -In one of the largest acts of civil disobedience to protest climate change in New York in a decade, more than 100 climate protesters were arrested on Monday after blockading the entrances to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where they called on financial regulators to curb fossil fuel financing.

  Undeterred by pouring rain, around five hundred protesters gathered at Zuccotti Park at 10 Monday morning before marching to the Fed

• • The Importance of Protecting Ocean Life

  The Head of the Wildlife
  Conservation Society Makes a
  Case for the High Seas Treaty
  
  

  Sep. 20, 2023 -When delegates from countries around the world meet this week at the United Nations, many will sign a landmark agreement for environmental conservation, climate-change mitigation and biodiversity protection that is known as the High Seas Treaty.

  The treaty outlines how the global community can protect, conserve, and benefit equitably from the ocean and its resources.

• • At a Summit on Climate Ambition

  The U.S. and China
  End Up on the B List
  
  

  Sep. 20, 2023 -The UN secretary general, António Guterres, convened a special summit on Wednesday in New York City designed to highlight the efforts of the most ambitious global leaders on climate policy — and to implicitly shame those who are dragging their feet.

  The US and China were not invited to speak.

• • Extreme Downpours Trigger Flooding Around the World

  Scientists Take a Closer Look at Global Warming’s Role
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2023 -Torrential downpours sent muddy water racing through streets in Libya, Greece, Spain and Hong Kong in early September 2023, with thousands of deaths in the city of Derna, Libya. Zagora, Greece, saw a record 30 inches of rain, the equivalent of a year and a half of rain falling in 24 hours.

  A few weeks earlier, monsoon rains triggered deadly landslides and flooding in the Himalayas that killed dozens of people in India.

• • Anger in Libya Over the Floods

  The Alarms Failed to Sound
  
  

  Sep. 19, 2023 -Communications went down, some journalists were pushed out and a U.N. aid team was blocked from the flood-hit city of Derna on Tuesday, as the authorities sought to contain public anger over the failure to prevent Libya's worst ever natural disaster.

  A week after a flood wiped out much of the centre of the city, furious Derna residents demonstrated on the streets and torched the home of the mayor overnight. They accuse the authorities of failing to maintain the dams that protected the city, and failing to evacuate residents before the storm.

• • London Facing 113F Days ‘in the Foreseeable Future

  The Mayor is Justifiably Concerned
  
  

  Sep. 18, 2023 -London faces the “incredibly worrying” prospect of enduring days that hit 45C (113F) due to the worsening climate crisis, its mayor, Sadiq Khan, told the Guardian at a climate summit in New York where governments have gathered to discuss how to best cope with searing temperatures.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Environmental Benefits From Working From Home

  We Could Be Doing Earth a Favor
  
  

  Sep. 18, 2023 -Fully remote workers could produce less than half the climate-warming emissions of people who spend their days in offices, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Click now for the whole story.

• • Climate Protesters March on New York

  Calling for End to Fossil Fuels
  
  

  Sep. 17, 2023 -Tens of thousands of people, young and old, filled the streets of Midtown Manhattan under blazing sunshine on Sunday to demand that world leaders quickly pivot away from fossil fuels dangerously heating the Earth.

  Their ire was sharply directed at President Biden, who arrived in New York Sunday night for several fund-raisers this week and to speak before the United Nations General Assembly session that begins Tuesday.

• • What is Eco-Anxiety?

  How Some Feel About Global Warming
  
  

  Sep. 16, 2023 -After a summer of intense heat, raging fires and catastrophic floods, a term for pervading dread about climate change and other environmental crises is having its moment.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • The Climate Crisis Could Impact the 2026 World Cup

  Maybe a Fire Can
  Be Lit Under Sports Fans
  
  

  Sept. 15, 2023 -That was the stark warning from Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev as he battled the heat, humidity and Andrey Rublev at the US Open in New York last week. It came just a week after some races at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest were moved because of fears over the safety of competitors.

  With extreme temperatures more likely across the globe as a result of climate change, these kind of impacts are becoming the new reality for sport.

• • Africa's Hydro Plant Future

  Solar Energy and Climate
  Change Are Killing It
  
  

  Sep. 15, 2023 -There are around 1.2 billion people in Africa, and most of them need more energy than they're using now. The person in Africa uses four times less energy than the global average, but as African nations improve their standard of living, they are starting to use more and more electricity. Hopefully, the vast majority of that new energy will be renewable and clean — and indeed, that's the plan for much of the African continent, with hydropower at the forefront.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Your Cellphone Could Radiate You

  Apple Software Update
  Could Solve the Problem
  
  

  Sep. 15, 2023 -For many people, the iPhone 12 effectively disappeared from the market on Tuesday, when Apple introduced that model and stopped selling the 12, first released in October 2020. In Europe, however, the iPhone 12 remains a notable device, as a number of countries are following France's lead in looking into the device's electromagnetic profile. With a software update coming, it may go back on sale soon.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Rivers Warmed by Climate
  Change Produce Unintended Results

  Endangering the Plants
  and Animals They Harbor
  
  

  Sep. 14, 2023 -As climate change warms rivers, they are losing dissolved oxygen from their water. This process, which is called deoxygenation, was already known to be occurring in large bodies of water, like oceans and lakes. A study that colleagues and I just published in Nature Climate Change shows that it is happening in rivers as well.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • World Needs $2.7 Trillion Annually
  For Net Zero Emissions by 2050,

  Based on a Wood Mackenzie Report
  
  

  Sep. 14, 2023 -Global investment of $2.7 trillion a year is needed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and avoid temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius this century, a report by consultancy Wood Mackenzie said on Thursday.

  Scientists have said the world ideally needs to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5C this century to avoid catastrophic effects from climate change. Many governments have pledged to reduce emissions to net zero by mid-century to help achieve this.

• • Iron Dust Could Reverse the Course of Climate Change

  But It Does Carry Major Risks
  
  

  Sep. 14, 2023 -For a while it seemed switching to clean energy might be enough to stave off climate catastrophe. But even though the United States has cut coal-fired electricity use from 50 percent to 19.5 percent in the past 20 years, the growth of coal in the rest of the world and the rising demand for energy overall — not to mention the extreme weather we are all experiencing — make it clear that we desperately need another solution.

  This kind of geoengineering has prompted two kinds of worries, both legitimate. First, activists and scientists feared geoengineering might give industries an excuse not to adopt cleaner technologies. Also, there was concern about inadvertent effects, including toxic algae blooms and impacts on commercially important fish species.

• • Hurricaines Are Not All Bad

  They Keep Earth's
  Energy in Balance
  
  

  Sep. 14, 2023 -Hurricanes are known for their destruction. Whipping winds, fast-flowing floods and soaring storm surge take lives and rack up billions of dollars in damage each year. Devastating as they are to humankind, hurricanes also play a role in creating a balance of energy on Earth, as they transfer heat across the globe.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • An Increasing Number of Hurricanes Are Rapidly Intensifying

  Learn What's Causing It
  
  

  Sep. 13, 2023 -As the world’s oceans continue to stockpile heat from global warming, stories of such rapid intensification of tropical cyclones are becoming more commonplace, and not just in the Atlantic.

  Click now for the complete story.

• • 20 Countries’ Oil and Gas Extraction
  Plans Risk Locking in Climate Chaos

  They Can Be
  Labeled as, 'Planet Wreckers'
  
  

  Sept. 12, 2023, [OILCHANGE INTERNATIONAL] -Only 20 countries, led overwhelmingly by the United States, are responsible for nearly 90 percent of the carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution threatened by new oil and gas fields and fracking wells planned between 2023 and 2050. If this oil and gas expansion is allowed to proceed, it would lock in climate chaos and an unlivable future.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Tropical Storm Warnings Issued for New England

  In Preparation for Hurricane Lee
  
  

  Sep. 14, 2023 -Category 1 Hurricane Lee is sideswiping Bermuda as it churns north and sets its sights on eastern New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Tropical storm warnings blanket the New England coastline, and for the first time since 2008, hurricane watches have been issued for Downeast Maine.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Climate Change: The Grave Situation

  The Dead Won't Stay Buried

  [USA TODAY], Sep. 14, 2023 -Climate change isn’t just creating havoc for the living. It’s coming for our dead.

  Great deluges of rain submerge graves and markers. Swift floods set vaults afloat. Slopes erode in scenic hillside cemeteries. And at the seaside, higher seas and storm surges swamp cemeteries and sweep sand away.

• • Shocking Ice Core Revealation

  Antarctica is Warming Twice as Fast as Global Average
  
  

  Sept. 13, 2023 -As the world heats up in response to human-caused carbon emissions, scientists expect that the Earth’s poles will experience the largest increases in temperature.

  This is already being seen in the Arctic, which has warmed nearly four times faster than the global average over the past four decades.

• • Libya Floods Wipe Out a Quarter of a City

  Result: Thousands Dead
  
  

  Sep. 13, 2023 -Thousands of people were killed and at least 10,000 were missing in Libya in floods caused by a huge Mediterranean storm that burst dams, swept away buildings and wiped out as much as a quarter of the eastern coastal city of Derna.

  A senior medic in Derna told Reuters that more than 2,000 people were dead, while eastern Libya officials cited by local television were estimating a toll above 5,000.

• • Coral Reefs Are in Trouble

  Robots to the Rescue?
  
  

  Sept. 12, 2023 -Corals are animals called polyps, found mostly in tropical waters. The soft-bodied polyp forms a hard outer shell by extracting calcium carbonate from the sea. Over time those hard shells build up to form the foundations of the reefs we see today.

  Coral reefs may only cover 0.2% of the seafloor, but they provide a habitat to more than a quarter of marine species.

  With extreme temperatures more likely across the globe as a result of climate change, these kind of impacts are becoming the new reality for sport.

• • Climate Disaster Costs Are in the Billions

  There Have Been 23 in 2023
  
  

  Sep. 12, 2023 -The United States has suffered 23 billion-dollar disasters so far in 2023, a record for this point in the year that highlights the country’s struggle to adapt to the effects of climate change.

  The list, compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, includes the fire in Maui that killed at least 115 people, the deadliest United States wildfire in more than a century; Hurricane Idalia, which struck western Florida as a Category 3 storm; and a storm in Minnesota that dropped hail the size of pingpong balls, cutting off power for more than 25,000 homes and businesses.

• • Climate Activists to Address
  Crowd at Swiss Music Festival

  Promoted by a Renowned Musical Conductor

  [CNN], Sep. 11, 2023 -A famed Russian conductor allowed climate protesters who disrupted a performance at a classical music festival in Switzerland to address the crowd, despite grumbling from some members of the audience.

  Vladimir Jurowski, director of the Bavarian State Opera, “made a deal” on Friday with two protesters from Renovate Switzerland, an environmental campaign group that is pushing the Swiss government to declare a climate crisis, in a moment that was captured on video.

• • Climate Disaster and Blood Shortages

  The Red Cross Names the Culprit
  
  

  Sep. 11, 2023 -The blood supply in the United States has dropped to critically low levels, in part because of “back-to-back months of worsening climate-related disasters,” the American Red Cross said on Monday.

  Click here for the whole story.

• • We’re Thinking About Climate Risk All Wrong

  When Human Survival is at
  Stake, Conventional Analyses
  “May Become Useless”
  
  

  Sep. 11, 2023 - Would you live in a building, cross a bridge, or trust a dam wall if there were a 10 percent chance of it collapsing? Or 5 percent? Or 1 percent? Of course not! In civil engineering, acceptable probabilities of failure generally range from 1-in-10,000 to 1-in-10-million.

  So why, when it comes to climate action, are policies like carbon budgets accepted when they have success rates of just 50 to 66 percent? That’s hardly better than a coin toss.

• • How Sweltering Dubai Stays Cool

  How About Indoor
  Skiing and Snow Cinemas?
  
  

  Sep. 10, 2023 -In one of the world’s richest and hottest cities, combating the desert heat and humidity is not just a way of life, it’s a chance to get creative.

  From oceanside ice baths to indoor ski resorts, people living in Dubai are doing their best to keep cool, even while nature works against them. Unlike other major cities, ill-equipped to fight rising temperatures caused by climate change, people in this metropolis in the United Arab Emirates are prepared, though that often depends on how much money you have. Air conditioning is ubiquitous — even outdoors — public cooling centers abound and gatherings shift to early morning or late evening.

• • Farming During Extreme Heat Episodes

  Farmers May Have
  to Go Nocturnal
  
  

  Sep. 9, 2023 -Mark Hines’s workday starts while the sun sets, when the grass grows heavy with dew and the bugs are as loud as they are close. His friends call him the “Night Farmer.”

  While others sleep, Hines roams his Derwood, Md., farm from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., picking tomatoes, melons, pumpkins and lettuce by the light of a headlamp and well after the heat of the day. As he works, his puppy, Cooper, plays alongside him in the eggplant vines, a light-up tag buckled to his orange harness.

• • UN Calls For Radical Changes to Stem Warming

  If Not Now, Then When?
  
  

  Sep. 8, 2023 - Tackling climate change needs a rapid transformation of the way our world works, travels, eats and uses energy, according to an important UN review.

  This is the first "global stocktake" to examine the efforts of countries to reduce planet-warming emissions since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015.

  While progress has been made, efforts now need to be massively scaled up.

• • Climate Report Card Does Not Show A's

  Countries Are Trying,
  but Urgently Need Improvement
  
  

  Sep. 8, 2023 - Eight years after world leaders approved a landmark agreement in Paris to fight climate change, countries have made only limited progress in staving off the most dangerous effects of global warming, according to the first official report card on the global climate treaty.

  Many of the worst-case climate change scenarios that were much feared in the early 2010s look far less likely today, the report said.

• • Antarctic Sea-ice at 'Mind-Blowing' Low

  Experts Are Rightfully Alarmed
  
  

  Sep. 17, 2023 -The sea-ice surrounding Antarctica is well below any previous recorded winter level, satellite data shows, a worrying new benchmark for a region that once seemed resistant to global warming.

  Click now for the whole story.

• • The Costs of Insuring Agriculture Have Skyrocketed

  Climate-Fueled Weather is to Blame
  
  

  Sep. 7, 2023 -The country’s farmers took in a record $19 billion in insurance payments in 2022, many because of weather-related disasters, according to a new analysis that suggests climate change could stoke the cost of insuring the nation’s farmers and ranchers to unsustainable levels.

  The Environmental Working Group, which has for decades critically scrutinized the Federal Crop Insurance Program, published new research Thursday, finding that the cost of the program has soared from just under $3 billion in 2002 to just over $19 billion last year.

• • Catalyzing Africa’s Climate Potential

  A High-Profile Summit Tries to Kick-Start the Transition to Clean Energy.
  
  

  Sep. 7, 2023 -Hopes were running high in Nairobi, Kenya, this week as African leaders gathered for an inaugural climate summit designed to urgently kick-start the continent’s transition to clean energy.

  The summit, which included leaders from Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, the U.S. and the E.U., tried to create a “new narrative” around Africa, according to James Irungu Mwangi, a Kenyan entrepreneur who helped organize the event.

• • Damaged Texas Water Systems

  Summer of Record
  Heat Precipitated It
  
  

  Sep. 6, 2023 -The hottest summer on record for many Texas cities has brought millions of dollars in damage to municipal plumbing and the loss of huge volumes of water during a severe drought.

  Authorities across the state are struggling to keep up with widespread leakage even as they plead for water conservation and have restricted outdoor water use. The impact on Texas’s water systems highlights both the vulnerability of basic infrastructure to a warming climate and the high costs of adaptation.

• • Summer 2023 is Hottest On Record

  Based on European Union Climate Change Service Released on Wednesday
  
  

  Sep. 6, 2023 -The three-month period from June through August surpassed previous records by a large margin, with an average temperature of 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.2F) - 0.66C above average.

  “Last month was the also the hottest August on record globally, the third straight month in a row to set such a record following the hottest ever June and July, the EU said on Wednesday.

• • Adult Corals Have Been Safely Frozen

  And Revived For the First Time
  
  

  Sep. 5, 2023 -Like something out of science fiction, small colonies of mature corals have been safely frozen and revived for the first time, though more work will be needed to ensure their long-term survival, researchers report August 23 in Nature Communications. Freezing chunks of living corals for safekeeping — or cryopreserving them — could save them from extinction as the oceans heat up and acidify from human-caused climate change

  Click now for the whole story.

• • Where Dangerous Heat Is Surging

  Follow the Maps
  
  

  Sep. 5, 2023 -The world is experiencing a surge in extremely hot days that put human health at risk, with the threat concentrated in some of the places least prepared to cope, according to an analysis of climate data by The Washington Post and CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that develops publicly available climate data and analytics.

  By 2050, over 5 billion people — probably more than half the planet’s population — will be exposed to at least a month of health-threatening extreme heat when outdoors in the sun, the analysis shows, up from 4 billion in 2030 and 2 billion at the turn of the century.

• • Climate-Linked Ills Threaten Humanity

  The Floods Came,
  and Then the Sickness
  
  

  Sep. 5, 2023 -Muhammad Yaqoob stood on his concrete porch and watched the black, angry water swirl around the acacia trees and rush toward his village last September, the deluge making a sound that was like nothing he had ever heard. “It was like thousands of snakes sighing all at once,” he recalled.

  At first, he thought villagers’ impromptu sandbags, made from rice and fertilizer sacks, had helped save their homes and escape Pakistan’s worst floods on record. But Yaqoob — whom villagers call a wadero, or chief — soon realized it was just the beginning of a health disaster.

• • Geospatial Intelligence Defined

  The Powerful Melding
  of Maps and Data
  
  

  Sep. 5, 2023 -With record-breaking temperatures across the South, smoke from Canadian wildfires across the North, historic flooding in the Northeast and a powerful hurricane in the Southeast, the summer of 2023 has presented a range of threats to the safety of the majority of Americans. The good news, through all of this: Geospatial intelligence has offered valuable insights to help governments and organizations protect communities.

  Geospatial intelligence is the collection and integration of data from a network of technologies, including satellites, mobile sensors, ground-control stations and aerial images.

• • The African Carbon Credits at Climate Summit

  Hundreds of Millions
  of Dollars Pledged
  
  

  Sep. 4, 2023 -An initiative to boost Africa's carbon credit production 19-fold by 2030 drew hundreds of millions of dollars in pledges on Monday, as Kenyan President William Ruto opened the continent's first climate summit.

  In one of the most anticipated deals, investors from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) committed to buying $450 million of carbon credits from the Africa Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), which was launched at Egypt's COP27 summit last year.

• • Climate Risks Affect Insurance Coverage

  Insurers Cut Natural Disasters From Policies as Climate Gets Worse
  
  

  Sep. 3, 2023 -In the aftermath of extreme weather events, major insurers are increasingly no longer offering coverage that homeowners in areas vulnerable to those disasters need most.

  At least five large U.S. property insurers — including Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group and — have told regulators that extreme weather patterns caused by climate change have led them to stop writing coverages in some regions, exclude protections from various weather events and raise monthly premiums and deductibles.

• • Success: Ocean Carbon Capture Technology

  Capturing CO2 Directly From The Oceans Could Have Advantages Over Direct Air Capture
  
  

  Sep. 2, 2023 -As human activity and climate change increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean, harming coral reefs and marine life, researchers have designed a new technology using aqueous sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate to remove carbon dioxide from ocean water, helping reverse acidification and reduce global warming.

• • Record Heat's Impact on Factory Workers

  Climate Change is Making it Unbearable to Labor in Asia’s Factories
  
  

  Aug. 31, 2023 -When temperatures in Thailand shot past 112 degrees earlier this year, the government issued extreme heat warnings for large swaths of the country. It wasn’t safe, officials said, to be outdoors.

  But Rungnapa Rattanasri, 51, didn’t work outdoors.

  She worked inside, on the second floor of a dilapidated garment factory with no fans or air-conditioning.

• • The September Heat Wave Is Coming

  It Will Invade Central U.S. Before Scorching the Mid-Atlantic
  
  

  Sept. 2, 2023 -Having already overstayed its welcome across much of the southern United States, this summer’s unwelcome extreme heat is invading the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest this holiday weekend before it scorches the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast through midweek.

  High-temperature records could be tied or broken in many places, including Minneapolis, Green Bay, Wis., Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Raleigh, N.C., and D.C., as the heat persists in some areas well beyond Labor Day, which is typically considered the unofficial end of summer.

• • Duke Energy Foundation's
  Support of Idalia Hurricane Victims

  They Will Donate $400,000 to the American Red Cross
  
  

  Sep. 1, 2023 -The Duke Energy Foundation has donated $400,000 to support disaster response and relief efforts in response to Hurricane Idalia.

  $250,000 of the funds will help the American Red Cross meet the needs of individuals and families affected by disasters, like Hurricane Idalia, including emergency services and supplies. Volunteer Florida will receive $50,000 to support aid as part of the coordinated disaster response. $50,000 will support local recovery efforts in north Florida, $25,000 will support Florida’s agriculture community, and $25,000 will go to the Feeding Florida food bank network.

• • Climate Change and China's Cropland

  At Least 1.9m Hectares or 8% of Wheat Land Have Been Affected by a Sustained Spate of Rain
  
  

  Aug. 31, 2023 -The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and World Bank both stress that further loss and damage is expected across China’s farming sector as global temperatures continue to rise.

  But what, specifically, is happening to China’s arable land? And how does China plan to minimize the negative impacts of climate change on its wider food system?

  In this Q&A, Carbon Brief looks at China’s cropland policies.

• • Sea Turtles on a Collision Course With Humans

  Warmer Water Is the Culprit
  
  

  Aug. 31, 2023 -Rising North Atlantic Ocean temperatures are causing increased numbers of threatened and endangered sea turtles to migrate through Massachusetts waters — heading north in search of food, then back south to their breeding grounds.

  Their journey is fraught with dangers: fishing gear entanglement, plastic pollution, and habitat loss all threaten their survival, according to numerous environmental and fisheries sources. An additional menace looms large here at this time of year: the summer surge in boating traffic around Cape Cod.

• • Australia to Acknowledge
  Climate Risk to Government Bonds

  This is After
  a World-First Court Settlement
  
  

  Aug. 30, 2023 -The Australian government has agreed to settle what has been described as a world-first court case that accused it of misleading investors by failing to disclose the financial risk caused by the climate crisis.

  In 2020, Melbourne university student Katta O’Donnell launched a class action accusing the then Morrison government of breaching a legal duty and deceiving investors in sovereign bonds by not informing them upfront of the climate risk they faced.

• • Greece’s Fires: An Emergency Force for 27 Countries

  The EU Deployed Firefighters and Equipment in What Could Be a Preview of How it Handles Disasters Linked to Climate Change
  
  

  Aug. 30, 2023 -At dusk last week in the picturesque northern Greek village of Dadia, home to a few hundred people and next to a lush national park full of rare vultures, dozens of firefighters from around Europe gathered to assess the day’s work and load up on water and fuel.

  Exhausted, with dark smudges across flushed cheeks, they watched Europe’s most destructive blaze in recent history advance through virgin forest across the hill.

• • Fish Are Dying in Droves as
  Climate Change Scorches Canada

  The Effects of a Summer of Environmental Catastrophes Were Felt Everywhere in Canada
  
  

  Aug. 30, 2023 -The salmon were once so plentiful in the river that old-timers talk about having been able to cross on the backs of fish so thick they were like steppingstones. Such was the renown of the Cowichan River, flowing east on Canada’s Vancouver Island, that its fly-fishing conditions were posted in fishing clubs in London. John Wayne and Bing Crosby were regulars in Cowichan Bay.

  So when hundreds of young salmon and trout were found dead in the river last month, even as record wildfires burned across Canada, the news made the front page of the local newspaper. The die-off, the biggest in living memory, quickly led to an investigation.

• • Images From Hurricane Idalia

  After Making Landfall,
  Idalia Attracted Many Cameras
  
  

  Aug. 30, 2023 - Click now to view all the images and the story behind them.


• • Louisiana's Unprecedented Wildfires

  Record Heat and
  Drought Are Not Helping
  
  

  Aug. 29, 2023 -More than 450 fires have scorched parts of Louisiana amid weeks of record-breaking heat and severe drought conditions. The Tiger Island Fire, the largest wildfire in the state’s history, tore through Beauregard Parish in the southwestern part of the state and grew from an estimated 15,000 acres to over 33,000 acres between Friday and Sunday, according to local news reports. The fire is currently only 50 percent contained.

• • Possible Cause of Maui's Deadly Fires

  Bare Electrical Wire and Leaning Poles Were Probably Responsible
  
  

  Aug. 28, 2023 - In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows — those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact.

  Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

• • Children Have a Right to a Clean Environment

  Young Activists Have Been a Driving Force in the Debate On How to Tackle Climate Change
  
  

  Aug. 28, 2023 -Children have the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and governments must urgently act to ensure this, the United Nations says.

  In a new report, the UN Child Rights Committee says that climate change is affecting children's rights to life, survival and development.

  It says young children are among the most vulnerable, yet their voices are rarely heard in climate change debates.

• • American Is Using Up Its Groundwater

  Overuse is Draining and Damaging Aquifers Nationwide
  
  

  Aug. 28, 2023 -Global Warming has focused concern on land and sky as soaring temperatures intensify hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view.

  Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted. These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole.

• • Indigenous Techniques Saved
  a Community From Wildfire

  Here's How It Was Done
  
  

  Aug. 27, 2023 - The wildfire was blazing a clear path toward a Canadian lakeside tourist spot in British Columbia with a population of 222,000 people.

  The fire advanced on the city of Kelowna for 19 days — consuming 976 hectares, or about 2,400 acres — of forest. But at the suburban fringes, it encountered a fire prevention zone and sputtered, burning just a single house.

• • Wastewater Can Be a Hidden
  Solution to the Climate Crisis

  The Latest U.N. Report
  
  

  Aug. 27, 2023 -Wastewater has been identified as a potential climate and nature solution, despite its growing threat to health and the environment, according to a recent report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and GRID-Arendal.

  The report highlights the potential of wastewater as an alternative energy source for half a billion people, a means to supply over 10 times the water currently provided by global desalination capacity, and a way to offset over 10 percent of global fertilizer use.

• • South-East Australia Marine Heatwave Forecast

  It Could Be Literally Off the Scale
  
  

  Aug. 26, 2023 -Australia’s south-east could be in for a marine heatwave that is literally off the scale, raising the prospect of significant losses in fishing and aquaculture.

  The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a patch of the Tasman Sea off Tasmania and Victoria could be at least 2.5C above average from September to February, and it could get hotter.

• • Japan's Innovators Develop 'Coolwear'

  Creating Tech Gadgets You Can Carry
  — Or Even Wear — to Keep Cool
  
  

  Aug. 25, 2023 - Click now for the full video.

• • Olives Are Not Safe From Climate Change

  Heatflation Has Doubled the Price of Olive Oil Over the Past Year
  
  

  Aug. 25, 2023 - Inflation is finally easing. Americans are paying less for gas than they were a year ago. Furniture, television, and airfare prices have all fallen since last summer. Even the used car market is cooling off after its meteoric rise. But one unsuspecting staple in many American kitchens has become a prominent outlier: olive oil. The price of the already pricey liquid fat has soared to a record high this summer.

  It’s the latest chapter in the annals of heatflation — when scorching temperatures harm crops and push food prices up. A yearlong drought and a spring of extreme heat in Spain, the world’s largest olive oil producer, devastated the country’s olive groves.

• • Scientists Came to Greenland on an Unprecedented Mission

  Drilling For Rocks That Would Reveal the Fate of This Fast-Melting Ice Sheet
  
  

  Aug. 25, 2023 - Greenland had not been kind to Joerg Schaefer. For 21 days, he had endured howling winds and blistering cold. He sampled ice until his fingers went numb and shoveled snow until his shoulders burned. His shelter was a cramped yellow tent, his bathroom a hole in the ground.

  And the experiment that brought him to this ruthless, frozen expanse – an unprecedented effort to drill through more than 1,600 feet of ice and uncover the bedrock below – was teetering on the brink of failure.

• • Empror Penguins Face Breeding Failures

  Sea Ice Loss Is to Blame
  
  

  Aug. 24, 2023 -Emperor penguins are facing a breeding failure on a scale never seen before, due to the unprecedented loss of Antarctic sea ice. They rely on stable sea ice, firmly attached to the shore as "land-fast" ice, for the majority of the year. It serves as their breeding ground from April to January, with eggs being laid during the harsh Antarctic winter from May to June. These eggs hatch after 65 days, and the chicks do not fledge until summer, between December and January.

  A study A study published today in the journal Communications Earth & Environment reveals the catastrophic effects of Antarctic sea ice loss

• • With the Climate Change Future We Need Heat Officers

  Job Titles in the Future
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2023 -In Miami, extreme heat is a deadly concern. Rising temperatures now kill more people than hurricanes or floods, and do more harm to the region’s economy than rising sea levels. That’s why, in 2021, Florida’s Miami-Dade County hired a chief heat officer, Jane Gilbert—the first position of its kind in the world.

  Heat has been a silent killer in Miami, says Gilbert: “The number-one cause of weather-related death is from excess heat. It’s been this under-recognized issue that needs to be elevated.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are an average of 67,512 emergency department visits in the US due to heat each year, and 702 heat-related deaths.

• • Glaciers Are Vanishing

  What About the Land Below?
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2023 -Shrinking glaciers are a stark gauge of a warming world. By the end of the century, the planet’s 210,000 glaciers, many of them already in retreat, are projected to wither to between half and three quarters of today’s size.

  Their loss could dry up water supplies, menace mountain towns, melt ice-dependent ecosystems, and accelerate global warming because ice reflects sunlight better than bare ground.

• • To Hot For Photosynthesis?

  Some Leaves in Tropical Forests May Already Be Getting There
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2023 - Like people, leaves have their limits when it comes to heat.

  Scientists first reported in 1864 that the leaves of some plants could survive up to 50° Celsius, only to perish beyond that threshold. More than 150 years later, researchers are making similar findings. In 2021, a study of 147 tropical tree species reported that the average temperature beyond which photosynthesis failed was 46.7° C.

• • Pakistan's Latest Flooding News

  Over 100,000 People Rescued
  in Punjab Province
  
  

  Aug. 23, 2023 -Rescuers have evacuated more than 100,000 people from flood-hit areas of Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province in the past three weeks, officials said Wednesday.

  The rescue operations were expanded last week when the Sutlej River started overflowing, inundating several districts. Most of the evacuations were reported in the districts of Bahawalpur and Kasur in Punjab province.

• • Panama Canal Traffic Halted By Drought

  40% of the World's Cargo
  Ship Traffic Threatened

  Aug. 23, 2023 -A severe drought is threatening shipping on the vital Panama Canal, which is responsible for moving 40% of the world's cargo ship traffic. About two-thirds of the canal's traffic is either headed for — or leaving — the United States.

  The canal, a linchpin connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is renowned for its ability to save time and billions of dollars by offering ships a shortcut around the tip of South America. But the Panama Canal system depends on lakes whose levels are now "close to the minimum," said Boris Moreno, vice president of operations for the canal.

• 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