Scientists have known last year’s Castle Fire was probably the most destructive for California’s famously fire-resilient sequoias in at least 700 years, but a draft National Park Service report obtained by the Visalia Times-Delta puts a quantitative measurement on that fire’s climate-fueled toll. By Nexus Media News Between 7,500 and 10,000 monarch sequoias — about […]
As the 2021 wildfire season begins to unfold, the memories of past seasons linger — in the lungs of people, in the communities and landscapes that burned and in the atmosphere, where greenhouse gases from wildfires continue to warm our planet. Carly Phillips, University of Victoria The Conversation Wildfires wreaked havoc across the world over […]
In a major victory for community activists and public health advocates, the Los Angeles City Council voted to support closing the SoCalGas Aliso Canyon gas storage facility on Wednesday, May 19. Aliso Canyon, located in Santa Susana Mountains near Porter Ranch in Los Angeles, was the site of the worst gas blowout in U.S. history. By Dan Bacher Fourteen […]
Researchers in Germany and Norway said Tuesday that a major portion of Greenland’s ice sheet is “at the brink” of reaching a frightening “tipping point”—the latest sign that global heating is causing irreversible damage to the world’s glaciers and that policymakers must halt fossil fuel emissions without further delay. By Julia Conley Common Dreams According to new […]
The climate crisis is no longer a looming threat – people are now living with the consequences of centuries of greenhouse gas emissions. But there is still everything to fight for. How the world chooses to respond in the coming years will have massive repercussions for generations yet to be born. By Mark Maslin, UCL […]
Colonial Pipeline operators made the proactive choice to shut down the 5,500-mile pipeline, setting off gas shortages, panic, and chaos up and down the East Coast, in order to protect their own profits, CNN reports. The ransomware attack did not actually affect the Koch-owned pipeline’s operations, but did make the company concerned it wouldn’t be able to […]
Extreme rain in Australia’s New South Wales is causing life-threatening flooding that has so far forced the evacuation of at least 18,000 people. About 10 million people over an area the size of Alaska are at risk for excessive rainfall. Nexus Media News The mid-north coast, an area of coastline between Sydney and Byron Bay, […]
A recent series of summer droughts in Europe, which brought devastating ecological, agricultural, and economic impacts, were more severe than any over the past 2,100 years, new research out Monday finds. By Andrea Germanos Common Dreams “Our results show that what we have experienced over the past five summers is extraordinary for central Europe, in terms of how […]
If a full year of pandemic doesn’t yet have you and/or your partner feeling absolutely miserable, might we suggest you take up a painful new hobby: Writing about how bad bitcoin and NFTs are for the climate, and well, just about everything else. By Climate Denier Roundup It starts, as many cursed trends do, with something […]
Ten years ago, on March 11, 2011, the biggest recorded earthquake in Japanese history hit the country’s northeast coast. It was followed by a tsunami that traveled up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) inland, reaching heights of over 140 feet (43.3 meters) in some areas and sweeping entire towns away in seconds. By Kiyoshi Kurokawa, […]
The Kern County Board of Supervisors just voted 5-0 for an ordinance that will greenlight 40,500 oil & gas wells that will likely end up in low-income, monolingual, Hispanic communities with virtually no environmental review. By Dan Bacher As was the case in the planning commission meeting that preceded this meeting 3 weeks ago, the […]
There is a weasel word that politicians use whenever something goes wrong on their watch: “unacceptable.” We just heard it slither out of the mouth of Texas governor Greg Abbott in response to the state’s failure to prepare for a killer winter storm. “What happened this week to our fellow Texans is unacceptable,” he fumed. […]
In February, extreme weather events highlighted the fragility of the Texas electrical grid. A deep freeze left millions without power, and dozens of people died. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency and ordered that federal assistance be made available. By Michael D. Mehta, Thompson Rivers University The Conversation As Texans’ demand for […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about water. And power. And Texas. You know from the news they’ve been grappling with a crisis there brought on by unexpectedly wicked winter weather. And made worse by an incompetent, ill-prepared Republican state government that, as LBJ used to say, couldn’t pour sand out of a boot, even if […]
Last week, a blast of bitter cold knocked out power across the country, hitting Texas especially hard. It left millions without heat in the coldest temperatures seen in those regions in decades. Grocery store shelves were bare, and water treatment plants went offline. In Texas alone, more than 30 people froze to death, suffered carbon […]