Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis – “This place is unrecognizable”

By Jaaweed Kaleem and Thomas Curwen 11 July 2021 LAKE MEAD, Nevada (Los Angeles Times) – Eric Richins looked out from his pontoon boat to the shallows on the lake’s western edge. He squinted and paused as if he had come upon a foreign shore. For the first time in a career navigating the waters […]

Map showing Excessive Heat Warnings beginning 9 July 2021 for the entire Sacramento Valley, northern San Joaquin Valley, the foothills, and mountains up to ~ 6,000 ft. The hottest days are Saturday and Sunday, with many Valley communities approaching or exceeding 110°F, locally 115°F. Graphic: NWS Sacramento / Twitter

Third heatwave in 2021 building across Western U.S. – “Confidence is very high for a dangerous heatwave to persist through Monday and maybe into Tuesday”

By Matthew Cappucci 8 July 2021 (The Washington Post) – Last week, a “thousand-year” heatwave baked the Pacific Northwest and adjacent British Columbia with widespread highs topping 100 degrees, resulting in a death toll in the hundreds. Lytton, Canada, climbed to 121 degrees and established new national records three days in a row before the town burned […]

An aerial view shows low water levels at Lake Oroville, which is the second largest reservoir in California and according to daily reports of the state's Department of Water Resources has declined to near 35 percent capacity due to record drought and heat, near Oroville, California, 16 June 2021. Photo: Aude Guerrucci / REUTERS

California calls for power conservation as new 2021 heatwave looms

8 July 2021 (Reuters) – California’s power grid operator on Thursday issued a “flex” alert for Friday, asking consumers to conserve energy from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. as high demand driven by extreme heat could trigger a capacity shortfall on the state’s electric grid. If the grid is still unable to meet power needs […]

Total greenhouse gas emissions from China and OECD nations, 1990-2019. In 2019, China’s GHG emissions passed the 14 gigaton threshold for the first time, reaching 14,093 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMt CO2e). This represents a more than tripling of 1990 levels, and a 25 percent increase over the past decade. As a result, China’s share of the 2019 global emissions total of 52 gigatons rose to 27 percent. Data: Rhodium Group / UNFCCC. Graphic: Rhodium Group

China’s greenhouse gas emissions exceeded the developed world for the first time in 2019

By Kate Larsen, Hannah Pitt, Mikhail Grant, and Trevor Houser 6 May 2021 (Rhodium Group) – Each year Rhodium Group provides the most up-to-date global and country-level greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions estimates through the ClimateDeck (a partnership with Breakthrough Energy). In addition to our preliminary US and China GHG estimates for 2020, Rhodium provides annual estimates of economy-wide emissions—including all […]

Anomalies of 2021 highest daily maximum temperature (TXx) in Western North America, assuming the rest of the summer is cooler than the June 2021 heatwave. Note that some stations do not have data up to the peak of the heatwave yet and hence underestimate the event. The black box indicates the study region. Data: GHCN-D downloaded on 4 July 2021. Graphic: Philip, et al., 2021 / World Weather Attribution

Western North American extreme heat in 2021 virtually impossible without human-caused climate change

7 July 2021 (World Weather Attribution) – During the last days of June 2021, Pacific northwest areas of the U.S. and Canada experienced temperatures never previously observed, with records broken in many places by several degrees Celsius. Multiple cities in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington and the western provinces of Canada recorded temperatures […]

Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Photo: Simon Dawson / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Nouriel Roubini: Conditions in 2021 are ripe for another global financial crisis – “The stagflation of the 1970s will soon meet the debt crises of the post-2008 period”

By Nouriel Roubini 2 July 2021 (The Guardian) – In April, I warned that today’s extremely loose monetary and fiscal policies, when combined with a number of negative supply shocks, could result in 1970s-style stagflation (high inflation alongside a recession). In fact, the risk today is even bigger than it was then. After all, debt ratios in […]

Map showing the 30-year summer temperature increases for the continental United States, 1991-2020. Data: Provided by Atmospheric and Environmental Research/Verisk in July 2021. “The ridiculous temperatures in the Pacific Northwest may on one hand be considered a black swan (ultra-rare) event, but on the other hand are totally consistent with multi-decadal trends,” says meteorologist Judah Cohen. Graphic: Judah Cohen / Atmospheric and Environmental Research / Verisk / AP

Summer swelter trend: U.S. West gets hotter days, East hot nights – “Hotter summers for the broader region are here to stay”

By Seth Borenstein 4 July 2021 (AP) – As outlandish as the killer heatwave that struck the Pacific Northwest was, it fits into a decades-long pattern of uneven summer warming across the United States. The West is getting roasted by hotter summer days while the East Coast is getting swamped by hotter and stickier summer […]

Map showing ground temperatures in the Pacific Northwest during the record-breaking heatwave in June 2021. Ground temperatures reached as high as 145 degrees Fahrenheit (63 degrees Celsius) in Wenatchee, Washington. Graphic: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3

Ground temperatures reached an astounding 145 degrees during the Pacific Northwest heatwave in early summer 2021

By Brian Kahn 29 June 2021 (Gizmodo) – Air temperatures during record-setting heatwave in the Pacific Northwest were bad enough. But the ground was on a whole other level. Stunning new satellite imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-3 satellite shows ground temperatures reached as high as 145 degrees Fahrenheit (63 degrees Celsius) in Wenatchee, Washington. Apparently […]

Residents rest at a cooling center during a heat wave in Portland, Oregon on 28 June 2021. Photo: Maranie Staab / Bloomberg

Climate change in the U.S. has gotten deadly, and it will get worse – “The suffering here and now is because we have not heeded the warnings sufficiently”

By Sarah Kaplan 3 July 2021 PORTLAND, Oregon (The Washington Post) – The emergency department at Oregon Health Sciences University had rarely been this busy, even during the worst stages of the covid-19 pandemic. Physicians raced to provide fluids to patients who arrived breathless, dizzy, and drenched in sweat. Others were brought in on stretchers, […]

Senior ExxonMobil lobbyist on Capitol Hill Keith McCoy describes how ExxonMobil bribes U.S. Senators to kill climate policies in the U.S. During a secretly recorded interview 7 May 2021, McCoy names eleven U.S. senators who he says are “crucial” to ExxonMobil for sabotaging government action to save the planet: Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Senator Joe Manchin, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Senator Jon Tester, Senator Maggie Hassan, Senator John Barrasso, Senator John Cornyn, Senator Steve Daines, Senator Chris Coons, Senator Mark Kelly, and Senator Marco Rubio. Photo: Greenpeace / Channel 4 News

Revealed: ExxonMobil’s lobbying war on climate legislation – Senior lobbyist caught on camera, names 11 U.S. senators who are “crucial” to ExxonMobil attacks on climate policy

By Alex Thomson 30 June 2021 (Channel 4 News) – The explosive footage was obtained by Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s investigative platform, who posed as head-hunters to obtain the information from one of ExxonMobil’s most senior Washington lobbyists. The recordings appear to reveal the secretive behind-the-scenes activities of a lobbyist for a company that claims in […]

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