Fallen power lines littered the roads in Galveston after Hurricane Beryl hit the Texas coast on Monday, 8 July 2024. Photo: Meridith Kohut / The New York Times

Rising frustration in Houston after millions lost power in storm – “For a Category 1 hurricane to result in over a million customer outages in its immediate aftermath demonstrates that there is plenty of need for the resiliency hardening investments”

By J. David Goodman and Ivan Penn 10 July 2024 (The New York Times) – The sun felt hotter than usual in Houston this week, as millions of sweltering residents emerged from the rapid thrashing of Hurricane Beryl to face a prolonged power outage — the largest ever seen by the city’s utility, according to […]

James M. Inhofe during a Senate hearing in 2009. The Senate Environment Committee gave him a prominent platform from which to speak out against growing scientific consensus that humans were causing climate change by burning fossil fuels. Photo: Scott J. Ferrell / Congressional Quarterly / Getty Images

James M. Inhofe, Senator who denied climate change, dies at 89

By Robert D. McFadden 9 July 2024 (The New York Times) – James M. Inhofe, a five-term Republican senator from Oklahoma and, until President Donald J. Trump’s arrival in 2017, arguably Washington’s most prominent denier of the established science of human-generated climate change, died on Tuesday. He was 89. His family announced his death in […]

Satellite image of Hurricane Beryl as it makes landfall on the Gulf Coast of Texas on 8 July 2024. Photo: Wanmei Liang / NASA Earth Observatory

8 dead, 2.5 million without power as Hurricane Beryl slams into Texas, Louisiana

By Clyde Hughes, Allen Cone, and Darryl Coote 8 July 2024 (UPI) – At least eight people were killed after Hurricane Beryl slammed southeast Texas with heavy winds, rain and flash flooding Monday. More than 2.5 million were still without power late Monday. The death toll included seven people killed in Texas and one in […]

A property is engulfed in flames as the Thompson Fire burns, Tuesday, 2 July 2024, in Oroville, California. Photo: Ethan Swope / AP

Persistent heat wave in the U.S. expected to shatter new records as it bakes West and swelters in East – “Unfortunately, there won’t be much relief overnight either”

By Margery A. Beck 7 July 2024 (AP) – A long-running heat wave that has already shattered previous records across the U.S. will persist, baking parts of the West with dangerous temperatures that will soar into the 100s and holding the East in its hot and humid grip throughout the week, forecasters said Sunday. An excessive heat warning […]

Summary age-specific annual percent change (i.e., local drift) and birth cohort rate ratios of colorectal cancer incidence rates in the United States. A) Local drift: summary age-specific annual percent change for colon and rectal cancer. B) Incidence rate ratios by birth cohort for colon and rectal cancer (referent cohort = 1949). Shaded bands indicate 95 percent confidence interval. Graphic: Siegel, et al., 2017 / Journal of the National Cancer Institute

Cancer is striking more young people, and doctors are alarmed and baffled – “We have to find out why. Otherwise, the progress we have made in the last 50 years may stall or reverse.”

By Brianna Abbott 11 January 2024 (The Wall Street Journal) – Meilin Keen was studying for the bar exam and preparing to move to New York City last June when she started throwing up blood. Keen, 27 years old, learned days later that she has gastric cancer. She postponed the bar exam. Brain fog from […]

Dengue cases in Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras, 2023-2024 and 5-year average. In the Region of the Americas, the number of dengue cases recorded during the first half of 2024 exceeded the maximum number of cases historically reported in a year, as compared to all previously recorded years. As of epidemiological week (EW) 23 of 2024, 43 countries and territories in the Region of the Americas have reported 9,386,082 cases of dengue; this number is twice as high as the number of cases recorded throughout 2023, 4,617,108 cases. Data: Adapted from the Pan American Health Organization / PLISA Health Information Platform for the Americas, Dengue Indicators Portal, Washington, D.C. PAHO; 2024 cited 13 June 2024. Graphic: PAHO / WHO

Dengue fever: CDC issues alert amid U.S. and global spike in cases – In 2024, cases of dengue fever in the Americas have reached record-breaking levels, with more than 9.7 million reported cases, twice the number for the entire year in 2023

By Finn Cohen 27 June 2024 (Healthline) – As cases of dengue fever rise worldwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an advisory for physicians, public health authorities, and the public in the United States to be alert to the trend. So far in 2024, cases of dengue fever in countries in the Americas have reached record-breaking […]

The Little Sioux River floods homes in Smithland, Iowa, on 25 June 2024. Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes / The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK

Flooding across the U.S. Midwest may have wiped out up to 1 million acres of crops, new estimates show – 7 million acres accumulated more than 6 inches of rain, which caused standing water in fields

By Tyne Morgan 3 July 2024 (Farm Journal) – Portions of Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska are grappling with the aftermath of flooding, while continuing to fight a swollen river. The Mississippi River is facing flood threats, too. The high waters and flooding are suffocating fields, causing crop damage to key growing areas across the […]

Florida governor Ron DeSantis delivers remarks in Umatilla, Florida,Tuesday, 25 June 2024, during a visit to tout the state’s infrastructure grants program. In May 2024, DeSantis signed a bill that stripped the phrase “climate change” from much of Florida law, reversing 16 years of state policy and, critics said, undermining Florida’s support of renewable and clean energy. Photo: Joe Burbank / Orlando Sentinel

Florida censors references to climate science in textbooks for public schools – “How do you write an environmental science book to appease people who are opposed to climate change?”

By Leslie Postal 5 July 2024 (Orlando Sentinel) – Textbook authors were told last month that some references to “climate change” must be removed from science books before they could be accepted for use in Florida’s public schools, according to two of those authors. A high school biology book also had to add citations to […]

Map showing surface air temperature in Africa, Europe, Southwest Asia, and India on 25 June 2024. Heat waves rolled through parts of Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia, leaving vulnerable populations at risk. Data: GEOS data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC. Graphic: Lauren Dauphin / NASA Earth Observatory

In the grip of global heat – Early Summer 2024 heatwaves in the Northern Hemisphere have been fierce

By Adam Voiland 28 June 2024 (NASA) – It’s only the beginning of the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere, but Earth is already roasting. Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently reported that May 2024, the hottest May in NASA’s global surface temperature analysis, marked a full year of record-high monthly temperatures. Likewise, NOAA recently reported that January through […]

Map showing geomorphological data and icefield reconstruction of the Juneau Icefield for the “Little Ice Age” (LIA) maximum. Graphic: Davies, et al., 2024 / Nature Communications

Melting of Alaska’s Juneau Icefield accelerates, losing snow nearly 5 times faster than in the 1980s – “When you go there the changes from year-to-year are so dramatic that it just hits you over the head”

By Seth Borenstein 2 July 2024 (AP) – The melting of Alaska’s Juneau icefield, home to more than 1,000 glaciers, is accelerating. The snow covered area is now shrinking 4.6 times faster than it was in the 1980s, according to a new study. Researchers meticulously tracked snow levels in the nearly 1,500-square mile icy expanse going back […]

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