By Marlowe Hood 17 September 2019 (AFP) – Greenhouse gases thrust into the atmosphere mainly by burning fossil fuels are warming Earth’s surface more quickly than previously understood, according to new climate models set to replace those used in current UN projections, scientists said Tuesday. By 2100, average temperatures could rise 7.0 degrees Celsius above […]
By Andrew Freedman 16 September 2019 (The Washington Post) – The Northern Hemisphere just had its hottest summer on record since 1880, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data released Monday. NOAA found the average global surface temperature taken by thousands of thermometers, buoys and other sensors on land and sea tied with that of 2016 […]
By Chris Mooney and John Muyskens 11 September 2019 LA CORONILLA, Uruguay (The Washington Post) – The day the yellow clams turned black is seared in Ramón Agüero’s memory. It was the summer of 1994. A few days earlier, he had collected a generous haul, 20 buckets of the thin-shelled, cold-water clams, which burrow a […]
WASHINGTON, DC, 12 September 2019 (Trust for America’s Health) – Nine U.S. states had adult obesity rates above 35 percent in 2018, up from seven states at that level in 2017, an historic level of obesity in the U.S., according to the 16th annual State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America report [pdf] released today by the […]
By Niv Elis 12 September 2019 (The Hill) – The U.S. government deficit surpassed $1 trillion in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, over $100 billion more than the same period last year, according to official Treasury figures released Thursday. Last week, data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the […]
By Christopher C. Burt 10 September 2019 (Weather Underground) – Although 2800 miles of open ocean separate them, both Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii experienced their warmest climatological summers (June-August) on record this year. It appears that this was Alaska’s second warmest summer (following that of 2004) but it is likely that it was Hawaii’s […]
By Damien Cave 9 September 2019 SYDNEY, Australia (The New York Times) – The conservationists who built the secluded Binna Burra Lodge in Australia’s lush mountains more than 80 years ago hoped to protect and share the natural beauty of the surrounding rainforest. But over the weekend, a bushfire destroyed the beloved getaway, one of […]
By Sarah Sax 6 September 2019 (Mongabay) – As of 24 August 2019, there were 41,858 fires reported this year in the Brazilian Amazon — the highest number since 2010, when 58,476 were recorded by that date. Likewise, the U.S. space agency NASA has shown this to be the most active fire year for the region since 2010. However, […]
By Jeff Cox 9 September 2019 (CNBC) – Total potential debt for the U.S. by one all-encompassing measure is running close to 2,000% of GDP, according to an analysis that suggests danger but also cautions against reading too much into the level. AB Bernstein came up with the calculation — 1,832 percent, to be exact […]
By Raymond Pierrehumbert 16 August 2019 (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – Let’s get this on the table right away, without mincing words. With regard to the climate crisis, yes, it’s time to panic. We are in deep trouble. To understand why, it is necessary to understand something about carbon budgets. Some of the carbon […]
