Hurricane Harvey’s floodwaters mix a foul brew of sewage, chemicals

By John Flesher 4 September 2017 (Associated Press) – Harvey’s filthy floodwaters pose significant dangers to human safety and the environment even after water levels drop far enough that Southeast Texas residents no longer fear for their lives, according to experts.Houston already was notorious for sewer overflows following rainstorms. Now the system, with 40 wastewater […]

The death toll from Hurricane Harvey rises to at least 60

DALLAS, 4 September 2017 (Associated Press) – Officials now blame at least 60 deaths on Harvey, after the storm dumped many feet of rain on several counties in a matter of days. Many of those deaths confirmed in 11 counties across south Texas happened when people were caught in quickly rising floodwaters or lost control […]

EPA adopts Trump tactic, attacking AP reporter over story on flooded toxic waste sites in Houston

4 September 2017 (CBS News) – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a press release Sunday that slammed a reporter by name over a story about the flooding of toxic waste sites in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. “Yesterday, the Associated Press’ Michael Biesecker wrote an incredibly misleading story about toxic land sites that are […]

What has Hurricane Harvey taught Trump and the Republicans? “Is there a chance that sitting in a control center in Austin is going to persuade Trump that climate change is not a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese?”

By Amy Davidson Sorkin 29 August 2017 (The New Yorker) – “You are special!” President Donald Trump said, to the thousand or so people who had gathered on Tuesday morning outside a firehouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, where he was meeting with officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, and several […]

Stronger science means more climate litigation risk for business and government

By James Thornton 28 August 2017(Earth and Water Group) – Governments and business may be increasingly at risk of litigation for failing to prevent foreseeable climate-related harm to people and infrastructure, as cutting-edge climate science improves.  This is the conclusion of a report published in Nature Geoscience today, which says event attribution studies are now […]

Monbiot: Why are the crucial questions about Hurricane Harvey not being asked? “By failing to make the obvious link and talk about climate breakdown, media organisations help push the world toward catastrophe”

By George Monbiot29 August 2017(The Guardian) – It is not only Donald Trump’s government that censors the discussion of climate change; it is the entire body of polite opinion. This is why, though the links are clear and obvious, most reports on Hurricane Harvey have made no mention of the human contribution to it.In 2016 […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of flood waters across Texas, 31 August 2017

By Mike Carlowicz 31 August 2017(NASA) – On 31 August 2017, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired natural-color images of extensive flooding along the Texas coast and around the Houston metropolitan area in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Note the tan and brown rivers and bays full of flood water […]

Trump’s Energy Secretary says climate change debate is “secondary” amid Harvey destruction

2 September 2017 (CBS News) – Energy Secretary Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, is still taken aback by Hurricane Harvey’s devastation, but said conversations about climate change can wait. “No one has ever seen flooding like this,” he told CBSN in an interview Friday, noting that parts of Texas had seen 50 inches of […]

After Harvey, does Trump still think climate change is a hoax?

By Paul Thornton 2 September 2017 (The Los Angeles Times) – Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, 2 September 2017. For those of us in and around Los Angeles who still have electricity, here is a helpful tip for keeping the A/C humming throughout this hellish heatwave (hint: turn something else off […]

It’s a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly – “We can’t say that Hurricane Harvey was caused by climate change. But it was certainly worsened by it.”

By Michael E Mann 28 August 2017 (The Guardian) – What can we say about the role of climate change in the unprecedented disaster that is unfolding in Houston with Hurricane Harvey? There are certain climate change-related factors that we can, with great confidence, say worsened the flooding.Sea level rise attributable to climate change – […]

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