Australia breaks weather records with hottest ever summer – Brisbane had record run of 16 days straight at or above 32°C

By Naaman Zhou 28 February 2019 (The Guardian) – Australia has endured its hottest summer ever, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, breaking the previous record set six years ago. The 2018-19 summer, which produced near 50C days and topped temperature highs across the country, has officially exceeded the previous record set in 2012-13, which […]

Lawmakers tell Pentagon: Revise and resubmit your climate-change report

By Paulina Glass 5 February 2019 (Defense One) – The Pentagon’s latest climate-change report was so bad that it didn’t even meet legal requirements, say House lawmakers who on Wednesday ordered the military to redo the document by 1 April 2019.The report “lacks key deliverables,” according to the 25 January 2019 letter from House Armed […]

Could climate change make it harder to get insurance in Australia? “There’s $88 billion at risk in terms of damage from coastal erosion in Australia”

By Ange Lavoipierre and Stephen Smiley 5 February 2019 (The Signal) – At the moment, Townsville is more or less underwater and large parts of Tasmania are on fire.Summer in Australia has always been extreme, but some corners of the country are experiencing climate-driven disasters that are worse than ever — and more of them […]

Monarch butterfly numbers plummet 86 percent in California – “It’s been the worst year we’ve ever seen”

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett 7 January 2019 (Ventura County Star) – 2018 was a tough year for monarch butterflies.Each year, monarchs in the western United States migrate from inland areas to California’s coastline to spend the winter, usually between September and February. But the number of butterflies turning up at overwintering sites this year — including […]

Earth’s 39 billion-dollar weather disasters of 2018: 4th-costliest on record

By Dr. Jeff Masters23 January 2019 (Weather Underground) – Earth was besieged by 39 billion-dollar weather disasters in 2018, the fourth-highest inflation-adjusted number of billion-dollar weather events on record, said insurance broker Aon (formerly called Aon Benfield) in their annual report issued 22 January 2019. Only 2011, with 44 billion-dollar weather disasters, and 2010 and […]

2018 was the fourth-costliest year since 1980 in terms of insured losses – Camp Fire in California caused highest overall wildfire loss on record

By Petra Löw8 January 2019 (Munich Re) – When compared with the record losses of the previous year from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the indications at the start of 2018 were that it would be a more moderate year. However, the second half of the year saw an accumulation of billion-dollar losses from floods, […]

Washington Governor Jay Inslee uses State of the State address to urge action on climate change – “This is the eleventh hour, but it is Washington state’s hour to shine”

By Joseph O’Sullivan15 January 2019 OLYMPIA (The Seattle Times) – Standing before a Washington Legislature that for years has balked at his carbon-reduction agenda, Gov. Jay Inslee implored lawmakers Tuesday to make bold moves to combat climate change. The governor’s State of the State address before a joint session of the House and Senate comes […]

PG&E’s bankruptcy could slow California’s fight against climate change – “This is going to put the entire state of California at risk”

By Sammy Roth 15 January 2019 (Los Angeles Times) – Climate change helped fuel the deadly fires that prompted California’s largest power company to announce Monday that it would file for bankruptcy in the face of $30 billion in potential liabilities. In a grim twist, the bankruptcy of PG&E Corp. could now slow California’s efforts […]

U.S. had world’s three costliest natural disasters in 2018, and California’s Camp Fire was the worst – “Such massive wildfires appear to be occurring more frequently as a result of climate change”

By Doyle Rice8 January 2019 (USA TODAY) – Racking up an overall damage cost of $16.5 billion, the devastating and deadly Camp Fire that ravaged California in November was the world’s costliest natural disaster in 2018. The data come from a report issued Tuesday by Munich Re, a reinsurance firm. In second and third place […]

Millions of tons of debris from California’s Camp fire needs to go somewhere — but no one wants it

By Laura Newberry7 January 2019 (Los Angeles Times) – The long road to recovery in the town of Paradise starts with removing millions of tons of charred rubble left in the Camp fire’s wake. But the question remains: Where will it all go? Disaster officials are scrambling to secure a place to sort and process […]

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