By Kathryn Watson 8 September 2017 (CBS News) – Four Texas Republicans on Friday voted against the bill that included aid for Hurricane Harvey recovery in their state, along with a debt limit extension.The House approved the legislation 316-90, in a vote that authorized $15.3 billion in aid for those affected by Harvey, raised the […]
By Elizabeth Kolbert 4 September 2017 (The New Yorker) – On 29 August 2005, at six-ten in the morning, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana, just east of New Orleans. Katrina had spent days wobbling over the Gulf of Mexico, and by the time it reached the coast it was […]
By Dana Nuccitelli 5 September 2017 (The Guardian) – Human-caused climate change amplified the damages and suffering associated with Hurricane Harvey in several different ways. First, sea level rise caused by global warming increased the storm surge and therefore the coastal inundation and flooding from the storm. Second, the warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, […]
By John Vidal 2 September 2017 (The Guardian) – First came the dire warnings of Hurricane Harvey, then the terrible scenes as the skies opened, whole neighbourhoods drowned and motorways became rivers. Now, as the waters subside and the full extent of the damage is assessed, come the voices of distraught people who have lost […]
By the Times Editorial Board 31 August 2017 (The New York Times) – Houston isn’t the only major city reeling from record rainfall and devastating floods. In Mumbai, India, where summer monsoons are annual events, as much rain fell in 12 hours on Tuesday as normally does over 11 days in a typical monsoon, paralyzing […]
By Paul Rosenberg 4 September 2017 (Salon) – A storm as momentous as Hurricane Harvey, which devastated southeast Texas last week, holds many lessons — almost too many, one might say. To keep things manageable, I can name three that could serve us very well.First, “Did climate change cause Hurricane Harvey?” is the wrong question […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
