How heroin came for middle-class moms

By Hayley Krischer    20 August 2018 (Marie Claire) – Donna* is from the suburbs. She says so proudly. A really nice town not far from Philadelphia. Donna grew up in a nice middle-class family. She wrote poetry. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and a job at the board of social services. Today Donna is in […]

Worst air quality on record as another surge of wildfire smoke hits Puget Sound – Breathing Seattle’s air right now is like smoking 7 cigarettes

By Umair Irfan 21 August 2018(Vox) – Ash and smoke are choking Seattle’s air for the second week in a row, as wildfires smolder in the Cascades and in British Columbia.As of Tuesday morning, the Air Quality Index in Seattle was at 181, a rating classified as “unhealthy.” In parts of the city, the index […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of smokestorm over Washington state and Western Canada, 20 August 2018

By Kathryn Hansen 17 August 2018(NASA) – In mid-August 2018, deadly blazes across the western United States and Canada continued to destroy structures and disrupt the lives of millions of people. But you did not have to be close to the fires to witness its effects. These images show just how far across North America […]

Families on edge and on alert in British Columbia wildfires – “It’s ruining people’s homes, it’s ruining wildlife, it’s ruining full communities”

20 August 2018 (The Canadian Press) – Some headway was made over the weekend battling hundreds of blazes across British Columbia, according to crews battling the wildfires, but thick smoke continues to blanket the province and create challenges for communities far from any flames. The B.C. Wildfire Service says there weren’t many lightning strikes last […]

Smoke degrades air quality to “very unhealthy” for parts of Puget Sound region and “hazardous” for Eastern Washington

By Scott Sistek 20 August 2018 SEATTLE (KOMO News) – Air quality in some areas of Western Washington has degraded from “unhealthy” to “very unhealthy,” especially in the South Sound as wildfire smoke from British Columbia continues to pour into the region.As of 8 a.m. Monday, monitoring sites in Tacoma, Auburn, and Port Angeles reported […]

Summer weather is getting “stuck” due to Arctic warming – “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic”

By Jonathan Watts 20 August 2018 (The Guardian) – Summer weather patterns are increasingly likely to stall in Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, according to a new climate study that explains why Arctic warming is making heatwaves elsewhere more persistent and dangerous. Rising temperatures in the Arctic have slowed the circulation of the […]

“Smokestorm” from B.C. wildfires now pushing into Western Washington

By Cliff Mass 19 August 2018 (Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog) – During the next 12 hours there should be a major influx of wildfire smoke into the lower elevations of western Washington. The MODIS satellite imagery around noon showed very dense smoke over eastern WA and the north Cascades, with lesser but substantial […]

Air conditioning use emerges as one of the key drivers of global electricity-demand growth

15 May 2018 (IEA) – The growing use of air conditioners in homes and offices around the world will be one of the top drivers of global electricity demand over the next three decades, according to new analysis by the International Energy Agency that stresses the urgent need for policy action to improve cooling efficiency. […]

Methane leaks from U.S. coal mines have the annual global warming impact of 13 million cars

By Mark Olalde 13 August 2018 (Climate Home News) – Across the US, a major, uncontrolled leak of a potent greenhouse gas is going unregulated and largely unnoticed.Climate Home News analysis of government data has identified roughly 300 active and 200 abandoned coal mines, which are the source of almost one-tenth of US methane pollution.Methane […]

Smoke from California wildfires will blow to UK because of tropical storm

By Tom Herbert 18 August 2018 (Metro) – A storm is set to batter Britain with wind and rain, bringing with it smoke from the wildfires in California. Forecasters say a tropical storm is moving eastwards across the Atlantic Ocean and will hit the UK and Ireland today. And smoke from the deadly wildfires in […]

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