Most recent 30 articles: Los Angeles Times
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L.A. County faces $12.5 billion in climate costs through 2040, study says - Los Angeles Times (Apr 4) |
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Apr 4 · A first-of-its-kind report has estimated that Los Angeles County must invest billions of dollars through 2040 to protect residents from worsening climate hazards, including extreme heat, increasing precipitation, worsening wildfires, rising sea levels and climate-induced public health threats.
The report, published this week by the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity, identified 14 different climate adaptation measures that authors calculated would cost L.A. taxpayers at least $12.5 billion over the next 15 years, or approximately $780 million per year. The vast majority of those costs - more than $9 billion - will be incurred by local municipal governments, including the ... Read more ...
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Meet the writers pitching Hollywood studios on climate change stories - Los Angeles Times (Mar 28) |
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Mar 28 · Nicole Conlan writes jokes for Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” But her master’s in urban planning from USC and her experiences growing up in Colorado surrounded by skiers were just as relevant to her task on the Universal Studios lot last week.
The Emmy-nominated writer had 10 minutes to pitch a studio executive on her half-hour climate change sitcom. She described it as similar to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” only set at a Colorado environmental group, poking fun at a character who gets involved in climate advocacy for selfish reasons and must slowly learn to care.
“Just a quick disclaimer: I named the character Nicole because I ... Read more ...
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Extreme heat is deadly. Californians need to pay up to protect themselves - Los Angeles Times (Mar 26) |
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Mar 26 · “If there is one idea in this book that might save your life, it is this: The human body, like all living things, is a heat machine. Just being alive generates heat. But if your body gets too hot too fast - it doesn’t matter if the heat comes from the outside on a hot day or the inside from a raging fever - you are in big trouble.”
So writes journalist Jeff Goodell in “The Heat Will Kill You First,” an eye-opening, blood-curdling investigation into the many ways that rising temperatures from fossil fuel combustion are making our planet increasingly unlivable. Jeff is one of several authors I’ll be interviewing next month at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, as part of a ... Read more ...
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California monster blizzard batters Tahoe, Mammoth, Sierra amid avalanche warnings - Los Angeles Times (Mar 1) |
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Mar 1 · The most powerful California blizzard of the season pounded the Sierra Nevada with gusts of up to 190 mph, while heavy snow Sunday forced the closure of key roads to the Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Mountain areas.
A rare blizzard warning was extended through Monday morning for the Lake Tahoe area, and until Sunday night for the Mammoth Mountain area. Key roads to Mammoth Mountain from Southern California, and to the northern Tahoe area from Sacramento and Reno, remained shut down Sunday afternoon.
Gusts greater than 100 mph were expected on the Sierra ridges through early Monday, according to the weather service. At Donner Pass along Interstate 80, an additional 18 inches of ... Read more ...
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L.A. may not get another wet winter for a while. We should prepare for drier times - Los Angeles Times (Feb 8) |
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Feb 8 · It’s the second straight year of above-average rain and snow in California, amid the state’s driest period in 1,200 years. The respite from drought is certainly welcome, despite flooding, mudslides and associated miseries. Now meteorologists and oceanographers are watching possible La Niña conditions develop in the Pacific, perhaps signaling a return to drier times.
It’s an appropriate time to take stock - of how we weathered the last two winters, what we’ve learned and what’s ahead.
Climate & Environment
The same flood-control system that protected L.A. from the atmospheric rivers also saw tens of billions of gallons of stormwater flush to the sea.
It’s ... Read more ...
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Hate the storm? Then start getting serious about climate change - Los Angeles Times (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · You know how oil and gas pollution is supposed to bring not only hotter heat waves, drier droughts and bigger wildfires, but also more intense storms? Well, that’s what we’re experiencing in Los Angeles and across California this week, as an atmospheric river wallops the state with record rainfall, dangerous floods, major mudslides and power outages - with more to come.
Although it’s too soon to say exactly how much responsibility global warming bears for the storm - let’s hope scientists conduct an attribution study before too long - this is exactly the kind of thing climate researchers have long predicted.
You're reading Boiling Point
You may occasionally ... Read more ...
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Hate the storm? Then start getting serious about climate change - Los Angeles Times (Feb 6) |
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Feb 6 · You know how oil and gas pollution is supposed to bring not only hotter heat waves, drier droughts and bigger wildfires, but also more intense storms? Well, that’s what we’re experiencing in Los Angeles and across California this week, as an atmospheric river wallops the state with record rainfall, dangerous floods, major mudslides and power outages - with more to come.
Although it’s too soon to say exactly how much responsibility global warming bears for the storm - let’s hope scientists conduct an attribution study before too long - this is exactly the kind of thing climate researchers have long predicted.
You're reading Boiling Point
You may occasionally ... Read more ...
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El Niño and climate change are supercharging incoming storm, SoCal's biggest this winter - Los Angeles Times (Feb 2) |
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Feb 2 · Southern California is bracing for its biggest storm of the season, which is slated to deliver potentially damaging and life-threatening rain, wind and flooding to the region.
But the powerful atmospheric river - worrisome enough on its own - is being supercharged by climate change and El Niño, which together are warming ocean waters, upping the odds of significant downpours and offering a preview of the state’s future in a warming world, experts say.
The incoming storm is feeding off unusually warm waters between California and Hawaii where a significant marine heat wave has persisted for months, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA.
Last year - the ... Read more ...
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Biden's Western solar plan sounds scary. But it's better than climate change - Los Angeles Times (Feb 1) |
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Feb 1 · A single federal agency oversees nearly a quarter-billion acres of public lands - and those acres could play a key role in fighting climate change by hosting vast fields of solar panels and wind turbines that limit our need to burn fossil fuels.
The American public could embrace this latest evolution of our shared domain.
Or we could reject further industrial development of our public lands and instead preserve them for the sake of wildlife habitat, healthy ecosystems and scenic hikes - while requiring renewable energy companies to find other places to build.
So which should we choose: clean energy or conservation?
Right now, President Biden is trying to ... Read more ...
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Wolves are back in Colorado's wilderness - Los Angeles Times (Jan 16) |
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Jan 16 · Rural western Colorado rang in the new year with a howl.
For the first time in U.S. history, a federally listed endangered species has been reintroduced to the wild by the efforts of a lone state. Wolves in Colorado were not a mandate from Washington, D.C.; Coloradans voted for them.
One week before Christmas, gray wolves were unleashed on a Rocky Mountain mosaic of public lands, pine and aspen forests, private ranches and beloved recreation areas. Wolves now roam within the realm of world-famous ski areas. Some have already wandered through the creeks, peaks and woods near my cabin at the rural edge of Steamboat Springs, where rugged watersheds pour into the Yampa ... Read more ...
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Will storing CO2 in old oil fields slow global warming? First California plan nears approval - Los Angeles Times (Jan 14) |
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Jan 14 · The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has signed off on a California oil company’s plans to permanently store carbon emissions deep underground to combat global warming - the first proposal of its kind to be tentatively approved in the state.
California Resources Corp., the state’s largest oil and gas company, applied for permission to send 1.46 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year into the Elk Hills oil field, a depleted oil reservoir about 25 miles outside of downtown Bakersfield. The emissions would be collected from several industrial sources nearby, compressed into a liquid-like state and injected into porous rock more than one mile ... Read more ...
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Yes, wind turbines kill birds. But fracking is much worse - Los Angeles Times (Jan 11) |
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Jan 11 · “Golden eagle’s death sparks shutdown of wind farm.”
“Criminal cases for killing eagles decline as wind turbine dangers grow.”
“Proposed wind farm fuels debate about threats and benefits to migrating birds.”
Those are all recent news headlines. You may have seen similar stories over the years, including from the L.A. Times.
It’s not hard to figure out why there’s so much news coverage. Lots of people love birds, and they’re understandably concerned about giant spinning blades hundreds of feet in the air chopping up their favorite critters. The photos are gruesome.
But should we be even more worried about other types of energy development? Like, for ... Read more ...
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The climate scientist who just won a $1-million judgment against climate change deniers - Los Angeles Times (Jan 9) |
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Jan 9 · One of the major issues confronting scientists today - especially those working in the heavily politicized fields of global warming, vaccines and the origin of COVID-19 - is how to deal with the torrents of misinformation and disinformation, some of it personal, pushing back against their work.
Climate scientist Michael E. Mann just found an answer. Sue the critics - and win.
Last week, a Washington, D.C., jury awarded Mann more than $1 million in punitive damages against two right-wing writers who had accused him of research fraud.
I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech.
— Climate scientist ... Read more ...
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A new rule requiring companies to climate risk is coming in 2024. Here’s what you need to know. | CNN Business - Los Angeles Times (Dec 30) |
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Dec 30 · The Securities and Exchange Commission’s failure to complete an ambitious climate-related agenda in 2023 is making environmental activists nervous.
Less than a year before a U.S. presidential election that could scuttle the regulator’s environmental, social and governance efforts, the SEC has yet to finish a mandate for public companies to disclose their environmental footprints. In addition, the agency’s specialized ESG enforcement task force has brought few climate cases since it was created in 2021.
During the Biden administration, the SEC has led the charge in calling for more financial regulation and disclosures tied to ESG issues. But pressure on Chair Gary Gensler ... Read more ...
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Here is one way California can end its rooftop solar wars - Los Angeles Times (Dec 28) |
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Dec 28 · California needs to accelerate rooftop solar deployment, not constrain it. Yet the California Public Utilities Commission cut solar incentives for homes and businesses drastically in April 2023.
The CPUC’s actions have caused rooftop solar installations to crater, hampering the state’s climate progress. Since April, installations have dropped by about 80% and an estimated 17,000 installers have lost their jobs. Because California has long been a leader in rooftop solar policy, the commission’s decisions may be imperiling rooftop solar elsewhere: Last month, Hawaii instituted similar cuts to its incentives.
The CPUC argued the new rules would give Californians more ... Read more ...
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How I learned to stop worrying and love rooftop solar - Los Angeles Times (Dec 14) |
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Dec 14 · As global leaders celebrated a hard-fought agreement to triple the world’s renewable energy production and transition away from fossil fuels, an attorney for the state of California was in a San Francisco courtroom Wednesday, defending a decision by appointees of Gov. Gavin Newsom to dramatically reduce financial incentives for rooftop solar power.
Even in an era of seemingly endless chaos and calamity, it was a record-scratch moment.
Hasn’t Newsom championed efforts to fight the climate crisis? Hasn’t he said repeatedly that we need to stop burning coal, oil and gas as fast as we can? Aren’t rooftop solar installations one of the most popular and effective tools for ... Read more ...
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After COP28, let's make this the ‘beginning of the end' of fossil fuels - Los Angeles Times (Dec 3) |
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Dec 3 · It took nearly three decades, but world leaders this week finally acknowledged the obvious: There is no way to slow climate change without winding down fossil fuels.
The agreement reached Wednesday by nearly 200 nations at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai is something of a breakthrough. For the first time, world leaders called for moving away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
The nation’s largest public pension fund offers a weak strategy for reaching a net-zero portfolio, perhaps to head off legislation forcing it to divest from oil companies and other air-polluting industries.
It’s easy to criticize this deal, which followed two weeks of tough ... Read more ...
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Climate change is scary. Here's what gives people hope - Los Angeles Times (Nov 23) |
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Nov 23 · Two years ago for Thanksgiving, I asked my L.A. Times colleagues who write about the environment: What gives them hope?
Last year, I posed the same question to people working on climate change professionally.
This year, it’s your turn. Dozens of readers answered the call when I asked what keeps them going amid the climate chaos.
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Richard Ahern, Phoenix: What keeps me hopeful is the same thing that allows so many of us to be cheerful: the pace of positive technological advancement.
Foundationally, climate change is created by technology. Only technology can fix it. We found the resources to build coal plants and internal combustion engines. We are now ... Read more ...
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Solving climate change will have side effects - Los Angeles Times (Nov 21) |
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Nov 21 · When I wrote a column two weeks ago urging the Biden administration to approve a lot more solar and wind farms on Western public lands, I knew I would get flak from critics of large-scale renewable energy - and indeed I did.
On social media, conservationists blasted me for what they described as my failure to understand that sprawling solar projects and towering wind turbines tear up wildlife habitat and destroy treasured landscapes. They called me a shill for money-grubbing utility companies and suggested it’s obvious that we should rebuild our energy systems around solar panels on rooftops.
I’m sympathetic to those arguments and want to clarify where I’m coming ... Read more ...
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Want people to understand climate change? Pay the experts - Los Angeles Times (Nov 14) |
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Nov 14 · UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain is tired of working for free.
In a series of posts last week on the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Swain - who has been quoted in The Times and other media outlets hundreds of times over the last decade - lamented how hard it is to make a living sharing information about the climate crisis with the public. He said it’s nearly impossible for climate scientists to get paid for communications work - even though that work is badly needed in an era of rampant carbon pollution.
“The status quo is not sustainable,” Swain wrote.
His posts went viral. They were shared by dozens of scientists and journalists who lamented the ... Read more ...
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Coal mines had canaries. To see climate dangers, look to chickadees - Los Angeles Times (Oct 23) |
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Oct 23 · I am pelted by wet snow as I climb above 8,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada of eastern California, tugging a sled loaded with batteries, bolts, wire and 40 pounds of sunflower seeds critical to our mountain chickadee research.
I have spent the past six years monitoring a population of mountain chickadees here, tracking their life cycles and, importantly, their memory, in a system Pravosudov established in 2013. The consistent record from this site has provided us with a unique window to observe how chickadees survive in extreme winter snowfall and to identify ecological patterns and changes.
There’s a petition to release elephants from the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, and Ojai ... Read more ...
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California's transportation spending doesn't match its climate promises - Los Angeles Times (Sep 20, 2023) |
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Sep 20, 2023 · California leaders talk a good game on fighting climate change. But when it comes to cutting the state’s biggest source of planet-warming emissions - cars, trucks, airplanes and other modes of transportation - the spending doesn’t match the rhetoric.
Two recent reports highlight the discrepancy. Regulators have warned that the state needs to slash the amount of miles people drive 25% below 2019 levels to help meet 2030 emission reduction targets. But traffic and car dependence has increased in recent years, according to a report from the progressive advocacy group NextGen Policy.
California’s climate lawsuit against big oil companies isn’t only notable for its pursuit of ... Read more ...
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Gov. Newsom says he’ll sign Sen. Scott Wiener’s greenhouse gas emissions disclosure bill - Los Angeles Times (Sep 16, 2023) |
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Sep 16, 2023 · California is suing five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, alleging that they engaged in a “decades-long campaign of deception” about climate change and the risks posed by fossil fuels that has forced the state to spend tens of billions of dollars to address environmental-related damages.
State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit Friday in San Francisco County Superior Court alleging that Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and the American Petroleum Institute have known since the 1950s that the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet but instead of alerting the public about the dangers posed to the environment they chose to deny or ... Read more ...
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After more than 100 years, gray wolves reappear in Giant Sequoia National Monument - Los Angeles Times (Aug 27, 2023) |
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Aug 27, 2023 · On the morning of July 6, Michelle Harris saw a huge canid with yellow eyes dash across a fire road lined with charred snags and giant sequoias blackened by recent wildfires.
The animal “paused, started to pace and made clipped barking sounds - like it was very worried about something,” recalled Harris, a biologist who was working on a restoration project in the area. “Then it tilted its head back and let out a really decent howl.”
“All I could think was, 'It doesn’t look like a coyote, but it has to be, right?’ ”
Animal tracks and DNA analysis of scat and hair samples determined it was an adult female gray wolf, the leader of a previously undetected pack settling ... Read more ...
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Changing climate is turning prisons into torture chambers and death traps - Los Angeles Times (Aug 25, 2023) |
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Aug 25, 2023 · The purpose of the juvenile justice system in Louisiana is not to punish but to rehabilitate. But dozens of young Louisianans were transferred nearly a year ago to the vacant former death row of the notorious adult maximum security state penitentiary known as Angola, where they have suffered through a summer of record-breaking heat - without air conditioning, according to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state. As temperatures outside reached triple digits for days, conditions inside the windowless cells became unbearable.
This is not rehabilitation, and it’s not even punishment. It is torture.
We need better, more timely information on death and illness caused by ... Read more ...
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Montana is appealing a landmark climate change ruling that favored youth plaintiffs - Los Angeles Times (Aug 14, 2023) |
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Aug 14, 2023 · The office of Montana’s Republican attorney general is appealing a landmark climate change ruling that said state agencies aren’t doing enough to protect 16 young plaintiffs from harm caused by global warming.
The state filed notice on Friday that it is going to appeal the August ruling by District Judge Kathy Seeley, who found the Montana Environmental Policy Act violates the plaintiffs’ state constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. The 1971 law requires state agencies to consider the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects and take public input before issuing permits.
Under a change to MEPA passed by the 2023 Legislature, the state ... Read more ...
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No matter the weather, climate change means it's always ‘fire season' - Los Angeles Times (Aug 14, 2023) |
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Aug 14, 2023 · In December, as rains were predicted in California, I performed the annual ritual of removing my go bag from its place in the living room and stashing it in a storage closet.
From spring until early winter the bag, filled with emergency supplies, sits just inside my front door, ready to grab in the event of a wildfire evacuation. As I put it away, I felt a wave of relief. I went outside in the clean forest air and looked up at the evergreen trees that surround my small house, and I allowed myself to admire the landscape’s beauty without fear. Fire season was finally over.
In places at high risk for wildfire, the close of fire season brings a certain peace of mind to ... Read more ...
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It's lights out for incandescent bulbs. Did anyone even notice? - Los Angeles Times (Aug 07, 2023) |
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Aug 07, 2023 · It wasn’t too long ago that the federal plan to phase out inefficient incandescent lights, technology patented more than 140 years ago by Thomas Edison, was controversial enough to generate fierce political backlash and the frenzied stockpiling of bulbs.
In 2011, Republican lawmakers rallied to block federal light bulb efficiency standards, calling them an assault on personal freedom. Former President Trump tried to roll back similar requirements in 2017. But sanity prevailed, and as of this month Americans can no longer purchase incandescent bulbs, with some exceptions, under new U.S. energy efficiency standards.
Did anyone notice? The end of the era of bulbs lighted by ... Read more ...
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The terrible climate hypocrisy at the top of Southern California Edison - Los Angeles Times (Aug 05, 2023) |
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Aug 05, 2023 · With nearly 200 million Americans frying under extreme heat, and water off the coast of Florida reaching hot tub temperatures, Americans can see the climate crisis with their own eyes. We know we must cut fossil fuels as fast as possible. Yet the Edison Electric Institute - the trade association that represents privately owned utilities providing power to more than 235 million people across all 50 states - is planning to oppose a critical part of President Biden’s efforts to address the climate crisis.
The disturbing thing is: I’m funding this effort to delay climate action. If you live in Southern California, you’re probably funding it too.
As a customer of Southern ... Read more ...
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Climate change-attributed heat touched 81% of the world's population in July, study finds - Los Angeles Times (Aug 02, 2023) |
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Aug 02, 2023 · Four out of every five humans alive experienced at least one day of abnormally hot temperatures in July - a global onslaught of extreme heat that would not have been possible without climate change, according to new research.
The sweltering month appears to have been the hottest ever recorded on the planet, although official verification from federal meteorological agencies is pending.
But an analysis of daily temperatures in 4,700 cities found that climate change-attributed heat touched 6.5 billion people - or 81% of the world’s population - in July. The report, released Wednesday by the nonprofit news organization Climate Central, measured the impact using the Climate ... Read more ...
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