Most recent 40 articles: Washington Post - Climate and Environment
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Why Tennessee lawmakers are pushing a bill to keep government from spraying the sky - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 27) |
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Mar 27 · Republican state lawmakers are going after a new threat they say could cause harm to the environment - and playing into a baseless claim at the same time. In a Tennessee bill passed by the state Senate last week, lawmakers targeted geoengineering, an experimental - and controversial - practice not yet in use that could help cool the planet amid climate change. But the text of the bill can also be seen as referring to “chemtrails,” plumes of toxic chemicals that believers of the unfounded claim say governments and corporations are spewing into the sky. Now, the confusion between solar geoengineering and chemtrails threatens to muddy the waters around nascent ... Read more ... |
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Birds, bees and even plants might act weird during the solar eclipse - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 26) |
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Mar 26 · A total eclipse isn’t just a spectacle in the sky. When the moon consumes the sun on April 8, day will plunge into twilight, the temperature will drop - and nature will take notice. Reports abound of unusual animal and plant behavior during eclipses. A swarm of ants carrying food froze until the sun reemerged during an 1851 eclipse in Sweden. A pantry in Massachusetts was “greatly infested” with cockroaches just after totality in 1932. Sap flowed more slowly in a 75-year-old beech tree in Belgium in 1999. Orb-weaving spiders started tearing down their webs and North American side-blotched lizards closed their eyes during an eclipse in Mexico in 1991. Plenty of scientists ... Read more ... |
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The surprising reasons why Big Oil may not want a second Trump term - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 26) |
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Mar 26 · HOUSTON - As president, Donald Trump vowed to unleash American “energy dominance,” while on the campaign trail, he has summarized his energy policies with the slogan “drill, baby, drill.” Yet a possible Trump victory in the 2024 election is not delighting oil and gas executives as much as one might expect, according to interviews with several industry leaders at a recent energy conference in Houston. Fossil fuel firms have found a lot to like in President Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump has vowed to unravel. The law offers lucrative tax credits for companies to capture and store carbon dioxide - subsidies that several oil giants ... Read more ... |
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Fastest-moving solar storm in years triggered beautiful green and purple aurora - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 25) |
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Mar 25 · Skywatchers reported beautiful green, purple and red auroras across Sunday skies in some locations in Europe, New Zealand and parts of the northern United States - at least for a little bit. The auroras, also known as the northern and southern lights, were triggered by the fastest-moving solar storm in at least five years, but dwindled as the geomagnetic activity quickly waned. In Finland, the “aurora did one amazing dance just after the fall of darkness,” Alexander Kuznetsov, a self-described “aurora hunter,” wrote on SpaceWeather.com. “It started as a sharp dancing arc in the Southern horizon, and it quickly went overhead, producing some of the most vibrant red & purple ... Read more ... |
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Steel, cement and - cheese? U.S. spends big to cut these carbon footprints. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 25) |
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Mar 25 · Americans love their macaroni and cheese, devouring millions of boxes each year. But producing all of that gooey yellow pasta takes a toll on the planet, since heating and drying the ingredients requires an enormous amount of energy. On Monday, the Biden administration took a big step toward tackling those and other industrial emissions as part of its broader climate agenda. The Energy Department announced up to $6 billion for 33 projects intended to curb carbon pollution from industrial facilities, including steel mills, cement plants and a Michigan factory where Kraft Heinz makes its staple food of college dorm rooms everywhere. The funding, which comes from President ... Read more ... |
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Northern Lights slash a surprising amount of winter energy bills. Here’s why. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 23) |
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Mar 23 · Over many Finnish winters, scientist Timo Asikainen made an observation in his grandma’s old house common to many: when it was cold, money spent on electricity went up. It turns out, though, those cold spells and his energy bills were influenced by an unexpected source in plain sight, the aurora borealis. More than 90 million miles away from Earth, the sun is constantly spewing out charged particles in our direction, sometimes triggering the ultimate celestial light show - an aurora, also known as the northern and southern lights. Now, Finnish scientists have determined that such strong geomagnetic activity around the country can cause warmer weather and lower electricity ... Read more ... |
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Biden seeks to accelerate the EV transition in biggest climate move yet - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 20) |
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Mar 20 · The Biden administration finalized the United States’ toughest limits on planet-warming emissions from passenger cars and light trucks Wednesday, in a controversial bid to accelerate the nation’s halting transition to electric vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency rule - President Biden’s most far-reaching climate regulation yet - will require automakers to ramp up sales of electric vehicles while slashing carbon emissions from gasoline-powered models, which account for about one-fifth of America’s contribution to global warming. But unlike last year’s proposed rule, automakers will not need to dramatically boost electric vehicle (EV) sales until after 2030. The ... Read more ... |
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Dunes aren’t just big piles of sand. Here’s why Earth needs them. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 20) |
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Mar 20 · The famed coastal dunes that inspired the shifting sand landscape of the desert planet Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel “Dune” are also under siege - from climate change and human development. Like many beaches around the world, the vast sandy ecosystem that stretches along Oregon’s central coastline is threatened by sea level rise and more powerful storms. “There are a lot of places where dunes are eroding that weren’t eroding in the past,” said Sally Hacker, a coastal ecologist and professor at Oregon State University who researches the landforms. As communities build right up to their edge, disrupting the complex system of sand, these dunes can become ... Read more ... |
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Phasing out fossil fuels a 'fantasy,’ oil executives say amid giant profits - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 20) |
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Mar 20 · HOUSTON - When nations struck a historic deal to phase out fossil fuels last fall, then-U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry was elated. “We are moving away from fossil fuels - and we are not turning back,” Kerry declared at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai. But three months later, it appears that some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies did not get the memo. At an energy conference here this week, their leaders struck a much different tone, predicting that fossil fuels will continue to power the global economy well into the future. “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas,” Amin Nasser, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, said to ... Read more ... |
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Why experts think tornado season could soon spring to life - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 19) |
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Mar 19 · The United States sees, on average, about 1,200 tornadoes per year. Most are weak and fleeting - often touching down only briefly and causing minimal damage. A few are strong or violent, tracking dozens of miles and destroying entire neighborhoods. Experts are warning that this year, the peak of tornado season - from April through June - could be extra busy in the Plains. Tornadoes happen in every month of the year. While the winter months of December through February are usually quieter, it’s not uncommon for spinning storms to skirt the Gulf Coast and Florida. By March warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico wafts north over the Deep South. As it clashes with remnant ... Read more ... |
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Why EVs are now almost as cheap as gas cars - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 18) |
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Mar 18 · The price of electric cars is plummeting so fast that they’re now almost as cheap as gas-powered cars. Since EVs first hit the market, car buyers have had to pay a steep premium if they wanted a car that ran on batteries instead of a gas engine. Two years ago, they would have paid about $17,000 more on average for a new electric car than for a new gas-powered car. But that gap has been rapidly closing, shrinking to $5,000 last month, according to data from Cox Automotive. That’s an 11 percent markup over the average new car price last month - roughly similar to the price difference between picking the base model of some cars vs. the performance model that comes with all ... Read more ... |
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Why Americans pay so much more than anyone else for weather disasters - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 16) |
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Mar 16 · The United States suffers the world’s second-highest toll from major weather disasters, according to a new analysis - even when numbers are adjusted for the country’s wealth. The report released late last month by Zurich-based reinsurance giant Swiss Re, which analyzed the vulnerability and damages of 36 different countries, suggests that weather disasters may become a heavy drag on the U.S. economy - especially as insurers increasingly pull out of hazardous areas. Those disasters are driving up insurance rates, compounding inflation and adding to Americans’ high cost of living. Property damages from hurricanes, severe convective storms, flooding and winter storms cost ... Read more ... |
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Four ways total solar eclipses helped us learn more about our universe - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 15) |
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Mar 15 · If we remember only one thing from watching a total solar eclipse, it should be that we are but a small dot in the boundless universe. Throughout history, eclipses have helped us understand our place in the cosmos. As eclipse watchers gaze up at the sky during the total solar eclipse on April 8, the sun, moon and Earth are interlocked in a celestial dance based on orbital physics that we have no control over. The moon lines up at the perfect distance and location in front of the sun to cast a narrow shadow over the only known living beings in our galaxies. Eclipses force us to forgot our material obsessions and allow our minds to venture to the galactic abyss above our ... Read more ... |
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How to use the carbon emissions estimate you see when booking flights - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 15) |
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Mar 15 · Flight booking platforms are giving customers a new number to think about when they buy a plane ticket: the expected greenhouse gas emissions of their trip. If you’ve searched for plane tickets on Google Flights in the past two years, you’ve probably seen a little green number that compares each route’s climate impact. Google began predicting flight emissions in 2022, using data about flight schedules, airplane models and how full a flight is expected to be to come up with an estimate for each passenger’s carbon footprint. Lately, other platforms, including Expedia and Booking.com, have started using the same algorithm, called the Travel Impact Model (TIM), to tell ... Read more ... |
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U.S. moves to save imperiled bird of the West by limiting oil drilling - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 14) |
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Mar 14 · The Biden administration proposed Thursday to save an imperiled bird by limiting oil and gas drilling, mining, livestock grazing and other activities across much of the American West. The draft plan for protecting the greater sage grouse - known for its splashy mating dance - sets up a fierce clash with the fossil fuel industry, which has long seen the bird as a barrier to extracting some of the richest oil and gas reserves in the region. The proposal from the Bureau of Land Management, an arm of the Interior Department, outlines several alternatives for managing nearly 67 million acres of the birds’ habitat across 10 Western states. The “preferred alternative” would ... Read more ... |
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Want a more sustainable meat for the grill? Try a 13-foot python steak. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 14) |
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Mar 14 · They’re scaly, fork-tongued and can measure upward of 20 feet long. Pythons may also be one of the most Earth-friendly meats to farm on the planet. A group of researchers studied two large python species over 12 months on farms in Thailand and Vietnam - where snake meat is considered a delicacy - and found that they were more efficient to raise than other livestock. The snakes were fed a mix of locally sourced food, including wild-caught rodents, pork byproducts and fish pellets. They gained up to 1.6 ounces a day, with the females growing faster than their male counterparts. The snakes were never force-fed, and the researchers found that the reptiles could fast ... Read more ... |
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Australian push for fuel emissions standards hits a speed bump - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 13) |
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Mar 13 · Australia loves its utes. In a nation that idolizes its tradesmen, nothing is more sacrosanct than a tradie’s pickup truck. It’s the ultimate symbol of the working class, even when expensive. And no election campaign is complete without a pickup and a politician at the wheel. Yet some here claim that Australia’s beloved ute is under attack. The alleged culprit? Fuel emissions standards, the likes of which the United States has had for half a century. “It’s astounding that we haven’t done it until now,” said Matt Grudnoff, an economist at the Australia Institute, a think tank that has called for car emissions standards. “It’s the lowest of low-hanging ... Read more ... |
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Boaters and surfers called Dial-A-Buoy for 27 years. Now NOAA is hanging it up. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 12) |
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Mar 12 · It’s the last call for Dial-A-Buoy, a longtime phone service that has provided hundreds of thousands of callers with potentially lifesaving coastal weather and water information. The toll-free system, launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1997 as a resource for those away from a computer or the internet, will be retired as of Sunday “due to the low volume of users and the cost to retain the service,” the agency announced earlier this year. For the last 27 years, Dial-A-Buoy has been there rain or shine, day or night. Boaters and surfers - or anyone seeking the reassuring comfort of a computerized female voice - could count on it to hear ... Read more ... |
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The best eco-friendly home improvements you can do for less than $100 - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 12) |
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Mar 12 · What if you only had $100 to invest in a cheaper, cleaner home? Or $10? Or even just $1? The conversation about cutting your emissions is often about big-ticket items: stoves, furnaces, cars and other changes. But millions of people are neither ready nor able to spend thousands of dollars. What if you didn’t need to? I asked energy experts, efficiency engineers and readers about how to get the biggest climate bang for your buck, whether you rent or own your home. I wanted investments that turned a few dollars into a fistful of them, while cutting emissions within a few months or sooner. I was not disappointed. There’s money just lying around your house squirreled ... Read more ... |
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What this solar eclipse can teach us about our planet and beyond - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 10) |
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Mar 10 · On April 8, the moon will photobomb our view of the sun, creating a rare total solar eclipse that will be seen in Mexico, across the eastern half of the United States and as far north as Newfoundland, Canada. The beauty of the celestial event is enough reason to document it, but scientists have also set up projects to study its effects. Some of the projects enlist the help of eclipse viewers, including you. While the eclipse occurs way above our heads, the effects on Earth can be very personal. The moon’s shadow reaches Earth’s atmosphere and surface. The sudden darkness affects animal behavior, including that of the humans who know it’s coming. It affects chemical reactions ... Read more ... |
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A quest to build renewable energy at the frozen top of the world - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 9) |
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Mar 9 · QAANAAQ, Greenland - Out on the ice, Toku Oshima often says, “there is no time.” No calendar but the migrations of sea creatures. No clock but the cadence of the tides. She can hunt and fish the same way her parents did, and their parents before them: traveling by dog sled, sleeping in a wooden hut she built with her own hands. In the rugged mountains and frozen fjords that surround Greenland’s northernmost town, the old ways are still alive. But those ways are under threat. Human-caused climate change has scrambled weather patterns and pushed the rhythms of animals out of sync with the ice and sun. Residents struggle to earn a living through hunting and fishing, which leaves ... Read more ... |
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The remaking of the American jean - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 8) |
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Mar 8 · Most jeans you’re wearing today barely resemble the stiff, deep indigo pair that Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss introduced in 1873. They’re softer, thinner, lighter-colored and stretchy. That makes them more comfortable but also one of the most polluting and resource-intensive items in your closet. But there’s real hope for your jeans. Levi’s waist overalls from 1879. (Levi Strauss & Co. Archives) Today’s jeans start with the same woven twill as Levi’s original pair, dyed blue and studded with rivets. But the 3 billion pairs now on the global market require additional water, chemicals and energy to create. The dyeing process for a single pair can take about 100 ... Read more ... |
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Livestock industry co-opts academics to downplay its climate impact, study says - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 8) |
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Mar 8 · On campuses across the nation, students and faculty have passionately debated whether their universities should stop accepting fossil fuel money for research. But until recently, funding from the meat and dairy industries, which also contribute to climate change, had scarcely received any attention. That may be beginning to change. A study published in the journal Climatic Change late last month cast a critical eye on two agricultural research centers that focus on the livestock industry’s carbon emissions and, as recently as last year, got much of their funding from industry donations. Housed at the University of California at Davis and Colorado State University, the centers ... Read more ... |
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For the first time in centuries, a gray whale is spotted in New England - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 7) |
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Mar 7 · Paul Dudley, an official in colonial Massachusetts, wrote in 1725 about a “scrag whale” that could be seen off New England’s coast. The account is one of the last known documentations of the gray whale in the Atlantic. Scientists believe they disappeared from that ocean by at least the 19th century, and gray whales were effectively absent from accounts in America by the Revolutionary War, some paleontologists say. But the 90,000-pound mammals, which still inhabit the Pacific Ocean, appear to be returning to the Atlantic. Last week, an aerial survey team from the New England Aquarium spotted a gray whale about 30 miles south of Nantucket, Mass., the aquarium said in a news release. Read more ... |
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Xcel Energy power equipment caused huge Texas fire, investigators say - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 7) |
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Mar 7 · A U.S. utility’s acknowledgment that it caused the Smokehouse Creek Fire - the largest in Texas’s history - marks the latest instance of a power company being caught unprepared in guarding against ever-more devastating blazes, say energy and fire experts. The Camp Fire, which destroyed Paradise, Calif.; the Marshall Fire in Colorado; last year’s deadly fires in Maui - all were ignited by downed power lines or equipment unable to withstand extreme winds and weather. “We keep seeing the same pattern with these utilities,” said Gerald Singleton, an attorney for victims of the Marshall Fire who has also represented plaintiffs in other fires. “It’s become universal because ... Read more ... |
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Earth posts warmest February and ninth straight record-setting month - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 6) |
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Mar 6 · The Earth just observed its warmest February, setting a monthly record for the ninth time in a row, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Wednesday. The unrelenting and exceptional global warmth - fueled by a combination of human-caused warming and the El Niño climate pattern - has spanned both land and ocean areas since June. It has scientists worried about the planet crossing a critical climate threshold and prospects for an active Atlantic hurricane season. The month’s average global air temperature of 13.5 degrees Celsius (56.3 degrees Fahrenheit) was 0.12 degrees (0.22 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the previous warmest February in 2016. ... Read more ... |
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New rules will force U.S. firms to divulge role in warming the planet - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 6) |
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Mar 6 · Corporations will have to share key details about their role in driving climate change and the threat that warming poses to their operations under a contentious proposal the Securities and Exchange Commission approved 3-2 on Wednesday over intense business opposition. The rule, which had been delayed for more than a year as industry groups have threatened lawsuits, is less robust than the Wall Street regulator’s original climate disclosure plan, which would have forced public companies to account for not just their own emissions, but also those throughout their supply chains. But it still represents one of the most far-reaching measures by the federal government to push ... Read more ... |
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Storms recharge California snowpack, easing drought fears - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 6) |
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Mar 6 · Multiple winter storms, including a prolonged and extreme blizzard, unleashed blinding wind-swept snow on California’s Sierra Nevada between Thursday and Tuesday. Whiteout conditions in the high terrain shut down ski resorts, interstates and state highways for days as snow totals climbed to nearly 11 feet. Despite the disruptions, many consider the storms a blessing in a state known for years of unshakable drought and harsh wildfire seasons. The storms turned California’s snowpack deficit into a surplus. The snowpack is a vital water resource, since the slow pace of its melting during the spring feeds rivers and streams as the dry season sets in. Significantly, the ... Read more ... |
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A massive Texas wildfire is finally dying down. Its impact could last years. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 5) |
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Mar 5 · Texans are praying that a spate of wildfires that roared across their state’s panhandle region - including one now among the largest in U.S. history - will finally be extinguished in a matter of days. But even as the embers die out, leaders of the state’s agriculture industry say it could be years before farms and ranches recover from the historic blazes. Fast-moving flames devastated the heart of Texas cattle country, torching about 2,000 square miles of grasslands that feed tens of thousands of cattle. Some 3,600 animals have died, and more will be euthanized because fires burned their hoofs and udders, said Sid Miller, Texas’s commissioner of agriculture. It could take ... Read more ... |
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Are we living in an 'Age of Humans’? Geologists say no. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 5) |
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Mar 5 · The official history of the planet should not include a radical new chapter defined by human impacts, a key scientific panel has decided - ending, for now, a years-long effort to update Earth’s geologic timeline with a new epoch: the Anthropocene. In a vote that concluded Monday night, the scientists rejected a proposal that would mark the start of the Anthropocene in the mid-20th century, when global trade, nuclear weapons tests and rampant fossil fuel consumption radically altered the Earth. Members of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy - the group of scholars responsible for delineating the past 2.6 million years of geologic history - agreed that people have ... Read more ... |
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How to go all-electric without blowing all your fuses - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 5) |
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Mar 5 · First I added an electric vehicle charger. Then an induction stove. Soon, I’ll swap out my rusting 25-year-old gas water heater for an ultraefficient heat pump. What comes next? Nothing - unless I get more juice from my utility. Just one additional appliance will overwhelm the 100-amperage (amp) electric panel that connects me to the grid. My dilemma is one shared by at least 48 million other homes in the United States: Our connections to the electrical grid are stuck in the mid-20th century, when fossil fuels, not electricity, supplied much of our energy. To fully electrify, we’ll need to rethink those gray metal boxes with breaker switches wired to the ... Read more ... |
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U.S. files first criminal charges for smuggling of greenhouse gases - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 5) |
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Mar 5 · The nation’s southern border has long been a hot spot for illegal smuggling of drugs, weapons and migrants. But what about illicitly transporting greenhouse gases that cause climate change? A California man was arrested Monday on charges of doing exactly that and is facing the first prosecution under a 2020 U.S. law aimed at phasing out some of the most potent greenhouse gases on the planet. Federal prosecutors allege that Michael Hart, 58, of San Diego, purchased the gases in Mexico and transported them across the border in the back of his truck, concealed under a tarp and tools. He then allegedly sold them online, including on sites such as Facebook Marketplace and ... Read more ... |
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'On stolen land’: Tribes fight clean-energy projects backed by Biden - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 4) |
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Mar 4 · TUCSON, Ariz. - Verlon Jose recalls climbing a hill here to see the majestic peaks of the Santa Rita Mountains in one direction and the cactus-studded San Pedro Valley, where his ancestors lived hundreds of years ago, in the other. But looking out from that same vista in February, Jose saw only unwelcome development. To the south, bulldozers were carving roads and clearing land for a massive copper mine on the western slope of the Santa Ritas. To the east, construction was underway on a 550-mile power line that would cut through a 50-mile portion of the valley. While the power line would not technically cross the tribal land of the Tohono O’odham Nation, whose ... Read more ... |
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A new watchdog satellite will sniff out methane emissions from space - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 4) |
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Mar 4 · The global crackdown on methane emissions will get a boost this week from a watchdog satellite built to track and publicly reveal the biggest methane polluters in the oil and gas industry. The satellite, designed by scientists from the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Harvard University, will monitor areas that supply 80 percent of the world’s natural gas. Unlike other methane tracking satellites, it will cover a vast territory while also gathering data detailed enough to spot the sources of emissions. “Soon, there will be no place to hide,” said Ben Cahill, a climate expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security think ... Read more ... |
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What John Kerry’s exit means for the global climate fight - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 4) |
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Mar 4 · Soon after he was tapped to help save the planet, U.S. special climate envoy John F. Kerry found himself on another planet entirely. It was April 2021, during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, and Kerry had flown to Shanghai to meet with his Chinese counterparts. He was greeted on the tarmac by dozens of people in hazmat suits who resembled astronauts wearing “moon suits,” Kerry recalled in a recent interview with The Washington Post. “They were completely antiseptically sealed from us,” he said. “It was like going into some weird otherworld.” Those early talks with Chinese climate diplomats - who sat at the opposite end of a long table from Kerry and his ... Read more ... |
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Fears of environmental disaster rise as ship sinks after Houthi attack - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 3) |
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Mar 3 · A cargo ship sank in the Red Sea after an attack by Houthi militants, taking about 21,000 metric tons of fertilizer down with it, posing a significant environmental risk to one of the world’s busiest waterways and the home of many coral reefs. The Rubymar was struck by an anti-ballistic missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthis on Feb. 18 and sank early Saturday after “slowly taking on water” since the attack, U.S. Central Command said on social media early Sunday local time. “The approximately 21,000 metric tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate fertilizer that the vessel was carrying presents an environmental risk in the Red Sea,” Centcom said, adding that the ship “also ... Read more ... |
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In the Amazon, a new way to live off nature - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 2) |
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Mar 2 · SHARAMENTSA, Ecuador - More than 20 years ago, Nantu Canelos had a vision. The Indigenous leader saw in dreams how the wooden huts in this secluded Amazonian community glowed from within as night enveloped the lush, surrounding jungle. This village of 100 people is enclosed by some of Ecuador’s biggest oil reserves. For more than 40 years, the local Indigenous people, the Achuar, have been advocating to stop oil development, which has ravaged large swaths of the Ecuadorian Amazon. But even as they fought against fossil fuels, gasoline was their only option to light their homes and power the boats tied to their livelihood. This area has the thinnest electric coverage in the ... Read more ... |
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Winter is warming almost everywhere. See how it’s changed in your town. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 1) |
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Mar 1 · As another winter nears its close, we bid farewell to the season of merriment, good cheer and inane arguments about global warming. If you think global warming is nonsense, winter offers many cold things to gesture at. “Behold,” you will say, brandishing a snowball, “global warming is a lie.” If, on the other hand, you’re terrified of global warming, you might startle at its shadow. A single unseasonably mild day becomes just more proof that the world is ending. Fortunately, we don’t need to depend on people’s fears and vague intuitions to know how winter is changing. For that, we have high-resolution temperature data. In fact, I can tell you that in 86 percent of the ... Read more ... |
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A tearful Jon Stewart said his dog died. Donations flooded the shelter it came from. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment  (Mar 1) |
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Mar 1 · An emotional Jon Stewart told “The Daily Show” viewers on Monday that his dog, Dipper, the best dog “in a world of good boys,” had died. “Dipper passed away yesterday,” Stewart said, his voice cracking with sadness. “He was ready. He was tired. But I wasn’t. And the family, we were all together - thank goodness. We were all with him.” “But boy, my wish for you is that one day you find that dog - that one dog that is just the best,” he added, before showing a video of Dipper playing ball in the snow. People were so moved by the segment - and the story he told of how he adopted the 3-legged dog from a no-kill shelter in New York City named Animal Haven - that the ... Read more ... |
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