Most recent 20 articles: Washington Post - Climate and Environment
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Uruguay, hot and dry, adds saltwater to public drinking supply - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 29) |
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May 29 · MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - When the headaches began, María Sosa thought back to breakfast a few days earlier.
She had been boiling eggs in their kitchen. Her husband, drinking water, asked if she thought it tasted off.
“A looked at the pot and it was white, tainted with salt,” said Sosa, 62. “I knew right there: This was going to be a problem.”
Uruguay, beset by high temperatures and drought, is running out of freshwater. Montevideo, the capital, is down to just a few days’ supply.
This small, affluent South American nation is not alone in its suffering. Historically hot, dry conditions are harming crops and shaking economies across the Southern Cone. Amid global ... Read more ...
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Waters in Venice’s Grand Canal turn bright green, prompting investigation - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 29) |
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May 29 · A patch of water in Venice’s famed Grand Canal has turned fluorescent green, stumping residents and tourists and prompting an investigation involving police, the regional environmental agency and other local bodies.
The green swath of water was spotted by residents near the Rialto Bridge on Sunday, tweeted Luca Zaia, head of Veneto region, adding that an “urgent meeting” had been convened by the administration.
The regional environmental agency said in a statement that it had inspected the area and taken samples from the water. The initial analysis suggested that there were no substances deemed harmful for the environment, the agency said. More tests will be conducted ... Read more ...
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She didn’t expect to get melanoma. Why Black people need sunscreen. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 27) |
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May 27 · Growing up in Hackensack, N.J., Jacqueline Smith spent plenty of time outdoors, including going to the beach with her family.
Smith’s parents never wore sunscreen. So, neither did she. Smith knew she faced the risk of sunburn - maybe even skin cancer - but she didn’t think it could happen to her, as a Black woman.
Then, in 2003, she found a lump under her bikini line.
After months of doctor’s appointments, where her concerns were shrugged off by medical professionals, Smith was eventually diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma, which her physician told her was probably the result of sun exposure. She was only 22 years old.
Smith is somewhat of an outlier - only a ... Read more ...
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California’s cliffs are crumbling as climate change reshapes the coast - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 26) |
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May 26 · SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - Among the coveted places to live in this city, if you have the money, is West Cliff Drive. How much longer that will be true is the question.
The cliff-top road is falling into the Pacific in large chunks, leaving gaping holes and closing lanes along a normally busy street. A process that has taken place over centuries is quickening after a rare series of winter and spring storms that brought abnormally high tides, potent surf and lots of rain.
The sea is taking back the land. It is happening at various speeds along much of California’s coast, changing the ragged western edge of the country and threatening neighborhoods, highways and ways of ... Read more ...
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Climate protesters indicted for smearing paint around case of Degas statue - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 26) |
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May 26 · Two climate activists were indicted by a federal grand jury following an April protest that included smearing paint on the case protecting Edgar Degas’s “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” sculpture in the National Gallery of Art, the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington said Friday.
The climate activists - identified in the recently unsealed indictment as Timothy Martin and Joanna Smith - surrendered to officials on Friday on two counts related to conspiracy and damaging property in the National Gallery of Art, according to a news release from federal prosecutors. Each charge carries a maximum of five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.
At the time of the incident, the ... Read more ...
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Super Typhoon Mawar strengthens into most powerful storm on Earth in more than 2 years - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 26) |
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May 26 · The most powerful storm system on Earth in more than two years, Super Typhoon Mawar, is raging through the Pacific, stirring up 70-foot waves amid 200 mph gusts as the atmospheric buzz saw cruises over warm ocean waters. The meteorological monstrosity could maintain Category 5-equivalent strength for days before weakening upon eventual approach to Taiwan.
Super Typhoon Surigae exploded from a Category 2 to a Category 5 in one day
The storm passed just north of Guam as a Category 4 on Wednesday, lashing the island with winds in the Category 2 range and flooding rains. Now it’s resurged to Category 5 force, and is among the top 10 strongest storms to occur globally since 2000. Read more ...
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Lawmakers near deal on energy permitting in debt ceiling talks - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 25) |
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May 25 · Lawmakers are nearing a modest deal on overhauling the nation’s permitting process for energy projects as part of legislation to raise the debt ceiling and avert an unprecedented default, according to two people close to the deliberations.
The emerging deal would ease the process of building the interstate transmission lines needed to carry clean electricity across the country - a top priority for Democrats and a boon for President Biden’s climate agenda, said the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private negotiations.
To sweeten the deal for Republicans, the agreement would make modest changes to the National Environmental Policy ... Read more ...
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Supreme Court weakens EPA power to enforce Clean Water Act - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 25) |
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May 25 · The Supreme Court on Thursday cut back the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the nation’s wetlands, another setback for the agency’s authority to combat air and water pollution.
At issue was the reach of the landmark 51-year-old Clean Water Act and how courts should determine what count as “waters of the United States” under protection of the law. Nearly two decades ago, the court ruled that wetlands are protected if they have a “significant nexus” to nearby regulated waters.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for himself and four other of the court’s conservatives, rejected that test and imposed one that environmentalists say will remove ... Read more ...
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Germany conducts raids against climate activists, alleging criminality - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 24) |
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May 24 · BERLIN - German police launched a series of raids early on Wednesday across the country against a group of climate activists known for attacking art and gluing themselves to roads to raise awareness.
The suspects are accused of organizing a fundraising campaign to finance criminal activities, advertising them on their website and collecting at least $1.5 million in donations so far.
Why climate 'doomers’ are replacing climate 'deniers’
“These funds were, according to current information, mostly used for the committing of further criminal action of the association,” police said without specifying the nature of the “criminal action.”
Last Generation, which has ... Read more ...
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Typhoon Mawar brings punishing winds, power outages to Guam - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 24) |
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May 24 · Punishing winds battered Guam on Wednesday as one of the worst storms to face the Pacific U.S. territory in decades approached the island, and authorities issued flash flood and extreme wind warnings and asked residents to shelter indoors.
“Many of us right now are feeling the full strength of Typhoon Mawar,” Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero (D) said around 4 p.m. local time, calling it “a frightening experience that hasn’t been felt for over two decades.”
The eyewall - the ring of intense storms around the typhoon’s calm center - was carrying winds of up to 140 mph across northern Guam as it passed over the Rota Channel, bringing “destructive winds” and lightning to the island, ... Read more ...
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Oil executive will lead world climate talks. Lawmakers are trying to oust him. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 23) |
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May 23 · A coalition of members of Congress and the European Parliament on Tuesday called for the ouster of the oil executive leading the next U.N. Climate Change Conference in the United Arab Emirates this fall.
Tuesday’s letter represents a remarkable rebuke of the decision to name Sultan Al Jaber, who runs the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, as president of the climate summit. It comes as human rights advocates also voice anger and disbelief over the UAE’s invitation of Syria’s embattled president to the climate talks, known as COP28.
Both climate and human rights activists say the integrity of the climate gatherings are at stake.
“It’s pretty ... Read more ...
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The coming battle between Americans who want to go electric and their landlords - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 23) |
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May 23 · When Jake Douglas moved into his new apartment in North Bend, Wash., in 2021, he asked his landlord if the building could install electric vehicle chargers. Douglas had an electric car and wanted to make sure he’d be able to refill the battery at home. The landlord said that EV charging was in the works, and Douglas tried to help by researching different vendors and prices.
“He just kept saying it was going to happen, and after a year and a half, two years - nothing,” Douglas said. The 35-year-old software engineer also hoped to have a heat pump installed in his apartment, which had an old-school electric resistance heater and no air conditioning. No luck there, either. Faced ... Read more ...
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These countries will be dangerously hot within the next century - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 23) |
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May 23 · Global warming will force more than a fifth of the world’s population out of the “climate niche” most conducive to human life by 2100 if temperatures continue rising, a new study estimates, articulating the dire toll across many parts of the world in the coming decades if policymakers do not take sharp action to curtail the worst effects of heat.
By the end of the century, nearly 2 billion people could be living with average annual temperatures hotter than 84 degrees Fahrenheit, or 29 degrees Celsius, the maximum level at which the study’s authors said was historically conducive to human settlement and habitation.
That would happen if global temperatures rise an average ... Read more ...
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How California’s wild weather brought the debt-ceiling 'X date’ closer - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 22) |
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May 22 · As President Biden and lawmakers scramble to strike a debt ceiling deal before the government runs out of money, each day counts - to the tune of about $17 billion. That’s how much the U.S. Treasury spends daily, on average, to keep the government functioning.
The government gets most of those funds from taxes. So when the Congressional Budget Office reported this month that the IRS took in less tax revenue than expected from Oct. 1 through April 30 - just under $300 billion less than in the first seven months of the previous fiscal year - it sent an ominous signal that the time could come even sooner when the United States can no longer borrow more money or fend off default. ... Read more ...
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States reach deal with Biden to protect drought-stricken Colorado River - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 22) |
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May 22 · The states along the Colorado River - a vital source of water and electricity for the American West - reached an agreement with the Biden administration to conserve an unprecedented amount of their water supply in exchange for $1.2 billion in federal funding, state and federal officials said Monday.
After nearly a year of negotiations and multiple missed deadlines, the deal is a temporary solution intended to protect the country’s largest reservoirs - Lake Powell and Lake Mead - from dropping to critical levels over the next three years. These reservoirs have fallen dramatically as the warming climate and the past two decades of drought have reduced the river’s natural flow by ... Read more ...
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Why a warming world is costing you precious hours of sleep - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 21) |
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May 21 · Nick Obradovich couldn’t fall asleep, again. And now he was getting grumpy.
It was October 2015, and San Diego was experiencing historically warm fall temperatures in the mid-70s. The normally cool and dry city logged its three warmest October nights on record at the time during an unprecedented heat wave. The area had experienced its warmest October on record at about 7.7 degrees above average.
Obradovich was living with his wife in a condo with no air conditioner, which isn’t unusual given the typically mild weather year round. He said a lot of places don’t have air conditioning, especially in more bare-bones living spaces, including ones that graduate students like ... Read more ...
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Ukraine found an unlikely tool to resist Russia: Solar panels - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 20) |
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May 20 · Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s power grid plunged many parts of the country into darkness last fall, but one water company was able to keep its pumps going. Its field of solar panels, installed as an environmentally friendly measure before the war, turned into a tool to resist the Kremlin’s attacks.
Now a growing number of Ukrainian hospitals, schools, police stations and other critical buildings are racing to install solar power ahead of what many expect will be another hard winter later this year.
A less carbon-intense, decentralized energy system is emerging as a key element of Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts. Seven months of Russian attacks on the energy grid have ... Read more ...
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Why Montana is emerging as a must-watch climate battleground - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 19) |
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May 19 · Montana is the land of big skies, glaciers and fly-fishing - where natural beauty is so important, the state imposed a constitutional right to a clean environment. But it also boasts the country’s largest recoverable coal reserves, which are critical to its economy, making it one of the most intense climate battlegrounds in the country.
This month, Gov. Greg Gianforte (R) signed a law barring the state from calculating the climate impacts of major projects. At the same time, a federal judge has ruled that a first-of-its-kind lawsuit testing whether Montana’s constitution requires the state to combat climate change will go to trial next month.
They are signs that ... Read more ...
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El Niño is getting stronger. That could cost the global economy trillions. - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 18) |
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May 18 · With an El Niño expected to develop in coming months, new research shows the naturally occurring climate pattern could cost the global economy trillions of dollars as its effects linger over years - a figure much higher than previous estimates that only considered immediate economic tolls.
The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found some of the most intense past El Niño events cost the global economy more than $4 trillion over the following years. As climate change could increase the frequency and strength of future El Niño events, the study authors project that global economic losses could amount to $84 trillion dollars by the end of the 21st century, even if ... Read more ...
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Why the U.S. is so bad at building clean energy, in 3 charts - Washington Post - Climate and Environment (May 18) |
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May 18 · The United States has big plans to move away from fossil fuels. By 2050, the Biden administration has promised, the country will have a carbon footprint of zero - thanks to thousands of wind and solar farms, new nuclear and geothermal power plants, electric vehicles and all-electric homes and buildings.
There’s just one problem: The United States really isn’t very good at building clean energy.
This paradox has become a central question in the anxiety-inducing race to raise the debt ceiling this month. Congressional leaders, haggling over how best to avoid default, have suggested that agreeing legislation to speed up the development of energy projects and power lines - ... Read more ...
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