Most recent 40 articles: Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming
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Climate Litigation: Reflection and Anticipation for 2024 - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Dec 4) |
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Dec 4 · Last year, I made three predictions for what would happen in climate litigation in 2023. Two of my predictions hit the mark, while the other one revealed the complexity of the legal battles waged against climate injustice. Below I reflect on my predictions before venturing into the uncharted territory of 2024.
US cases heard on merits: A mixed bag. My prediction that cases would finally be heard on their merits in the United States encountered a mixed reality. While major oil companies did run out of legal stalling tactics when state courts denied their appeals to switch jurisdiction to federal courts, the pace of progress remained sluggish. There was a glimmer of hope in ... Read more ...
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Focusing on Science, Justice, and Systemic Solutions at COP28 - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 30) |
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Nov 30 · The twenty-eighth annual United Nations climate summit - or COP28 - has begun here in Dubai, UAE, where I’m joining the UCS delegation for another round of international discussions on how we can turn the global temperature down as fast as possible on our rapidly heating planet. Eight years after the 2015 COP that produced the Paris Agreement, in which the world’s nations agreed to stick to a strict schedule to cut global warming emissions, I’m balancing my hope that humanity can come together to commit to even more ambitious goals.
The reality is that we have a very heavy lift ahead of us if we are going to affect the transformative change needed to secure a livable future. ... Read more ...
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2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season - a Wrap (Maybe) - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 29) |
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Nov 29 · “In the eye of a hurricaneThere is quietFor just a momentA yellow sky
When I was seventeen a hurricaneDestroyed my townI didn’t drownI couldn’t seem to die”
The above lyrics written by Lin-Manuel Miranda from the musical Hamilton, bring out feelings - and facts - about hurricanes. Yes, Alexander Hamilton did, in fact, survive a hurricane that destroyed his native St. Croix, according to a letter written to his father.
Back in 1772, when that hurricane hit, the science of hurricane forecasting and tracking was not developed. A hurricane was very much a surprise. Today, hurricanes are not surprises anymore, although some of their features may still ... Read more ...
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Federal Grants: Duct Tape or Catalyst for Environmental and Climate Justice? - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 28) |
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Nov 28 · During my more than two decades of federal service, I learned many things about the function of government. The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), where I spent the most time, is charged with protecting public health and the environment, and it uses two primary levers
For example, EPA rules limiting ozone pollution or carbon from power plants move the first lever, while the combined $1.25 billion funding from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are clear examples of the latter. I gained experience in both arenas and know that both are incredibly important to achieve our rapidly approaching climate goals during this defining ... Read more ...
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Cultural Heritage is a Human Right. Climate Change is Fast Eroding It. - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 27) |
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Nov 27 · A human rights-based approach to cultural heritage protection is an essential cornerstone for climate justice and just resilience, but it often seems completely missing from the climate policy equation. In contrast to civil, political, and economic rights, cultural rights have been side-lined and neglected in dialogues about climate policy and human rights.
Cultural rights include the right to freedom for scientific research and creative activity, and the right to participate in cultural life. The foundational document of international human rights law is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It asserts that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the ... Read more ...
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World Leaders Must Protect UN Climate Talks from Fossil Fuel Industry Interference - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 20) |
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Nov 20 · The 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC) is set to begin in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, next week. One of the most crucial indicators of success will be whether the nations of the world reach agreement on a fast and fair phaseout of fossil fuels.
Progress on this front depends on protecting the negotiations - and national and subnational policies based on them - from fossil fuel industry interference. This will not be easy. Fossil fuel interests have had a heavy hand in international climate negotiations since they began more than three decades ago. A growing body of evidence amassed by academic ... Read more ...
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COP28 Global Methane Pledge Efforts Still Not Enough - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 20) |
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Nov 20 · On the busy agenda for the COP28 United Nations climate negotiations this year are continuing efforts to implement the Global Methane Pledge, which was agreed to two years ago at COP26. The pledge is a voluntary agreement to reduce global methane emissions by 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030; however, methane levels keep going up and we are woefully off track for meeting this goal.
Last year I wrote how current efforts were insufficient and still ignored the largest anthropogenic methane source - agriculture - and unfortunately, this remains true today. Plans countries have submitted under the Paris Agreement would lead to an increase in overall emissions by 2030 and that ... Read more ...
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Science’s Role in Addressing Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 16) |
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Nov 16 · The phrase “Loss and Damage“ has been bandied about in international climate negotiations since 1991 when Vanuatu, a small island nation in the South Pacific, called for developed countries to assist in shouldering the financial burden arising from climate change impacts. Today, more than 30 years later, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is still grappling with the question of who should fund a Loss and Damage initiative, where it should reside, and how the money should be allocated. As the global community comes together to address questions about Loss and Damage head on, the vital role of science in Loss and Damage discussions is more apparent than ever, providing a ... Read more ...
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House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Climate Change Playbook: Deny the Science, Take the Funding - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 9) |
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Nov 9 · It took no time for Mike Johnson to establish a hefty carbon footprint as new Speaker of the House. In the first legislative act under his watch, his Republican majority last month passed an appropriations bill that seeks to gut many federal programs meant to fight climate change.
The House bill cuts between $5 billion and $6 billion from last year’s Inflation Reduction Act which passed both houses of Congress without a single Republican vote.
Johnson’s new bill ends rebates for electric appliances, home electrification projects, and training funds for project installation. It eliminates or slashes funding for clean energy and energy efficiency efforts throughout the ... Read more ...
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Climate Litigation and UN Climate Talks: An Important Symbiosis - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 6) |
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Nov 6 · Climate change, one of the defining challenges of our time, demands multifaceted approaches to drive action and accountability. Two central players in this arena are climate litigators and United Nations (UN) climate negotiators. While they may seem like separate pieces of the climate puzzle, they interact in a symbiotic and mutually reinforcing manner in the collective effort to combat global warming. Their relationship has the potential to be further strengthened through ongoing advisory opinion processes, most notably a current climate advisory request before the International Court of Justice.
As I prepare to attend the UN’s 28th annual Conference of the Parties (COP28), ... Read more ...
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The Anthropocene as a Nuclear Age - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Nov 1) |
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Nov 1 · Humanity’s relationship to time is notoriously myopic. We tend to perceive things as permanent and immutable only because their rate of change is imperceptible on the timescales of our own experience. When it comes to geologic time, the disconnect between our lived experience and the magnitude of Earth history is almost irreconcilable. How we mark time, therefore, depends a lot on perspective.
I’ve spent much of my research career steeped in Earth science and planetary evolution, including teaching undergraduate geology. Geologists are trained to appreciate the inconceivably large span of geologic time (or 'Deep Time’) as well as the relative brevity of human presence on the ... Read more ...
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California Can Do It - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Oct 10) |
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Oct 10 · I’m not a native Californian but an adopted one. I love the way the state isn’t afraid to lead in times of great change.
I was reminded of this recently when visiting the Rosie the Riveter museum, not far from my home in the Bay Area. Photos and audio recordings from the 1940s recreate a time of enormous upheaval. Amid fascist forces marching across Europe, democracy and a lot of lives were on the line. Here in Richmond, California, shipyards were bursting with thousands of men and women (for the first time allowed into the workforce en masse). Together, their tireless work helped end World War II and deliver victory to the Allied forces. But those workers, all the Rosies ... Read more ...
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Decolonization Is Critical for Puerto Rico to Achieve Representation in Climate Negotiations - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Oct 4) |
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Oct 4 · A few days ago, Puerto Rico commemorated 155 years of the Grito de Lares, the uprising of 1868 by Puerto Ricans in defense of their right to self-determination and decolonization.
On September 23 of that year, rebels assembled in the mountain town of Lares to declare via a grito (literally, “shout”) their opposition to nearly 400 years of the Spanish colonial regime. Though the insurrection was rapidly quashed by Spanish forces, the Grito de Lares was the first organized uprising against Spain’s absolute rule in Puerto Rico and it represents the birth of the Puerto Rican decolonization and self-determination movement that echoes through to this day.
In 1898, the ... Read more ...
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How Post-War Justice Strategies Can Be Applied to the Climate Crisis - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Sep 26) |
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Sep 26 · The climate crisis is one of humanity’s most complex conflicts yet. The dangerous impacts of a warming, fossil-fuel dependent world span from wildfires capable of destroying entire towns to cancer-causing air pollution that afflicts the next generation. Countries in the Global South that are barely emitting any heat-trapping emissions have felt the impacts of this struggle acutely, despite countries like the United States and China accounting for nearly 40% of cumulative global carbon pollution.
The obstruction of climate action by high-emitting countries over the past several decades - even after the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was ... Read more ...
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No Time for Delay: Congress Must Keep Disaster Funding Flowing - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Sep 26) |
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Sep 26 · 2023 has already been a year of record-breaking climate change-related impacts: endless days of extreme heat, nightmare wildfires, extensive flooding, and storms like Hurricane Idalia that many communities are struggling to recover from. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently released its updated summary of extreme weather and climate change-related disasters. From January to August of this year, NOAA reports that the country experienced 23 disasters that each caused damages of at least $1 billion or more. These disasters had a total economic toll of $57.6 billion and contributed to 253 deaths. With two and half months left in the official Atlantic ... Read more ...
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The Human Right to a Stable Climate - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Sep 25) |
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Sep 25 · Scientists have unequivocally confirmed that human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, are driving unprecedented changes to the Earth’s climate, raising fundamental questions about our responsibility to safeguard the environment for future generations. Now, an ethical, moral and legal debate is emerging: do we have the right to a stable climate? The answer surely should be yes, we do.
Courts are hearing arguments on both sides. Last month, in a landmark decision, a Montana judge ruled that youth in the state do have the right to a stable climate. The highest court in Hawai’i ruled similarly in March, recognizing the human right to a stable environment. The ... Read more ...
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California Advances Corporate Climate Accountability Amid New Evidence of ExxonMobil’s Deception - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Sep 21) |
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Sep 21 · There have been several dramatic advances in climate corporate accountability this month. Tens of thousands of people marched in New York City and around the world, California filed a groundbreaking lawsuit and passed new corporate climate disclosure rules, and the Wall Street Journal published new revelations about ExxonMobil’s climate disinformation efforts.
Here are the key things you need to know about California’s advances and what’s new in the internal ExxonMobil documents.
California’s climate accountability lawsuit is groundbreaking in several ways:
The largest state by population, California has joined more than 40 cities, counties, and states across the ... Read more ...
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World Heritage Committee Ignores UNESCO Recommendation to List Venice as Endangered - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Sep 14) |
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Sep 14 · The World Heritage Committee has voted not to put Venice, Italy, on UNESCO’s list of endangered places. The decision flies in the face of the advice of the secretariat of the World Heritage Convention which had recommended that because of slow progress in addressing the dual threats of climate change and over-tourism, Venice should be placed on its “in danger” list. It was a step too far for the Committee which has never yet put a World Heritage site threatened by climate change on the endangered list. A discussion about whether to list Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” will be on the agenda for the 2024 meeting of the ... Read more ...
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A Climate Crossroads for the World Heritage Convention - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Sep 13) |
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Sep 13 · How will the nations that have ratified UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention respond to the threat climate change represents to iconic natural and historic sites across the globe? This is one of the biggest questions facing the countries represented at the 45th World Heritage Committee meeting in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia. Will they for example, agree to place the city of Venice on the list of World Heritage sites “in danger”? Venice is increasingly vulnerable to severe flooding and water damage, and UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre has recommended that the struggling city be added to the list of places in danger because of both climate change and over-tourism. If the Committee agrees, then ... Read more ...
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New Maps Show Inequitable Geography of Danger Season - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Sep 11) |
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Sep 11 · The 2023 Danger Season has been unleashed like never before.
In June and July, heat waves that brought temperatures over 113°F baked the Southwest and the Southeast. By the end of July, Phoenix, AZ, had experienced 31 days in a row with at least 110°F. During most of June, an unprecedented heat wave in Puerto Rico brought heat index temperatures up to 125°F.
In early August, devastating fires in Maui spread quickly due to dry conditions and winds from a distant hurricane. Nearly 40,000 wildfires across the United States burned almost 2 million acres by the end of August.
Hilary was the first tropical storm to hit California in 84 years and prompted flooding alerts ... Read more ...
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Boston-Area Communities Work Together to Beat the Heat - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Aug 30) |
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Aug 30 · We are halfway through this year’s Danger Season - the period between May and October when climate change makes extreme weather events more likely - and the unprecedented ferocity and scale of extreme weather have been making headlines and impacting our lives. In the Northeast, we have seen the haze and breathed air heavy with the smoke from Canadian wildfires. We have witnessed destruction by rising floodwaters from heavy rains. It may be more challenging, however, to perceive what is often called an “invisible hazard” or the “silent killer” as the deadliest weather event: extreme heat.
What images come to mind with the questions: how do you see heat? How does heat affect ... Read more ...
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What Should the Next Phase of Federal Climate Legislation Include? - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Aug 23) |
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Aug 23 · A reporter recently asked me what the next big piece of climate legislation would ideally include. Great question, right? With the help of my colleagues across the Climate & Energy and Clean Transportation programs at UCS, I’ve started a wish list!
Yes, over the past year, Congress has made unprecedented investments in our climate future. The largest of these investments has been the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for clean energy, though the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) also includes funding for building climate resilience. Those investments were hard won and are already starting to benefit the US economy and ... Read more ...
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We Reviewed More Than 150 Papers on Water Management. Here’s What We Learned. - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Aug 23) |
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Aug 23 · In my previous life as a graduate student, I worked with hydroeconomic modeling. I recently had the opportunity to jump back into that type of research with colleagues from the University of California Davis and Merced.
If hydroeconomic modeling sounds like jargon, that’s because it is. In a nutshell, hydroeconomic modeling is a tool for water management. It helps researchers, water practitioners, and policymakers answer critical questions related to how much water is available now and in the future, and–ideally–the best ways to use it. This type of modeling gets complicated when you are trying to find balance among water use by people, agriculture, ecosystems, energy ... Read more ...
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Danger Season’s Extreme Heat Is Melting Records: Here Are 3 Things Congress Should Do Now - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Aug 23) |
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Aug 23 · This summer is melting extreme heat records nationwide and globally. The fourth of July hit the news for the hottest day on record, as did the day after and the following day.
According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies, July 2023 stands as the hottest month on record globally since 1880 when record-keeping began. The top-five hottest Julys have all occurred in the past five years. Heat waves are becoming more frequent, intense, longer and the length of the season is increasing.
From May to October, communities across the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing more frequent and intense climate change-related ... Read more ...
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Climate - and a Cautionary Tale of Three New Hampshire Commissioners - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Aug 22) |
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Aug 22 · In the midst of eye-popping summer precipitation in New England, the Deputy Commissioner at the New Hampshire Insurance Department, D.J. Bettencourt, encouraged New Hampshire residents to go out and buy flood insurance.
Once Governor Chris Sununu’s policy director, Bettencourt was recently nominated to serve as the Department’s next Insurance Commissioner. Earlier in his political career, Bettencourt served as Republican House Majority Leader, and as the public face of the conservative agenda in the state’s House of Representatives.
He is now serving as a subject matter expert - so despite Mr. Bettencourt’s public advocacy for limited government, he must know he’s ... Read more ...
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In the Gulf of Maine, Scientists Race to Save Seabirds Threatened by Climate Change - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Aug 22) |
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Aug 22 · Project Puffin is celebrating its 50th anniversary of launching the world’s first successful restoration of a seabird to islands where humans killed them off. As co-author of two books on the project, it is humorous how some research methods remain timelessly inelegant.
For instance, there is the practice called “grubbing.” Interns still twist themselves into pretzels to get under boulders to find puffin chicks so they can affix identification bands and weigh and measure the chicks to assess their health.
In my visit this summer to Eastern Egg Rock, the project’s original island six miles out to sea from Maine’s Pemaquid Point, I watched Liv Ridley, 25, slide as flat as ... Read more ...
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Danger Season and Deadly Heat Mean National Parks Are No Longer a Summer Respite - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jul 27) |
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Jul 27 · This report was co-authored by Juan Declet-Barreto
If you are like me (and I know many people are), you plan your vacations around national parks. There’s so much to see: beautiful nature, great history, historical lodges, and nice infrastructure. The perfect getaway for me always includes a national park.
The lure of getting away from civilization to be immersed in gorgeous scenery is strong, with the National Park Service recording 312 million recreational visits last year. However, visiting during the summer now comes with added dangers. The US is experiencing some of the hottest weather in history, meaning that even the best planned vacations can quickly take a turn ... Read more ...
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No Word on Climate from Presidential Candidates Stumping in New Hampshire Amid Record Global Heat - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jul 20) |
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Jul 20 · Here in New Hampshire I have been listening for climate and energy solutions from GOP presidential hopefuls, but all I’ve heard are crickets. A half-dozen candidates joined in 4th of July parades in New Hampshire in a week when we witnessed the hottest week (globally) in recorded history as well as temperatures in the mid-90s in the state, which prompted the National Weather Service to issue an extreme heat alert for eight counties. Not a word from candidates.
The presidential primary season coincides with “Danger Season” - the period between May and October when the Northern Hemisphere experiences back-to-back extreme weather augmented by climate change. Candidates are ... Read more ...
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Unrelenting Heat Requires Accountability and Action - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jul 17) |
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Jul 17 · Right in the middle of Danger Season, we are going through a period of unprecedented global extreme temperatures driven by fossil-fueled climate change. The unrelenting heat has caused a dizzying number of air and ocean temperature records to be broken in recent weeks. With El Niño beginning, natural climate variability will push the already extreme temperatures occurring due to climate change even higher in the coming months. This is causing devastation to human and nonhuman communities. It didn’t have to be like this, but this is where we are now - and we have to demand the future we want.
This June was the hottest June on record. And we just experienced 4 consecutive ... Read more ...
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Smoke in Our Eyes: National Park Grandeur Degraded by Global Warming - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jul 5) |
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Jul 5 · My window into global warming ruining a rite of summer came 16 years ago. I was flat on my back on blankets, under the stars in the middle of the night at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. At 7,214 feet and more than a half mile above Yosemite Valley, this was a perfect place to watch the August Perseid meteor shower sizzle overhead.
For a precious hour or so, zips of light etched the skies, punctuated by periodic long trails and fireballs. Then, shortly after 3 a.m., a milky film slid across the sky as if a window shade were being closed sideways. My eyes fought to peer through the thickening mystery until even the brightest bursts of light were obliterated. Because ... Read more ...
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#DangerSeason Unleashed: Killer Heat Threatens 75 Million in US South, No End in Sight Through Next Week - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jun 28) |
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Jun 28 · Today climate change has broken a new Danger Season record: 76 million people in the US - or 23% of the total population - are currently under extreme weather alerts including heat, flooding, storms, or wildfire weather conditions. Almost all of those alerts - impacting 75 million - are for extreme heat covering most of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Alabama, and all of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Several counties in California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee are also under extreme heat alerts. And notably, our tally does not include the millions of additional people across the Northeast and the Midwest are experiencing poor air ... Read more ...
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Climate Reality vs. Public Perception: Will Toxic Haze and the 2023 Danger Season Make a Difference? - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jun 22) |
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Jun 22 · The year is only half done and the United States has already been enveloped by acrid orange skies in the East, battered by winter rains and floods in California, seared by record winter temperatures in the South, soaked by a record 26-inch April deluge in Fort Lauderdale, and broiled by record spring heat in the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and Puerto Rico.
The onslaught has led to another round of media headlines and press releases from environmental and public health groups asking whether the nation is at a tipping point of urgency to fight climate change.
A Los Angeles Times headline for reader letters on the floods said, “California rains are a wake-up call for climate ... Read more ...
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La Temporada de Peligros climáticos está aquí. ¿Qué puede significar esto para Puerto Rico? - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jun 21) |
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Jun 21 · El verano ya casi está aquí, y se espera sea más caluroso de lo normal según NOAA, la dependencia federal de investigación oceanográfica y atmosférica. Con el verano comienza también la “Temporada de Peligro”, o sea, los meses entre mayo y octubre cuando los fenómenos atmosféricos extremos (inundaciones, incendios forestales, tormentas y huracanes, o calor extremo) no solo se han hecho más frecuentes y dañinos debido al cambio climático, sino que es también más probable que traslapen o que ocurran de manera simultánea. Dada la desastrosa temporada de huracanes que vivió Puerto Rico en 2017 y la huella del cambio climático en el alza en temperaturas y en el poder destructivo de las ... Read more ...
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A Year After the Deadly Pakistan Floods Began, Hard Lessons About Climate Loss and Damage - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jun 13) |
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Jun 13 · Last summer, from June through August, Pakistan endured extended intense rainfall - exacerbated by climate change - that triggered devastating and unprecedented months-long flooding across the country. The floods killed more than 1700 people, a third of them children; affected 33 million people and displaced 8 million; destroyed more than 2.2 million homes and 4.4 million acres of crops; and cost $40 billion. The people of Pakistan are still reeling from the catastrophic effects of the 2022 floods and the country’s economy is in crisis, even as the 2023 monsoon season is off to a sobering start and the powerful Cyclone Biparjoy is set to make landfall shortly. A year on, here are ... Read more ...
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Worsening Risks of Climate Change Expose the Need for - and Hard Limits of - Property Insurance - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jun 07, 2023) |
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Jun 07, 2023 · Climate change is putting more people and property in harm’s way - and also exposing hard limits to the protection that property insurance can offer. Far too many people don’t have insurance against damage caused by flooding, wildfires, and intensifying storms, either because they are not aware of the risk they face, or because they cannot afford insurance. More people need insurance, but increasingly the climate crisis is making many places too risky to insure at reasonable rates. As the summer Danger Season gets underway, here are some thoughts about insurance in a warming world. I will unpack more as the season progresses.
When major disasters strike, the toll on people, ... Read more ...
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Species on the Move: How Climate Change Is Re-Making Ecosystems - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (Jun 06, 2023) |
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Jun 06, 2023 · Human-caused climate change is redistributing species across the globe, re-ordering ecological communities, and even driving genetic changes in some populations. We need to better understand these changes, and to adapt biodiversity conservation strategies to take them into consideration.
To address these issues, the third international Species on the Move conference convened in Bonita Springs, Florida, in May 2023. Key ideas discussed at the meeting included increasing connectivity between protected areas, the need for anticipatory legal and regulatory planning for biodiversity conservation, and reinstituting and protecting Indigenous land and wildlife management ... Read more ...
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Atlantic Hurricane Season 2023: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly - and More - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (May 31, 2023) |
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May 31, 2023 · Another Atlantic hurricane season is upon us starting on June 1st. What will this season bring? Hard to foretell, but some data can help us with the basics.
Colorado State University released its forecast (usually the first out every year), which projects an Atlantic hurricane season somewhat weaker than recent years, with 13 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), six hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), and two major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5, with winds of 111 mph or higher).
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast, released on May 25, calls for similar numbers: 12 to 17 total named storms, of which 5 to 9 could become hurricanes, ... Read more ...
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Western Wildfires are Burning Through Local and State Budgets - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (May 22, 2023) |
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May 22, 2023 · As a Californian, summer still holds the promise of family vacations and visits to favorite swimming holes, but it increasingly triggers concerns about drought, extreme heat, and wildfires - or what we at UCS first named “danger season.”
Both extreme heat and wildfires are directly linked to climate change. Previous research by UCS scientists actually quantified the contribution of major carbon producers (like Chevron and ExxonMobil) to increased temperatures, and now we’ve done the same for wildfire.
For years, fossil fuel companies have socialized the costs of their pollution while privatizing the benefits. Since local and state governments are on the frontlines of ... Read more ...
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Ask a Scientist: Calling Out the Companies Responsible for Western Wildfires - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (May 16, 2023) |
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May 16, 2023 · The US wildfire season used to last about four months, beginning in late summer or early autumn. These days, it stretches six to eight months, according to the US Forest Service, and in some places it’s now a year-round affair.
In just five years, from 2018 through 2022, wildfires scorched 38.3 million acres across the country. That’s nearly 60,000 square miles, slightly bigger than the state of Georgia. Last year alone, nearly 69,000 wildfires burned 7.6 million acres, more than 40 percent of which were in Alaska.
Not only is the fire season longer, wildfires are burning larger areas more severely and at higher elevations. The average acreage that has burned every year ... Read more ...
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Cuatro razones por las que investigamos cómo los combustibles fósiles están detrás de los incendios forestales: una mirada detrás del nuevo estudio de UCS - Union of Concerned Scientists - Global Warming (May 15, 2023) |
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May 15, 2023 · El día de hoy se publicó una nueva investigación dirigida por la Unión de Científicos Conscientes (UCS, por sus siglas en inglés), cuyo objetivo es medir cómo contribuyen las emisiones que atrapan el calor generadas por los mayores productores mundiales de combustibles fósiles y fabricantes de cemento a la intensificación de los incendios forestales en el oeste de Norteamérica. Este estudio es el primero de su tipo y presenta dos conclusiones principales, las cuales exponemos detalladamente en un estudio revisado por expertos y en un breve informe:
Lo que el informe y el estudio no dicen es por qué llevamos a cabo esta investigación. En este artículo del blog explicamos por ... Read more ...
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