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Climate Change Feels More Real Now Than Ever
The Atlantic
[…] In one sense, this pile-up of crises is exactly what climate scientists expected. Global temperatures are rising at pretty much the anticipated rate, Simon Lee, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University, told me, and natural disasters are corollaries to that fact. There will be some year-to-year variation in what happens—and this one may clock in with slightly worse conditions, overall, than trend lines would predict. But the fact is, climate change is implicated at least to some extent in all of these disasters. It makes the hot days hotter. It makes rainstorms more intense. It dries out landscapes and primes them for ignition. “We don’t need to do a specific attribution study anymore” to make such assertions, Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told me. “We’ve been doing this for 20 years now … This is so far from rocket science.”
But when it comes to climate science, what researchers “expect” can be a sketchy concept. “We know the overall path we’re on,” Alex Ruane, a climate scientist at NASA, told me, but “things don’t always change in a nice, gradual way.” Although the global situation is deteriorating at about the rate that leading models would predict, more specific, local changes may come as a surprise. Climate change is, at its core, a destabilizing force: Think of its effects as being predictably unpredictable. […]
“People are no longer talking about climate change in the future tense,” Ruane said. “They’re talking about climate change in the present tense.” More and more of them have personal tales of climate woe. Disasters are no longer framed as harbingers; they’re simply understood to be the way things are. “These are not canaries in the coal mine,” Schmidt said. “The canaries died a long time ago.”
NASA Finds June 2023 Hottest on Record
NASA
June 2023 was the hottest June on record according to NASA’s global temperature analysis.
GISTEMP, NASA’s global temperature analysis, is drawn from data collected by weather stations and Antarctic research stations, as well as instruments mounted on ships and ocean buoys. NASA scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York analyze these measurements to account for uncertainties in the data and to maintain consistent methods for calculating global average surface temperature differences for every year. These ground-based measurements of surface temperature are consistent with satellite data collected since 2002 by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder on NASA's Aqua satellite and with other estimates. NASA uses the period from 1951-1980 as a baseline to understand how global temperatures change over time.
Independent analyses by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information likewise found June 2023 to be the warmest June in their records.
Oceans are turning greener due to climate change
Nature
More than half of the world’s oceans have become greener in the past 20 years, probably because of global warming. The discovery, reported today in Nature, is surprising because scientists thought they would need many more years of data before they could spot signs of climate change in the colour of the oceans.
“We are affecting the ecosystem in a way that we haven’t seen before,” says lead author B. B. Cael, an ocean and climate scientist at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK.
The ocean can change colour for many reasons, such as when nutrients well up from its depths and feed enormous blooms of phytoplankton, which contain the green pigment chlorophyll. By studying the wavelengths of sunlight reflected off the ocean’s surface, scientists can estimate how much chlorophyll there is and thus how many living organisms such as phytoplankton and algae are present. In theory, biological productivity should change as ocean waters become warmer with climate change.
'This isn't over' says Gov. Scott as Vermont's recovery may be stalled by severe weather
Burlington Free Press
As Vermont turns its focus to recovering from massive flooding, an ominous forecast with heavy rain and severe weather threatens to put those efforts on hold and may contribute to more damage.
"This isn't over," Gov. Phil Scott said while addressing the public and the media during a news conference Thursday morning. He asked Vermonters to remain vigilant, plan ahead and to not be complacent.
In particular, he asked Vermonters not to be out between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Thursday evening if they could help it. A severe thunderstorm is expected to include heavy winds and rainfall as well as the possibility for lightning, large hail and tornadoes. Forecasts predicted at least another inch of rainfall over much of Vermont, but there could be more. Because the ground is already saturated, the result could be flash flooding and soft ground contributing to downed trees and powerlines, which could easily lead to more damage and power outages.
Most sweltering US city Thursday? Not Phoenix. Not even Houston. It was Fort Worth.
Fort Worth Star-Telegraph
Forget Phoenix, Las Vegas or even Death Valley, California. On Thursday, it was Fort Worth that felt the most sweltering in the grip of the heat wave across the lower half of the country.
With a heat index of up to 116 degrees, Cowtown ranked No. 1 in the U.S. among large cities, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Austin and Dallas followed with a heat index of 114 degrees. Even Florida’s merciless humidity couldn’t surpass the misery in North Texas; Jacksonville ranked 10th among cities with a heat index of 105, the Post reported.
In Phoenix, where it was 112 degrees on Thursday, lower humidity meant a heat index of only 110.
The Southwest's enduring heat wave is expected to intensify over the weekend
NPR News
An expansive heatwave that's been baking the southern United States for nearly two weeks is only expected to intensify as the weekend approaches, forecasters say. […]
It could get even hotter over the weekend, with temperatures forecast to exceed 120 degrees in Phoenix. There, in one of America's largest urban heat islands, residents face little relief when the sun goes down, with temperatures remaining as high as 95 degrees overnight in some regions. […]
Since 1983, the average summer temperature in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico have all increased by roughly 3 degrees, according to data from NOAA. […]
Parts of the central U.S. could also see a cocktail of severe weather conditions on Thursday with heavy rain and thunderstorms in the forecast, threatening "rain totals over several inches" and flash floods, the NWS says.
CBS News
There's a "silent hazard" threatening the future of major cities. A new study found that the ground underneath major cities is heating up so much that it's becoming deformed – and that buildings, as they are, likely won't be able to handle it as it gets worse.
The study was conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, who used Chicago as a "living laboratory" to research the impact that underground temperature variations have on infrastructure.
"The ground is deforming as a result of temperature variations, and no existing civil structure or infrastructure is designed to withstand these variations," researcher and Northwestern professor Alessandro Rotta Loria said in a press release. "Although this phenomenon is not dangerous for people's safety necessarily, it will affect the normal day-to-day operations of foundation systems and civil infrastructure at large."
Cerberus heatwave: Hot weather sweeps across southern Europe
BBC News
A heatwave is sweeping across parts of southern Europe, with potential record-breaking temperatures in the coming days. Temperatures are expected to surpass 40C (104F) in parts of Spain, France, Greece, Croatia and Turkey.
In Italy, temperatures could reach as high as 48.8C (119.8F). A red alert warning has been issued for 10 cities, including Rome, Bologna and Florence.
Northern India hit by record monsoon rains, over 100 killed
AP via PBS News Hour
Schools and colleges were closed after record monsoon rains led to massive waterlogging, road caves-in, collapsed homes and gridlocked traffic in large parts of northern India, killing more than 100 people over two weeks, officials said Thursday.
At least 88 people died, 42 of them in the past five days, and more than 100 were injured in the worst hit-mountainous Himachal Pradesh state where cars, buses, bridges and houses were swept away by swirling flood waters, a state government statement said. The region is nearly 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of New Delhi.
CBC News
Leaders in British Columbia are sounding the alarm about looming water scarcity and future use restrictions as drought levels in parts of the province have been elevated to the most severe end of the scale.
More Canadian smoke will arrive in Minnesota Friday and Saturday, could linger Sunday
Minneapolis Star Tribune
State forecasters say outdoor air will be unhealthy for vulnerable people again this weekend, with a new wave of Canadian wildfire smoke pushing south into Minnesota. […]
Fires continue to burn across Canada, despite a wave of rains in the past week that dropped as much as a month's worth of precipitation and unleashed flooding on parts of southern Quebec, the CBC reported. Since May, more than 36,000 square miles of the country have burned, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre — an area that would cover two-fifths of Minnesota.
It’s even hot in Antarctica, where it’s winter
Vox
Temperature records are falling around the world as a strong El Niño brews in the Pacific Ocean and summer rises in the Northern Hemisphere. The planet recently experienced the hottest day and hottest June ever recorded. But some of the most alarming heat right now is occurring far away from most of humanity in Antarctica, where it’s currently winter.
The World Meteorological Organization reported last week that sea ice is at record low levels around Antarctica, 17 percent below the average for this time of year. Sea ice expands and shrinks with the seasons and the ice around Antarctica is still growing, but at the slowest pace seen since satellite observation began in the 1970s.
House Republicans propose deep cuts for Interior, EPA
E&E Daily
House Republicans would take a budgetary buzzsaw to energy and environmental agencies the Biden administration and Democrats had buttressed after years of stagnant funding. […]
The bill would approve $25.4 billion in nondefense discretionary spending for fiscal 2024, a significant drop of $13.4 billion or 35 percent from enacted funding.
The package would provide $14.3 billion for Interior, $677 million below fiscal 2023 levels and a sizable $3.4 billion below the Biden administration’s request. […]
EPA would receive close to $6.2 billion in fiscal 2024, a drastic downsizing of 39 percent, given its current budget of $10.1 billion. […]
“House Republicans have proposed an appropriations bill that completely debilitates our response to the climate crisis,” said Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), ranking member of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee.
“This destructive bill promotes dirty energy, hastens the decline of our ecosystems, and fosters hate and discrimination,” said Pingree.
‘US 'under no circumstances' will pay climate reparations, Kerry says
Reuters
The United States will not pay reparations to developing countries hit by climate-fueled disasters, John Kerry, the U.S. special envoy on climate change, told a congressional hearing on Thursday.
Kerry, a former U.S. secretary of state, was asked during a hearing before a House of Representatives foreign affairs oversight subcommittee whether the U.S. would contribute to a fund that would pay countries that have been damaged by floods, storms and other climate-driven disasters.
"No, under no circumstances,' Kerry said in response to a query from U.S. Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chair of the subcommittee.
Kerry was testifying at a hearing on the State Department's climate agenda just days before he was scheduled to travel to Beijing for renewed bilateral talks with China on climate change.
Biden’s economic dream is becoming reality
Politico
President Joe Biden is enjoying the economic recovery of his dreams, complete with cooling inflation, a still-hot jobs market and diminishing odds of a recession. Now he just needs to figure out how to keep it that way.
A White House that has bet Biden’s political future on the economy’s resilience — so much so that they’re branding it with the president’s name — got the latest encouraging sign Wednesday that its strategy is paying off, with new data showing a sharper than expected slowdown in consumer costs. […]
“Despite repeated forecasts that recession is just around the corner, the U.S. recovery is solid,” National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York shortly after the inflation data came out Wednesday. “The economy is defying predictions that inflation would not fall absent significant job destruction.”
The House is in chaos again, but it’s just another week for Kevin McCarthy
Los Angeles Times
Hard-line conservatives have once again thrown the House of Representatives into chaos, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy is once again struggling to appease the same people who nearly denied him the job just six months ago.
The hard-line House Freedom Caucus’ latest revolt against McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) is over the National Defense Authorization Act, the law that authorizes the annual budget for the U.S. military.
That bill has historically passed with bipartisan support, and Republicans and Democrats had reached broad consensus on this year’s version, with plans to pass it by the end of the week. But Freedom Caucus members demanded a slew of controversial last-minute amendments, including measures that would ban the military from reimbursing service members who travel for abortions and prohibit the armed forces from paying for gender-affirming care. If Republicans approve these amendments, Democrats have promised to pull their support from the defense spending bill, forcing Republicans to pass it by themselves.
US defense secretary says Tuberville holds are ‘national security issue’
CNN
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s holds on hundreds of senior military nominations are a “national security issue.”
“This is a national security issue. It’s a readiness issue. And, we shouldn’t kid ourselves. I think any member of the Senate Armed Services Committee knows that,” Austin said in an interview Thursday … following the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. […]
The hold disrupts what is typically a routine process of confirming hundreds of military nominations at once known as unanimous consent. With Tuberville’s hold in place, the Senate would need to take each nomination to the floor for an individual vote, which could take months and hundreds of hours of floor time to complete.
House poised to OK psychedelics for military trauma, thanks to Crenshaw-AOC partnership
The Dallas Morning News
The House is poised to approve mood-altering drugs to treat combat-related brain maladies, capping years of effort by an ex-Navy SEAL from Texas and a New York democratic socialist. […]
“There’s already some pretty solid studies that show just unbelievable outcomes -- massive reduction in PTSD symptoms,” said Houston-area Rep. Dan Crenshaw on Thursday, making a final public plea with his partner on the issue, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The duo has fought to get Congress to direct Pentagon studies of psilocybin to treat traumatic brain injury and PTSD, which have become increasingly common in the military. The proposal is tucked into the $886 billion defense bill the House began debating Thursday.
“The stigma around these substances is very real,” said Ocasio-Cortez. But they hold “enormous therapeutic potential.”
Justice Department urges judge to not postpone Trump’s classified documents trial
AP News
The Justice Department urged [U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on] Thursday to reject Donald Trump’s efforts to postpone his classified documents trial, saying there was no basis for an “open-ended” delay sought by his lawyers.
Federal prosecutors last month proposed a Dec. 11 trial for Trump, who is charged with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, though the actual date will be up to the judge.
Trump’s lawyers countered this week with a request for a delay. They did not propose a specific date but said the case concerned novel legal issues, and proceeding with a trial within six months is “unreasonable” and would “result in a miscarriage of justice.”
ProPublica
On March 15, 2022, an email appeared in the inbox of the election director of Forsyth County, Georgia, with the subject line “Challenge of Elector’s Eligibility.” A spreadsheet attached to the email identified 13 people allegedly registered to vote at P.O. boxes in Forsyth County, a wealthy Republican suburb north of Atlanta. Georgians are supposed to register at residential addresses, except in special circumstances. “Please consider this my request that a hearing be held to determine these voters’ eligibility to vote,” wrote the challenger, Frank Schneider. […]
Vetting Georgia’s voter rolls was once largely the domain of nonpartisan elections officials. But after the 2020 election, a change in the law enabled Schneider and other activists to take on a greater role. Senate Bill 202, which the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed in 2021, transformed election laws in response to “many electors concerned about allegations of rampant voter fraud,” as the bill stated. Many states allow challenges, but officials in Georgia and experts say that in the past challengers have typically had relevant personal knowledge, such as someone submitting a challenge to remove a dead relative from the rolls. Georgia, however, is unusual in explicitly allowing citizens unlimited challenges against anyone in their county.
Georgia Republicans try to embrace early voting after long maligning it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When Josh McKoon traveled the state campaigning to become the next state GOP chairman, he didn’t mince words about the early-voting advantage that Democrats have painstakingly built in Georgia.
Tired of watching Democrats capitalize on early voting, McKoon became the latest in a parade of state Republican leaders who want to break from a GOP tradition that focuses primarily on Election Day turnout.
“We’ve got to recognize there are people who want to vote by absentee ballot and don’t have much confidence in our electronic voting machines — and we have to reach them,” McKoon said in an interview. “We need to focus on getting them to make a plan to vote.”
Democrats Try a Novel Tactic to Revive the Equal Rights Amendment
The New York Times
Democrats in Congress are making a fresh push for the nearly century-old Equal Rights Amendment to be enshrined in the Constitution, rallying around a creative legal theory in a bid to revive an amendment that would explicitly guarantee sex equality as a way to protect reproductive rights in post-Roe America.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Representative Cori Bush of Missouri introduced a joint resolution on Thursday stating that the measure has already been ratified and is enforceable as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. The resolution states that the national archivist, who is responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, must immediately do so.
It is a novel tactic for pursuing a measure that was first proposed in Congress 100 years ago and was approved by Congress about 50 years later but not ratified in time to be added to the Constitution. Proponents say the amendment has taken on new significance after the Supreme Court’s ruling last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the abortion rights long guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.
Kamala Harris plans tour energizing key Democratic groups in coming weeks
NBC News
Vice President Kamala Harris is preparing to kick off a month-long series of high-profile events mobilizing key voting groups, with an itinerary outlining the role she’ll play for the Democratic ticket in 2024. […]
Each of the stops are considered part of her official White House portfolio, highlighting work she’s done in the administration “on pivotal issues that directly impact the wellbeing of the American people,” the White House says. But each also plays into the Biden re-election effort’s strategy to use the relatively early period of the 2024 election cycle to focus on energizing key pillars of the Democratic Party.
SAG-AFTRA Declares Double Strike as Actors Join Writers on Picket Lines
Variety
SAG-AFTRA announced Thursday that it is on strike against the film and TV companies, marking only the second time in Hollywood history that actors have joined writers on the picket lines.
The SAG-AFTRA national board held its meeting on Thursday morning and voted unanimously to approve a strike recommendation forwarded by the negotiating committee, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA, said during a press conference.
“Union members should withhold their labor until a fair contract can be achieved,” he told the room of SAG actors and journalists. “They have left us with no alternative.”
What led to Anchor Brewing’s downfall? Sapporo, some workers say
San Francisco Chronicle
When San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Co. announced on Wednesday that it was ceasing operations after 127 years, the company cited economic hardships — including a decline in revenue by two-thirds since 2016, the pandemic and inflation — as the culprits. But many former Anchor employees aren’t buying the company’s story.
Instead, they’re pointing the blame at Japanese beer giant Sapporo, which purchased the brewery in 2017 for $85 million. They spoke to The Chronicle about what they believe led to Anchor’s demise, including a controversial rebrand and Sapporo’s acquisition of Stone Brewing last year.
“Unfortunately, I think they made some decisions that hurt a lot more than they helped,” said Garrett Kelly, an Anchor employee from 2014-2020.
Genetically edited wood could make paper more sustainable
Science
Paper products may seem like the ultimate green technology. They are recyclable, biodegradable, and renewable. Their main ingredient, cellulose fibers, literally grows on trees. But separating the cellulose from other substances in the plant, such as the stiff, woody material called lignin, comes with a heavy environmental toll. Every year, paper mills generate millions of tons of chemical waste and more than 150 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Today in Science, researchers report they have found a way to reduce that burden. By using CRISPR gene-editing tools, they grew engineered poplar trees with far less lignin than usual. Milling these trees, they argue, could lower papermaking pollution while saving the industry billions of dollars.
This is impactful work,” says Vânia Zuin Zeidler, a chemist at Leuphana University of Lüneburg who wrote a companion piece in Science describing the result’s significance. “Rather than remediate an existing problem, they are trying to prevent pollution.
Biden in Finland: Putin 'already lost' Ukraine war
Deutsche Welle
During his visit to NATO's newest member, US President Joe Biden called Finland an "incredible asset" for the military alliance. […]
Speaking alongside Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, he said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has "already lost the war" in Ukraine, with Moscow running short of resources and in economic trouble.
"Putin's already lost the war," Biden told a news conference in Helsinki. "There is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine."
He added that Ukraine "will join NATO" and Putin will eventually decide it is not in the interest of Russia to continue the war. "No one can join NATO while a war is going on," Biden said.
Zelensky’s angry tweet on NATO membership nearly backfired
The Washington Post
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s confrontational tweet this week challenging NATO leaders on the glacial pace of his war-torn country’s admission into the alliance so roiled the White House that U.S. officials involved with the process considered scaling back the “invitation” for Kyiv to join, according to six people familiar with the matter.
Ultimately, the United States and its allies agreed they would preserve the declaration’s language as eventually presented Tuesday at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The declaration lacks a timeline for Ukraine’s accession into the bloc but was the product of hard-won efforts to move the Biden administration and other European leaders to grant more-specific offers to Kyiv amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.
The incident illustrates the frustration inside NATO with Zelensky’s pressure tactics, where even some of his strongest backers questioned this week whether he was serving Ukraine’s interests with his outburst. At the same time, the backroom scramble it set off shows how little the alliance can do about it: NATO nations are all-in on the war effort, and many member states remain deeply sympathetic to Zelensky’s demands for a greater level of support. And while many officials expressed annoyance with the tweet, there was an understanding that the leader of an embattled nation must demonstrate he will do anything to extract the maximum on behalf of his people.
Locals near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant brace for potential disaster: 'It would be the end of us'
The Kyiv Independent
From the rooftop of his home, Anton can easily see the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe that has been under Russian control since March of last year.
He knows that in the case of a disaster at the plant, the Russian-occupied settlement he lives in would be among the first and the most affected. Anton has stocked up on food and water, preparing to stay inside if worst comes to pass.
"The only possible way (to survive) is to spend a couple of days in closed premises waiting for evacuation," Anton told the Kyiv Independent.
"But I doubt that Russian occupational authorities would drive around the area to save people," he says.
Blinken meets Chinese diplomat Wang amid hacking accusations
Al Jazeera
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has held talks with senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in the latest meeting aimed at addressing tensions between China and the United States.
The discussions on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Indonesia on Thursday came one day after Microsoft accused hackers linked to China of accessing the emails of US and other Western officials.
The State Department said Blinken and Wang had a “candid and constructive” exchange.
“The meeting was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication to clarify US interests across a wide range of issues and to responsibly manage competition by reducing the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Why is the shocking '10 second grope' rule going viral on Italian social media?
EuroNews
Italian social media users are expressing outrage after judges said groping had to last 10 seconds to be considered sexual assault. How long does a grope have to last before it is considered sexual assault? More than 10 seconds, according to an Italian courtroom.
Italian judges have acquitted a 66-year-old cleaner accused of groping a 17-year-old student because “it lasted less than 10 seconds” and that the assault “was not a sign of sexual desire.” […]
Speaking to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the teenager involved in the case stated that the incident was no joke, as her aggressor stated: “A joke is something shared between two people. This is not the way that a janitor should joke around with a young girl of 17. I’m very angry.”
“This is not justice,” she added. “I feel betrayed – first by the school, where it happened, and now by the court. (…) I'm starting to think I was wrong to trust the institutions.”
A third of US deer have had COVID—and they infected humans at least 3 times
Ars Technica
People in the US transmitted the pandemic coronavirus to white-tailed deer at least 109 times, and the animals widely spread the virus among themselves, with a third of the deer tested in a large government-led study showing signs of prior infection. The work also suggests that the ubiquitous ruminants returned the virus to people in kind at least three times.
The findings, announced this week by the US Department of Agriculture, are in line with previous research, which suggested that white-tailed deer can readily pick up SARS-CoV-2 from humans, spread it to each other, and, based on at least one instance in Canada, transmit the virus back to humans.