Tonight’s news awaits your comments. Everyone is encouraged to share their 2¢ or articles, stories, and tweets. This is an open thread.
Editor’s note: I am traveling this week and this OND was compiled early Wednesday morning.
Analysis: At COP28, Sultan al-Jaber got what the UAE wanted. Others leave it wanting much more
AP News
As the United Nations COP28 climate summit ended Wednesday, Sultan al-Jaber walked out with what the United Arab Emirates wanted all along — the prestige of hosting negotiations that got the world to agree to transition away from fossil fuels while still being able to pump ever-more oil.
That left some wanting much more from the two weeks of talks, even as many praised its historic accord. But it no longer will matter to the state oil company chief executive and renewable energy advocate who embodies many of the traits that have propelled this young nation into the global spotlight. […]
Others offered a more critical take, noting that al-Jaber’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. still plans to boost its oil production up to 5 million barrels of crude a day. That means more of the carbon-belching fuels driving climate change — which cause more-intense and more-frequent extreme events such as storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.
“The atmosphere responds to one thing: Emissions. It’s physics, stupid,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at the independent climate change think tank E3G. “And all the declarations, all the decisions, all the platitudes, all the announcements in the world, if it doesn’t translate into real world action that reduces emissions, is not worth the paper it’s written on.”
It's a big step forward - but COP28 won't stop warming
BBC News
The agreement reached in this glitzy metropolis for the first time nails the role of fossil fuel emissions in driving up temperatures and outlines a future decline for coal, oil and gas.
In UN terms that is historic, and the biggest step forward on climate since the Paris agreement in 2015. But by itself, will this deal be enough to save the "north star" of this COP - keeping temperatures under 1.5C this century?
Most likely not.
The major element of the deal, the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, is indeed a landmark moment. But the language is far weaker than many countries desired.
Transition Out of Fossil Fuels, Dawn of Renewables as COP28 Concludes in Dubai
The Energy Mix
A flawed but still transformative COP28 declaration signalled a transition out of fossil fuels and the dawn of renewable energy as United Nations climate negotiations concluded in Dubai, United Arab Emirates around noon local time today.
The COP28 decision text, released Wednesday morning, included language about “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” and “reducing both consumption and production of fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by, or before, or around 2050 in keeping with the science”. […]
Initial analysis indicated the surrounding language was about as weak as it could be in the constellation of United Nations legal jargon, with phrasing that merely “calls on” countries to take action rather than pushing for it in stronger terms. But it was still a major advance over an earlier draft, published Monday by the COP28 Presidency, that was dismissed as “unacceptable”, “incoherent”, “grossly insufficient”, and a “slap in the face” by angry, frustrated, and increasingly sleep-deprived delegates. […]
But in the closing moments of the COP, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), whose representatives were not in the room when Al Jaber gavelled the final outcome, warned that major concessions in the text would impede action in a crucial decade for climate action. “This process has failed us,” said lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen, an official with Samoa’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, who “wiped tears from her eyes” after finishing her remarks, the Washington Post reports. “Several other delegates walked over and hugged her, and about half of the room gave her a standing ovation.”
After that, an AOSIS spokesperson told the Post the alliance would not seek to block the deal. “We weren’t given the opportunity and will not now,” she said in a text message. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, who turned 80 during the conference, called Rasmussen’s statement “a clarion call to all of us about our obligation and responsibility.”
While the final text “is an improvement and does indeed reflect a number of submissions made by small island developing states,” the Alliance added in a written statement, it “sputters in significant areas” and keeps the door open to expand fossil fuel production. With “a litany of loopholes,” AOSIS said, the final COP decision “is incremental and not transformational.”
US and World Face Reckoning on COP28 Climate Goals, Kerry Says (alt link)
Bloomberg
Countries will be judged by how well they live up to their joint commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, US climate envoy John Kerry said at the end of COP28 talks meant to avert the worst consequences of global warming.
The nearly 200 nations that signed on to that pact in Dubai “will be judged by everybody in the world,” Kerry said. “Try coming to the next COP and having not done anything. Try putting out a revision of your long-term strategy and not be actually facing up to your challenges.”
That scrutiny will also fall on the US, which is now the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter — and built its economy spewing more of that planet-warming pollution than any other nation. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars in spending on climate and clean energy initiatives in last year’s sweeping Inflation Reduction Act, drillers are still opening new oil fields, exporters are sending more natural gas overseas and the government is still green-lighting fossil fuel ventures. […]
For the US, the final COP28 decision is a mixed bag. The nation had pressed for greater ambition to limit the permitting of new, unabated coal-fired power plants and throttle fossil fuels. But the declaration is meant to reflect consensus — with any one country, from oil-rich superpowers to small island nations able to object — and that made it harder to drive a more aggressive agreement. Kerry said one minister told him that his country couldn’t afford to “commit economic suicide.”
“I never thought we’d have the kind of breadth we have today,” Kerry said. Under the COP process, “any one country has a veto. One country can say no to the whole thing. That actually makes it even more remarkable that as much ambition is contained in this document.”
How an oil executive led the world to an agreement to ditch fossil fuels
Grist
The bar was low for the success of this year’s COP28 climate conference, which was hosted by the United Arab Emirates, the world’s seventh largest oil producer. Ever since Sultan Al-Jaber, the head of the UAE’s national oil company, was announced as COP28 president in January, many observers approached the conference all but certain that the UAE would put its thumb on the scale in favor of oil interests. Indeed, leaked emails that emerged the week of the gathering showed that Al-Jaber’s team had prepared briefing documents outlining oil deals to discuss at COP28.
Many of those who were most critical of Al-Jaber ahead of the conference now say their fears have proven unfounded. For the first time in the 28 years that world leaders have been meeting under the auspices of the United Nations to solve the climate crisis, negotiators have explicitly agreed to a transition away from fossil fuels — within this decade, no less, with an ultimate goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The fossil fuel language — which stopped short of calling for the “phaseout” of the fuels demanded by the most aggressive negotiators, instead calling for a “transition away” from them — is buried in a dense 21-page document that hundreds of parties debated in excruciating detail for days. The final agreement clearly signals that the world needs to both move away from the use of fossil fuels and ramp up renewable energy at an unprecedented pace.
Nations at Climate Summit Agree to Move Away From Fossil Fuels
The New York Times
For the first time since nations began meeting three decades ago to tackle climate change, diplomats from nearly 200 countries agreed to a global pact that explicitly calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” like oil, gas and coal that are dangerously heating the planet.
The sweeping agreement, which comes during the hottest year in recorded history, was reached on Wednesday after two weeks of furious debate at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. European leaders and many of the nations most vulnerable to climate-fueled extreme weather were urging language that called for a complete “phaseout” of fossil fuels. But that proposal faced intense pushback from major oil exporters like Saudi Arabia and Iraq as well as fast-growing countries like India and Nigeria.
In the end, negotiators struck a compromise: The new deal calls on countries to accelerate a global shift away from fossil fuels this decade in a “just, orderly and equitable manner,” and to quit adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere entirely by midcentury. It also calls on nations to triple the amount of renewable energy, like wind and solar power, installed around the world by 2030 and to slash emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Countries clinch climate deal on reducing fossil fuels
The Washington Post
Nations reached a breakthrough climate agreement Wednesday, calling for a transition away from fossil fuels in an unprecedented deal that targets the greatest contributors to the planet’s warming.
The deal came swiftly — with no discussion or objection — in a packed room in Dubai following a night of debate, huddles and revisions to the text.
It is the first time a global climate deal has specifically called to curb the use of fossil fuels.
Countries agreed to transition from fossil fuels “in a just, orderly and equitable manner” while “accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”
Editorial: COP28: the science is clear — fossil fuels must go
Nature
[…] According to the latest estimates, the world would need to eliminate emissions of carbon dioxide in little more than a decade, while also slashing those of methane and other greenhouse gases, to have even a 50% chance of limiting average warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. That equation changes, however, if humans are able to extract CO2 from the atmosphere on an industrial scale. Here lies the crux of the debate. […]
In the end, the climate doesn’t care who emits greenhouse gases. There is only one viable path forward, and that is for everybody to phase out almost all fossil fuels as quickly as possible. More than 100 countries supported that message in Dubai, but their efforts to secure an agreement on a fossil-fuel phase out look to be coming up short. This runs counter to the core goals laid down in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The time will come when fossil fuels must go. It is a question of when, not if. […]
But no amount of clean energy is going to prevent further global warming without a concurrent phase out of fossil fuels or, at least, sequestering the associated greenhouse-gas emissions. Doing so will be neither easy nor painless. Political leaders worldwide will face pressure because of entrenched economic interests in their unextracted mineral assets. Fossil-fuel producers, such as the United Arab Emirates and the United States, will need to find other sources of revenue and create different jobs for their citizens. Policymakers must also look for ways to ensure that the burden of a phase out does not fall on the world’s poorest citizens. This is not only the right thing to do, but will also be crucial to prevent political blowback against climate policies.
'End fossil fuels' protester storms stage of COP28 summit
Reuters
A 12-year-old protester burst on to the stage at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai on Monday, holding a sign above her head that read: "End fossil fuels. Save our planet and our future."
Licypriya Kangujam, a child climate justice activist from India, was escorted away as the audience clapped.
Al Gore blasts COP28 draft outcome as biggest failure in history—it ‘reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word’
Fortune
Al Gore warned the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees centigrade could die now that world leaders failed to agree on phasing out fossil fuels.
The 28th U.N. climate change summit known as COP, held this year in Dubai, is set to conclude on Tuesday with a draft agreement that will have been written by and for the petrostates, according to the former U.S. vice president:
“COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure. The world desperately needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but this obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word. It is even worse than many had feared. It is ‘Of the Petrostates, By the Petrostates and For the Petrostates.’
It is deeply offensive to all who have taken this process seriously. There are 24 hours left to show whose side the world is on: the side that wants to protect humanity’s future by kickstarting the orderly phase out of fossil fuels or the side of the petrostates and the leaders of the oil and gas companies that are fueling the historic climate catastrophe.
In order to prevent COP28 from being the most embarrassing and dismal failure in 28 years of international climate negotiations, the final text must include clear language on phasing out fossil fuels. Anything else is a massive step backwards from where the world needs to be to truly address the climate crisis and make sure the 1.5°C goal doesn’t die in Dubai.”
US Climate Activists at COP28 Slam Their Home Country for Hypocrisy
Inside Climate News
Claims by some U.S. lawmakers at COP28 that President Biden’s policies provide global leadership on climate rang hollow with leading American climate activists at the annual conference who faulted the administration for supporting unbridled oil and gas development and for pushing carbon capture as an illusory solution for reducing emissions.
Panganga Pungowiyi, an Indigenous mother from Sivungaq, on Dena ina lands near Anchorage, Alaska, said the American delegation’s negotiating positions will make things worse on climate, not better.
“The United States is built on a legacy of colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy and extractive capitalism,” Pungowiyi said on Sunday during a presentation by a coalition of conservation and environmental justice groups. “Each year at the UNFCCC summits, we observe the United States fighting to continue that legacy.”
One in four billionaire Cop28 delegates made fortunes from polluting industries
The Guardian
At least a quarter of the billionaires registered as delegates at Cop28 made their fortunes from highly polluting industries such as petrochemicals, mining and beef production, a new analysis has shown.
The findings, revealed to the Guardian in an exclusive analysis of the 34 billionaires who are signed up to the UN summit, raise concerns about the influence wielded by ultra-rich, mega-emitters on the world’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis. Together the 34 are worth about $495.5bn.
The high number of billionaires at the conference, along with the many private jets they flew in on, suggests Cop may now be second only to Davos as a gathering point for the world’s ultra-rich, who can meet and potentially influence government leaders and senior politicians and bureaucrats, while making deals with other business owners.
Most US Voters Agree: Make Big Oil Pay for Climate Damage
Common Dreams
As yet another United Nations Climate Change Conference winds down without a meaningful agreement on phasing out fossil fuels, polling released Tuesday by Data for Progress revealed strong bipartisan support among U.S. voters for legislation forcing oil and gas companies to pay for their role in fueling the planetary emergency.
The survey of 1,279 U.S. voters, conducted November 3-6, found that around two-thirds of all likely voters support such legislation, a +40-point net margin. Among Democrats, support for the proposed bill is 88%, while 61% of Independent and 46% of Republicans either strongly or somewhat back the proposal.
"In a resounding call for accountability, two-thirds of the American people support legislation demanding industry titans like Exxon and Shell shoulder their fair share of the climate damages inflicted by fossil fuels."
Asked if they were more or less likely to support elected officials who prioritize making Big Oil pay for its climate pollution, 64% of overall respondents, 89% of Democrats, and 58% of Independents answered "more likely." Republicans were the only group whose members were less likely to back officials who would make oil and gas companies pay for their pollution.
Warmest Arctic summer on record is evidence of accelerating climate change
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAA’s 2023 Arctic Report Card documents new records showing that human-caused warming of the air, ocean and land is affecting people, ecosystems and communities across the Arctic region, which is heating up faster than any other part of the world.
Summer surface air temperatures during 2023 were the warmest ever observed in the Arctic, while the highest point on Greenland’s ice sheet experienced melting for only the fifth time in the 34-year record. Overall, it was the Arctic’s sixth-warmest year on record. Sea ice extent continued to decline, with the last 17 Septembers now registering as the lowest on record. These records followed two years when unprecedented high abundance of sockeye salmon in western Alaska’s Bristol Bay contrasted with record-low Chinook and chum salmon that led to fishery closures on the Yukon River and other Bering Sea tributaries.
“The overriding message from this year’s report card is that the time for action is now,” said Rick Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA administrator. “NOAA and our federal partners have ramped up our support and collaboration with state, tribal and local communities to help build climate resilience. At the same time, we as a nation and global community must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are driving these changes.”
Future floods: Global warming intensifies heavy rain – even more than expected
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
The intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall increases exponentially with global warming, a new study finds. The analysis by researchers from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that state-of-the-art climate models significantly underestimate how much extreme rainfall increases under global warming – meaning that extreme rainfall could increase quicker than climate models suggest.
“Our study confirms that the intensity and frequency of heavy rainfall extremes are increasing exponentially with every increment of global warming,” explains Max Kotz, lead-author of the study published in the ‘Journal of Climate’. These changes follow the physical theory of the classic Clausius-Clapeyron relation of 1834, which established that warmer air can hold more water vapor. ”State-of-the-art climate models vary on how strongly extreme rainfall scales with global warming and that they underestimate it compared to historical observations.”
Ancient climate analysis suggests CO2 causes more warming than thought
New Scientist
[…] Now, an extensive review by a team of more than 80 researchers has created a sharper, more accurate view of ancient CO2 levels. “We now have a much clearer picture of what carbon dioxide levels were in the past,” says Bärbel Hönisch at Columbia University in New York, who coordinated the project.
This enables us to put our current atmospheric CO2 levels into context alongside the deep past. It shows that the last time CO2 levels were consistently as high as they are today was around 14 million years ago – considerably longer ago than some previous estimates.
By comparing this new CO2 data to the temperature record, “we can get a sense of how sensitive the climate was to changes in carbon dioxide,” says Hoenisch. Today’s climate models estimate that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels would result in warming of between 1.5°C and 4.5°C. But the results suggest a much bigger temperature rise: between 5°C and 8°C.
There is a big caveat, however. This new insight into Earth’s deep climate history covers trends over hundreds of thousands of years, not the shorter timescales of decades or centuries that are pertinent to humans today, so it doesn’t tell us what global temperatures are likely to be in 2100. “There’s a sluggish, cascading effect that slowly kicks in,” says Hoenisch.
Climate change: if warming approaches 2°C, a trickle of extinctions will become a flood
The Conversation
[…] Our world has warmed by roughly 1.2°C since the pre-industrial period. Many species are already exposed to increasingly intolerable conditions, driving some populations to die off or contract at the hottest edges of their geographic ranges. Biodiversity is feeling the heat in all ecosystems and regions, from mountain tops to ocean depths.
If all national plans to cut emissions are fulfilled, the world would still be on track for 2.5-2.9°C of global warming by the end of the century. If species are stressed now, imagine how they will fare over the coming decades. […]
In a recent paper, I studied how the area over which species are exposed to potentially dangerous temperatures will expand from one year to the next, from now until the end of the century. […]
While each species has a threshold beyond which intolerable conditions expand abruptly, the level of global warming at which this threshold is crossed varies from one species to another.
When viewed at the scale of the entire planet, risks to biodiversity increase continuously and relentlessly with the magnitude of global warming. We found that limiting global warming to 1.5°C (the ambition of the 2015 Paris agreement) would leave 15% of species at risk of abruptly losing at least one third of their current geographic range. However, this doubles to 30% of species on our present trajectory of 2.5°C of warming.
As the thermal thresholds of more and more species are crossed, the capacity for ecosystems to adapt – as well as the societies that depend on them – will diminish.
From bugs to reptiles, climate change is changing land and the species that inhabit it
USA Today
Some species are at risk due to climate change and a decline in wild spaces. But what's next for species at risk?
Veterinarians and staff at the Whitney Lab for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine, Florida, are trying to answer that question. They receive patients who get care for everything from boat strikes to strandings. Some are sick like, Nigel. Nigel is a turtle, by the way.
Catherine Eastman is the Sea Turtle Hospital Program Manager at the lab, where she helps run patient care. She has been witnessing the rising temperatures and the stress on coastlines by her home.
“As oceans are warming, we're seeing sea turtles, at least, in more northern latitudes than we ever have,” Eastman said. “When you have more turtles moving northward, you get the diseases associated with them more northward. So, is it driven by climate change? Absolutely.”
The severe El Niño in South America is a preview of a climate-changed world
Vox
For centuries, off the coast of what’s now Peru and Ecuador, fishers noticed that every few years, around Christmas, the sea surface warmed up. […]
This year, the combination of a powerful El Niño and record-high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has warmed the planet to the hottest levels humans have ever measured.
It may also be the first time global average temperatures rise 1.5 degrees Celsius, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above average temperatures before the Industrial Revolution and all the fossil fuel burning that ensued. The 2015 Paris climate agreement set a goal of holding average temperature increases to less than 1.5°C. A single year rising above this line doesn’t mean that the average has shifted yet, but it provides an example of what the world will look like when an extreme year like 2023 becomes typical.
While El Niño is a phenomenon independent of climate change, its increasing ferocity has created a preview of life on the planet as temperatures continue to rise. “The impacts of El Niño look a lot like what the impacts of climate change are going to be,” said Christopher Callahan, an earth science researcher at Stanford University.
Two former Department of Energy staffers warn we’re doing carbon removal all wrong
MIT Technology Review
The carbon removal industry is just starting to take off, but some experts are warning that it’s already headed in the wrong direction. Two former staffers of the US agency responsible for advancing the technology argue that the profit-driven industry’s focus on cleaning up corporate emissions will come at the expense of helping to pull the planet back from dangerous levels of warming. […]
…in a lengthy and pointed essay published in the journal Carbon Management on Tuesday, researchers Emily Grubert and Shuchi Talati argue there are rising dangers for the field. […]
They write that the emergence of a for-profit, growth-focused sector selling a carbon removal product, instead of a publicly funded and coordinated effort more akin to waste management, “presents grave risks for the ability of CDR [carbon dioxide removal] to enable net zero and net negative targets in general,” including keeping or pulling the planet back to 1.5 ºC of warming.
The murderous creature you live with is a murderous creature, study confirms
NPR News
More scientific evidence has surfaced to show that while Mittens may be your sweet angel, letting her roam outside is also a big threat to biodiversity. […]
Scientists reviewed more than 100 years' worth of scientific studies to gain a better understanding of which animals free-ranging cats will prey upon or scavenge.
- The resulting paper, published in Nature Communications, found that free-ranging cats (including domestic and feral) will eat 2,084 different species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects. There were even cows on that list, though they were probably the result of scavenging rather than hunting.
- The list of creatures cats have chowed on includes 347 species of conservation concern, including Newell's shearwater, green sea turtles, the northern bobwhite quail and the little brown bat.
- While cute, cats are skilled predators, so much so that they've been documented as a major threat to the biodiversity of bird species in North America.
- They're also linked to the extinction of more than 60 species worldwide.
Tropical deforestation increases even as a few hotspots see respite, new data shows
Mongabay
Greenhouse gas emissions from tropical forest loss increased by 5% in 2022 from the year before, while temperate forests bolstered their carbon-absorbing capacity, according to latest data from a carbon mapping tool developed by California-based nonprofit CTrees.
Researchers at the organization used the Jurisdictional Monitoring Reporting and Verification (JMRV) platform to map forests and non-forest lands to monitor carbon stocks, emissions and removals across the planet. Despite deforestation increasing in the tropics globally, the data showed that certain hotspots witnessed a reduction in deforestation in 2022. […]
On net, the platform estimated tropical deforestation emitted 4.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2022. It was a different story for temperate forests, however.
Why 2023 was the year of the e-bike and not the self-driving car
Fast Company
[…] If 2023’s trendline continues, the humble e-bike, not the flashy self-driving car, will be poised to reconfigure American transportation. […]
…all signs indicate that a city full of e-bikes would be safer, healthier, cleaner, and less congested than one dominated by cars—no matter how they are driven. And e-bikes really are car replacers: The addition of a battery can enable even mobility-constrained cyclists to conquer hills, haul packages, or beat the heat. Better yet, families can save tens of thousands of dollars by using an e-bike in lieu of a second or third car. And lest we forget: E-bikes are fun.
With new models flying off the shelves, e-bikes are outselling electric cars in the United States (and also offsetting more gasoline use worldwide). Although 2023 sales numbers aren’t yet available, Ash Lovell, the electric bicycle policy director at industry group People for Bikes, told me that “e-bikes have remained the fastest growing category across the bike industry this year,” with sales of e-cargo bikes—designed to transport children or cargo—showing particular strength. […]
E-bikes… provide an unprecedented mobility cocktail of affordability, healthfulness, convenience, and fun. As their strong sales demonstrate, a growing number of Americans recognize their value.
18 California children sue EPA over climate change
Los Angeles Times
Eighteen California children are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by allowing pollution from burning fossil fuels to continue despite knowing the harm it poses to kids.
The lawsuit was filed Sunday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit public interest law firm that has filed legal actions over climate change in multiple states. It also names as defendants EPA administrator Michael Regan and the U.S. federal government.
“A lot of times, people talk about the failure of government to act on climate change, but that’s not what this case is about,” said lead attorney Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust. “This case is about EPA’s affirmative conduct in allowing levels of climate pollution that are causing planetary heating and the increase in wildfires and smoke pollution and heat that’s harming these young people’s health and safety.”
Mining reform efforts heat up
Outdoor Alliance
Conflicts between mining and recreation are ramping up, highlighting the need to bring mining laws into the 21st century to both protect outdoor recreation and to make mining more predictable and responsible in the transition to renewable energy. […]
The law governing hardrock mining on the vast majority of America’s public lands is more than 150 years old, a relic from a time when most modern mining equipment did not exist and the idea of managing public land for outdoor recreation or conservation values was many decades away. This archaic law has caused many problems—it prioritizes mining above all other uses, and has few safeguards for pollution, which has contaminated up to 40% of watersheds in the west. Current mining laws leave advocates and Tribes little recourse to object to ill-placed mines, and leave agencies with little discretion to balance mining with recreation access and other public land values. In the transition to renewable energy, it is important that the mining process is transparent, protects the safety and health of local communities, and allows land managers to protect special places on public lands.
On Tuesday, the Senate will hear two very different mining reform bills. The Mining Regulatory Clarity Act (S. 1281 & H.R. 2925) would allow for mining companies to dump toxic waste on public lands, even when they have found no valuable critical minerals to mine. In practice, it is a giveaway to mining companies, granting them authority to permanently occupy federal lands, and potentially locking out other uses from renewable energy to outdoor recreation.
Commentary: Climate change is unleashing a tsunami of infectious diseases–and we have fewer and fewer drugs that can treat them
Fortune
Climate change is not only making the planet sick–it is creating a hotbed for infectious diseases and superbugs to thrive and putting the health and lives of millions around the world at risk. Critically, extreme temperatures and air pollution are exacerbating viral respiratory infections and mosquito-borne diseases, one of which is likely to seed the next epidemic or pandemic. […]
At the same time, a warmer world is creating a fertile environment for the rampant spread of drug resistance. This means treating infectious diseases with existing medicines is becoming harder–and the consequences are fatal. In 2019 alone, 1.27 million people died of drug-resistant infections.
From living in tents to missing school, here’s why climate change is a ‘child rights crisis’
Euronews
One billion children - almost half of the world’s child population - live in countries that are climate-vulnerable. A third of the world’s child population is impacted by both the climate crisis and poverty.
According to UNICEF, extreme weather has internally displaced at least 43 million children in the last six years - the equivalent of 20,000 children a day being forced to abandon their homes and schools.
Less than 3 per cent of key global climate funds have been spent on supporting children since 2006, however, according to a report from members of the Children’s Environmental Rights Initiative (CERI) coalition: Plan International, Save the Children and UNICEF.
10 alarming things Trump has promised to do in a second term
Popular Information
This is reality: Donald Trump will almost certainly be the Republican nominee for President for the third consecutive election. Given the United State's polarized political climate, either major party nominee has a realistic chance of winning a second term on November 5, 2024. […]
Of course, we don't know everything that will happen in a potential Trump second term. But Trump and his allies have made their intentions clear on a range of key issues. […]
Trump says he will "abuse power" and be a "dictator" on "day one." […]
Trump says election fraud in 2020 gives him the power to "terminate" the Constitution […]
Trump says he will issue "full pardons" to January 6 insurrectionists […]
Trump says he will cut funding to schools that cover subjects he believes are "inappropriate" […]
Trump says he will legally erase trans people and ban them from military service […]
Trump says he will end birthright citizenship by executive order […]
Trump says he will impose a new 10% tax on all imported goods […]
Trump says he will investigate NBC and MSNBC for treason and potentially remove the company from public airwaves […]
Trump says he will demand anyone convicted of selling drugs get the death penalty […]
Trump says he will order the arrest of all urban homeless and relocate them to federally-run tent cities […]
Bah humbug: White Christmas outlook grim for most of Lower 48
The Washington Post
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Keep dreaming.
That’s the message weather models are sending for most of the continental United States this Christmas. For the second year in a row, models show low chances of snow leading up to and on Christmas, continuing a disappointing trend for snow lovers tied to human-caused climate change.
Our analysis shows the odds of a white Christmas this year are at least cut in half for most major population centers in the northern half of the United States because of an abnormally warm weather pattern poised to invade North America over the next week to two weeks. […]
Climate change has been shrinking the odds of seeing a white Christmas. A Washington Post analysis of NOAA data last year showed declining chances in 18 of the nation’s 25 biggest cities during the previous decade.
My Garden Was My Refuge. Then Climate Change Came for It.
The New Republic
When I first set out to report on climate change, I was convinced I knew what to do: I needed to show how climate change was going to be personal and deeply connected to our lives. People are selfish—or, put another way, strongly motivated by what affects us personally. The more intimately I could tie climate change to our well-being, I reasoned, the more driven we would be to change course.
So, eight years ago, I trundled off to the U.N. climate change conference known as COP21 in search of ways global warming was poised to affect our everyday lives, especially the threats to our mental health and the emergence of infectious diseases. I discovered, of course, that these close connections weren’t theoretical or futuristic; our lives were already being disrupted. And I realized that people already care plenty about climate change; a majority of Americans believe climate change is a threat, and one in 10 Americans are showing signs of climate anxiety. It’s just hard to know what to do about it, and sometimes our actions seem too insignificant to make a difference. Without action, we feel helpless. The problem looms ever more immense, and we start tuning out.