The Story of 2018 Was Climate Change: Future generations may ask why we were distracted by lesser matters.

The Story of 2018 Was Climate Change: Future generations may ask why we were distracted by lesser matters.

Climate Change, Global Warming
[caption id="attachment_594" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] In Lynn Haven, Fla., trees were upended by a hurricane in October.CreditCreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times[/caption] Our best hope may be the weather. For a long time, many people thought that it was a mistake to use the weather as evidence of climate change. Weather patterns contain a lot of randomness. Even as the earth warms and extreme weather becomes more common, some years are colder and calmer than others. If you argue that climate change is causing some weather trend, a climate denier may respond by making grand claims about a recent snowfall. And yet the weather still has one big advantage over every other argument about the urgency of climate change: We experience the weather. We see it and feel it. It…
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‘1,000 little steps’: Global climate talks end in progress but fail to address the galloping pace of climate change

‘1,000 little steps’: Global climate talks end in progress but fail to address the galloping pace of climate change

Climate Change, Global Warming
“In the climate emergency we’re in, slow success is no success." [caption id="attachment_586" align="aligncenter" width="1484"] Participants leave town on Friday, even as negotiations drag on at the end of the two-week United Nations summit on climate change in Katowice, Poland. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)[/caption] KATOWICE, Poland — Weary climate negotiators limped across the finish line Saturday night after days of round-the-clock talks, striking a deal that keeps the world moving forward with plans to curb carbon emissions. But the agreement fell well short of the breakthrough that scientists — and many of the conference’s own participants — say is needed to avoid the cataclysmic impacts of a warming planet. The deal struck Saturday at a global conference in the heart of Polish coal country, where some 25,000 delegates had gathered, adds legal…
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The Trump Administration Is Spinning Its Latest Pro-Coal Policy as Good for People of Color

The Trump Administration Is Spinning Its Latest Pro-Coal Policy as Good for People of Color

Climate Change, Global Warming
[caption id="attachment_580" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Nothing to see here, just your local coal-fired power plant.Photo: AP[/caption]   The Environmental Protection Agency is using energy affordability among low-income communities and people of color as an argument to bring back coal. Yes, the same coal responsible for an estimated 3,000 American deaths a year. Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced a new proposal Thursday that would repeal Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. The EPA is doing so under the guise of advancing “clean coal,” a term typically used to describe emerging technologies that capture carbon on site from coal plants. Trouble is, that technology hasn’t advanced quickly enough for the market to make it affordable, and the EPA’s new proposal calls actually for doing away with Obama-era…
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Climate Change Response Pits Trump Against US Government

Climate Change Response Pits Trump Against US Government

Climate Change, Global Warming
I don’t believe it. – Donald Trump, November 26th, referring to the 1596-page Fourth National Climate Assessment, released by the White House at 2 p.m. on Black Friday, November 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving. don’t believe it” is not, by definition, a rational argument supported by evidence. It’s a statement of faith, not susceptible of proof or rebuttal, and as such is useless to effective governance. “I don’t believe it” is the empty opposite of the Fourth National Climate Assessment that is part of a continuing, multi-disciplinary, real-world examination of climate change that began in 1990 (more on this under-publicized report later). Produced by the 13 government agencies that comprise the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Assessment is the latest report in a thirty-year climate watch that has seen steady,…
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