Articles include: A climate-change-inspired video road-trip across the U.S.; Key readings on IEA’s ‘Net Zero by 2050’ report; Tips: How to weatherize your home; Talking climate with those holding different worldviews; New Mexico imposes strict rule to prevent venting, flaring of natural gas; Can fossil-fuel-dependent Wyoming build a more diverse economy?; Swiss utilities used a simple tactic to get customers to buy renewable energy; Foresters use fire and goats to care for Missouri’s Mark Twain National Forest; Youth-led Sunrise Movement calls for national job guarantee
Tag: Western US
The Western Drought Is Bad. Here’s What You Should Know About It.
New York Times: The Western Drought Is Bad. Here’s What You Should Know About It. Answers to questions about the current situation in California and the Western half of the United States.
Much of the Western half of the United States is in the grip of a severe drought of historic proportions. Conditions are especially bad in California and the Southwest, but the drought extends into the Pacific Northwest, much of the Intermountain West, and even the Northern Plains.
Drought emergencies have been declared. Farmers and ranchers are suffering. States are facing water cutbacks. Large wildfires are burning earlier than usual. And there appears to be little relief in sight.
Experts with the United States Drought Monitor, a collaboration of several federal agencies and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, assess the severity of drought in a given area, ranking it from moderate to exceptional. They take many factors into account, including precipitation totals, snowpack, stream flows and soil moisture measurements, and use images from remote-sensing satellites to assess the health of vegetation.
The Daily Climate, April 23, 2021
Articles include: GHG commitments from Biden; Miami sea level rise costs; Steel company and GHG goals; Texas and clean energy; clean energy loan risks; humanity’s friend against climate change; bitcoin and the environment; Canada’s biggest banks missing from net-zero pledge; Study: dangerous toxins in Alaska’s algae; Study: ocean currents are changing; farmers and climate change; homelessness in America.
The Daily Climate, April 15, 2021
Articles include: 2050 Goals are inadequate; champagne & climate change; 100% clean power; renewable energy powers decarbonization; electric vehicles by 2035; Interior Department and Manchin; Epic Drought; Indian monsoon season; ticks moving into the Arctic; East African oil pipeline; American research station abandoned; food web in the Great Lakes.
Western U.S. may be entering its most severe drought in modern history
CBS News: Western U.S. may be entering its most severe drought in modern history. Extreme drought across the Western U.S. has become as reliable as a summer afternoon thunderstorm in Florida. And news headlines about drought in the West can seem a bit like a broken record, with some scientists saying the region is on the precipice of permanent drought. That’s because in 2000, the Western U.S. entered the beginning of what scientists call a megadrought — the second worst in 1,200 years — triggered by a combination of a natural dry cycle and human-caused climate change.
The Daily Climate, March 18, 2021
Articles include: ‘They aren’t used to losing’: Wealthy New York enclave battles over offshore windfarm; Feds move forward with New Mexico drilling plan despite community outcry; Report: Looking for climate solutions? Protect more ocean, researchers find; More than 10 million people displaced by climate disasters in six months, report finds; ‘Environmental racism’? Tenn. pipeline sparks uproar; Whiff of the unthinkable at EPA: CO2 standards for states; The race to scale up green hydrogen to help solve some of the world’s dirtiest energy problems
The Daily Climate, March 15, 2021
Articles include: Energy companies left Colorado with O&G cleanup costs; Treaty rights acknowledged pipeline’s history; How the oil industry is shifting to offshore wind; Western states chart diverging paths as water shortages loom; Study finds that Floridans are underpaying for flood insurance; How climate change worries affect young people’s mental health; Amazon rainforest could be worsening climate change, study suggests; This billionaire governor’s coal companies owe millions more in environmental fines; Tiny town, big decision: What are we willing to pay to fight the rising sea?; How dirt could help save the planet
Multiyear drought builds in western US with little relief in sight
CNN: Multiyear drought builds in western US with little relief in sight.
While much has been written this year about atmospheric rivers, avalanche warnings and even flash flooding, the western half of the United States is experiencing a crushing drought.
The weather patterns have left parts of the Northwest soggy. Still, 80% of the land in the western states face some official category of drought.
That is nearly half of the entire continental US, or put another way, the size of New York State times 25. The drought is affecting more than 70 million people.
Study: California’s wildfire smoke could be more harmful than vehicle emissions
The Guardian: California’s wildfire smoke could be more harmful than vehicle emissions, study says. Toxic particles spewed by wildfires resulted in 10 times as many respiratory-illness related hospitalizations as other types of pollution, researchers found.
The thick, grey wildfire smoke that shrouds California each autumn and winter could be more harmful to humans than pollution from cars and other sources, a new study has found.
Coming at the heels of the state’s worst wildfire season on record, the findings add to growing evidence that extreme fires, fueled by climate change, will have increasingly dire health consequences for residents in the western US.
Tiny, toxic particles spewed by wind-whipped wildfires resulted in 10 times as many hospitalizations due to respiratory illness as compared to other types of pollution, researchers found in the study, which was published Friday in Nature Communications.
Insecticide known for killing pollinators found in deer across Minnesota
Star Tribune: Insecticide known for killing pollinators found in deer across Minnesota. DNR says more research is needed on the insecticides’ possible effect on herds.
Powerful insecticides are turning up in deer in nearly every corner of Minnesota, raising concerns that the ubiquitous chemicals may be keeping fawns from surviving to maturity or harming deer reproduction.
Neonicotinoids, known for their devastating effects on pollinator populations across the continent, are typically applied to row crops and household lawns. But the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) recently found evidence of them inside deer in the state’s deepest and most remote forests.
The DNR tested 800 deer spleens sent in from hunters over the past two years and found buildup of neonicotinoids in 61% of them, the agency announced Monday.
The wide range of where the chemicals were found “was a surprise to us,” said Dave Olfelt, director of the DNR’s Fish and Wildlife Division.