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White House Launches Climate Initiatives to Arm Communities Against Floods, Extreme Weather

/in , , /by /The Washington Postby Kasha Patel

The White House announced Tuesday that it would work to revise building standards for flood-prone communities across the country in the face of climate change, while launching tools to make climate information more accessible to the public.

The move is part of the Biden administration’s broader effort to push the United States to reckon with the costs of global warming by factoring in the long-term consequences of decisions being made today.
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Opinion: Climate Change Is Bankrupting California’s Ecosystems

/in , /by /CalMattersby Martha Davis

For decades, scientists have warned that climate change would disrupt almost every natural life-sustaining system on our planet. What have we done about it? We’ve dithered. We refuse to believe the evidence, or rail against the cost and inconvenience of change, or hope the problem will just go away. But global warming is not going away. Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its most alarming report yet: Earth is on the edge of ecological bankruptcy.

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These Maps Tell the Story of Two Americas: One Parched, One Soaked

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Aatish Bhatia and Nadja Popovich

In New York City, a tropical storm delivered record-breaking rains this weekend. Heavy downpours caused devastating flash floods in central Tennessee, tearing apart houses and killing more than 20 people. Yet, California and much of the West remained in the deepest drought in at least two decades, the product of a long-term precipitation shortfall and temperatures that are much hotter than usual.

This divide, a wetter East and a drier West, reflects a broader pattern observed in the United States in recent decades.

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California Faces Unprecedented Dangers as Record Heat, Dryness Combine With Fierce Winds

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hayley Smith, Lila Seidman, Hailey Branson-Potts

With more than a million acres burned fairly early in the fire season, California is entering uncharted territory as the record dry conditions that have fueled so much destruction will soon combine with seasonal winds that fire officials fear will bring unprecedented dangers.

Officials have attributed warming temperatures and worsening drought to the explosive growth of fires, mostly in the mountains of Northern California, this summer.

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‘We’re in Uncharted Territory’: Lake Oroville Levels Reach Historic Low, Impacting Recreation

/in , , /by /KCRA3by Stephanie Lin

In a year already plagued by pandemic and wildfires, Californians are also entangled with the crippling effect of drought.

“Every year, there seems to be a disaster and issues,” lamented California State Parks Public Safety Chief Aaron Wright, who responded to help Oroville through the Camp Fire and many other crises.

In 2017, hundreds of thousands of lives were threatened when massive flooding damaged the Oroville Dam. Today, changing weather conditions have created a stark contrast from years ago: Hot temperatures and low rainfall have left miles of dusty, cracked shorelines exposed.

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Get Ready To Pay More For Tomatoes, As California Growers Reel From Extreme Weather

/in , , /by /The Washington Postby Laura Reiley

Tomato sauce is feeling the squeeze and ketchup can’t catch up.

California grows more than 90 percent of Americans’ canned tomatoes and a third of the world’s. Ongoing drought in the state has hurt the planting and harvesting of many summer crops, but water-hungry “processing tomatoes” are caught up in a particularly treacherous swirl (a “tormado”?) of problems that experts say will spur prices to surge far more than they already have.

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Climate Scientists Meet As Floods, Fires, Droughts And Heat Waves Batter Countries

/in , /by /NPRby Rebecca Hersher

More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will begin meeting today to finalize a landmark report summarizing how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can expect for the rest of the century.

The report is the sixth edition of an assessment of the latest climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that coordinates research about global warming. The last edition of this report came out in 2013 — an eternity in the world of climate science, where the pace of both warming and research are steadily accelerating.

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Severe Drought Threatens Hoover Dam Reservoir – and Water for US West

/in , , /by /The Guardianby Oliver Milman

Had the formidable white arc of the Hoover Dam never held back the Colorado River, the US west would probably have no Los Angeles or Las Vegas as we know them today. No sprawling food bowl of wheat, alfalfa and corn. No dreams of relocating to live in a tamed desert. The river, and dam, made the west; now the climate crisis threatens to break it.

The situation here is emblematic of a planet slowly, inexorably overheating. And the catastrophic consequences of the extreme weather this brings.

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In California’s Interior, There’s No Escape from the Desperate Heat: ‘Why are We Even Here?’

/in , /by /The Guardianby Maanvi Singh

In Cantua, a small town deep within California’s farming heartland, the heat had always been a part of life. “We can do nothing against it,” said Julia Mendoza, who’s lived in this town for 27 years. But lately, she says, the searing temperatures are almost unlivable.

By midday on Thursday, the first day of a protracted, extreme heatwave in California’s Central Valley, the country roads were sizzling with heat. A young volunteer with a local environmental justice non-profit who had come to check in on the neighborhood collapsed on the sidewalk, her face bright red and damp. Construction crews working nearby quickly swept her into an air-conditioned car and handed her a cold bottle of water.

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Severe Heat, Drought Pack Dual Threat to Power Plants

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby Hannah Northey and Peter Behr

Record-setting heat and drought gripping the western United States are exposing a potentially severe risk to the nation’s long-term power supply, and experts warn that grid operators lack sufficient tools to plan and carry out a defense.

A future of worsening water scarcity in heat-blistered parts of the United States could imperil fossil fuel power plants and nuclear reactors that depend on enormous quantities of fresh water in their operations, according to a report by a group of analysts from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and other researchers.

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