https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/aviation-s-dirty-secret-airplane-contrails-are-surprisingly-potent-cause-global-warming Source:   By Katie Camero, Science Magazine. Excerpt: The aviation industry has long been criticized for its large environmental footprint, particularly its climate-warming carbon emissions. But a new study suggests that another byproduct of airplanes—the white contrails they paint across the sky—has an even bigger warming effect, one that is set to triple by 2050. ...A 2011 study suggests that the net effect of these contrail clouds contributes more to atmospheric warming than all the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by planes since the dawn of aviation. And those effects are predicted to get worse as air traffic—and the resulting cloud coverage—increases: Some estimates suggest global air traffic will quadruple by the year 2050....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/climate/states-climate-change.html Source:   By Brad Plumer, The New York Times. Excerpt: ...A growing number of blue states are adopting sweeping new climate laws — such as New York’s bill, passed this week, to zero out net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — that aim to reorient their entire economies around clean energy, transforming the way people get their electricity, heat their homes and commute to work. But these laws are passing almost exclusively in states controlled by Democrats, while Republican-led states have largely resisted enacting aggressive new climate policies in recent years. At the same time, the Trump administration is rolling back federal climate regulations, which means many red states now face even less pressure to shift away from coal power or gas-guzzling vehicles. ... Over the past year, Democratic majorities in California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Washington have all passed bills aimed at getti

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/19/climate/us-air-pollution-trump.html Source:   By Nadja Popovich, The New York Times. Excerpt: When asked about climate change, President Trump often shifts the focus to America’s “clean air.” “We have the cleanest air in the world in the United States and it’s gotten better since I’m president,” he said again this month while meeting with Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Ireland. ...Air pollution has improved dramatically over the past four decades because of federal rules.  ...By one crucial metric, fine particulate pollution, the United States ranks 10th in air quality. New Zealand, Canada, Australia and several European countries can boast clearer skies. ...Particulate matter and other pollution have dramatically decreased over the past 40 years, in large part because of regulations put in place under the Clean Air Act of 1970 and its later updates, experts say. ...But, despite these gains, more than 110 million Americans still live i

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/climate/global-warming-himalayas-glaciers.html Source:   By Somini Sengupta, The New York Times. Excerpt: Climate change is “eating” the glaciers of the Himalayas, posing a grave threat to hundreds of millions of people who live downstream, a study based on 40 years of satellite data has shown [ https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/6/eaav7266 ]. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, concluded that the glaciers have lost a foot and a half of ice every year since 2000, melting at a far faster pace than in the previous 25-year period. In recent years, the glaciers have lost about eight billion tons of water a year. The study’s authors described it as equivalent to the amount of water held by 3.2 million Olympic-size swimming pools. The study adds to a growing and grim body of work that points to the dangers of global warming for the Himalayas, which are considered the water towers of Asia and an insurance policy against

https://eos.org/articles/report-examines-new-tools-to-protect-coral-reefs Source:   By Randy Showstack, EOS/AGU. Excerpt: With coral reefs under threat worldwide, a new report examines and provides a framework to assess novel intervention options that could provide a way forward to protect them. In the face of threats including habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change, the aim of these interventions is “to increase the ability of these coral reefs to persist in these rapidly degrading environmental conditions,” according to the report, A Decision Framework for Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs, which was released on 12 June by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25424/a-decision-framework-for-interventions-to-increase-the-persistence-and-resilience-of-coral-reefs ]....

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/10/climate/dengue-mosquito-spread-map.html Source:   By Kendra Pierre-Louis and Nadja Popovich, The New York Times. Excerpt: Climate change is poised to increase the spread of dengue fever, which is common in parts of the world with warmer climates like Brazil and India, a new study warns. Worldwide each year, there are 100 million cases of dengue infections severe enough to cause symptoms, which may include fever, debilitating joint pain and internal bleeding. There are an estimated 10,000 deaths from dengue — also nicknamed breakbone fever — which is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes that also spread Zika and chikungunya. The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Microbiology [ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-019-0476-8 ], found a likelihood for significant expansion of dengue in the southeastern United States, coastal areas of China and Japan, as well as to inland regions of Australia....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/climate/climate-flood-insurance.html Source:   By Christopher Flavelle, The New York Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — Despite years of devastating flooding and hurricanes, the number of Americans with flood insurance remains well below its level a decade ago, undermining the nation’s ability to cope with disasters just as climate change makes them more frequent and severe....

https://eos.org/research-spotlights/sea-level-rise-may-reactivate-growth-of-some-reef-islands Source:   By Sarah Stanley, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Reconstruction of reef island formation in the Maldives suggests the possibility that not all islands will shrink as climate change progresses. ...Rising seas pose serious threats for low-lying coral reef island nations. Widespread assumptions hold that encroaching waters will affect all reef islands in the same way, with many disappearing beneath the waves. However, emerging evidence, including new research by East et al., suggests that reef islands form differently in different settings, and some might actually grow as waters rise....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/climate/climate-lawsuit-juliana.html Source:   By John Schwartz, The New York Times. Excerpt: Three federal judges heard arguments Tuesday about whether young people have a constitutional right to be protected from climate change. In the lively, hourlong hearing, the judges, from the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, pushed skeptically on the arguments of both sides. ...The group of 21 young people first sued the United States government through a group called Our Children’s Trust. The case, and the children, are aging. “We’ve been doing this four years,” said Vic Barrett, one of the plaintiffs. “For some of us, that’s a quarter of our lives.” Five of them are now old enough to buy beer and 14 of them can vote....

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/climate/companies-climate-change-financial-impact.html Source:   By Brad Plumer, The New York Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — Many of the world’s biggest companies, from Silicon Valley tech firms to large European banks, are bracing for the prospect that climate change could substantially affect their bottom lines within the next five years, according to a new analysis of corporate disclosures [ https://www.cdp.net/en/research/global-reports/global-climate-change-report-2018-tcfd ]. Under pressure from shareholders and regulators, companies are increasingly disclosing the specific financial impacts they could face as the planet warms, such as extreme weather that could disrupt their supply chains or stricter climate regulations that could hurt the value of coal, oil and gas investments. Early estimates suggest that trillions of dollars may ultimately be at stake. ...“The numbers that we’re seeing are already huge, but it’s clear that this is just the

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/travel/traveling-climate-change.html Source:    By Andy Newman, The New York Times. Excerpt: The glaciers are melting, the coral reefs are dying, Miami Beach is slowly going under. Quick, says a voice in your head, go see them before they disappear! You are evil, says another voice. For you are hastening their destruction. To a lot of people who like to travel, these are morally bewildering times. ...But it turns out there are ways to quantify your impact on the planet, at least roughly. In 2016, two climatologists published a paper [ https://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/747.full ] in the prestigious journal Science showing a direct relationship between carbon emissions and the melting of Arctic sea ice. ...Each additional metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent — your share of the emissions on a cross-country flight one-way from New York to Los Angeles — shrinks the summer sea ice cover by 3 square meters, or 32 square feet, the