https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/climate/trump-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html Source:   By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman, The New York Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — President Trump had a clear message Monday when asked about the core conclusion of a scientific report issued by his own administration: that climate change will batter the nation’s economy. “I don’t believe it,” he said. Mr. Trump then laid responsibility for cleaning the atmosphere on other countries like China and Japan.... the National Climate Assessment, issued on Friday, was the product of four years of work by 13 federal agencies. It concluded that “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities,” and adds, “the severity of future impacts will depend largely on actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Those impacts include more devastating wildfires, severe storms and coastal flooding, droughts, crop failu...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/climate/adaptation-us-climate-change.html Source:   By Brad Plumer, The New York Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — The federal government’s sweeping new National Climate Assessment is more than just a dire warning about current and future global warming effects across the United States. It’s also the most detailed guide yet to all the ways the country will have to adapt. Even if the nations of the world get their act together and slash fossil-fuel emissions rapidly, the United States will need to spend many billions of dollars to harden coastlines, rebuild sewer systems and overhaul farming practices to protect against floods, wildfires and heat waves that are already causing havoc nationwide. And the more that emissions rise, the more difficult and costly that task gets. The United States isn’t prepared.... 1. Rethink how we farm.... 2. Build for the future, not the past.... 3. Retreat from the coasts.... 4. Enlist nature to help.... 5. Expec...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/climate/coal-global-warming.html Source:   By Somini Sengupta, The New York Times Excerpt: ...Home to half the world’s population, Asia accounts for three-fourths of global coal consumption today. More important, it accounts for more than three-fourths of coal plants that are either under construction or in the planning stages — a whopping 1,200 of them, according to Urgewald, a German advocacy group that tracks coal development. Heffa Schücking, who heads Urgewald, called those plants “an assault on the Paris [agreement] goals.” Indonesia is digging more coal. Vietnam is clearing ground for new coal-fired power plants. Japan, reeling from 2011 nuclear plant disaster, has resurrected coal. The world’s juggernaut, though, is China. The country consumes half the world’s coal. More than 4.3 million Chinese are employed in the country’s coal mines. China has added 40 percent of the world’s coal capacity since 2002, a huge increase for just 16 year...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/climate/us-climate-report.html Source:   By Coral Davenport and Kendra Pierre-Louis, The New York Times. Excerpt: WASHINGTON — A major scientific report issued by 13 federal agencies on Friday presents the starkest warnings to date of the consequences of climate change for the United States, predicting that if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century’s end. The report, which was mandated by Congress and made public by the White House, is notable not only for the precision of its calculations and bluntness of its conclusions, but also because its findings are directly at odds with President Trump’s agenda of environmental deregulation, which he asserts will spur economic growth. ...But in direct language, the 1,656-page assessment [ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov ] lays out the devastating effects of a changing climate on the economy...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/magazine/palm-oil-borneo-climate-catastrophe.html Source:   By Abrahm Lustgarten, The New York Times. Excerpt: ...In the mid-2000s, Western nations, led by the United States, began drafting environmental laws that encouraged the use of vegetable oil in fuels — an ambitious move to reduce carbon dioxide and curb global warming. But these laws were drawn up based on an incomplete accounting of the true environmental costs. Despite warnings that the policies could have the opposite of their intended effect, they were implemented anyway, producing what now appears to be a calamity with global consequences. The tropical rain forests of Indonesia, and in particular the peatland regions of Borneo, have large amounts of carbon trapped within their trees and soil. Slashing and burning the existing forests to make way for oil-palm cultivation had a perverse effect: It released more carbon. A lot more carbon. NASA researchers say the accelerated destruct...

https://eos.org/articles/world-off-course-to-meet-emissions-reduction-goals Source:   By Randy Showstack, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Despite energy efficiency and solar energy and other renewables playing an ever-larger role in the global energy mix, carbon emissions are increasing, and the world is not on course to meeting emissions reduction goals set by the 2016 Paris climate accord. That’s according to “ World Energy Outlook 2018 ,” [https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/november/world-energy-outlook-2018-examines-future-patterns-of-global-energy-system-at-a-t.html] a report issued by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on 13 November. ...“We can now safely say that in 2018, CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions will reach an historical high,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said at a 13 November briefing in Paris. “I see a very sharp disconnect between the scientific research targets—aims we have in terms of climate change—and what is happening in the energy markets.” The report sta...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive Source:   By Ann Gibbons, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. ...A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to b...

https://eos.org/scientific-press/warmer-winter-temperatures-linked-to-increased-crime Source:   AGU Press Release. Excerpt: Milder winter weather increased regional crime rates in the United States over the past several decades, according to new research that suggests crime is related to temperature’s effect on daily activities. A new study published in GeoHealth, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, finds U.S. crime rates are linked to warmer temperatures, and this relationship follows a seasonal pattern. The findings support the theory that three major ingredients come together to bring about crime: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a guardian to prevent a violation of the law. During certain seasons, namely winter, milder weather conditions increase the likelihood these three elements come together, and that violent and property crimes will take place, according to the new study. Unexpectedly, warmer summer temperatures were not linked with ...

https://eos.org/features/why-is-the-gulf-of-maine-warming-faster-than-99-of-the-ocean Source:   By Laura Poppick, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Late last month, four endangered sea turtles washed ashore in northern Cape Cod, marking an early onset to what has now become a yearly event: the sea turtle stranding season. These turtles—in last month’s case, Kemp’s ridley sea turtles—venture into the Gulf of Maine during warm months, but they can become hypothermic and slow moving when colder winter waters abruptly arrive, making it hard to escape. “They are enjoying the warm water, and then all of a sudden the cold comes, and they can’t get out fast enough,” said Andrew Pershing, an oceanographer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine. Thanks to record-breaking summer water temperatures that quickly transition to cooler conditions, an expanded sea turtle stranding season is just one facet of a new normal for the Gulf of Maine, Pershing explained. And this new normal is a st...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/climate/electric-school-buses.html Source:   By Brad Plumer, The New York Times. Excerpt: WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — “Some of the kids call it the singing bus,” said Juliessa Diclo Cruz, 10, as she rode in back of one of New York State’s first-ever electric school buses on a chilly October morning. ...the five new battery-powered buses in White Plains, which went into service this fall, run so quietly that they have to play a four-tone melody for safety as they roam the streets. The school district’s five singing buses — which cost $365,000 apiece, more than three times the price of a new diesel bus with modern pollution controls — are still a rarity. Of the roughly 480,000 school buses in the United States, only a few hundred are fully electric. But that’s slowly changing. State officials are looking to limit children’s exposure to the harmful exhaust from older diesel buses. They’re also increasingly concerned about the carbon emissions that drive...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/world/europe/rhine-drought-water-level.html Source:   By Christopher F. Schuetze, The New York Times. Excerpt: ...One of the longest dry spells on record has left parts of the Rhine at record-low levels for months, forcing freighters to reduce their cargo or stop plying the river altogether. ...Parts of the Danube and the Elbe — Germany’s other major rivers for transport — are also drying up. Some inland ports are idle, and it is estimated that millions of tons of goods are having to be transported by rail or road. ...With castles and vineyards dominating the river banks near Kaub, just five miles from the Lorelei rock, named for a siren who was said to lure sailors to their deaths, it would be easy to forget how important the area is to German commerce. It is roughly halfway between the inland ports of Koblenz and Mainz, and virtually all freight shipped from seaports in the Netherlands and Belgium to the industrial southwest of Germany passe...