https://eos.org/articles/building-resilience-in-the-face-of-a-dwindling-colorado-river By Jane Palmer , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Policymakers, industry and conservation professionals, and tribal members explore pathways to a sustainable future for the millions of people reliant on the “lifeblood of the American West.” In the past couple of decades, however, severe drought has plagued the Colorado River Basin, and the  current period is the driest in the past 1,200 years . The situation is so dire that on 14 June, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation commissioner Camille C. Touton told a U.S. Senate committee that states within the region will need to  cut usage by between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet in 2023  to protect the Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs. ...various stakeholders have already been exploring pathways to resilience to dwindling water resources. Urban water authorities have increased water efficiency and are experimenting with changing city landscapes in...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/world/europe/europe-energy-germany-nuclear.html By Erika Solomon , The New York Times.  Excerpt: LANDSHUT, Germany — When Angela Merkel pulled the plug on nuclear power after  the Fukushima meltdown , she set Germany on a course to become the only leading industrial nation to abandon atomic energy in the world. The economic engine of Europe planned instead to fuel itself through a transition to renewable energies with cheap Russian gas. Now, 11 years later, with  Russia toying with Germany’s gas supply , her successor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has modeled himself in Ms. Merkel’s image, is staring at the possibility of reversing that momentous decision. Europe’s geopolitical calculations have been turned upside down by  the war in Ukraine . It has created an energy crisis that comes at a critical moment for Germany and Europe’s ambitions to become global leaders in the transition to climate neutrality. Instead, as Russia tightens ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/climate/republican-treasurers-climate-change.html By David Gelles , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers around the country are working to thwart climate action on state and federal levels, fighting regulations that would make clear the economic risks posed by a warming world, lobbying against climate-minded nominees to key federal posts and using the tax dollars they control to punish companies that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past year, treasurers in nearly half the United States have been coordinating tactics and talking points, meeting in private and cheering each other in public as part of a well-funded campaign to protect the fossil fuel companies that bolster their local economies. Last week, Riley Moore, the treasurer of West Virginia, announced that several major banks — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — would be  barred from government contracts with his ...

https://eos.org/articles/evidence-of-drought-provides-clues-to-a-viking-mystery By Korena Di Roma Howley , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: ...Why, after more than 450 years, did a colony of medieval Norse farmers disappear from their remote Greenland settlement? In attempting to uncover what may have happened, researchers have returned again and again to climate—and to a seemingly obvious scenario. Having turned up on the island during the centuries-long  Medieval Warm Period , the settlers were then gradually ushered out by the arrival of the  Little Ice Age  in the 14th century. But a new study has found that drought, not plunging temperatures, may have pushed an already fragile community to its breaking point. ...Around 985 CE, at the height of the  Viking era , a group led by exiled explorer Erik the Red sailed west from Iceland and established the first European settlement on Greenland. The Norse farmed the land and hunted walrus for the ivory trade. ...Though they inha...

https://climatenexus.org/climate-issues/energy/clean-energy-jobs-2022/ By ClimateNexus.  Excerpt: At the end of 2021, over 3.3 million people worked in wind, solar, efficiency and other clean energy fields, according to the Energy Department’s  2022 U.S. Energy & Employment Report , which uses data from 2021. That’s more than the number of people employed as  registered nurses . Like many industries, the energy sector has been  hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis , but is experiencing a strong recovery. Energy sector jobs last year grew 4 percent over 2020, while overall U.S. employment only grew 2.8 percent year-to-year. The clean energy sector experienced  especially high growth : jobs in net-zero aligned sectors made up nearly 40 percent of total energy jobs in 2021, and emissions-reducing vehicle manufacturing grew 25 percent between 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, fossil fuel jobs continue to decline, with the coal sector seeing job losses of nearly 12 percent. T...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/04/us/kentucky-flooding-coal-industry.html By  Rick Rojas ,  Christopher Flavelle  and  Campbell Robertson , The New York Times.  Excerpt: FLEMING-NEON, Ky. — ...For much of the last century, the country was powered by the labor of coal miners underneath the hills and mountains of southeastern Kentucky. But the landscape that was built to serve this work was fragile, leaving the people here extraordinarily vulnerable, especially after the coal industry shuttered so many of the mines and moved on. What remained were modest, unprotected homes and decaying infrastructure, and a land that itself, in many places, had been shorn of its natural defenses. Last week, when a deluge of rain poured into the hollows, turning creeks into roaring rivers, overwhelming old flood records, killing at least 37 people and destroying countless homes, that vulnerability was made brutally manifest.… 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/02/satellite-images-reveal-shrinkage-of-utahs-great-salt-lake By  Sadia Nowshin , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Striking new images show lake has lost nearly half of its surface area from the historical average. ...The disappearance of the lake has been attributed to drought caused by climate breakdown and water use, along with the redirection of water from streams used to replenish the lake for use in residential spaces and agriculture. The demand for the lake’s water has increased as the population of Utah climbs. Currently home to about 3.3 million people, it is projected that the population will  increase by 66% by 2060 , making it the fastest growing state in the US.… [Note: this article has a great interactive graphic comparing the Great Salt Lake in 1985 and 2022.]