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At least 14 people have died and tens of thousands evacuated as Houston continues to be battered by catastrophic rainfall. Can we decode the disaster?
Tropical storm Harvey – live updatesA tropical storm that is on course to break the US record for the heaviest rainfall from a tropical system. Meteorologists say the 120cm-mark set in 1978 could be surpassed on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Related: Tropical storm Harvey: Houston police confirm death of trapped officer – live
Related: Trump visits Texas to view 'epic' flood damage as Houston braces for more rain
Continue reading...Floridians have long recognised climate’s threat to their homes. Amid the disaster wrought by Harvey, home buyers may look to higher ground
Tropical storm Harvey – live updatesIf Florida gleaned anything from Hurricane Andrew, the intensely powerful storm that tore a deadly trail of destruction across Miami-Dade County almost exactly 25 years to the day that Hurricane Harvey barrelled into the Texas coastline, it was that living in areas exposed to the wrath of Mother Nature can come at a substantial cost.
At the time the most expensive natural disaster ever to hit the US, Andrew caused an estimated $15bn in insured losses in the state and changed the way insurance companies assessed their exposure to risk for weather-related events.
Related: If Donald Trump won't tackle climate change, then Chicago will | Rahm Emanuel
Related: It's a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly | Michael E Mann
Continue reading...Across the US, towns and metropolises like mine are united to meet the Paris climate agreement’s targets and protect our residents and businesses
While the Trump administration is dropping the mantle of leadership on climate change, American cities from coast to coast are picking it up. From small towns to metropolises and from the coasts to the heartland, Republican and Democratic mayors are united in common cause to curb emissions, shrink our carbon footprints and fight for a greener future.
Rather than accepting the White House’s wrongheaded withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, cities are redoubling our efforts to meeting the landmark accords’ benchmarks. We not only have the power to take action, but unlike Washington we have the will to get the job done.
Related: It's a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly | Michael E Mann
Continue reading...This is a manmade climate-related disaster. To ignore this ensures our greatest challenge goes unanswered and helps push the world towards catastrophe
• Tropical storm Harvey – live updates
It is not only Donald Trump’s government that censors the discussion of climate change; it is the entire body of polite opinion. This is why, though the links are clear and obvious, most reports on Hurricane Harvey have made no mention of the human contribution to it.
In 2016 the US elected a president who believes that human-driven global warming is a hoax. It was the hottest year on record, in which the US was hammered by a series of climate-related disasters. Yet the total combined coverage for the entire year on the evening and Sunday news programmes on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News amounted to 50 minutes. Our greatest predicament, the issue that will define our lives, has been blotted from the public’s mind.
Related: It's a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly | Michael E Mann
Related: US federal department is censoring use of term 'climate change', emails reveal
Continue reading...Study predicts power consumption to rise with hotter temperatures, increasing need for renewable sources, while northern Europe’s demand may fall
Demand for electricity is set to soar in southern Europe as climate change takes hold, research has revealed, with the effect likely to be down to a boom in the use of air conditioning.
By contrast, electricity demand is expected to drop in northern countries, leading to an increasingly polarised pattern across the continent – a situation, the researchers say, that bolsters the case for greater integration of electricity supplies across Europe, particularly given the shift to renewable energies.
Related: As the mercury soars, fear grows over ‘air-con effect’
Related: World set to use more energy for cooling than heating
Continue reading...We can’t say that Hurricane Harvey was caused by climate change. But it was certainly worsened by it
Tropical storm Harvey – live updatesWhat can we say about the role of climate change in the unprecedented disaster that is unfolding in Houston with Hurricane Harvey? There are certain climate change-related factors that we can, with great confidence, say worsened the flooding.
Related: What we know so far about tropical storm Harvey
Sea surface temperatures in the region have risen about 0.5C (close to 1F) over the past few decades
Continue reading...A new study finds that a lecture from evangelical climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe successfully educates evangelical college students, validating the “trusted sources” approach
Approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, and that group also tends to be more resistant to the reality of human-caused global warming. As a new paper by Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe notes:
a 2008 study found that just 44% of evangelicals believed global warming to be caused mostly by human activities, compared to 64% of nonevangelicals (Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013) while, a 2011 survey found that only 27% of white evangelicals believed there to be a scientific consensus on climate change, compared to 40% of the American public (Public Religion Research Institute, 2011).
theological conservatism, scientific skepticism, political affiliation, and sociocultural influences have reinforced one another to instill climate skepticism into the evangelical tribe mentality, thus creating a formidable barrier to climate education efforts.
Continue reading...Global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents, say those witnessing the savage impact first-hand
The central highlands of Afghanistan are a world away from the congested chaos of the country’s cities. Hills roll across colossal, uninhabited spaces fringed by snow-flecked mountains, set against blistering blue skies.
In this spectacular, harsh landscape, one can pinpoint more or less where human settlement becomes impossible: at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,840ft).
Related: Trump to expand US military intervention in Afghanistan
Continue reading...Ain’t no mountain dry enough? Ben Nevis may well have grown by a metre last year but now it is also nude from basecamp up for the first time in 11 years.
You would expect snow under foot atop the summit’s stone cairn at the lofty height of 1,345m, not a blunt, barren crown. So what on earth happened to the formerly covered peak?
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