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all traffic on both sides of the highway was closed. The westbound side of the freeway remained intact, but officers had stopped traffic while they tested its stability. A pair of small nearby highways that could possibly serve as detours were also closed. ... The showers forced the Los Angeles Angels' first rainout in 20 years and the San Diego Padres' first rainout since 2006. Saturday's rainfall broke records in at least 11 locations, including five places that had the most rain ever recorded on any day in July, Sirard said. July is typically the driest month of the year...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker joined the crowded field of Republican contenders vying for the White House in 2016 on Monday, and immediately stands out for having one of the poorest records on environmental and climate issues, according to green groups and political experts. Since taking office in 2010, Walker has dismantled several longstanding policies protecting wetlands and waterways, fast-tracked mining projects, fought climate action, slashed funding for dozens of state scientists and environmental education positions, and impeded development of wind energy in Wisconsin. "He's one of the worst," said Heather Taylor-Miesle, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Action Fund,...

Recently we had a rendezvous with my daughter’s future roommate (plus her mother and her mother’s best friend). The roommate is moving to Los Angeles from New Jersey after graduating from college. When we met the mother and her friend, they were both prominently wearing crosses on necklaces. We felt much more comfortable about the future of our child’s new living arrangement. They were delighted to find out we were committed Jews. I spend extensive time discussing with people who adhere to different denominations of Christianity. I am still befuddled by the varieties of Protestantism and I am confident I...

‘The Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters.’In that one sentence, Cardinal Pell puts his finger on what is wrong with Laudato Si‘, Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment. In that document, Francis waded into an argument about climate change and took sides. Moreover, he gave the impression that he was speaking for all Catholics when he did so; and, if by any chance he wasn’t, errant faithful should fall into line.In an interview in Thursday’s Financial Times, the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy stepped out of line. See above. It was...

From the Catholic News Agency, we read that this conference will occur next week, July 21-22. Ostensibly its purpose is to demonstrate a linkage between "climate change" and slavery. Well, I daresay other linkages are made even more manifest by this conference. The title of the conference is one indicator. "Modern Slavery and Climate Change: the Commitment of the Cities" is the title of the workshop in question that will be held during the conference entitled "Prosperity, People and Planet: Achieving Sustainable Development in Our Cities". The conference is sponsored by (surprise!) the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Let's focus on...

On Friday, congressional Democrats will attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis to discuss how the Academy plans to deal with flooding forecast for the future. Reps. Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) Jr., the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will converse with Vice Adm. Walter E. “Ted” Carter Jr., who runs the Academy. The conference was triggered by an Army Corps study that estimated the water around Annapolis could rise as much as 3.8 feet by 2100.

<p>DENVER — A spokesperson for the radical Santa Fe-based anti-coal group WildEarth Guardians showed no regard and no respect for the families and communities in Colorado who have everything to lose if the Colowyo mine is shut down.</p>

It has been 117 months since a major hurricane, defined as a Category 3 or above, has made landfall in the continental United States, according to 2015 data from the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This is the longest span of time in which no major hurricane has struck the mainland U.S. in NOAA hurricane records going back to 1851

It has been 117 months since a major hurricane, defined as a Category 3 or above, has made landfall in the continental United States, according to 2015 data from the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).This is the longest span of time in which no major hurricane has struck the mainland U.S. in NOAA hurricane records going back to 1851.The second longest time between major hurricane strikes was the eight years between 1860 and 1869—146 years ago.A recent study published May 5 and co-authored by Tim Hall of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA)...

No, not really. But the conflicting headlines I’m seeing this week might as well say that. Apparently we’re all still doomed, but our first item in recent climate news deals with a different phenomenon than the usual screeds which, rather than melting the ice caps and drowning all of the coastal cities, is going to bring on a new mini-ice starting in about fifteen years. Rather than carbon emissions or fracking, the culprit this time is the sun. (From the Daily Mail) The Earth could be headed for a ‘mini ice age’ researchers have warned.A new study claims to...

We’re a month away from going over budget in using this year’s planetary resources. One way to balance our ecological books is to eat more insects. By mid-summer of each year, we use up the Earth. Known as Earth Overshoot Day, it’s the day, sometime in August, when our yearly demand for ecological resources exceeds how much the planet can replenish those resources for the year. Soon after August 15, this year, Earth will be operating on a deficit. All the while, the population of Earth is growing. It’s estimated there will be 9 billion people by 2050, an additional...

Resilience. That word is defined as being able to recover quickly from difficulties. But if the Obama administration and a controversial Progressive group get their way, it will mean Progressively so much more. The Rockefeller Foundation has a long history of pushing controversial Progressive ideas. From Population Control through family planning and Eugenics, to funding the Marxist affiliated Tides Foundation, to openly awarding Obama’s Communist Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, an award, the Rockefeller Foundation has done everything but hide their true Progressive motivations from those who care to notice. But now the Rockefeller Foundation wants to dabble in one...

We haven’t checked in on the state of affairs in the auto industry recently, but it may soon be back in the news in a big way. Ford is making noises about the fact that they are losing money on the smaller, high efficiency cars which they must produce to stay on top of the eco-minded consumer market, such as the Ford Focus. So what’s a business to do? One suggestion being floated is that they just give up on turning a profit in Detroit and head down south of the border. Ford Motor Co.’s decision to end production of...

The Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned. A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out. This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London's River Thames to freeze over. The new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. It draws on...

Nearly a kilometer below the ice scientists have found a Yellowstone-like geothermal glow that could create life-rich subglacial lakes—and lubricate Antarctic ice loss.Temperatures on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet can plummet below –50 degrees Celsius in winter. But under the ice scientists have found intense geothermal heat seeping up from Earth’s interior. The heat production that they measured is nearly four times the global average—“higher than 99 percent of all the measurements made on continents around the world,” says Andrew Fisher, a hydrogeologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who worked on the project. This excessive heat could melt...

WASHINGTON: Extra heat from greenhouse gases has been trapped in the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans in recent years, which may explain the so-called 'pause' in global warming observed during the past decade, according to a new NASA study. Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California, found a specific layer of the Indian and Pacific oceans between 100 and 300 metres below the surface has been accumulating more heat than previously recognised. During the 20th century, as greenhouse gas concentrations increased and trapped more heat energy on Earth, global surface temperatures also increased. However, in the 21st...

On Sept. 19, 2014, the five-day average of Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 20 million square kilometers for the first time since 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The red line shows the average maximum extent from 1979-2014. Credits: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio/Cindy Starr Sea ice surrounding Antarctica reached a new record high extent this year, covering more of the southern oceans than it has since scientists began a long-term satellite record to map sea ice extent in the late 1970s. The upward trend in the Antarctic, however, is only about a third of the...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown announced plans to travel to the Vatican this month to join Pope Francis and United Nations leaders to discuss two “tragic emergencies” that are connected: climate change and human trafficking. The two-day event beginning July 21 will be hosted by the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences as a way to call for local jurisdictions to take action on issues highlighted in the pope’s recent pastoral letter. The encyclical focused on how environmental degradation is the biggest challenge humans face and how the impacts are most felt by the world’s poor. According to the...

Bumblebees, a linchpin of the global food supply, are vanishing across huge swaths of North America and Europe as a result of climate change, a new study says. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, apparently solve a mystery that's alarmed farmers, experts, policymakers and environmental advocates worldwide, as well as bedeviled researchers. While habitat destruction and potent pesticides known as neonicotinoids have destroyed some bumblebee populations, researchers concluded climate change has played the greatest role in the mass disappearance of bumblebee species, which pollinate plants and crops that are part of the food supply for both animals and...

Carson and his colleagues wanted to explore the question of whether early Amazonians had a major impact on the forest. They focused on the Amazon of northeastern Bolivia, where they had sediment cores from two lakes nearby major earthworks sites. These sediment cores hold ancient pollen grains and charcoal from long-ago fires, and can hint at the climate and ecosystem that existed when the sediment was laid down as far back as 6,000 years ago. An examination of the two cores — one from the large lake, Laguna Oricore, and one from the smaller lake, Laguna Granja — revealed a...