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In a contentious interview with BBC radio, California Governor Jerry Brown has threatened to sue the Trump administration over climate change, while vowing to “stabilize the ship of state.” “The president is working to delegitimize the very notion of climate change,” Brown told Jim Naughtie of the BBC in a program that aired Tuesday, while the position of California is to go “against the policies of President Trump.” “I hope the rest of the world does their part in providing a forceful opposition,” he said. “Trump has declared war on a majority of the American people under the guise of...

And then there were two: the US and Syria. As Nicaragua signs on to the Paris Agreement, the United States and Syria are now the only two nations in the world who have refused to be members of the climate pact. The Central American country held out on signing the deal for two years, based on criticisms that it was "insufficient" in addressing climate change. On Monday, however, the Nicaraguan government announced its intent to join the accord. Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo said they sent a "document of adhesion" to the United Nations, according to Nicaragua's state-run...

Climate change is costing taxpayers billions of dollars in disaster relief and the tab will only increase as extreme weather events become more common, according to a new government study. The federal government has spent an estimated $350 billion over the past decade responding to extreme weather and fire events, which are exacerbated by climate change, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. It comes as Congress moves to approve billions of dollars in extra funding for hurricane relief. "Climate change impacts are already costing the federal government money, and these costs will likely increase over time as the...

Congress's top watchdog is out with a report today about the expensive consequences of climate change and is using those numbers to urge President Donald Trump to take action. The most concerning number is the projection for the costs of premature deaths related to extreme temperatures. In the years 2040 to 2059, premature deaths could cost the health sector up to $161 billion a year. Between 2080 and 2099, costs could increase to $90 billion to $506 billion a year. The authors from the Government Accountability Office recommended in the report that the office of the president specifically use this...

Cottbus (Germany) (AFP) – Chancellor Angela Merkel hails from Germany’s ex-communist East, yet it is here where the anger against her runs deepest and the far-right protest party AfD has celebrated its strongest gains. The electoral success of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, which scored 12.6 percent in September 24 elections, stunned much of the country. But in Cottbus, located in the Lusatia coal mining region near the Polish border, many cheered the strong result for the party whose battle cry is “Merkel must go”. In the city of 100,000 people that is dominated by drab Soviet-style tower blocks, the...

EU anti-trust regulators have raided the offices of automaker BMW in Munich, the company said, in a fresh blow to the German car industry already hit by the Dieselgate scandal. The European Commission, which refused to confirm the company targeted, said it “can confirm that as of October 16, 2017, its officials carried out an unannounced inspection at the premises of a car manufacturer in Germany.” The inspection was related to “concerns that several German car manufacturers may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices,” a statement said. The commission added that Daimler was cooperating...

SANTA FE, N.M. — A proposed overhaul of New Mexico’s state science standards for public schools came under intense criticism Monday at a packed public hearing in the state capital for omitting or deleting references to global warming, evolution and the age of the Earth. Comments at the hearing overwhelmingly sided against state revisions to a set of standards developed by a consortium of states and the National Academy of Sciences. Of the 55 initial speakers, none backed the standards. Public school teachers, state university faculty, Democratic Party officials and the science chairman for a school catering to local Native...

Pope Francis marked UN World Food Day on Monday with a call for world governments to act together to fight the hunger, conflicts and climate change driving mass migration from the developing to the industrialized world. In a speech to the global body’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Francis said love rather than pity should be placed at the heart of international development efforts, and threw his weight behind efforts in the UN to negotiate a global accord on managed, safe migration. “Is it too much to ask to think of inserting the concept of love into the...

Highway 37 began life as a private toll road, and was later converted to a state highway. But climate change and sea-level rise will doom the road unless something is done. For the short term, the ridiculous two-lane section between Sears Point and Vallejo needs to be widened to match the rest of the road, which is four lanes. Wetlands surrounding the road also need to be restored. It would be reasonable to use some toll money for wetlands restoration, in part to mitigate the effects of construction. Even with the new funding approved by the Legislature by raising the...

"BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU." This slogan appeared on posters of the Party leader in the dystopian society of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It was a constant reminder of omnipresent government surveillance for “thoughtcrime” – independent thinking. In Orwell’s book, Ministry of Truth ‘history re-writer’ Winston Smith quietly rebelled against this oppression, starting a diary expressing forbidden thoughts. But government telescreens were everywhere. Watched constantly, Smith’s every move was monitored. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the consequences of being caught were dire; the stress on individuals enormous. As head of the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC), I have been feeling a...

WASHINGTON, DC, Oct 13 – “The ‘climate changers’ came out in full force when the EPA announced earlier this week that it was ending the Obama-era war on coal by scrapping Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan. But, America has the world’s largest reserves of coal—an asset that should not be dismissed out of hand for a variety of reasons, according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC].Weber says that extreme restrictions on the use of coal to generate electricity “acted like a national energy tax. They minimized the positive impact of our lowest cost and...

Colossal Hurricane Ophelia is currently churning through the Atlantic Ocean around 295 miles away from the Portuguese Azores with winds of up to 100mph. Ophelia, now upgraded to a category 2 hurricane, is expected to smash into the UK on Sunday night, according to the National Hurricane Center. But the full force of its effects will be felt along the western coasts of Britain on Monday from around 8am, the NHC said. Forecasters are warning of a “manic Monday” of blistering winds, torrential rain and strong tidal surges when the hurricane reaches British shores.

President Donald Trump will nominate a climate change skeptic with ties to the fossil fuel industry to serve as a top environmental adviser. The White House on Thursday announced the selection of Kathleen Hartnett White of Texas to serve as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. White served under former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now Trump's energy secretary, for six years on a commission overseeing the state environmental agency. White was fiercely critical of what she called the Obama administration's "imperial EPA" and pushed back against stricter limits on air and water pollution. She is a senior fellow at...

Suppose a crooked prosecutor framed someone and was determined to get a conviction. So he built an entire case on tainted, circumstantial evidence, and testimony from witnesses who had their reasons for wanting the guy in jail. Suppose the prosecutor ignored or hid exculpatory evidence and colluded with the judge to prevent the defendant from presenting a robust defense or cross-examining adverse witnesses. You know what would happen – at least in a fair and just society. The victim would be exonerated and compensated. The prosecutor and judge would be disbarred, fined and jailed. What you may not know is...

Just as Hurricane Harvey wrapped up its devastation of Houston, Irma got into line behind it and quickly built into the strongest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history. Now, Maria leaves a broken Caribbean in its wake: Dominica's rooftops and rainforests have been ripped to shreds, and Puerto Rico may be without power for months as a result of the storm. (Learn more about how hurricanes work.) It’s hard to avoid comparisons to the last time two such powerful storms threatened U.S. landfall in the catastrophic 2005 hurricane season, 12 years ago. As in 2005, when Katrina and Rita devastated the...

Mass starvation has wiped out thousands of penguin chicks in Antarctica, with unusually thick sea ice forcing their parents to forage further for food in what conservationists Friday called a "catastrophic breeding failure".They attributed the disaster to extensive sea ice late in the summer, meaning the adult penguins had to travel further to find food, with the chicks dying as they waited.

A hole the size of Maine—or larger than the Netherlands, depending on which geographic mass means more to you—has opened up in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. In an otherwise thick layer of sea ice, still frozen from the Antarctic winter, the hole is an aberration. Ice scientists aren’t sure what’s going on, but they’re all talking about it. “It looks like you just punched a hole in the ice,” atmospheric physicist Kent Moore, of the University of Toronto, told Vice’s Motherboard. Autonomous float deployed in 2015 has resurfaced unexpectedly inside polynya & started transmitting data https://t.co/qnyTYRVoOy @NSF pic.twitter.com/JgfwdDtBoc —...

Big deadly fires are nothing new to California, particularly during fire season when the Santa Ana or Diablo winds blow hot and dry, making tinder out of trees and bushes that have been baking all summer long. But the firestorm now raging through Northern California isn’t the typical wildfire. We don’t yet know what started the fires in Northern California, but we have a good idea of what made them so destructive. Authorities blame a combination of factors. Burning fossil fuels is not the only human activity that contributes to the destruction wrought by wildfires and hurricanes. So does the...

One of the worse effects of sentencing someone to prison time is what it does to that person’s health. Which is why anyone on the cusp of a term of imprisonment is really much, much better off seeing a dentist and a doctor before they go in. Another problem that anyone who has spent any time in a jail or prison knows — even in a lawyer visiting room — is that prisons underspend on HVAC systems, if they spend at all. In the summer, jails and prisons are sweltering. In the winter, people in federal prisons often have to...

A rapidly spreading invasive pest now threatens crops across the continent. The fall armyworm is closely related to the African armyworm, which is native to the continent. Both pests feed not just on corn, but also on other cereal crops like rice, sorghum, and wheat. Kenneth Wilson of Lancaster University has studied the African armyworm for 25 years and is now part of a working group with the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization that is examining how to deal with the newly arrived pest. The fall armyworm comes at a time when farmers throughout rural Africa are grappling with...