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Climate change is hitting America as rain, and we’re making it worse. Two years ago, Ellicott City, Maryland, was hit by a debilitating flash flood that turned the town’s historic Main Street into a raging muddy river. Scientists said the July 2016 rainstorm was a once-in-a-thousand-year event. But on Sunday it happened again: 7 to 9 inches of rain fell in the area, 10 miles west of Baltimore, and another torrent swept cars and trees through town. It’s a reminder that heavy rain, rather than rising seas, may be the earliest severe consequence of climate change. We’ve prepared for it...

These are tough times for the US climate-ambulance chasers, who like to use every extreme-weather event as a God-sent sign the climate is going to hell in a handbasket. Tornadoes AWOL, models contradicted But even weather extremes aren’t cooperating with the climate predictions and models. For instance, yesterday meteorologist Joe Bastardi at Weatherbell noted that US tornado activity is near a record low so far this year.

VIENNA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Banana trees that fit in a test tube. Burgers made without a cow in sight. Fish farmed in the desert. Robots picking fruit. Welcome to the brave new world of food, where scientists are battling a global time-bomb of climate change, water scarcity, population growth and soaring obesity rates to find new ways to feed the future. With one in nine people already short of enough food to lead a healthy, active life, supporters pushing for a Second Green Revolution argue without major changes hunger will become one of the biggest threats to national security...

Last week it was revealed that 54 oil tankers are anchored off the coast of Britain, refusing to unload their fuel until prices have risen. But that is not the only scandal in the shipping world. Today award-winning science writer Fred Pearce – environmental consultant to New Scientist and author of Confessions Of An Eco Sinner – reveals that the super-ships that keep the West in everything from Christmas gifts to computers pump out killer chemicals linked to thousands of deaths because of the filthy fuel they use. We've all noticed it. The filthy black smoke kicked out by funnels...

Speaking to 2018 graduates at the University of Maryland on Sunday, it wasn’t until 19 minutes into a 22-minute speech that former Vice President Al Gore mentioned President Donald Trump’s name. But his address nonetheless marked a commencement ceremony that pushed graduates to fight what both Gore and university President Wallace Loh described as challenges to American democracy. Gore, nowadays best known for his advocacy to fight global warming that earned him a Nobel Prize in 2007, urged the graduates to vote in large numbers in the coming years, suggesting that America’s “experiment” with the Trump administration should, like some...

The new administrator of nasa held a town hall Thursday at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Jim Bridenstine is about four weeks into the job, and his path here was mired in controversy. After a few opening remarks, he started taking some questions. The first was about what Bridenstine thinks makes him qualified to be the head of nasa. The second was, as the moderator put it, “one more easy one—because it’s about climate change.” Bridenstine laughed. So did many in the room. It was an uncomfortable question. Bridenstine, as a Republican in Congress, has a record of denying...

The demonization of the “miracle molecule,” carbon dioxide, continued last week with the announcement that its concentration had reached 410 parts per million (ppm). Nearly all reporting of this noted that this was the highest level in 800,000 years and predicted a host of associated climate calamities. While the current concentration of this vital gas is about 40% higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution, unreported is that Earth has been suffering from steadily decreasing and perilously low concentrations of CO2. Until the consumption of fossil fuels began liberating this important gas from ancient rocks , the Earth...

Karenna Gore, director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, urged the Catholic Church and other “faith communities” to become climate change activists and preach about taking action on the issue. “I actually think that [preaching is] one of the main things that could actually break through on this issue. One of the ways that we could break through on this issue is if people really start to think deeply on another level about it; on a moral and spiritual level and are moved from a different kind of place to take action, to raise it with...

Even during times of rapid global warming, loooooong periods of cold weather can occur. April in the U.S. was one of those periods. Despite record warmth elsewhere in the world, it was the 13th-coldest April in the United States, where records date back to 1895. The Upper Midwest was particularly cold — Iowa and Wisconsin had their all-time coldest April while temperatures in surrounding states in the Central and Northeast U.S. were well-below average. From Minnesota to Mississippi, nine states had their coldest April overnight lows. In Minnesota, ice-out came as late in the season as it ever has. Ice-out...

The spring allergy season is hitting much of the country especially hard — and researchers are blaming climate change for more intense pollen counts. There's been a spike in the number of people suffering seasonal allergies, also called hay fever or allergic rhinitis, for the first time, and people in the northwest and southwest are getting the worst of it, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Doctors have long raised alarm about the potential health risks of climate change, but it turns out that children are particularly vulnerable. Children are estimated to bear 88% of the burden of disease related to climate change, according to a paper published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics. The new paper highlights some studies on the implications of climate change for children's health and then calls for the world to better prepare for these health risks, not just in the future but in the present. "We already have seen the impacts," said Dr. Kevin Chan, chairman of pediatrics at Memorial University...

Global tourism accounts for 8% of total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, four times more than previously believed, new research says. Some gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere, producing a "greenhouse effect," and so make the planet warmer. The amount of greenhouse gases released by a particular activity is referred to as its "carbon footprint." The increasing carbon footprint of global tourism between 2009 and 2013 represents a 3% annual growth in emissions, according to University of Sydney researchers. Their paper was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

There are three big drivers of weather for any place on Earth: the latitude, the local environment, and solar system cycles. The biggest weather factor is latitude – are you in the torrid, temperate, or frigid zone? These climatic zones are defined by the intensity of heat delivered to Earth's surface by the sun.

IBRA, Oman — In the arid vastness of this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, out where goats and the occasional camel roam, rocks form the backdrop practically every way you look. But the stark outcrops and craggy ridges are more than just scenery. Some of these rocks are hard at work, naturally reacting with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into stone. Veins of white carbonate minerals run through slabs of dark rock like fat marbling a steak. Carbonate surrounds pebbles and cobbles, turning ordinary gravel into natural mosaics. Scientists say that if this natural process, called carbon...

California’s air pollution levels are among the worst in the country, and climate change is making the situation worse, according to a new report from the American Lung Association. Despite the state’s efforts to reign in air pollution, 90 percent of California residents are exposed to unhealthy air at some point during the year, according to the State of the Air 2018 report. While air pollution is bad for everyone’s health, low-income communities, children, seniors, and people with underlying health problems tend to be most impacted when ozone and particle pollution levels soar, experts said. Afif El-Hasan, a pediatrician in...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich hinted again Sunday at a possible 2020 presidential run by ripping the Republican Party and declaring “I can bring that party back.” The Republican governor accused the GOP of being “anti-immigrant, anti-trade, in favor of debt,” and implored party members to “come home.” “We should care about people from top to bottom, not just at those at the top but everybody,” Mr. Kasich told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I can bring that party back, that’s what I’m going to do, in one way or another.”

I did it. I descended into the heart of liberal darkness, Berkeley, California and attended the Tenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses. As you may have guessed, I’m a climate change skeptic. And while this conference was interesting and gratifying for a number of reasons, it did not change my view as a climate change skeptic, but in fact, reinforced it. My own presentation (for solving climate change while making a huge profit – i.e., the Republican way) was not widely attended, but the conversation was lively and I gained some allies. Without further ado here are...

Settled Science: A new study published in a peer-reviewed journal finds that climate models exaggerate the global warming from CO2 emissions by as much as 45%. If these findings hold true, it's huge news. No wonder the mainstream press is ignoring it. In the study, authors Nic Lewis and Judith Curry looked at actual temperature records and compared them with climate change computer models. What they found is that the planet has shown itself to be far less sensitive to increases in CO2 than the climate models say. As a result, they say, the planet will warm less than the...

Billings-area residents trudged through the slush Monday, but the storm brought some "good" news: The long winter of suffering has not been in vain. Shortly after 10 a.m., the National Weather Service in Billings announced that a scant 0.1 inches of snow had fallen — not enough to accumulate much on the ground or streets, but enough to break the single-season snowfall record. The measuring station at Billings Logan International Airport recorded 2.6 inches by 1 p.m., bringing the yearly total to 106.1 inches.

One of the most electrifying moments of the 2018 Winter Olympics came when American cross-country skier Jessie Diggins surged from behind in the final seconds to win gold for her and teammate Kikkan Randall in the team sprint. It was a gutsy feat. Future Olympians may not get a shot at the dream Diggins achieved in PyeongChang. That’s because climate change is warming our winters, reducing our snowpack, and shortening our seasons - all changes that make it difficult to participate in snowsports. Diggins and four other winter Olympians - Stacey Cook, Arielle Gold, Maddie Phaneuf, and David Wise -...