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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.”

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - The whacky weather we've had lately is what some consider a major sign from Earth. "Our Earth is basically letting us know that something is not right," said Denise Abdul-Rahman. With Earth Day just days away, the Greater Terre Haute NAACP discussed climate change and ways to combat it. Abdul-Rahman is the NAACP Indiana Environmental & Climate Justice Chair. "What is occurring is that as we put out greenhouse gases, or what are called CO2 or carbon pollution, into our atmosphere, it is warming the temperatures," she said, "and those temperatures are melting our glaciers and...

Limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius will not prevent destructive and deadly climate impacts, as once hoped, dozens of experts concluded in a score of scientific studies released Monday. A world that heats up by 2C - long regarded as the temperature ceiling for a climate-safe planet - could see mass displacement due to rising seas, a drop in per capita income, regional shortages of food and fresh water, and the loss of animal and plant species at an accelerated speed. Poor and emerging countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America will get hit hardest, according to the studies.

It may be spring, but it feels like winter for the Northeast this morning as a snowstorm moves through Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and New England. The latest The snowfall rate at New York's LaGuardia Airport reached 2 inches per hour this morning. New York City saw 5.5 inches of snow this morning -- its heaviest April snowfall since 1982 when the city was dumped with 9.6 inches. Kimberly Richardson ✔ @kemrichardson7 Wow! #nyc right now #centralpark Beautiful but enough !!!!! #snow @ABC7NY 8:43 AM - Apr 2, 2018 The New York Yankees canceled today's home opener due to...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to use a Virginia car dealership on Tuesday as the setting to tout its rejection of the Obama administration’s landmark vehicle fuel efficiency rules, a move that could put automakers in the middle of a battle between the Trump administration and California. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt plans to sign a declaration by Sunday that the Obama administration’s vehicle efficiency rules for 2022 through 2025 are “not appropriate” and must be revised, Reuters reported last week. Pruitt is expected to speak at an event at a Chevrolet dealership in suburban Washington and will joined...

Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai says his country is an innocent victim of climate change which he will always remind the perpetrators of global warming. Mr Salwai made the comment as he thanked the European Union's Ambassador to Vanuatu for funding the country's biggest solar power farm that has over 2000 solar panels. Without naming any particular country, the prime minister said it was those superpowers who refused to endorse the Paris climate agreement. He said he had reminded the United Nations three times of the urgent need for Pacific Islands to be compensated for their land loss due to...

Bhutan is small, about the size of Switzerland, and similarly mountainous—though more geographically remote. To the south, Bhutan is landlocked by India, and to the North, it's buffered by the mighty Himalaya. Before 1974, Bhutan was completely closed off to tourists and most outsiders, and even now, only a few fee-paying visitors are allowed in at a time. The small mountain kingdom is home to a thriving, ancient culture, as well as stunning natural beauty. What many believe is the world's highest unclimbed peak, Gangkhar Puensum, soars nearly 25,000 feet into the clouds. Without a sizeable wallet, or an outsized...

SURPRISING FINDS The surprises began almost as soon as a camera was lowered into the first borehole, around December 1. The undersides of ice shelves are usually smooth due to gradual melting. But as the camera passed through the bottom of the hole, it showed the underside of the ice adorned with a glittering layer of flat ice crystals—like a jumble of snowflakes—evidence that in this particular place, sea water is actually freezing onto the base of the ice instead of melting it. “It blew our minds,” says Christina Hulbe, a glaciologist from the University of Otago in New Zealand,...

When Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrives in Washington this week for consultations with President Donald Trump, he won’t be traveling solo. Turnbull is bringing the most senior Australian political and business delegation ever to visit the United States in a trip aimed at building stronger relationships with America’s governors. While he’ll talk trade and security concerns with Trump, Turnbull will spend the weekend courting U.S. governors at their annual gathering. Turnbull, a Goldman Sachs executive-turned prime minister, is the latest world leader to extend outreach to U.S. governors and big-city mayors in the age of Trump’s “America First” policies....

On Oct. 11, 2016, Michael Foster and two companions rose before dawn, left their budget hotel in Grand Forks, N.D., and drove a white rental sedan toward the Canadian border, diligently minding the speed limit. As the driver, Sam Jessup, and a documentary filmmaker, Deia Schlosberg, recorded events from the back seat. For months, he’d imagined his next actions: He would snip the padlock that secured the gate and approach the blunt length of vertical pipe in the center of the enclosure — the stem of a shut-off valve for the 2,700-mile-long Keystone Pipeline. What neither the sheriff’s department nor...

Is climate change losing its luster as an issue for the Hollywood left? Or have so many "Inconvenient Truths" about global warming been debunked that it has forced Hollywood into an embarrassed silence? The sequel to Al Gore's 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth released in 2017 and titled An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, failed to pick up a single Oscar nomination. The 2006 film won "Best Documentary" and "Best Song."

France failed to meet its targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions in 2016, the government said Monday, just a month after President Emmanuel Macron warned that “we are losing the battle” against global warming. The environment ministry said the country emitted 463 tons of greenhouse gases, measured as carbon dioxide equivalents, or 3.6 percent more than its goal. It attributed the slip in part to lower oil prices, which can prompt people and businesses to consume more in areas such as transportation or heating. But emissions were down 15.3 percent from 1990 levels. […] … [T]he disappointing 2016 results show...

Many people awaited last Sunday’s Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral of a highly classified US payload. The launch had been delayed for weeks, speculation as to the satellite’s purpose was rampant, and successfully delivering national security satellites to orbit is an important part of SpaceX’s business. The launch, however, remains shrouded in mystery.Shortly after the launch, Bloomberg reported that the satellite was lost, due to US Strategic Command saying they were not tracking any objects. The Wall Street Journal suggested that Congress was being briefed on a failure, and that it was due to a failure of the satellite...

Earth’s surface will almost certainly not warm up four or five degrees Celsius by 2100, according to a study released Wednesday which, if correct, voids worst-case UN climate change predictions. A revised calculation of how greenhouse gases drive up the planet’s temperature reduces the range of possible end-of-century outcomes by more than half, researchers said in the report, published in the journal Nature. “Our study all but rules out very low and very high climate sensitivities,” said lead author Peter Cox, a professor at the University of Exeter. How effectively the world slashes CO2 and methane emissions, improves energy efficiency,...

Shortly after taking office, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt set out to permanently limit the agency’s regulatory power in what he billed as a “Back to Basics” agenda focusing on cleaning up toxic waste and providing safe drinking water ― but not curbing new industrial pollution.

In the mountains of western Iran, the province of Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari is known for mile-high lagoons, flowing rivers and wetlands that attract thousands of species of migratory birds. But years of diminishing rainfall have shriveled water sources. Conditions worsened, residents say, after Iranian authorities began funneling water 60 miles away to the lowland city of Esfahan, sparking protests as far back as 2014. The uprising — in which at least 21 people died and thousands were arrested before authorities reimposed order — had many sparks: rising prices, persistent unemployment, bank collapses, a wide wealth gap, corruption in the theocracy. But an...

Manmade climate change is now dwarfing the influence of natural trends on the climate, scientists say. The acting director of the UK Met Office, Prof Peter Stott, told BBC News: "It's extraordinary that temperatures in 2017 have been so high when there's no El Niño. In fact, we’ve been going into cooler La Niña conditions. "Last year was substantially warmer than 1998 which had a very big El Niño. "It shows clearly that the biggest natural influence on the climate is being dwarfed by human activities – predominantly CO2; emissions." “The record temperature should focus the minds of world leaders,...

There could be no starker illustration of the profound differences that exist between Washington and London -- despite alignment on many other issues -- than comments this week by our two leaders on climate change and the environment. For President Trump, the Paris Agreement is a bad deal that will close US businesses -- perhaps even has closed some already. Meanwhile, in London last week, Prime Minister Theresa May was launching the UK's 25-year Plan for Nature. Its flagship pledge is to "leave the environment in a better state than we found it". The evidence is entirely against the world...

California is poised to meet its goal to reduce greenhouse gases 33 percent, to 1990 levels, by the year 2020. Its targets for use of more renewable energy by that date are, in some cases, already exceeded. ...hold on tight for what comes next. The state’s overarching plan was intended to ease industry and consumers into a carbon-free future bit by bit; ten years in, the training wheels are off. Emissions-reduction must hit 40 percent by 2030 and twice that by 2050. In 12 years, half the state’s energy must come from renewable sources. 14 million buildings must operate twice...