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Hawaiian officials attributed the cause of catastrophic wildfires to alleged failures from the state's main power utility company and downed power lines this week after Democrats blamed the disaster on global warming. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the government of Maui County, Hawaii, alleged Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) and its subsidiaries failed to properly power down live electrical equipment amid a red flag windstorm earlier this month. Due to this failure, downed power lines operated by the utility company sparked a series of deadly fires on the island, the lawsuit claimed. "The lawsuit alleges that the Defendants acted negligently by...

A group of climate activists disrupted and shut down a Nantucket, Massachusetts, fundraising event benefiting Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey after they demanded she ban new fossil fuel projects. The activists, who are members of the group Climate Defiance, interrupted Healey during the event earlier this week on the ritzy Nantucket island located off the coast of Massachusetts and which appeared to be taking place in the backyard of a house. They then chanted slogans before being forcibly escorted off the home's premises. "Excuse me, Gov. Healey, I'm sorry to interrupt. We are in the midst of a climate emergency,"...

resident Biden’s comment that he had “practically” declared a climate emergency is reigniting calls on the left for him to actually take such action. The White House has not announced any explicit climate emergency declarations. Biden appeared poised to do so last year when talks on his signature climate legislation stalled, but he did not ultimately take the step. After the president was asked during a recent Weather Channel interview if he was prepared to declare a climate emergency, however, he at first said he already had. When pressed, he said he had done so “in practice” and practically speaking....

A group of left-wing senators led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are demanding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecute the fossil fuel industry over its alleged climate disinformation campaign. In a letter Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Senate coalition - joined also by Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. - argued fossil fuel companies have conducted a "longstanding and carefully coordinated campaign" to mislead Americans about the risks posed by global warming and "discredit climate science" in pursuit of profits. If the DOJ were to pursue such a case again the fossil...

The summer holidays are nearly here which would normally mean there's never been a better time to fire up the barbeque and line it with beef burgers. But a new study shows you might want to swap them for meat-free alternatives if you want to do your bit to save the planet. University of Oxford experts say eating just 100g of meat per day – less than a single burger – creates four times more greenhouse gases compared with a vegan diet. The researchers now want to see prompt policy action from government and organisations to trigger 'dietary shifts away...

From flooded cities to hellish wildfires and deadly droughts, gloomy climate reports constantly describe a world ruined by climate change. But what would this actually look like? Environmental specialist Marish Cuenca has partnered with DiscoverCars.com to create artistic depictions of tourist spots in just a quarter of a century from now. London's Big Ben looks straight out of a disaster movie, straddled by a mass of murky floodwater, while the Pyramids of Giza are home to a toxic urban landscape. Palm trees of Hawaii have been ravaged by fire, while California's Death Valley is so hot that the roads are...

Lugging around a heavy suitcase on holiday could become a thing of the past if an airline's clothes rental experiment proves a good fit for customers. The service, dubbed 'Any Wear, Anywhere', allows passengers to rent a bundle of clothing ahead of their flight, which is then delivered straight to their hotel or AirBnb on arrival. Japan Airlines launched the scheme yesterday in the hope that it will mean customers can leave bulky bags behind and make a 'sustainable choice'. Travellers can tailor their clothing style depending on whether they are on a business or leisure trip, choosing between smart,...

In spite of advances in making laboratory-cultured meat products taste like the real deal, we're yet to see a single factory pumping chicken nuggets out of a vat. That might not be such a bad thing, according to a recent study by researchers from the University of California, Davis (UCD), and the University of California, Holtville. They warn current production methods of lab-grown meat could end up being way worse for the environment than beef farming, despite being touted as a sustainable alternative. Their life-cycle assessment of current meat-growing processes – which has yet to be peer-reviewed – found cultured...

Michigan Senate Democrats on Wednesday announced a sweeping bill package that aims to put legal teeth behind efforts to wean Michigan off fossil fuels. The package, which Democratic leaders said would be filed by Thursday, would require state-regulated utilities to stop burning coal by 2030, and would require them to deliver 100 percent clean energy by 2035. Senate Democrats spokesperson Rosie Jones initially said Wednesday that would be a renewable energy requirement but later clarified the bill would require “carbon-free” energy. She did not specify whether that leaves the door open to utilities continuing to use fossil fuels while deploying...

Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading certifier and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation. The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to...

The editor-in-chief of the Science academic journals wants scholars to know that they should agree with him on climate change if they want to be published. Holden Thorp, a professor at Washington University who oversees the Science publications, recently praised Nature magazine for explaining why it made the rare decision to endorse politicians, including its 2020 endorsement of President Joe Biden. He argued that opposing the politicization of science “gives people the permission to say things like ‘climate change may be real, but I don’t think we should have government regulation to deal with it,’ which is unacceptable,” Thorp wrote...

Twitter users ridiculed Vice President Kamala Harris after she voiced the concerns of young children dealing with "climate mental health" problems. Harris mentioned the climate change-related issue during her appearance Wednesday at the "Aspen Ideas: Climate Conference" in Miami Beach, Florida. Harris told the crowd in attendance about how she spoke to young climate activists who claim climate change is affecting their mental health. Specifically, the activists told her they were struggling with "climate mental health," she said. Launching into her anecdote, Harris said, "One of the young leaders was talking to me about climate mental health. I said, ‘Tell...

(KXAN) - A new study has found that surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico have warmed approximately twice as fast as the global ocean over the last 50 years. The study, published last month in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate and conducted by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Northern Gulf Institute (NGI), found “significant warming” of the Gulf’s sea surface temperature - a 1.8°F jump between 1970-2020. This works out to 0.34°F of warming per decade, equating to roughly twice the rate of warming observed in the global ocean as a...

Scientists are scrambling to explain why the continent of Antarctica has shown Net Zero warming for the last seven decades and almost certainly much longer. The lack of warming over a significant portion of the Earth undermines the unproven hypothesis that the carbon dioxide humans add to the atmosphere is the main determinant of global climate.Under ‘settled’ science requirements, the significant debate over the inconvenient Antarctica data is of necessity being conducted well away from prying eyes in the mainstream media. Promoting the Net Zero political agenda, the Guardian recently topped up readers’ alarm levels with the notion that “unimaginable...

In findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Saint Louis University researchers and colleagues report that elephants play a key role in creating forests that store more atmospheric carbon and maintaining the biodiversity of forests in Africa. If the already critically endangered elephants become extinct, the rainforest of central and west Africa, the second largest rainforest on earth, would lose between six and nine percent of its ability to capture atmospheric carbon, amplifying planetary warming. **SNIP** Within the forest, some trees have light wood (low carbon density trees) while others make heavy wood (high carbon density...

Audits of 12 school districts has state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor believing school boards are playing a “shell game” with taxpayer funds by moving money into reserve accounts to allow them to make a case for raising property tax rates. State laws limit how much school districts can raise property taxes and sets limits on those increases but allows for exceptions to be granted in one of two ways: ask voters’ permission through a referendum or ask the state Department of Education for a referendum exception. “These 12 districts collectively raised taxes 37 times during the four years we reviewed...

Republicans’ contrived outrage over the Biden administration’s promotion of climate-friendly stoves has me thinking about how unprepared they are for the realities of our high-tech future. Because climate-conscious appliances and devices aren’t going anywhere. Humans’ continued obsession with technology - whether that’s stoves or blockchain platforms to trade goods or high-powered game consoles - is terrible for the environment. Merely producing these things often requires mining for resources, as well as an assembly process that leaves a major carbon footprint. But the energy to run these things, multiplied across the millions of people who use them, really adds up. That’s...

DENVER - Bitter cold is in the forecast for Colorado. The high temperature Thursday will struggle to surpass zero degrees, and wind chills could plummet as low as 50 degrees below zero in some parts of the state. **SNIP** Now that you’re braced for the arctic blast, we can turn to the question you may well be asking: How and why in the heck is it going to be colder in Denver than it is in Anchorage? The answer lies in what’s known as the polar vortex. According to the National Weather Service, the polar vortex is a low-pressure system...

The International Olympic Committee is delaying the selection of the 2030 Winter Olympics host city after discussing climate change and sustainability during its executive board meeting on Tuesday. The 2030 host city was originally scheduled to be announced after the 2023 IOC session. The executive board is giving the Future Host Commission more time to look at the preliminary results of academic research that shows a potential reduction in the number of climate-reliable hosts. A proposal to ensure climate reliability would require hosts to show average minimum temperatures of below zero degrees for snow competition venues during the Winter Games...