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People who have questioned aspects of mainstream climate research appear on a list of 132 possible candidates for positions on EPA’s influential Science Advisory Board, which the agency has opened for public comment until September 28. One candidate believes more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will “confer great benefits upon future inhabitants of the globe” by driving plant growth. Another has said of the climate change debate that “scare tactics and junk science are used to secure lucrative government contracts.” Five candidates have challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s own science on the warming of the planet in court. But the...

Houston has barely begun to dry out from Hurricane Harvey, and Florida faces a massive rebuilding effort after the Irma catastrophe. These two storms, among the most powerful in American history, are typical of the extreme weather events that are likely to become more common as the planet warms. So why isn’t the public heeding scientists and demanding climate action by politicians that could help deal with these destructive extremes? You can point fingers at the influence of fossil fuel companies, at misinformation from climate deniers and at political obstructionism, notably from a fragmented Republican party. But a much deeper...

Climate models have an even better track record than the weather models that saved lives in Texas and Florida. The impacts of hurricanes Harvey and Irma were blunted because we saw them coming. Weather models accurately predicted the hurricane paths and anticipated their extreme intensities days in advance. This allowed millions of Floridians to evacuate the state, sparing countless lives. Although they focus on much different timescales and resolutions, climate and weather models are based on the same core physics. Millions of people watched the evolution of the model forecasts for hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and made important decisions based...

As Hurricane Harvey bore down on the Texas coast, few people in that state seemed to understand the nature of the looming danger. Experts pleaded with the public ahead of the storm that “the most dangerous aspect of this hurricane may be days of rainfall and associated flooding.” Now we know how events in Texas turned out. Dr. Shepherd and his colleagues have spent their careers issuing a larger warning, one that much of the public still chooses to ignore. I speak, of course, about the risks of climate change. Because of atmospheric emissions from human activity, the ocean waters...

Claims in the Mail on Sunday that global warming data had been exaggerated in order to secure the Paris climate change agreement have been criticised by the UK’s press regulator. The Independent Press Standards Organisation censured the newspaper for publishing a story in early February that was flawed in key aspects. The news story suggested that data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), one of the world’s gold-standard sources of weather and climate research, had been treated in such a way as to suggest greater warming than had really occurred. The research hinged on the “pause” in...

The terms of the Paris Agreement are set in stone, the EU, China and Canada agreed at a summit in Montreal this weekend, while Washington was forced to deny that the US is planning to stay in the accord. Ahead of a UN General Assembly meeting in New York this week and the COP23 climate summit in Bonn in November, EU, Chinese and Canadian officials met in Montreal on Friday and Saturday (15-16 September) to present a united front against the United States on climate action. The US was represented at the meeting by an observer who, according to EU...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry is leading a conference on climate change this week at Yale University. The two-day conference that begins Monday on the Ivy League campus will feature speakers including General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt, World Bank President Jim Kim and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. …

The White House denied multiple reports that the U.S. may stay in the Paris Climate Accord. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s administration signaled a shift to European officials from the decision in June to leave the agreement. “The U.S. has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord, but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement,” European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete told The Wall Street Journal.

NEW YORK—Trump administration officials said Saturday the U.S. wouldn’t pull out of the Paris Agreement, offering to re-engage in the international deal to fight climate change, according to the European Union’s top energy official. The shift from President Donald Trump’s decision in June to renegotiate the landmark accord or craft a new deal came during a meeting of more than 30 ministers led by Canada, China and the European Union in Montreal. “The U.S. has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord, but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this...

“When leaders in various fields ask me for advice, my response is always the same: dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. ~Pope Francis, in Brazil The Pope of Dialogue has thus far slammed the bronze doors of St. Peter’s on any dialogue on the issue of global warming. (Many Catholics argue that everything else is up for dialogue with this Pope, though). Despite his incessant rantings about the need to dialogue, climate change is off limits. In the words of his global warming maestro, Bishop Sanchez Sorondo, climate change is elevated to “magisterium,” deserving of an apostolic exhortation and papal endorsement of the...

Venomous snakes are among the most feared animals in the world, and they may start slithering into new places. Yanez-Arenas: “So as our climate changes, so too will the potential for a species to expand their ranges and come in contact with people they never will have before.” Carlos Yanez-Arenas is a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In 2015, while a post-doc at the University of Kansas, he used climate models to predict where dozens of species of snakes will be able to live by 2050. He found that with warmer temperatures, many snakes, such as copperheads...

... Suggesting that climate scientists are pushing a line about global warming because their salaries depend on it is a popular talking point that deniers love to throw around. But why do so many “sceptics”, particularly those who form part of the organised machinery of climate science denial, feel comfortable in accusing climate scientists of only being in it for the money? Duke University history professor Nancy MacLean suggests some answers in her new book Democracy in Chains: the Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. The book documents how wealthy conservatives, in particular petrochemical billionaire Charles...

A new study by Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds a 5 percent chance that rapid global warming will be “catastrophic” or worse for the human race. The study led by Veerabhadran “Ram” Ramanathan, a distinguished professor of climate and atmospheric sciences and adviser to Pope Francis, found that an average global temperature increase greater than 3 degrees centigrade could result in “catastrophic” — and over 5 degrees “existential” — threat to humanity. These categories describe two low-probability but statistically significant scenarios that could play out by the century’s end according to an analysis of different models of global warming by...

Just over a year ago, Black Lives Matter UK successfully shut down London City airport. Our aims were to call attention to three things: Britain’s historical responsibility for global temperature changes, while the UK remains among the least vulnerable countries to the direct effects of climate change; second, that black people and poor people globally suffer the most from environmental impacts; and third, that safe freedom of movement is a reality only for the privileged, wealthy and mostly white. Black Lives Matter UK and the Black Lives Matter US network need to set the record straight: 1) Black Lives Matter...

A member of a group protesting President Donald Trump's rejection of the Paris climate agreement vandalized the iconic Wall Street bull late Wednesday. The NYPD told CNBC they found blue paint poured over the bull's head and a sash stating "Draw The Blue Line" around the "Fearless Girl" statue across the bull. "Draw the Blue Line" is the name of the group protesting Trump's decision. The protestor responsible, named Courtney Frances Fallon, told CNBC in an email she was "trying to cover New York City (and the world) with horizontal blue lines to represent rising sea levels for the UN...

It’s like something out of George Orwell’s 1984. Canada’s Competition Bureau, an arm’s length agency funded by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to the tune of almost $50 million annually, investigated three organizations accused of denying mainstream climate science for over a year, following a complaint from an environmental group. The bureau discontinued its 14-month probe in June, citing “available evidence, the assessment of the facts in this case, and to ensure the effective allocation of limited resources”, according to Josephine A.L. Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner of Competition, Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate. But it will re-open its investigation should it receive...

Since they can’t sell electric cars — not enough of them, anyhow — and not without subsidies so huge they amount to outright bribes — the solution appears to be to outlaw all cars except electric cars. This is no joke. There are IC engine No Go Zones in Germany and France. The Brits have just decreed a ban on the sale of internal combustion-engined vehicles period, beginning in 2040. This sounds like a long time from now but isn’t — because car companies begin designing cars about ten years before they see the light of production and so the...

Animals around the world are on the move. So are their parasites. Recently, scientists carried out the first large-scale study of what climate change may do to the world’s much-loathed parasites. The team came to a startling conclusion: as many as one in three parasite species may face extinction in the next century. As global warming raises the planet’s temperature, the researchers found, many species will lose territory in which to survive. Some of their hosts will be lost, too. “It still absolutely blows me away,” said Colin J. Carlson, lead author of the study and a graduate student at...

The STORMTracker Weather Team says a major storm system is on track to deliver heavy snow and significant rain to Montana. Cooler air is already spilling south out of Canada and temperatures will get even colder on Thursday and Friday. This storm is expected to be the beginning of the end of fire season across the state.

It's been floated for years and there's growing momentum for the criminalization of thought for anyone who dares not give full allegiance to the climate change religion. Because we all know that throwing political opposition in jail is a tried-and-true tactic used by socialists, and that's far preferable and easier to actually having to be knowledgeable on the topic at hand.