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In a NASA town hall yesterday (May 17), NASA's new administrator, Jim Bridenstine, said that he knows Earth's climate is changing, and that humans contribute to it "in a major way," also supporting NASA's research into that important area. The statement is significant because Bridenstine has expressed doubt about human-caused climate change in the past, causing some to question his suitability to lead a fact-focused NASA. In 2013, as an Oklahoma congressman, Bridenstine claimed there was no current trend toward global warming. More recently, such as in his NASA administrator confirmation hearings last November, he has acknowledged that human activity...

Now at Harvard, the Obama administration alum admits it’s been hard to watch the Trump administration take aim at the work she’s proudest of. But she hasn’t lost hope. GINA MCCARTHY STRIDES INTO the ocean-view ballroom at the Sea Crest Beach Hotel in Falmouth, plops down her green backpack, and glances out the window. The waves are angrily advancing on this last night in April, which feels as dreary as mid-January. “The water seems way closer than it was the last time I was here,” she says. Maybe that’s because of climate change, the threat that McCarthy led the charge...

Jon Meacham, presidential scholar and author of "The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels," says that President Trump is in office because "we have a climate of fear in the country" which he "took advantage of" over the course of the 2016 campaign. "Politicians are far more often mirrors of who we are than they are molders. That's why the molders are so extraordinary. Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan -- those are different kinds of figures," Meacham said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "I think that President Trump in many ways is president because we...

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...

VIENNA (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging President Donald Trump to join in efforts to promote green energy, saying he would have "a lot of victories." The former California governor spoke Tuesday at the R20 Austrian World Summit, an offshoot of a Schwarzenegger climate change initiative. Schwarzenegger has sparred with Trump, who last year announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Schwarzenegger said: "Those of you who resist because you can't imagine success without fossil fuels: we ask you to join us. Everyone. Also you, President Trump: Join us." He added: "You said ... you want to have...

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...

Expert panelists said at an event Tuesday that environmental degradation disproportionately affects communities of color, and that promoting racial diversity among environmental science researchers could help address the issue. The Environmentalists of Color Collective at UCLA hosted a forum on climate justice, featuring a panel of environmental justice advocates from Los Angeles. ECC aimed to raise awareness and start a dialogue about environmental racism, said Liliana Epps, a second-year gender studies student and member of ECC who helped host the event. Epps said environmental racism and injustice refer to disproportionate allocations of environmental resources. For example, pollutants tend to affect...

UN negotiations in Bonn are set to end in stalemate today as delegates have become bogged down in technical arguments about the Paris climate pact. Poorer nations say they are fed up with foot dragging by richer countries on finance and carbon cutting commitments. Some countries, led by China are now seeking to renegotiate key aspects of the Paris agreement. An extra week of talks in September has been scheduled to try and get the process back on track. Poorer countries have become frustrated by what they see as the cavalier attitude of the rich to the urgency of the...

In Spring Hill, early 20th Century houses look out over cinematic views of downtown Pittsburgh. The front of 36-year-old resident Randal Miller’s home appears fine, but the back is a mess. Part of it was slammed by a landslide this February. Landslides have always been an issue for the city due to its steep hills, clay soil and narrow valleys, but they usually occur in late spring and early early summer. Winter is typically Pittsburgh’s driest period, which is good, because the soil at that time is very wet as plants have yet to sprout and pull water from the...

The United Nations says an additional round of global climate talks is being scheduled for September ahead of the annual ministerial summit at the end of the year. […] At issue are the precise rules countries have to stick to in fulfilling the 2015 Paris climate accord, as well as questions of funding for poor nations and how to close the gap between what governments have pledged to do and what’s needed to meet the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. …

Don’t believe the latest study you read in the headlines, chances are, it could be wrong, according to a new report by the National Association of Scholars that delves into what it calls the “use and abuse of statistics in the sciences.” The report broke down the issue of irreproducibility, or the problem that a lot of scientific research cannot be reproduced. The report took aim at unverifiable climate science, but also critiqued medical studies, behavioral research and other fields. The 72-page report took the matter a step further in calling the issue a politicization of science. “Not all irreproducible...

Al Gore has been accused of hypocrisy for talking the talk on climate change despite burning through fossil fuels at a rapid clip, but it turns out he’s not alone. A study by Cornell and the University of Michigan researchers found that those “highly concerned” about climate change were less likely to engage in recycling and other eco-friendly behaviors than global-warming skeptics. Published in the April edition of the Journal of Environmental Psychology, the one-year study broke 600 participants into three groups based on their level of concern about climate change: “highly concerned,” “cautiously worried,” and “skeptical.” The “highly concerned”...

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.

The last time anyone saw the San Quintin kangaroo rat was more than 30 years ago, in the arid scrublands of Baja California in Mexico. Mexican authorities declared the small mammal critically endangered, and possibly extinct, in 1994. So biologists couldn't believe their eyes when not one, but four San Quintin kangaroo rats (Dipodomys gravipes) hopped into their survey traps in 2017. Named for their ability to leap like kangaroos, the rats are key species in arid areas across western North America, dispersing seeds and feeding predators such as coyotes and foxes. The San Quintin kangaroo rat is about 12...

A Finnish climate action group is raising $500,000 to carve President Trump’s face into an arctic iceberg according to a press release I received. In an attempt to prove global warming exists, the Finnish group called Melting Ice wants to carve a 115-foot ice sculpture of Trump’s face into a glacier for an effort they call “Project Trumpmore” and seeks to raise $500,000 to do pull it off.

Hawaii is set to become the first state to ban the sale of sunscreens containing chemicals believed to be harmful to the environment. State lawmakers passed a bill Tuesday that prohibits the sale and distribution of over-the-counter sunscreens containing oxybenzone or octinoxate, two chemicals that have been found to "cause genetic damage to coral and other marine organisms." "These chemicals have also been shown to degrade corals' resiliency and ability to adjust to climate change factors and inhibit recruitment of new corals," the bill reads. The contamination is "constantly refreshed and renewed everyday" by swimmers and beachgoers, according to the...

Detroit News: April on track to be the coldest in 143 years A year ago today, on April 19, 2017, it was 78 degrees and sunny, while Thursday's expected high is 48 degrees, said National Weather Service meteorologist Trent Frey. As of Thursday, the average temperature for April is 38.3 degrees, slightly warmer than April 1874, the coldest on record at 37.6 degrees. Chicago Tribune: More spring snow in Chicago, and forecasters call April's start among coldest in 130 years The first half of April marks the second-coldest start to the month since 1881, about when the weather service started...

Eighteen states on Tuesday sued President Trump’s administration over its push to “reconsider” greenhouse-gas-emission rules for the nation’s auto fleet, launching a legal battle over one of Barack Obama’s most significant efforts to address climate change. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt in April said he would revisit the Obama-era rules, which aim to raise efficiency requirements to about 50 miles per gallon by 2025. Pruitt’s agency said that the standards are “based on outdated information” and that new data suggests “the current standards may be too stringent.” But in the lawsuit, the states contend that the EPA acted “arbitrarily...

Concrete is one of the most widely used building materials in the world, but it also is responsible for about 5% of all global carbon dioxide emissions according to the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Those emissions result directly from the conversion of limestone into cement and indirectly by burning fuel to heat the limestone to 1400º C, the temperature required to initiate the conversion process. “Cement manufacturing is highly energy and emissions intensive because of the extreme heat required to produce it. Producing a ton of cement requires 4.7 million BTU of energy, equivalent to about 400 pounds of...

Around the world, billions of consumers voluntarily consume fossil fuels to live safe, comfortable, prosperous lives. Tens of thousands of entities and tens of millions of employees provide oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity to them. As such, plentiful, affordable, reliable energy is a global good with moral and enrichment implications—is, has been, will be. Strange, then, that climate-change alarmists/activists are suing the largest, most profitable energy companies by using local “nuisance” ordinances to claim damages related to global warming. In California, for example, San Francisco, Oakland and other cities have sued BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch...