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Researchers no longer hesitate to blame climate change for floods, fires and heat waves. Here's how the science works. When the heat waves, droughts, wildfires and deluges come - as they seem to with increasing regularity these days - the question inevitably arises: Did climate change play a role? The answer scientists gave for years was that greenhouse gases created by humans likely contributed to extreme weather, but it was hard to definitively tie the warming atmosphere to any single episode. But that cautious approach, repeated in thousands of news reports for more than a decade, has been changing in...

As temperatures rise in the U.S. West, so do the flames. The years with the most acres burned by wildfires have some of the hottest temperatures, an Associated Press analysis of fire and weather data found. As human-caused climate change has warmed the world over the past 35 years, the land consumed by flames has more than doubled. Experts say the way global warming worsens wildfires comes down to the basic dynamics of fire. Fires need ignition, oxygen and fuel. And what’s really changed is fuel — the trees, brush and other plants that go up in flames. “Hotter drier...

During an appearance on Friday’s CBS This Morning, and without being challenged by the pro-science “journalists” of the morning show, Wonder was allowed to spread his conspiracy theory about Global Warming being linked to cancer: "I just feel that all these various diseases that we have and all that is happening in the world in part is because there are those who don’t believe in global warming, don’t believe that what we do affects the world,” he said. “Heat affects the world and affects us. I just hope that people will grow up out of the foolishness and know that...

Self-described "ass-kicking, motorcycle-riding, Texas Democrat" MJ Hegar, a candidate for Texas’ deep-red 31st district, has a novel approach to environmental politics: she doesn’t care if her supporters believe in man-made climate change, but says it's hard to deny the corrupting effects of petroleum dependence on American foreign policy. "Our dependence on foreign oil is just so damaging to our country on so many levels," Hegar told ABC News in a June interview. "I respect other people’s freedom to be discerning and to make their own decisions. But they can’t deny that the U.S. military pays the price for our dependence...

This summer’s heatwave has provided a glimpse of the future, and it is not a pretty one. On current trends, the years to come will see rising temperatures, droughts, a fight to feed a growing population, and a race against time to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. The struggle to combat climate change brings out the best and worst of capitalism. Decarbonisation of the economy requires alternatives for coal and cars that run on diesel, and that plays to capitalism’s strengths. The good news is that in Beijing and New Delhi, policymakers have woken up to the idea that green...

They claim inaction on climate change has blighted their future - just one of many challenges now hitting the courts. And they might just succeed. HIGH-SCHOOL student Aji Piper goes snowboarding in the mountains behind Seattle – but for how much longer, he wonders. Miko Vergun fears her native Majuro atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific could soon be under water. In Alaska, Nathan Baring’s friends can no longer hunt for seals because the ice is too thin. Nine-year-old Levi Draheim, who lives in low-lying, coastal Florida, says of his president: “It’s scary having someone in the White...

Coastal cities could face bigger and more dangerous tsunamis thanks to global warming with even small earthquakes capable of unleashing killer waves, scientists have warned. Researchers say that earthquakes which would pose no threat today could lead to cities being swamped by water as the sea level rises. The researchers focused on the city of Macau in China, which is currently considered safe from tsunamis, despite lying in an earthquake zone. But a three-foot rise in sea level would increase the risk of tsunamis inundating the city by up to 4.7 times, the researchers found. Such a rise is predicted...

An individual tree has roots and, of course, it doesn’t move. But trees, as a species, do move over time. They migrate in response to environmental challenges, especially climate change. Surprisingly, they don’t all go to the Poles, where it is cooler. As it turns out, more of them head west, where it is getting wetter. Sure, some species, such as evergreens, are heading to the Poles to escape the heat. But others, like certain oaks and maple, are going west in search of rain. For the most part, “tree migrations are moisture related,” said Songlin Fei, associate professor at...

Editor's note: This column was co-authored by David Wojick.Authors' note: This is part three of a three-part series explaining how the U.S. Agency for International Development continues to use climate change, sustainability, subsistence farming and other Green fads to justify lethal Obama era anti-development policies.USAID policies perpetuate disease and malnutritionA decade ago, USAID finally put DDT back in its anti-malaria arsenal, so that the walls and doorways of mud-and-thatch, cinderblock and other primitive homes could be sprayed with the most powerful and long-lasting mosquito repellant ever invented. One DDT spraying every six months keeps the vast majority of these flying killers...

SEATTLE - A Washington state judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by young activists who argued the state is violating their rights by failing to protect them from climate change. In his ruling Tuesday, King County Superior Court Judge Michael Scott says the issues in the case are political questions that must be addressed by the legislative and executive branches and cannot be resolved by a court.

“We think we may have found the answer. Increased circulation in the Southern Ocean allowed carbon dioxide to leak into the atmosphere, working to warm the planet,” said Princeton University’s Professor Daniel Sigman, co-author of the study. For years, researchers have known that growth and sinking of phytoplankton pumps carbon dioxide deep into the ocean, a process often referred to as the ‘biological pump.’ “The biological pump is driven mostly by the low latitude ocean but is undone closer to the poles, where carbon dioxide is vented back to the atmosphere by the rapid exposure of deep waters to the...

Gore: Trump not yet as damaging to environment as he feared By Associated Press Published: 16:38 EDT, 13 August 2018 | Updated: 16:59 EDT, 13 August 2018 REENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - Former Vice President Al Gore says the Trump administration has made some dangerous changes to environmental policy, though so far it's having less of an impact than he initially feared. In an interview Monday with The Associated Press in Greensboro, Gore cited the Paris Climate Accord as one example of the Trump administration failing to change environmental rules as quickly as it might want. While the United States withdrew...

Editor's Note: This column was co-written by Paul Driessen and David Wojick. Part 1 of a 3-part series. It’s obscene enough when the Multilateral anti-Development Banks do it. But Trump agencies?!? In a prime example of Deep State revanchism, despite the profound change in administrations, the US Agency for International Development is still funding and advancing anti-energy Obama-era climate change dogmas and policies for developing countries. USAID handles tens of billions of dollars a year, roughly half of all US foreign aid, so this climate alarmism puts literally millions of lives at risk.USAID calls its “flagship” program “low emissions development.” Emissions of course...

And in Lovelock’s view, the Earth’s self-regulating system is seriously out of whack, thanks largely to our 150-year fossil fuel binge. “You could quite seriously look at climate change as a response of the system intended to get rid of an irritating species: us humans,” Lovelock told me in 2007 when I visited him at his house in Devon, England, for a profile in Rolling Stone. “Or at least cut them back to size.” By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as...

The New York Times has devoted an entire edition of its magazine, some 30,000 words, to a terrifying piece about climate change. With 2C warming – an unlikely best-case scenario at this point, scientists were quoted as saying – the planet faces “long-term disaster”. I was having lunch with friends in Brooklyn on Sunday, in a low-lying area that will be under water when all of this comes to pass and, political analysis aside, all we could focus on was: what on earth are we going to do? More specifically, how to ensure the survival of our children, and should...

CALGARY - The United Conservative Party is under fire after a Calgary nomination candidate cast doubt on the legitimacy of climate change in several social media posts. Randy Kerr, who is vying for the UCP nomination to run in the provincial riding of Calgary-Beddington, is a former campaign manager for party leader Jason Kenney. Some of his posts linked to a website with connections to Breitbart News, the far-right U.S. media outlet, which is associated with the so-called alt-right and has been accused of being sympathetic to white nationalism. “My first reaction to that is, so what,” said Kerr, when...

Sea level rise 'overblown,' solar energy 'dumb,' conference of climate change deniers, Trump officials hear White House officials join event mocking climate change science and renewable power Thomson Reuters · Posted: Aug 09, 2018 4:01 PM ET | Last Updated: 21 minutes ago Pumping carbon dioxide into the air makes the planet greener; the United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market; and wind and solar energy are simply "dumb." These are among the messages that flowed from the America First Energy Conference in New Orleans this week, hosted by some of the...

NEW ORLEANS - Pumping carbon dioxide into the air makes the planet greener; the United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market; and wind and solar energy are simply “dumb”. These are among the messages that flowed from the America First Energy Conference in New Orleans this week, hosted by some of the country’s most vocal climate change doubters - and attended by a handful of Trump administration officials. The day-long conference reflected the political rise of global warming skeptics in Donald Trump’s America that is occurring despite mounting scientific evidence – including...

Injecting particles into the atmosphere to cool the planet and counter the warming effects of climate change would do nothing to offset the crop damage from rising global temperatures, according to a new analysis by University of California, Berkeley, researchers. By analyzing the past effects of Earth-cooling volcanic eruptions, and the response of crops to changes in sunlight, the team concluded that any improvements in yield from cooler temperatures would be negated by lower productivity due to reduced sunlight. The findings have important implications for our understanding of solar geoengineering, one proposed method for helping humanity manage the impacts of...

Though few realize it, the contents of your refrigerator can have a greater impact on climate change than the car in your garage or the fuel that heats and powers your home. That’s why Nordic nations like mine have set out to prove that the simple act of eating may be our best tool in the fight against climate change, as well as other great global crises like public health and inequality. Globally, food systems account for some 20-30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. So let’s turn our attention to the dinner table, to the school cafeteria, and to the...