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A pair of top incoming White House environmental aides has blamed "systemic racism" as a driver of climate change in an attempt to justify a government-led economic overhaul. President-elect Joe Biden named progressive policy adviser Maggie Thomas as Office of Domestic Climate Policy chief of staff and climate advocate Cecilia Martinez as "senior director for environmental justice" on Thursday. Both Thomas and Martinez have cited racial inequality as perpetuating climate change, arguing that the Biden administration's environmental policy must be centered on "racial and economic justice." "Unless intentionally interrupted, systemic racism will continue to be a major obstacle to creating...

The pompous idiots on the political left act as if their belief in “science” confers unimpeachable credibility on whatever disastrous policy they’re bloviating about at any given time. Whether it’s man-made global warming or the efficacy of lockdowns, face masks or hydroxychloroquine for fighting COVID-19, they shut down debate, insisting that their version of “science” has all the definitive answers — even when it doesn’t. And yet when it comes to their asinine social justice agenda, anything remotely scientific, rational or commonsense is quickly replaced with whatever the prevailing political winds are blowing toward at the moment. The worst of...

WASHINGTON—The Keystone oil pipeline’s developer plans to announce a series of overhauls—including a pledge to use only renewable energy—in a bid to win President-elect Joe Biden’s support for the controversial project. Aides to Mr. Biden have previously said he plans to revoke the permit, and Canada’s CBC News reported late Sunday that Mr. Biden plans to do so in one of his first actions after taking office this week. Mr. Biden’s team declined to discuss that report, but has said his position on the pipeline hasn’t changed. In a bid to save the project, Canada’s TC Energy Corp. is committing...

Xcel Energy wants to stop buying electricity from the world’s largest high-concentration solar energy plant, located in the San Luis Valley, and it will pay $41 million to the federal government to do it. The utility company has been purchasing power from the 30-megawatt solar plant in southern Colorado since 2012, when the federally backed project was one of the first of its kind and the largest using the technology anywhere. But parts on the solar farm have been starting to fail and there are no ready replacements — and the project’s owner, Kepco Solar of Alamosa LLC, tells Xcel...

LONDON - Companies must listen to scientists and align their plans to reach net zero targets with a global pact to fight climate change, executives told a Reuters Next conference on Monday. But time is running out and scientists have delivered stark warnings that society as a whole needs rapid and unprecedented change to curb global warming and avoid catastrophic climate change. “Governments and companies need to be thinking about what the scientists are telling us. COVID-19 teaches us that,” said Sean Kidney, Chief Executive Officer, Climate Bonds Initiative. “Look at the mess made in Britain and the United States...

From unprecedented wildfires across the US to the extraordinary heat of Siberia, the impacts of climate change were felt in every corner of the world in 2020. We have come to a "moment of truth", United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his State of the Planet speech in December. "Covid and climate have brought us to a threshold." BBC Future brings you our round-up of where we are on climate change at the start of 2021, according to five crucial measures of climate health. 1. CO2 levels The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached record levels in...

The much-discussed new strain of COVID-19 — which is reportedly more contagious than the initial strain that swept the world in 2020 — has been detected in states like California and Colorado, leaving many Americans to wonder when it might emerge in their state and how the country will fight it. Public health experts have largely agreed that the recently approved vaccines will be able to fight the mutated COVID-19 strain effectively, noting that viruses mutate constantly.

Reporter: President-Elect Biden said the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic are ahead of us. We are averaging 200,000 now new cases and more than 2,000 deaths each day. Do you agree that the worst is still yet to come? Dr. Fauci: You know, I do, Dana, and the reason I’m concerned and my colleagues and public health are concerned also is that we very well might see a post-seasonal – in the sense of Christmas, New Years – surge or as I’ve described it, a surge upon a surge because if you look at the slope, the incline of...

Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley is urging the incoming Biden administration to declare a national climate emergency, he said would unlock powerful tools to address the climate crisis. Merkley outlined his recommendations in an op-ed published Dec. 21 by The Washington Post. “Too many Americans are experiencing the wrath of climate-related disasters firsthand," Merkley wrote. "These disasters are killing our citizens, bankrupting businesses, endangering our national security and threatening to leave our children a world of growing scarcity and conflict. . . . "According to Merkley, declaring climate chaos a national emergency under the National Emergency Act (NEA) would unlock...

Over the past week, media across the world have proclaimed 2020 a record year for hurricanes in the North Atlantic. The culprit? Man-made climate change, of course.But this is a mistake, not only because the “records” are misleading but also because the causes of hurricanes are natural phenomena over which we have little or no influence.The New Jersey-based business news channel CNBC provided several examples of the errors. On November 30, they reported: “Research shows that climate change is making hurricanes stronger and more destructive and increasing the likelihood of more frequent major hurricanes.”The network quoted Penn State University meteorologist...

As an extreme year for hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves comes to an end, the head of the United Nations challenged world leaders to make 2021 the year that humanity ends its “war on nature” and commits to a future free of planet-warming carbon pollution. With new reports highlighting 2020’s record-breaking weather and growing fossil fuels extraction that triggers global warming, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres delivered yet another urgent appeal to curb climate change. It was tinged with optimism but delivered dire warnings, as the UN gears up for a Dec. 12 virtual climate summit in France on the 5th...

When did something like us first appear on the planet? It turns out there’s remarkably little agreement on this question. Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, evolved around 300,000 years ago. Surprisingly, archaeology—tools, artifacts, cave art—suggest that complex technology and cultures, “behavioral modernity,” evolved more recently: 50,000 to 65,000 years ago. Some scientists interpret this as suggesting the earliest Homo sapiens weren’t entirely modern. Yet the different data tracks different things. Skulls and genes tell us about brains, artifacts about culture. Our brains probably became modern before our cultures.Key physical and cultural milestones in...

A set of 52 previously excavated but little-studied animal bones from East Africa's Olduvai Gorge includes the world's oldest known barbed bone point, an implement probably crafted by now-extinct Homo erectus at least 800,000 years ago, researchers say. Made from a piece of a large animal's rib, the artifact features three curved barbs and a carved tip, the team reports in the November Journal of Human Evolution. Among the Olduvai bones, biological anthropologist Michael Pante of Colorado State University in Fort Collins and colleagues identified five other tools from more than 800,000 years ago as probable choppers, hammering tools or...

Pope Francis in TED talk: ‘We only have a few years’ to fix climate change The Holy Father didn’t mention God, or Jesus Christ, in his 13-minute video. VATICAN CITY, October 23, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis once again called for action to be taken on “climate change,” this time making the alarmist claim that there are less than 30 years to do so. The Holy Father didn’t mention God, or Jesus Christ, at all in his 13-minute video. The new video is part of TED’s “Countdown” series, which seeks “to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis” and has the...

In an unprecedented move, a number of high profile scientific and medical journals have declared their opposition to President Donald Trump in the upcoming 2020 election. In this article, we take a look at their reasoning. a look at their reasoning. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. As of this week, The Lancet Oncology, Science, Nature, and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) have all publicly announced their opposition to President Trump. Historically, journals of this ilk rarely dip their toes into the political world, but, in this most unusual year, they have made an...

"Hundreds of students from around Milwaukee gathered at Zeidler Union Square to rally in support of solutions to the climate crisis before marching to Wells Fargo and Chase Banks downtown. Students are demanding they stop financing the fossil fuel industry and reinvest those funds into renewable energy sources and sustainable infrastructure through equitable practices. Eleven people including MPS teachers Monica Pallo, Michele Hilbert, and Alex Brower and Rufus King alumni Lauryn Cross were all among those arrested for taking part in non-violent civil disobedience blocking an entrance. All eleven have since been released. Thank you all for fighting for a...

France introduces a new carbon emission tax plan that will make buyers of gas-guzzlers like Porsche and Ferrari to reconsider their purchasing decision. EU has set a target of reducing its carbon emissions from cars by 2030 and France, which already has the highest pollution tax, has decided to double it. France is drafting a law that will force buyers of big luxury gas-guzzling cars to reconsider their purchasing decision. Europe’s second-largest auto market is planning to double its levy of “malus”- or penalty tax based on the carbon emission of a car. It is set to go up to...

Pope Francis on Saturday issued an urgent call to action to defend the planet and help the poor in his second TED talk. […] “We have just a few years — scientists calculate roughly fewer than 30 — to drastically reduce the emissions of gas and the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere,” the pope said, adding that the transition needs to take into account the impact on the poor, local populations and those who work in the energy sector. He called on investors to exclude companies that do not taking into account the environment, as have many faith-based organizations already...

Picturing how our species might appear in the far future often invites wild speculation over stand-out features such as height, brain size, and skin complexion. Yet subtle shifts in our anatomy today demonstrate how unpredictable evolution can be. Take something as mundane as an extra blood vessel in our arms, which going by current trends could be common place within just a few generations. Researchers from Flinders University and the University of Adelaide in Australia have noticed an artery that temporarily runs down the centre of our forearms while we're still in the womb isn't vanishing as often as it...

The ozone hole over Antarctica has grown to its "maximum size" just one year after researchers reported that it was at its smallest since its discovery.