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The use of information technology (IT) has significant environmental and social impacts, including human mortality from climate change. One striking example is the carbon emissions and impacts associated with digital communication. To quantify the human cost of carbon-emitting technology, researchers use the 1,000-ton rule that estimates that for every 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, one person dies prematurely. This rule is derived from the following calculation: burning one trillion ton of fossil carbon is likely to cause 2 C of anthropogenic global warming, which in turn is likely to cause about one billion premature deaths spread...

According to a proposal by Democrats at the Colorado state Capitol, up to a $20,000 fine will hang over the heads of every retailer who sells either liquid or gas fuels if they don’t have global warming warning stickers on their pumps and products if House Bill 25-1277 is signed into law. The bill, Increasing Transparency Impact of Fuel Products, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, Rep. Junie Joseph, D-Boulder and Sen. Lisa Cutter, D-Jefferson County, says retail outlets selling petroleum-based fuel products must put stickers on pumps, store displays and other retail items or face fines. “Evidently the purpose...

People in South Jersey say they are feeling the crunch after their summer electric bills skyrocketed. Many say they were shocked to see their Atlantic City Electric bills increase, in some cases doubling, and they want answers. Shannon Franke, an AC Electric customer, said she was shocked when she got her most recent bill in the mail. She went from owing $434 in June, to $780 in July. By August she owed $1,032

WASHINGTON) -- Climate change may not be a top concern for voters for the 2024 presidential election, but that hasn't stopped many Republicans from making misrepresentations about environmental and energy policy – a departure from the previous tactic of majority climate change denial, according to experts on environmental politics who spoke with ABC News. Debates around energy policy, specifically regarding renewable energy versus fossil fuels, are inherently connected to climate change, in large part because fossil fuels are the largest contributor to climate change, according to the United Nations, accounting for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and...

A major solar company has just filed for bankruptcy as its business model is no longer viable in America’s current climate. SunPower announced that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. SunPower filed for bankruptcy in Delaware after a string of corporate struggles... changes to California’s rooftop solar subsidy programs and high interest rates in Democrat President Joe Biden’s economy have weighed down its business. Before it collapsed, SunPower was among America’s leading solar companies. SunPower will look to sell some of its assets to rival solar company Complete Solaria. Meanwhile, the company and some of its other subsidiaries...

News is just a non-stop Psy-Op now Sydney is getting five warm days in a row and the Sydney Morning Horror is warning that it could be deadly. Even newspapers in Belgium think their readers need to know there’s a warm spring in Australia — 10 – 15 degrees above average. It’s not even a record. Not even “the hottest in history” — just by golly, a bit warmer than a similar September heatwave, you know, nine years ago. It was 35.6 degrees in September 2000 — so after 23 years of global warming, it’s not even hotter. Driving a...

The Manatee Bay buoy in the Florida Keys recorded a sea surface temperature of 101.1 degrees at 6 p.m. on Monday, July 24. The buoy, located in the Upper Keys northwest of Key Largo managed by Everglades National Park, recorded the temperature at a depth of 4.9 feet. Pending no anomalies with the data, the recording would set a new world sea surface temperature, breaking the current record of 99.7 degrees. That temperature was recorded in Kuwait Bay of the Persian Gulf.

What’s more important: Keeping the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis? That is in many ways a terrible qBut absent major breakthroughs in carbon-capture technology, we’ll eventually need to shutter most if not all of those gas plants to avoid disastrous temperature jumps. Scientists say we need to cut carbon pollution nearly in half by 2030. Could we get started ditching gas sooner — and save some money — by accepting a few more blackouts for the next few years? It’s a heretical question in power-grid circles. When I posed it...

Massive wildfires have rapidly spread across the Canadian province of Quebec, fueled by dry and hot weather conditions and multiple lightning strikes. The number of fires escalated from 36 to over 100 following a thunderstorm on June 1st, catching authorities off guard. As of Thursday, that massive conflagration has gotten worse. Much, much worse. And the flames are spreading. Trace Gallagher of Fox News gave a sobering update on Thursday about the unprecedented scale of the wildfires in Canada, which have ravaged through the forested countryside and has dealt severe damage to air quality throughout the northeast. While most fires...

NEW YORK — If rising oceans aren't worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself. New research estimates the city's landmass is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, something referred to as "subsidence." That natural process happens everywhere as ground is compressed, but the study published recently in the journal Earth's Future sought to estimate how the massive weight of the city itself is hurrying things along. More than 1 million buildings are spread across...

Humanity only has a few years to act before the world may irreversibly plunge into an environmental catastrophe of global proportions, climate experts warned in a recent report. Their calls are muffled, however, by a ballast of dozens of past dramatic predictions that have failed to pan out. Environmental experts have been predicting upcoming doom for many decades. Most, though not all, of the prognostications involve climatic cataclysm that appears to be just around the corner, only to fizzle out as the deadline approaches. As the failed predictions pile up, climate experts appear to be more cautious in making their...

COLD PARAGUAY.. As was the case across much of South America, September 2022 was an anomalously cool month. Paraguay was very cool, in fact, with temperature anomalies here ranging from -1C to a full -2C below the multidecadal norm. ... RECORD LOWS LOGGED AT BISMARK AND PARKERSBURG.. Despite the mainstream’s “Terrifying Terra Firma Broiling” rhetoric, the U.S. is still managing to bust cold records. A record low temperature of 17F (-8.3C) was recently noted at Bismarck Airport, ND — tying the same reading for the date set back in 1976 (solar minimum of weak cycle 20). A fresh record was...

Environmental Protection Agency says it will conduct helicopter overflights to look for methane “super emitters” in the nation's largest oil and gas producing region. EPA's Region 6 headquarters in Dallas, Texas, issued a news release about a new enforcement effort in the Permian Basin on Monday, saying the flights would occur within the next two weeks.The announcement came four days after The Associated Press published an investigation that showed 533 oil and gas facilities in the region are emitting excessive amounts of methane and named the companies most responsible. Colorless and odorless, methane is a potent greenhouse gas that traps...

Earth has had at least five major ice ages(opens in new tab). The first one happened about 2 billion years ago and lasted about 300 million years. The most recent one started about 2.6 million years ago, and in fact, we are still technically in it. When most people talk about the "ice age," they are usually referring to the last glacial period, which began about 115,000 years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago with the start of the current interglacial period. During that time, the planet was much cooler than it is now. At its peak, when ice...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees,′ ′ threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control. As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by...

Climate change is pushing mammals into new territory, increasing the number of opportunities for viruses to jump from species to species — including humans. By 2070, if global temperatures continue to rise as predicted, there could be a total of 15,000 new cross-species “viral sharing events,” according to new research published today in the journal Nature. Of the at least 10,000 virus species in mammals capable of infecting humans, most are still only circulating among animals in the wild. The worry is that more of those viruses could eventually make the leap to humans, potentially sparking a health crisis like...

Observations | Local/National Analysis Aerial Damage Photos | Ground Damage Photos | Xenia F5 Track Map The April 3-4, 1974 Super Outbreak affected 13 states across the eastern United States, from the Great Lakes region all the way to the Deep South. In all, 148 tornadoes were documented from this event, of which 95 were rated F2 or stronger on the Fujita scale and 30 were F4 or F5. Aside from all the castastrophic damage they left behind, the tornadoes resulted in Detailed Super Outbreak tornado path and intensity analysis, hand drawn by Dr. T. Theodore Fujita of University of...

Warming of the Arctic caused by climate change has increased the number of polar vortex outbreaks, when frigid air from the far north bathes the central and eastern United States in killer cold, a study finds. The study in the journal Science Thursday is the first to show the connections between changes in the polar region and February’s Valentine’s Week freeze that triggered widespread power outages in Texas, killing more than 170 people and causing at least $20 billion in damage. The polar vortex normally keeps icy air trapped in the Arctic. But warmer air weakens the vortex, allowing it...

What with the ongoing catastrophe in Afghanistan and the earthquake in Haiti, among other news, you may have failed to notice that the IPCC came out on Monday with substantial parts of its long-awaited Sixth Assessment Report on the state of the world’s climate. This is the first such assessment issued by the IPCC since 2014. The most important piece is the so-called “Summary for Policymakers,” (SPM), a 41 page section that is the only part that anyone ever reads. The IPCC attempts to cloak itself in the mantle of “science,” but its real mission is to attempt to scare...

I care about the future; therefore, I care about the climate. I belong to the vast majority of global citizens who, as poll after poll show, are concerned about the direction the planet is heading and understand the urgency and existential nature of the impending climate emergency. The recent catastropic flooding in central Europe and extreme high temperatures in North America are just a few symptoms of this. So in my family, we do something about it. We scrimp and save on our carbon budget: we walk or ride bikes instead of driving our car; we eat dramatically less meat...