Free Republic

The Trump administration this week summarily dismissed more than 400 scientists and other experts who had begun to write the latest National Climate Assessment report, informing them by email that the scope of the report was being reevaluated. The report, mandated by Congress, is prepared every four years under a 1990 law. It details the latest science on climate change, and also reports on progress in addressing global warming. Scientists said they fear the Trump administration could seek to shut down the effort or enlist other authors to write a very different report that seeks to attack climate science —...

For the first time since record keeping began, Earth has surpassed a critical temperature threshold that scientists have long warned could unleash the worst effects of climate change. On Friday the planet soared 2.07 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, or the 1850 to 1900 average, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Not all hope is lost, however. The Fifth National Climate Change Assessment, released last week by the White House, underscored that every fraction of a degree of warming added or averted will make a difference.