Will A Summer of Crises Lead to Climate Action? It’s Not Looking Good
"A $3.5 trillion budget bill is faltering in the Senate, and in America at large, well, as one expert put it: “It’s really hard to get people to change their way of life.”"
"A $3.5 trillion budget bill is faltering in the Senate, and in America at large, well, as one expert put it: “It’s really hard to get people to change their way of life.”"
"The largest battery storage facility in the world, located along Monterey Bay in California, has completed an expansion, demonstrating how storage systems can exist on a gigantic scale and can easily expand."
"Global warming is driving dangerous and disruptive flooding in underground rail systems around the world. Flooded tunnels and stations have disrupted service and stranded passengers in Boston, London, San Francisco, Taipei, Bangkok, Washington, D.C., and a host of other cities in recent years."
"Three days after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana, its weakened remnants tore into the Northeast and claimed at least 43 lives across New York, New Jersey and two other states in an onslaught that ended Thursday and served as an ominous sign of climate change’s capacity to wreak new kinds of havoc."
"Climate change abruptly gripped North America’s Pacific Coast at the start of summer, setting new heat records by staggering margins across the region’s cities and towns. ... The sudden and extreme heat disaster — matched by other recent heat waves in the Southeastern U.S., Northern Africa, Western Asia, Japan, and Europe — means many temperate cities are in for significantly warmer conditions."
"Afghanistan embodies a new breed of international crisis, where the hazards of war collide with the hazards of climate change, creating a nightmarish feedback loop that punishes some of the world’s most vulnerable people and destroys their countries’ ability to cope."
"Information about potential environmental threats caused by Hurricane Ida have been slow in coming, but initial reports to the Coast Guard's National Response Center and the state Department of Environmental Quality confirm there were releases of crude oil, fuel oils and a variety of chemicals in numerous locations in southeastern Louisiana on the day before and the day of the storm."
"On Sept. 2, an area north of downtown Juneau will hear a loud, discordant siren. Juneau’s power company will be testing a disaster plan for a scenario where the 168-foot Salmon Creek hydroelectric dam fails and floods a largely commercial district near the regional hospital."
"Hospitals in Southeast Louisiana, already burdened with extremely high numbers of covid patients, took a beating from Hurricane Ida, with roofs ripped off or damaged, leaving water pouring inside and forcing three bayou-country hospitals ravaged by the eye of the storm to evacuate their patients. Patients at a fourth hospital were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard."
"A recent building code change for new construction could reduce emissions by requiring use of solar panels and batteries, raising prices in an already expensive state."