No matter how much renewable energy we add to the mix each year. It’s the total amount of fossil fuels we burn each year that matters. We continue to burn more each year.
Decarbonization is happening, but not nearly fast enough. To achieve the necessary progress for the climate, we need to see its growth not only meet our new energy demands each year but also start displacing existing fossil fuels in the energy mix much faster. - Hannah Richie
As long as the demand for “more energy” grows faster than the addition of renewable energy sources: fossil fuel consumption will continue to rise. With global temperatures soaring, the demand for air conditioning is skyrocketing. EV’s reduce tailpipe pollution BUT increase demand for electricity. As we decarbonize and “electrify everything” our ENERGY needs are doubling and tripling.
At this rate, “renewables” will replace fossil fuels ONLY when those fuels become scarce enough that they are too expensive to use.
Carbon dioxide as a pollutant: the risks on human health and the stability of the biosphere. - Royal Society of Chemistry (June 30th 2025)
“Up to now, no human being, and none of our hominin ancestors, ever lived a whole life at CO2 concentrations higher than 300 ppm. But we will now be forced to do exactly that, while our descendants will experience even higher concentrations.”
A new paper on the direct human health impacts of carbon dioxide as levels grow in the atmosphere. Writing in the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the authors conclude:
“The chemical and biochemical pollution associated with CO2 is a serious problem that may turn out to be no less important than that of radiative forcing in terms of damage to human health and to the whole biosphere.”
As one of the authors, Ugo Bardi, explained in a dispatch for the Club of Rome.
“We found that the current concentration of 425ppm is not far from levels that can negatively affect people’s health, and we breathe much larger concentrations indoors. In addition, we keep it increasing by about 3ppm every year. What are we doing?”
“We are continuously exposed to concentrations much higher than those at which our ancestors evolved and, reasonably, were optimized for. A body of knowledge has accumulated on this subject as the result of experimental tests. The data are still scattered and often in need of verification.”
The overall conclusion is clear: negative effects on human mental abilities are seen already at CO2 concentrations commonly experienced indoors today. And the higher the atmospheric concentration becomes, the higher the indoor concentrations will be.
“For now the negative health effects of excess CO2 can be reversed by exposing the affected people to fresh air. The problem is that the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is irreversible on a human timescale.”
Nobody in the whole existence of the human species was ever exposed to these concentrations of CO2 for their whole life, but future generations of humans will be. And nobody knows for sure what the effects on our health and our very survival could be. It is a gigantic experiment being carried out on our bodies and our children's bodies.
Evolution of long-term global drought during past 70 years based on estimated evaporation using the generalized complementary relationship — Journal of Hydrology, April 2025
Principle Findings:
Drought increased in 45% of the Earth’s land and was mainly driven by increased atmospheric evaporative demand.
Most of Africa and South America, Mediterranean region, southeastern China, and Canada were hot spots of drought increase.
Changes in vapor pressure deficit and wind speed dominated drought changes in 80% of the Earth’s land.
With the intensification of global warming, meteorological drought is becoming increasingly frequent, leading to agricultural drought, hydrological drought, and socioeconomic drought as a result of the propagation through the water cycle (Kim et al., 2019).
Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise — Science Advances, July 25th 2025
The emergence of mega-drying regions on the continents
Abstract
Changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) are a critical indicator of freshwater availability. We use NASA GRACE/GRACE-FO data to show that the continents have undergone unprecedented TWS loss since 2002. Areas experiencing drying increased by twice the size of California annually, creating “mega-drying” regions across the Northern Hemisphere.
While most of the world’s dry/wet areas continue to get drier/wetter, dry areas are now drying faster than wet areas are wetting.
Changes in TWS are driven by high-latitude water losses, intense Central American/European droughts, and groundwater depletion, which accounts for 68% of TWS loss over non-glaciated continental regions.
“Continental drying” is having profound global impacts. Since 2002, 75% of the population lives in 101 countries that have been losing freshwater.
Furthermore, the continents now contribute more freshwater to sea level rise than the ice sheets, and drying regions now contribute more than land glaciers and ice caps. Urgent action is required to prepare for the major impacts of results presented.
"Staggering" Water Loss Driven by Groundwater Mining Poses Global Threat
A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid "mega" regions and causing sea…www.propublica.org, July 25th 2025
Groundwater is ubiquitous across the globe, but its quality and depth vary, as does its potential to be replenished by rainfall. Major groundwater basins — the deep and often high-quality aquifers — underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including roughly half of Africa, Europe and South America. But many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. Instead, a significant portion of the water taken from underground flows off the land through rivers and on to the oceans.
The researchers were surprised to find that the loss of water on the continents has grown so dramatically, that it has become one of the largest causes of global sea level rise. Moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans.
Humans have become a “geologic force”. Strip mining millions of years of “fossil water” and sending it back into the oceans. It will be THOUSANDS of years before these aquifers recharge.
The study (Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise) examines 22 years of observational data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites, which measure changes in the mass of the earth and have been applied to estimate its water content.
Since 2002, the GRACE sensors have detected a rapid shift in water loss patterns around the planet. Around 2014, though, the pace of drying appears to have accelerated, the authors found, and is now growing by an area twice the size of California each year.
“It’s like this sort of creeping disaster that has taken over the continents in ways that no one was really anticipating,”
The parts of the world drying most acutely are becoming interconnected, forming what the study’s authors describe as “mega” regions spreading across the earth’s mid-latitudes. One of those regions covers almost the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.
Research has long established that people take more water from underground when climate-driven heat and drought are at their worst. For example, during droughts when California has enforced restrictions on delivery of surface water to its farmers — which the state regulates — the enormous agriculture enterprises that dominate the Central Valley have drilled deeper and pumped harder, depleting the aquifer — which the state regulates less precisely — even more.
For the most part, such withdrawals have remained invisible. Even with the GRACE data, scientists cannot measure the exact levels or know when an aquifer will be exhausted. But there is one foolproof sign that groundwater is disappearing: The earth above it collapses as the ground compresses like a drying sponge. The visible signs of such subsidence around the world appear to match what the GRACE data says.
Mexico City is sinking as its groundwater aquifers are drained, as are large parts China, Indonesia, Spain and Iran, to name a few. A recent study by researchers at Virginia Tech in the journal Nature Cities found that 28 cities across the United States are sinking — New York, Houston and Denver, among them — threatening havoc for everything from building safety to transit. In the Central Valley, the ground surface is nearly 30 vertical feet lower than it was in the first part of the 20th century.
When so much water is pumped, it has to drain somewhere.
Just like rivers and streams fed by rainfall, much of the used groundwater makes its way into the ocean. The study pinpoints a remarkable shift: Groundwater drilled by people, used for agriculture or urban supplies and then discarded into drainages now contributes more water to the oceans than melting from each of the world’s largest ice caps.
Worldwide, 70% of fresh water is used for growing crops, with more of it coming from groundwater as droughts grow more extreme. Only a small amount of that water seeps back into aquifers.
The rivers ultimately drain into the ocean, where fresh water becomes salt water. For that water to be usable again, it must either be industrially treated or return to the land as rain. But with climate change, these same drying regions are seeing less rainfall.
If the drying continues — and the researchers warn that it is now nearly impossible to reverse “on human timescales” — it heralds “potentially staggering” and cascading risks for global order.
The majority of the earth’s population lives in the 101 countries that the study identified as losing fresh water, making up not just North America, Europe and North Africa but also much of Asia, the Middle East and South America. This suggests the middle band of Earth is becoming less habitable.
It also correlates closely with the places that a separate body of climate research has already identified as a shrinking environmental niche that has suited civilization for the past 6,000 years. Combined, these findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.
Both California and Arizona grow significant portions of America’s fruits and vegetables. Something has to give. “If you want to grow food in a place like California,” Famiglietti asked, “do you just bring in water? If we deplete that groundwater, I don’t think there’s enough water to really replace what we’re doing there.” The United States might not have much choice, he added, but to move California’s agriculture production somewhere far away and retire the land.
“The U.S. doesn’t have a national water strategy,” Famiglietti said, referring to a disjointed patchwork of state and court oversight. “We don’t even have a national water institution. We haven’t thought as a country about how we would even protect our own water resources for our own national interests, and we’re a mess.”
8 Things to Know About New Research on Earth’s Rapid Drying and the Loss of Its Groundwater
Much of the Earth is suffering a pandemic of “continental drying,” affecting the countries containing 75% of the world’s population, the new research shows.
Mining of underground freshwater aquifers is driving much of the loss.
Much of the water taken from aquifers ends up in the oceans, contributing to the rise of sea levels.
Water From Land Has Become a Leading Driver of Sea Level Rise
As droughts grow more extreme, farmers increasingly turn to groundwater.
Drying regions of the planet are merging.
Water pumped from aquifers is not easily replaced, if it can be at all.
As continents dry and coastal areas flood, the risk for conflict and instability increases.
The accelerated drying, combined with the flooding of coastal cities and food-producing lowlands, heralds “potentially staggering” and cascading risks for global order, the researchers warn. Their findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.
This “drying out” has consequences.
Global soil moisture in 'permanent' decline due to climate change - Carbon Brief
A new study warns that global declines in soil moisture over the 21st century could mark a "permanent" shift in the… - March 27, 2025
The study findings indicate that soil moisture can no longer bounce back from a dry year, as it has in the past:
“It used to be that when precipitation goes up again, we recover water in the soil. But because of this increasing evaporative demand, once we have strong El Niño years — which lead to much less rainfall for a year or two — it seems that we are not recovering the water fully because of increasing evaporative demand. Because of that — even if we have a wet year following dry years — the water in the soil doesn’t seem to recover.”
Drought is often described as a “creeping disaster” — because by the time it is identified, it is usually already well under way.
Paper author Ryu explains:
“Unlike a flood and heatwaves, drought comes very very slowly — and has prolonged and delayed consequences. We better be prepared earlier than later, because once drought comes you can expect a long period of consequences.”
Continuous increase in evaporative demand shortened the growing season of European ecosystems in…….www.nature.com, July 2023
The length of the growing season has decreased over the 2011-2020 period in Europe probably due to higher atmospheric…
The results (Fig. 6) show that the reversal in Growing Season Length trend occurs after 2003–2004, probably due to the severe drought we had in Europe in 2003. However, we still see a positive trend for GSL till 2013–2014, meaning that the growing season is still lengthening, albeit at a slower rate. However, after 2014, the trend gets negative meaning that the growing season length is shortening.
It turns out, that it doesn't matter if it is “warmer earlier”, you don't really get a longer growing season. The KEY factor is moisture. Once that’s gone you rapidly go to “onset of dormancy” and plants stop growing. Hotter and drier conditions result in a shorter growing season even if Spring seems to come earlier and earlier.
Our world is ON FIRE.
Analysis: Record UK wildfires have burned an area twice the size of Glasgow in 2025 - Carbon Brief…..Wildfires have scorched more than 40,000 hectares of land so far this year across the UK - an area more than twice the size of Glascow… www.carbonbrief.org
Wildfires strain emergency services in Albania - www.intellinews.com
Wildfires continued to sweep across southern Albania on July 28, prompting the evacuation of several villages and…
Cyprus gets help from other countries to battle huge wildfire that has killed 2 - apnews.com
Cyprus' government spokesman says aircraft from Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and Spain are on their way to help battle a…
Fire in southern France burns 8,000 hectares - www.lemonde.fr
The Aude department has seen an increase in the areas burnt in recent years due to low rainfall, and the current fire…
Greece battles wildfires across country, evacuates villages - www.reuters.com
Explosions could be heard as huge clouds of smoke covered Drosopigi village north of Athens, where factories with…
Video. Fresh wildfires force evacuations in northern Spain - www.euronews.com
Video. A new wildfire outbreak was reported in Guxín, following a wave of forest fires that had already burned 515…
Four dead in Turkey wildfires as blazes continue across Greece - www.thetimes.com
Thousands evacuated from the Turkish city of Bursa and from near Athens as heatwave sparks fires throughout southern…
Grand Canyon Wildfire Spreads to More Than 126,000 Acres — NYT Aug 5th, 2025
Canada
New study shows how climate change is driving wildfire season to start earlier in California….www.pbs.org
Parts of California are seeing fire season start more than 10 weeks earlier now than in the 1990s. Two authors of a new…
The BURNING of the global forests also has CONSEQUENCES. It feeds the accelerating failure of the Terrestrial Carbon Sink, turning the “global forest” from a carbon sequestration system into a carbon emission system. This intensifies the effect of human GHG emissions since very little of them have been sequestered by the biosphere for the last 2 years.
World’s Forest Carbon Sink Shrank to its Lowest Point in at Least 2 Decades, Due to Fires and Persistent Deforestation — World Resources Institute, July 24th 2025
Perversely, while the world is drying out, MASSIVE “rain events” are increasing in frequency. A warmer atmosphere holds more water, 7% for each +1°C of warming. When rain does happen we can expect DELUGE.
E&E News: Global warming worsened Pakistan's monsoon floods, study finds -politicopro.com
The World Weather Attribution study found rainfall from June 24 to July 23 in the South Asian nation was 10 to 15…
Heavy rainfall that triggered floods in Pakistan in recent weeks, killing hundreds of people, was worsened by human-caused climate change, according to a new study.
The study by World Weather Attribution, a group of international scientists who study global warming’s role in extreme weather, found that rainfall from June 24 to July 23 in the South Asian nation was 10 to 15 percent heavier because of climate change, leading to many building collapses in urban and rural Pakistan.
Over 50 missing after cloudburst triggers flash floods in Uttarkashi….. www.indiaweekly.biz
A devastating cloudburst in Dharali, Uttarkashi, has killed at least four and left over 50 missing. Rescue operations…
China floods: more than 30 killed in Beijing and tens of thousands evacuated - www.theguardian.com
Authorities relocated 80,000 residents from China's capital after registering rainfall of up to 543mm (21 inches) in some districts.
Hong Kong hit by flooding after flurry of rainstorm warnings - phys.org
Parts of Hong Kong were brought to a standstill by flooding caused by heavy rains on Tuesday, after the highest-tier…
The city logged its highest daily rainfall in August since records began in 1884, at just over 355 millimeters (13 inches) recorded at the Hong Kong weather observatory’s headquarters at 2:00 pm (0600 GMT).
Atmospheric Rivers May be Diminishing on the West Coast and Surging in the East, Study Finds … - insideclimatenews.org
Over a 20-year period, atmospheric rivers could double the amount of rain falling on part of the Southeast, the…
Opposing trends in winter Atmospheric River over the Western and Eastern US during the past four… - www.nature.com
Winter atmospheric rivers (ARs) are crucial for water supply and extreme weather events over the western (WUS) and…
Dong and his co-authors found that wintertime atmospheric rivers are growing significantly more frequent and intense over the Eastern U.S. while diminishing over the West. Their research showed that, over a 20-year period, atmospheric rivers could double the amount of rain falling in parts of the Southeast.
Dong’s team found that between 1980 and 2020, atmospheric river frequency over the Eastern U.S. increased by almost five percent each decade, with the storms slamming the South particularly hard. Parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee saw average atmospheric river rainfall rates increase by as much as two millimeters per day per decade over the last 40 years. With average daily precipitation in Mississippi currently being about 3.9mm per day (0.15in), if this trend continues, atmospheric rivers could double the average rainfall in some parts of the state in 20 years. Extreme rainfall rates in parts of Georgia have risen by almost four millimeters per day per decade, according to the study.
Our current infrastructure, the “constructed” world of the Anthropsphere, is NOT READY for these storms.
New mapping reveals D.C. region's growing vulnerability to flood risk - wapo.st
Large swaths of the Washington region, including many of its roadways, rail lines and bus stops, are more vulnerable to…
As the region experiences more extreme weather, an increased number of roads and rail lines could flood, not just those in low-lying areas.
Two flood maps of the region, one using existing data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and another with data from an independent flood modeler, Fathom.
While outdated FEMA analysis shows only areas adjacent to waterways and rivers that are prone to flooding, the Fathom map also includes areas that would be affected by flash floods, intense rain events and an overrun of storm drains.
From the article:
The differences are stark. Nearly 40% of the total miles of road in the region are shown to be at risk of flooding using the Fathom-informed map, compared to 14% with the FEMA data alone. Sixty-four percent of the region’s rail lines are also at risk, compared to 39% in the FEMA-only assessment.
Over the past 150 years, the average temperature in D.C. has risen about +6°F (+10.8°F), driven by urbanization and increasing planet-warming pollution. This warming has accelerated evaporation, boosting humidity and increasing the amount of moisture storms can tap into.
According to the 2023 National Climate Assessment, the most intense downpours have grown heavier across the eastern United States. By 2100, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments team projects a 33% increase in the number of days each year with at least one inch of rain — and a 53 percent rise in days with two inches or more.
These increases are forecast for a low emissions scenario — which assumes policies are implemented to slow climate warming.
Impacts of climate change on global agriculture accounting for adaptation — Published: 18 June 2025
These projections are for a +3.0°C world between 2089–2098. They ASSUME and allow for aggressive and effective “adaptation and mitigation” efforts like “drip irrigation” and water conservation.
2095 sounds far off, but someone born this year will probably live to see it as a 70 year old. This is your children's and grandchildren’s future world and it will be one of hunger and starvation.
This is also WILDLY OPTIMISTIC.
The projection of +3°C by 2100 is regarded as the “Business as Usual” model in which emissions do not significantly decline and “net zero” is not reached. It is regarded as a WORST CASE number.
Realistically we will probably hit +2°C by 2035 and +3°C between 2060 and 2070 (assuming a Rate of Warming around +0.36°C/decade).
The real WORST CASE is hitting +3°C between 2050 and 2060, which could happen.
Their projections for a +3°C “worst case” world are:
MAIZE
Under a high-emissions scenario, our projected end-of-century maize yield losses are severe (about −40%) in the grain belt of the USA, Eastern China, Central Asia, Southern Africa and the Middle East. Losses in South America and Central Africa are more moderate (about −15%), mitigated in part by high levels of precipitation and increasing long-run precipitation. Impacts in Europe vary with latitude, from +10% gains in the north to −40% losses along the Mediterranean. Gains in theoretical yield potentials occur in many northern regions in which maize is currently not widely grown.
SOYBEANS
The spatial distribution of soybean yield impacts is similar in structure to maize, although magnitudes are accentuated; for example, about −50% in the USA and about +20% in wet regions of Brazil under a high-emissions scenario.
RICE
High-emissions rice yield impacts are mixed in India and Southeast Asia, which lead global rice production, with small gains and losses throughout these regions. This regional result is broadly consistent with earlier work. In the remaining rice-growing regions, central estimates are generally negative, with magnitudes in Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Central Asia exceeding −50%.
WHEAT
Wheat losses are notably consistent across the main wheat-growing regions, with high-emissions yield losses of −15% to −25% in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Africa and South America and −30% to −40% in China, Russia, the USA and Canada. There are notable exceptions to these global patterns: wheat-growing regions of Western China exhibit both gains and losses, whereas wheat-growing regions of Northern India exhibit some of the most severe projected losses across the globe.
CASSAVA
Cassava is projected to have uniformly negative projected impacts in nearly all regions in which it is grown at present, with the largest losses in Sub-Saharan Africa (−40% on average under a high-emissions scenario). Although cassava does not make up a large portion of global agricultural revenues, it is an important subsistence crop in low-income and middle-income countries. Thus, these yield losses may be a substantial future threat to the nutritional intake of the global poor.
SORGHUM
Sorghum losses are widespread in almost all of the main regions in which it is grown at present: North America (−40%), South Asia (including India) (−10%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (−25%). Projected gains emerge in Western Europe (+28%) and Northern China (+3%).
How the Rapid Spread of Misinformation Pushed Oregon Lawmakers to Kill the State's Wildfire Risk… - www.propublica.org
After Oregon's record-breaking fire season in 2020, lawmakers wanted to map out which properties were most at risk. But…
Once rural MAGAt voters saw their property values decline they went ‘nuts”.
Christine Drazan, the Oregon House Republican leader, joined more than a dozen other Republicans in February 2025 behind a sign that said “REPEAL THE WILDFIRE HAZARD MAP.” She called the state’s map “faulty, defective, harmful” and said it, along with related fire-safe building and landscaping rules that are in the works, is “a heavy-handed bureaucratic takeover” that’s kept rural residents from insuring or selling homes.
“This map is destroying their property values”.
In the end, what’s most remarkable about the campaign against Oregon’s wildfire map isn’t that misinformation found an audience.
It’s that it worked.
This is how misinformation gets accepted as fact among MAGAt voters.
America Is Living in a Climate-Denial Fantasy - www.theatlantic.com
From the article:
Last month, the world’s highest court issued a long-awaited opinion on how international law should regard climate harm. The International Court of Justice concluded, unanimously, that states have binding legal obligations to act to protect the climate system, and failure to do so — by continuing to produce, consume, and subsidize fossil fuels — may “constitute an internationally wrongful act.”
In other words, curbing GHG emissions is not merely voluntary in the eyes of the court; failure to do so is illegal.
A week later, the U.S. government proffered an entirely opposite picture of legal responsibility. It announced a plan to rescind one of the most important legal underpinnings of the federal effort to combat climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, from 2009, says quite simply that these emissions endanger the public and qualify as harmful pollution; they can therefore be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gases IS the legal basis for power-plant rules, tailpipe-emissions regulations, and almost every other action the executive branch has taken to curb the release of carbon dioxide and methane. The EPA would now like to “change their mind” about that.
The U.S., famously, does not make much of international laws. In prior international climate negotiations, America has tried to minimize its responsibility as the largest cumulative emitter of greenhouse gases. Margaret Taylor, the U.S. legal adviser to the State Department under Joe Biden, presented commentary at the ICJ in December 2024 in which she argued that current human-rights laws do not provide for a right to a healthy environment, nor should countries be financially responsible for past emissions, both of which the ICJ ultimately disagreed with in this new opinion.
The Trump administration seems ready to simply ignore, if not outright reject, any responsibility the U.S. might have for climate change. We DO NOT CARE what the rest of the world thinks, cuz we’re Murican’s and we don't have to care.
The change in the EPA Endangerment finding.
Trump moves to scrap climate rule tying greenhouse gases to public health harm - www.theguardian.com
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans to revoke key scientific finding that allows for US climate regulation
In order to do this, the EPA has to rescind a 2009 landmark declaration which determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
The government cannot “regulate” what corporations are dumping into the environment unless they can PROVE that it's causing harm. Instead of making the industry prove that the Green House Gases their products generate are safe, the government was forced to prove that GHG emissions were a danger to the “public health and welfare”.
This took DECADES because the industry fought it tooth and nail. That's why it didn't happen until so fucking late. It was fought all the way to the Supreme Court. Which finally ruled in 2007 that the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Hours after Zeldin announced the intention of the EPA to undo the 2009 “endangerment finding”, the Department of Energy (DOE) published a 150-page report defending the proposal, claiming scientific concern about the climate crisis is overblown.
“Climate change is a challenge — not a catastrophe.”
Wrote Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, in the report’s introduction. Here is the report in full. It's ONLY 151 pages, which is pathetically short for a document that is supposed to “push back” on the “cancel culture Orwellian squelching of science.” By which Wright means the ENTIRETY of over 50 years of Climate Science going back to the 70's.
It was written by just FIVE GUYS in just FOUR MONTHS.
“The Trump administration report was crafted by five handpicked scientists who are seen as having fringe or contrarian views by mainstream climate scientists, with no peer review. The experts behind the report have previously denied being climate deniers. The energy department did not respond to a question about the authors.”
Trump Hires Scientists Who Doubt the Consensus on Climate Change — NYT, July 8th 2025
MOST significantly, if the 2009 endangerment finding is undone by the Supreme Court. It could make it pretty much impossible for future Administrations to try to curb emissions without new legislation from Congress.
“If the Administration’s arguments prevail, it’s going to be very hard for E.P.A. going forward to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. So they’re trying to take that away permanently — not just for the next three and a half years.”
At this point, repealing the endangerment finding on scientific grounds should be impossible. Despite the claims of the D.O.E. report, the evidence since 2009 that climate change represents a threat to public welfare has become much more overwhelmingly conclusive
So instead, the Administration’s legal arguments center on how, exactly, to interpret the relevant sections of the Clean Air Act.
This could appeal to the current “highly partisan” Supreme Court.
None of the five Justices who were in the majority in the Massachusetts v. E.P.A. ruling in 2009 are still on the Court. But three of the dissenters: John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas remain. Meanwhile, three of the Court’s newer Justices, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett are Trump appointees.
Richard J. Lazarus, the Harvard Law School professor who wrote a book about the 2009 decision stated.
“There are a couple arguments they make where a hostile Court might bite. My guess is that their aim here is not to have the Court say there’s no endangerment but for the Court to say there’s reason to revisit the endangerment finding. There won’t be a revisitation, but that by itself will be enough to collapse everything.”
The E.P.A.'s Disastrous Plan to End the Regulation of Greenhouse Gases - www.newyorker.com
With a new proposal, the Trump Administration, which has already laid waste to dozens of programs aimed at limiting…
Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a 'farce' full of misinformation - www.theguardian.com
Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on…
Pretty much every climate scientist on the planet, who is not one of “the five”, thinks this report is misinformation, disinformation, and flat out lies.
MEANWHILE in Europe.
EU wants to pay poor countries to cut emissions. It never studied the plan's impacts. - www.politico.eu
The European Commission released a controversial plan to offshore millions of tons of greenhouse gas cuts, but admitted…
Europe continues to hope that it can “appear” to be doing something about their GHG emissions by “outsourcing” setting aside land for reforestation. They hope to pay “the poors” to set aside VAST chunks of their countries as PERMANENT “carbon reserves” so that the “developed” countries can keep polluting for a few decades more.
Unfortunately, no one asked “the poors” what they thought about this idea first.
Something COOL.
See how aerosols loft through Earth's sky - www.sciencenews.org
Aerosols, small particles in the atmosphere like salt and dust, may offset a third of human-caused climate warming…
The sky abounds with aerosols, tiny particles with large sway over Earth’s temperature. A new NASA visualization reveals how these airborne particles swirl through the atmosphere.
Unlike greenhouse gases, which can persist for years and disperse globally, aerosols remain aloft for only days and form regional plumes. These high-flying motes counter climate warming by reflecting solar radiation back into space and acting as condensation nuclei, increasing the number of droplets in clouds and making the poofy masses more reflective.
“Those two effects together have offset about a third of climate warming … about a half a degree Celsius,” says atmospheric scientist Sarah Doherty of the University of Washington in Seattle.
SO, of COURSE the MAGAts want to shut it down.
Trump moves to shut down NASA missions that measure carbon dioxide and plant health — Aug 6th, 2025
The Trump administration is moving to shut down two NASA missions that monitor a potent greenhouse gas and plant health, potentially shutting off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers.
President Donald Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2026 includes no money for the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, which can precisely show where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed and how well crops are growing.
Practical Advice.
The surprising reasons floods and other disasters are deadlier at night " - Yale Climate Connections
It's not just that it's dark and people are asleep. Urban sprawl, confirmation bias, and other factors can play a role.
Disaster 101: Your guide to extreme weather preparation, relief, and recovery - grist.org
From packing an emergency kit to navigating FEMA aid to finding legal services and mental health resources, this is a…
Why insurers worry the world could soon become uninsurable — CNBC Aug 8th, 2025
Top insurers fear the climate crisis could soon outpace industry solutions, effectively threatening to make entire regions around the world uninsurable.
Günther Thallinger, a board member at Allianz, one of the world’s biggest insurers, recently outlined how the world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for financial services, such as mortgages and investments.
We are clearly on a pathway now of 2.7 degrees or 3 degrees where adaptation is simply not doable anymore. This is just what it is. — Günther Thallinger, Board member at Allianz
Global insured catastrophe losses hit $80 billion in first half of 2025, report shows - www.reuters.com
Global insured losses from natural catastrophes reached $80 billion in the first half of 2025, preliminary estimates…
Hottest Month, Highest Costs: How Climate Extremes in July 2025 Shook the Global Economy … - cleantechtimes.com
July 2025 will be remembered as a month when climate change's economic consequences hit home around the world.
ICE is well on its way to becoming the American SS and Trump’s personal army.
To deliver on his campaign pledge to deport illegal immigrants, President Trump is relying on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So his new domestic policy law gives it $75 billion over the next four years, which will make it the best-funded law enforcement agency in the country. Evan Gorelick and Lyna Bentahar of Wired break down some stats behind ICE’s expansion plan.
$45 billion to expand the detention system. That money could allow ICE to hold more than 125,000 migrants at a time, the nonpartisan American Immigration Council estimates, more than doubling the agency’s current capacity.
14,050 more employees. To recruit them, ICE wants to use social media and digital advertising, according to contracting records.
18-year-old enforcers. The agency lowered the age requirement for all roles, including agents. It previously required most candidates to be 21.
$50,000 signing bonuses. That’s what you can get if you take a job at ICE. The agency is also offering student-loan repayment assistance and other benefits to attract recruits.
$30 billion for deportations. That money will help hire officers, pay bonuses and buy new vehicles. Trump’s goal is to deport one million immigrants per year.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?’: Trump’s ICE Is Now Recruiting Teenagers
ICE opening up recruiting to teenagers because they can’t find enough adults willing to be their racist storm troopers is some real dystopian shit,” said one critic.
Critics pointed to a similar move to increase recruitment at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where lower hiring standards resulted in increased reports of sexual misconduct and corruption among Border Patrol recruits.
Surprisingly, despite all of these “peace keepers” around, there is one group of Americans who feel VERY THREATENED these days.
US companies spending record amounts to protect executives as threats rise - www.reuters.com
U.S. companies are spending record amounts to keep their executives safe in response to rising threats and the killings…
Threats against corporate executives “have massively ramped up since 2020,” said Chris Pierson, the CEO of cybersecurity firm BlackCloak.
Their “FEAR” hasn't stopped their drive for “profit”.
Wall Street traders will get fatter bonuses after riding volatile markets - www.reuters.com
Wall Street stock and bond traders can expect their bonuses to jump 10% to 30% this year as they cashed in on turbulent…
Remember, Wall Street doesn't MAKE anything. This is money being leeched out of the economy directly into the pockets of the “high net worth” class.
The looting of the US economy is now in high gear.
'We're Fast Stumbling Into Stagflation,' Expert Warns as Unemployment Rolls Hit 4-Year High Under… - www.commondreams.org
"In contrast with the president's assertion of bustling job creation," said The Century Foundation's Andrew Stettner…
Oh gee, unregulated adoption of AI is causing “mass layoffs” across the country. How can that be? AI is going to make everyone wealthy says Trump.
While normal people fear for their jobs and stress about paying for groceries.
Cost of Groceries 'Major Source of Stress' as Trump Tariffs Start to Bite | Common Dreams
A recent poll found that 53% of Americans believe the cost of groceries is a "major source of stress," which is higher than the percentage of Americans who say the same thing about the cost of housing, healthcare, and childcare.
Anxiety about grocery prices is particularly strong among Americans earning $30,000 or less per year, as nearly two-thirds of them described paying for groceries as a "major source of stress."
Their “betters” prepare their “apocalypse” escape plans.
Why Are Silicon Valley's Utopians Are Prepping for Collapse?
On The Nerd Reich, Guthrie Scrimgeour & Taylor Lorenz reveal why tech billionaires promising a bright future are…www.thenerdreich.com
How would you put these pieces together?
What pattern do you see in the data?
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”.
rc 08/10/2025
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