global warming

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      5 Climate Questions for the Candidates Ahead of the Presidential Debate

      by

      Here’s what the Times climate team would ask Harris and Trump about climate change, energy policy and the environment.As Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump take the stage for their first, and possibly only, debate ahead of the election on Nov. 5, it’s unclear whether or not climate change will be one of the topics they address.The two candidates have diametrically opposed views on the broad outlines of that central issue. Harris has referred to global warming as a “crisis” that needs to be addressed with urgency. Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed to “drill, baby, drill.”On a number of more specific points, however, Harris and Trump have offered clues to their policy priorities that provide insights into how each might govern should they win.If Times climate reporters and editors were moderating the debate, which is hosted by ABC News, here are five questions we would ask, and some background to inform how each candidate might answer.The United States is currently the world’s biggest producer of both oil and gas, the burning of which are the main contributors to global warming. Would your administration continue working to expand fossil fuel production, or is it time for the U.S. to start moving away from fossil fuels?Harris has walked back her 2019 pledge to ban fracking, a key way of producing oil and gas. Her softening of this stance reflects economic concerns. While the Biden-Harris administration has worked to promote clean energy, it has also benefited from an economy buoyed by record fossil fuel production. Besides fracking, another key area of focus is liquefied natural gas exports. The Biden administration said it would ban new liquefied natural gas export permits, but that decision is being challenged in court.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Mr. Greedy, an African Penguin With 230 Descendants, Dies at 33

      by

      An African penguin who left many offspring in his long life, he belonged to the largest colony of the aquatic bird species in North America, according to the zoo.The popular African penguin known as Mr. Greedy, a fixture of the Maryland Zoo who had sired many offspring and left “an astounding 230 descendants” over five generations, has died after an age-related decline in his health, the zoo said in a statement.He was 33 — yes, in human years. (The zoo said it had no accurate way to determine the equivalent in penguin years.) He was the oldest penguin in his colony, which the zoo said is the largest in North America.When he was not busy reproducing or bringing joy to zoo visitors, Mr. Greedy swam hard, took care of his mate — nicknamed Ms. Greedy — and was constantly looking for things to steal.His mischievous ability to steal nesting materials and food from others had earned him the affectionate nickname by which he was known, Jen Kottyan, the bird curator at the zoo, said in a phone interview on Saturday.Mr. Greedy, born in 1991, had a more official, though less personable name: African penguin No. 821. The cause of death was euthanasia on Aug. 27, the zoo said.In his long life, Mr. Greedy “made a tremendous contribution to his endangered species,” said the statement from the Maryland Zoo, which is in Baltimore.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Shocked by Extreme Storms, a Maine Fishing Town Fights to Save Its Waterfront

      by

      ACROSS THE COUNTRYShocked by Extreme Storms, a Maine Fishing Town Fights to Save Its WaterfrontAfter two devastating storms hit Stonington in January, plans are multiplying to raise and fortify wharves, roads and buildings. But will that be enough?It is hard to imagine a more picturesque Maine fishing town than Stonington, home to about 1,000 people.WHY WE’RE HEREWe’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. In Maine, climate change and economic forces are threatening one town’s identity, and way of life. Sept. 7, 2024There were some who thought it was excessive when Travis Fifield, rebuilding his commercial lobster wharf a few years ago, raised it nearly a foot and a half higher above the blue expanse of Maine’s Penobscot Bay.The fourth generation to run the family business, Fifield Lobster, on a granite peninsula in remote Stonington, Mr. Fifield paid the skeptics no mind. He was determined to defend his property against the rising seas and raging storms he knew would be the consequences of a changing climate.Then two vicious storms slammed Maine’s coast in a single week in January, with intense winds and extremely high tides wiping out swaths of working waterfront. For Stonington, home to the largest lobster fishing fleet in Maine, the damage was so extensive and shocking that it extinguished any remaining doubt about the need for urgent action.There were some who thought it was excessive when Travis Fifield rebuilt his commercial lobster wharf a few years ago, raising it up nearly a foot and a half higher. Now, across the island town of 1,000 people, plans are multiplying to raise and fortify wharves, roads and buildings. At Isle au Haut Boat Services, managers intend to lift the dock two feet higher and add a concrete top to hold it down when waters surge. A similar upgrade is in store for the Stonington Lobster Co-op, home base for 90 of the town’s 350 lobster boats.“That storm surge in January — we never thought it could happen here,” said Mr. Fifield, 40, who is also a member of the Stonington Select Board. “When you’re smacked in the face with it, it’s hard to deny.”Tell Us About Where You Live

      We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      It’s Been the Hottest Summer on Record, European Officials Say

      by

      The excessive heat worldwide suggests the full year will also be a record-breaker, according to Copernicus, the E.U. agency that tracks global warming.The summer of “brat,” the Paris Olympics and political conventions may be winding down, but the heat in 2024 is still going strong.The southwestern United States’ sizzling triple-digit temperatures this week mark the tail end of the hottest summer on record, according to a new European climate report.“We know that the warming of the planet leads to more intense and extreme climate events, and what we’ve seen this summer has been no exception,” said Julien Nicolas, a climatologist with the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union agency that published the assessment on Wednesday.Since 2018, the agency has been combining data like weather observations from balloons and satellites with computer models that simulate temperature and precipitation to get a picture of what’s happening around the world. It pairs that picture with past weather conditions reconstructed back to 1940 to compute a global average temperature.June and August were the hottest June and August on record, according to the models, while July is not quite as clear.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, based in the United States, found that this July was three-hundredths of a Celsius degree hotter than July 2023, while Copernicus determined it was a few hundredths of a degree cooler than last year. For all practical purposes, that created a virtual tie, according to Karin Gleason of NOAA, speaking recently about her department’s findings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Climate Change Can Cause Bridges to ‘Fall Apart Like Tinkertoys,’ Experts Say

      by

      Extreme heat and flooding are accelerating the deterioration of bridges, engineers say, posting a quiet but growing threat.On a 95-degree day this summer, New York City’s Third Avenue Bridge, connecting the Bronx and Manhattan, got stuck in the open position for hours. As heat and flooding scorched and scoured the Midwest, a steel railroad bridge connecting Iowa with South Dakota collapsed under surging waters. In Lewiston, Maine, a bridge closed after the pavement buckled from fluctuating temperatures.America’s bridges, a quarter of which were built before 1960, were already in need of repair. But now, extreme heat and increased flooding linked to climate change are accelerating the disintegration of the nation’s bridges, engineers say, essentially causing them to age prematurely.The result is a quiet but growing threat to the safe movement of people and goods around the country, and another example of how climate change is reshaping daily life in ways Americans may not realize.“We have a bridge crisis that is specifically tied to extreme weather events,” said Paul Chinowsky, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder who researches the effects of climate change on infrastructure. “These are not things that would happen under normal climate circumstances. These are not things that we’ve ever seen at this rate.”Bridges designed and built decades ago with materials not intended to withstand sharp temperature swings are now rapidly swelling and contracting, leaving them weakened.“It’s getting so hot that the pieces that hold the concrete and steel, those bridges can literally fall apart like Tinkertoys,” Dr. Chinowsky said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Is This Massive Attack Concert the Gold Standard for a Green Gig?

      by

      Coldplay and Billie Eilish have tried to drive down carbon emissions while touring, but the British band Massive Attack has tried to take the efforts even further.When the British band Massive Attack was halfway through a West Coast tour in 2019, flying from show to show, the rapper and singer Robert Del Naja had a moment of crisis. Given all the carbon emitted by moving the band and its equipment around, he recalled wondering: Can I justify this anymore?Not long afterward, the band made a decision. It would work with climate scientists to develop a model for touring that made as little climate impact as possible.On Sunday, Massive Attack staged a daylong 35,000-person festival in the band’s home city of Bristol, England, to showcase the carbon-cutting measures it has developed with the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, a British organization, and A Greener Future, a nonprofit focused on lowering the music industry’s emissions.The concert on Sunday was powered by batteries charged from wind and solar energy.Sandra Mickiewicz for The New York TimesFans were encouraged to travel to the show by walking, cycling or using public transportation.Sandra Mickiewicz for The New York TimesWhereas other bands, including Coldplay, have staged attention-grabbing stunts to draw awareness to the industry’s climate impacts, they have sometimes ignored the main sources of emissions from gigs, such as audience travel and venues’ power supplies. With its show on Sunday, Massive Attack wanted to show how to tackle all of the polluting parts of a show.In an interview a few days before the event, Del Naja said that previous music industry efforts to cut emissions had not been in line with the United Nations-agreed goal to stop average temperatures rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Climate Change Is Not a Key Talking Point for Harris Campaign

      by

      In the 2020 presidential election, climate activists demanded that Democratic candidates explain, in detail, how they planned to tackle the planet’s greatest environmental threat.But in the weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris ascended the 2024 Democratic ticket, she has mentioned climate change only in passing, and offered no specifics on how she would curb dangerous levels of warming. Climate leaders say they are fine with that.“I am not concerned,” said Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, who made climate change the centerpiece of his own 2019 bid for the presidency. Mr. Inslee said he believes it is more important for Ms. Harris to draw a distinction between her and her Republican rival, former President Donald J. Trump, than to drill down on policy nitty-gritty.“I am totally confident that when she is in a position to effect positive change, she will,” Gov. Inslee said.As Ms. Harris prepares to address the nation on Thursday at the Democratic National Convention, she faces the challenge of energizing party loyalists while also reaching out to disaffected Republicans and moderate voters. So far Ms. Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, have embraced a pragmatic agenda, calling for things like a minimum-wage increase and child-care funding.While President Biden has made climate change a signature issue, signing into law the largest clean energy investments in American history, Ms. Harris has yet to detail for voters her climate or clean-energy positions. Some analysts chalked that up to strategy and said new promises to slash greenhouse gas emissions or rein in fossil fuels could alienate voters particularly in the energy-rich swing state of Pennsylvania.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Greenpeace Tries a Novel Tactic in Lawsuit Over Dakota Access Pipeline

      by

      The environmental group, which is being sued by the pipeline company in North Dakota, threatened to use new European rules to try to limit potential damages.The NewsGreenpeace recently unveiled a new strategy for fighting a costly lawsuit by an energy company that the group contends is designed to silence critics of the oil industry.The suit, first filed in federal court in 2017, alleged that Greenpeace had incited the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017, and it sought $300 million in damages.Greenpeace disputes the claims. It says the lawsuit is designed to essentially force the environmental group to go out of business with an expensive legal fight.Its new tactic, led by Greenpeace International in Amsterdam, would use the European legal system to try to minimize the financial consequences of a potential loss in United States courts. In a letter to the company last month, lawyers for the group cited a new European Union directive aimed at curbing SLAPP suits, or Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. Those are defined as meritless suits that seek to shut down civil society groups.The letter called on the company suing it, Dallas-based Energy Transfer, to drop its suit against Greenpeace International, and to pay damages for its legal costs, or risk a countersuit under the new European rules.The BackgroundAfter the Dakota Access Pipeline was approved in 2016, it became the target of high-profile protests by Native American tribes and environmental groups. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe argued that the pipeline encroached on reservation land and endangered the water supply. Thousands of its supporters joined a nearly eight-month protest encampment near the reservation, and tribal leaders mounted their own legal challenge to the project.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More