+ 2.9 F. June temperatures are running nearly 3 F. warmer than average in the MSP metro.

77 F. maximum temperature yesterday in the Twin Cities.
83 F. average high on June 29.
81 F. high on June 29, 2016.

June 30, 1982: Frost hits St. Louis County. Kulger Township falls to 27 degrees and Meadowlands bottoms out at 32.
June 30, 1871: Extremely large hail falls in Meeker County. Some of the stones are 6 inches in circumference, breaking many windows on the north sides of houses.
A Better Than Average 4th of July Weekend Outlook

“All we have of freedom, all we use or know — This our fathers bought for us long and long ago” wrote Rudyard Kipling. My father survived Hitler and Stalin, and built a new life in the USA. He once told me that many Americans take their freedom for granted. “I will never, ever take my freedom for granted” he told me many years ago.

Meteorologists in this country have the freedom to disagree with the official (NOAA) forecast. We can look
at the models, interpret what we see, and try to improve on the government forecast. Try that in other countries and you can wind up in jail.

T-showers bubble up again today (what a shock) but much of Minnesota will be dry over the weekend, with
highs in the 70s to near 80F.

The leading edge of sauna-like heat and humidity may spark stray T-storms over southern Minnesota Monday and Tuesday, but most of the time will be dry, with a touch of humidity in the air.

As I’ve been warning for a few days – guidance hints at 90s by the end of next week. Our welcome reprieve from heat is coming to an end. Get ready for a hot and steamy Dog Day July!

Dog Days Coming. I hope you’ve enjoyed the extended break from heat and humidity, because ECMWF (European) guidance shows 80s next week, maybe low 90s by the end of the week with dew points well into the 60s. In less than a week friends and neighbors will be griping about the heat index. Twin Cities data: WeatherBell.
Friday Severe Storm Threat. The greatest risk of damaging storms, including large hail and tornadoes, comes from near Tulsa to Joplin later today, with severe storms bubbling up from Indianapolis, Detroit and Cleveland to Syracuse and Burlington.
Excessive Rainfall Risk. Some of the storms over the southern Plains and Mid South may dump 2-4″+ rains in a short period of time, increasing the threat of runoff and flash flooding, according to NOAA models.
Stuck. Once again weather systems are in a holding pattern; swarms of strong to severe storms popping up over the eastern 2/3rds of America – strongest over the Mid South and Middle Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley and New England later today. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the western U.S. stays hot and dry. 84-hour NAM Future Radar: NOAA and Tropicaltidbits.com.
7-Day Rainfall Potential. As much as 3-5″ of rain may soak the central USA into the middle of  next week, with 2-3″+ rains stretching from the Midwest and Ohio Valley into New England. Florida is also forecast to see heavy rain from multiple swarms of T-storms, helping to gradually ease a long-term drought.
July Heat Wave. Long-range GFS guidance is fairly consistent now, showing a semi-stationary bubble of hot high pressure enveloping much of the USA by mid-July. That should mean consistent 90s from the Rockies and Plains to the East Coast, with the only relief coming in the form of stray, late-day pop-up airmass thundershowers. A few 100-degree highs central  Plains? I wouldn’t rule it out within 2 weeks.
Arizona Wildfire Forces Thousands of People From Their Homes. The Washington Post has the latest: “A wildfire burning Wednesday through a dense Arizona forest has forced thousands of people from their homes, closed a major road and created a huge plume of smoke over the same area devastated by a blaze that killed 19 firefighters four years ago. The fire is burning in communities around Prescott, a mountain city about 100 miles (160.9 kilometers) north of Phoenix that draws a mix of desert dwellers escaping the heat, retirees and visitors to its famed Old West-themed Whiskey Row. The fire has charred 32 square miles (83 square kilometers) while being fanned by winds ranging to 35 mph (56 kph) winds. More than 500 firefighters were battling the blaze. A firefighter suffered a minor injury...”

Real-time wildfire map above: ESRI.com.

These NASA Images Show Siberia Burning Up. Climate Central has details: “Siberian wildfire season is off and running with multiple blazes searing the boreal forest and tundra. It’s the latest example of the vast shifts happening to the forests that cover Siberia and the rest of the northern tier of the world as climate change alters the landscape. Those forests are burning at a rate unheard of in at least 10,000 years due largely to rising temperatures. They contain vast reserves of carbon stored in trees and soil and when they burn, they send that carbon into the atmosphere. That creates a dangerous cycle of more severe wildfires and ever rising temperatures…”

Photo credit: “A satellite image captured on June 23, 2017 shows the extent of wildfires burning across Siberia.” Credit: NASA Earth Observatory.

Lightning-Caused Fires On The Rise in the World’s Largest Forest. National Geographic reviews new research: “As fire season reaches for its annual summer turning point, the role lightning plays as the culprit in setting fires shows a worrisome trend. That’s not good news for the boreal forest, the world’s largest forest habitat, where virtually all wildfires are ignited by lightning. Since 1975, the number of fires ignited by lightning has increased between two and five percent, driven by an increase in volatile thunderstorm weather, according to a new NASA study published Monday in Nature Climate Change. In two of the last three years, immense fires in Alaska and Canada’s Northwest Territories provided a good case study, says Sander Veraverbeke, the study’s lead author and an Earth scientist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam...”

Photo credit: “This forest fire was caused by lightning, and the problem seems to be on the rise since 1975.” Photo by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic Creative.

Siberian wildfire season is off and running with multiple blazes searing the boreal forest and tundra. It’s the latest example of the vast shifts happening to the forests that cover Siberia and the rest of the northern tier of the world as climate change alters the landscape.

Those forests are burning at a rate unheard of in at least 10,000 years due largely to rising temperatures. They contain vast reserves of carbon stored in trees and soil and when they burn, they send that carbon into the atmosphere. That creates a dangerous cycle of more severe wildfires and ever rising temperatures.

Iranian City Soars to Record 129 Degrees – Near Hottest on Earth in Modern Measurements. Capital Weather Gang has details: “A city in southwest Iran posted the country’s hottest temperature ever recorded Thursday afternoon, and may have tied the world record for the most extreme high temperature. Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at French meteorological agency MeteoFrance, posted to Twitter that the city of Ahvaz soared to “53.7°C” (128.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Kapikian said the temperature is a “new absolute national record of reliable Iranian heat” and that it was the hottest temperature ever recorded in June over mainland Asia. Iran’s previous hottest temperature was 127.4. Weather Underground’s website indicates the temperature in Ahvaz climbed even higher, hitting 129.2 degrees at both 4:51 and 5 p.m. local time…”

Map credit: “GFS weather model analysis of maximum temperatures in the Middle East Thursday afternoon.” (WeatherBell.com).

A Steamy June, Nationwide. Here’s an excerpt from Planalytics: “June 2016 was one of the warmest on record in the U.S. Across most eastern markets, it was also the driest June in five years or more. This boosted overall traffic levels and sales of summer products. This June’s cooler and rainier conditions (compared to 2016) will negatively impact comp sales performance for many retailers and restaurants. The less favorable weather is projected to cost restaurants $447 million in sales vs. June 2016. Apparel chains face a $106 million headwind...”

Weather Whiplash. The graph above shows CEI, Climate Extreme Index, the percentage of the USA in extreme drought or flood since 1910, courtesy of NOAA NCEI.
A Million Bottles a Minute: World’s Plastic Binge “As Dangerous as Climate Change”. Not sure I agree with the comparison, but there’s little question the threat is real, especially to the world’s oceans. Here is a clip from The Guardian: “A million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute and the number will jump another 20% by 2021, creating an environmental crisis some campaigners predict will be as serious as climate change. New figures obtained by the Guardian reveal the surge in usage of plastic bottles, more than half a trillion of which will be sold annually by the end of the decade. The demand, equivalent to about 20,000 bottles being bought every second, is driven by an apparently insatiable desire for bottled water and the spread of a western, urbanised “on the go” culture to China and the Asia Pacific region…”

Photo credit: “A file picture dated 13 April 2010 shows a boy from Senegal walking along a polluted beach strewn with predominantly plastic bottles in the village of Ngor, Dakar, Senegal.” Photograph: Nic Bothma/EPA.
The Ozone Hole is Slowly Healing – But This Chemical Could Delay Its Recovery by Decades. The Washington Post reports: “While the famous Antarctic “ozone hole” is finally beginning to heal, 30 years after it was first discovered, scientists have just identified a new threat to its recovery. A study, just out Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that a common industrial chemical called dichloromethane — which has the power to destroy ozone — has doubled in the atmosphere over the past 10 years. And if its concentrations keep growing, scientists say, it could delay the Antarctic ozone layer’s return to normal by up to 30 years. “We’ve known that dichloromethane has been increasing in the atmosphere — however, there’s not been a concerted effort to assess what the impact of those increases could be for the ozone layer, and in particular for ozone recovery,” said the new study’s lead author Ryan Hossaini, an atmospheric chemist and research fellow at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom…”

Graphic credit: “This false-color image shows ozone concentrations above Antarctica on Oct. 2, 2015.” (Credits: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center).

EPA Chief Met With Dow CEO Before Deciding on Pesticide Ban. Associated Press reports: “…EPA released a copy of Pruitt’s March meeting schedule earlier this month following several Freedom of Information Act requests. Though his schedule for the intervening months has not yet been released, Bowman said Pruitt has had no other meetings with the Dow CEO. There was a larger group meeting that Pruitt attended which also included two other Dow executives, but she said that didn’t involve chlorpyrifos. Dow, which spent more than $13.6 million on lobbying in 2016, has long wielded substantial political power in the nation’s capital…”

Minnesota’s Second 100-Megawatt Solar Project Is Up and Running. Star Tribune reports: “One of the largest solar energy initiatives in Minnesota, the Aurora project, has been completed, its owner said Tuesday. The Aurora project features 16 separate solar power plants in Minnesota that together will provide electricity to Xcel Energy under a long-term contract. Aurora, which cost $290 million, is owned by Enel Green Power North America and can produce 100 megawatts of power, enough for more than 17,000 homes. A megawatt is 1 million watts…”

World’s Largest Wind Turbine Will Be Taller Than Empire State Building. EcoWatch has the awe-inspiring details: “When it comes to the latest wind turbine technologies, size matters. A group of six institutions and universities is designing an offshore wind turbine that will stand 500 meters in height. That’s taller than the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building. The research team, led by researchers at the University of Virginia, believes that its wind turbine concept will produce 50 megawatts of peak power, or about 10 times more powerful than conventional wind turbines…”

Image credit: SUMR.
UPS Looks To Add More Green Vehicles To Its Fleet by 2025. Reuters has details: “United Parcel Service Inc said on Tuesday it would add more vehicles that run on non-conventional power to its fleet by 2025, as the package delivery company looks to cut its greenhouse emissions. The company said by 2020 about 25 percent of its vehicles purchased annually will be powered by alternative fuels or advanced technology, up from 16 percent in 2016. The vehicles could include electric, hybrid electric, hydraulic hybrid, or those that run on compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and propane…”

Photo credit: “A United Parcel Service (UPS) truck on delivery is pictured in downtown Los Angeles, California October 29, 2014.” REUTERS/Mike Blake.

A Bonkers Private “Jet” Brings Electric Flight to the Rich. A story at WIRED.com made me do a double-take: “If you’re just coming around to the idea of battery powered cars, prepare for the next onslaught, because the future of flight is electric too. And just as with ground vehicles, nothing pushes along new tech like some sex appeal. Tesla did that for cars, with sleek looks and ludicrous acceleration. Now, Eviation Aircraft wants to do the same for the sky. At last week’s Paris Air Show, the Israeli company unveiled a prototype electric light aircraft, a private jet without the jet engines…”

Photo credit: Eviation Aircraft Ltd.

The Aurora project features 16 separate solar power plants in Minnesota that together will provide electricity to Xcel Energy under a long-term contract. Aurora, which cost $290 million, is owned by Enel Green Power North America and can produce 100 megawatts of power, enough for more than 17,000 homes. A megawatt is 1 million watts.

After 9 Launches in 2017, It’s Tough To Be an Honest Critic of SpaceX. I might hesitate before betting against Elon Musk anytime soon. Here’s an excerpt from Ars Technica: “Elon Musk and SpaceX had one hell of a weekend. While much of the country celebrated the summer weekend at the beach or enjoying time with friends, SpaceX was hard at work launching two rockets for customers, one from the East Coast and one from the West Coast. One of those rockets had previously been flown. And despite dangerous returns due to high-energy missions and inclement weather, the company recovered both of the first stage boosters. SpaceX garners a lot of acclaim for its achievements, and it has legions of admirers within the aerospace community and the public at large. But it also has critics, primarily competitors who look at SpaceX and see a company that gets a lot of hype but doesn’t always deliver. What is perhaps most striking about this weekend’s back-to-back launches is that the company’s successes drove a stake into some of the most credible criticisms that have been levied against SpaceX in recent years...”

Image credit: SpaceX.
The Tiny Satellites Ushering In The New Space Revolution. It turns out smaller is better and cheaper for imaging our home from low-earth orbit. Here’s a clip from Bloomberg: “...What made the launch a record were the 88 shoebox-size “Dove” satellites built by Planet Labs Inc., a startup in San Francisco. For the past few years, Planet has been sending batches of its Doves into orbit, each carrying a high-powered telescope and camera programmed to photograph a different swath of Earth. The 88 launched from Sriharikota would join 61 others to become the largest fleet ever put in orbit. Images beamed back by the 61 have been used far and wide: Hedge funds scour Walmart parking lots to measure traffic flows during back-to-school seasons. Farmers assess crop health and estimate optimal harvest times. Activists track Amazonian deforestation and Syrian refugee camps. Spies monitor military buildups and trafficking operations. With all 149 satellites in place, Planet will be able to photograph every inch of Earth’s surface every day—something even the U.S. government can’t do...”

Robocalypse Now? Central Bankers Argue Whether Automation Will Kill Jobs. The short answer appears to be – yes. Here’s an excerpt from The New York Times: “…Generally speaking, economic growth is a good thing,” Ben S. Bernanke, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said at the forum. “But, as recent political developments have brought home, growth is not always enough.” In the past, technical advances caused temporary disruptions but ultimately improved living standards, creating new categories of employment along the way. Farm machinery displaced farmworkers but eventually they found better paying jobs, and today their great-grandchildren may design video games. But artificial intelligence threatens broad categories of jobs previously seen as safe from automation, such as legal assistants, corporate auditors and investment managers. Large groups of people could become obsolete, suffering the same fate as plow horses after the invention of the tractor…”

Photo credit: “Employees of the German online retailer Zalando preparing customer orders for shipping in Erfurt, Germany. Zalando has invested heavily in hubs like the one in Erfurt and increased automation.” Phil Hatcher-Moore for The New York Times.

The Death of Local Small Market TV News. There’s a more cost-effective way to deliver local news, but do you lose local institution memory and perspective when the anchors delivering the news are 1,000 miles away? Here’s a clip from a story at FTVLive: “…Media Gateway specializes in that sort of outsourcing, offering to save TV stations two-thirds of the usual cost for some functions. For a monthly fee it will, as its website puts it, “take over the headache of television master control and playout through our central facility.” Hubbing, as the centralized approach is known, is a future that has already arrived, Davidge told Arkansas Business. “In 10 years, all of the small-market stations will be doing it that way,” he said. “The large-market stations may beat their chests and say look at how many anchors and rooms of computers we have.” But for smaller markets grappling with shrinking margins as viewers turn away from traditional TV habits, “this makes a great deal of business sense...”
Couples Who Argue While Sleep-Deprived Risk Seriously Damaging Their Health. Not to mention their relationship. Here’s an excerpt from Quartz: “All couples have disagreements, and most of us know it’s easier to fall into fractious bickering when we’re tired. But there’s a genuine health benefit to avoiding touchy subjects when both people in a partnership are sleep-deprived, according to new research. Researchers from the the Ohio State University Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research tested couples for stress-related inflammatory responses, which have been linked to higher risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and arthritis. They found that having less sleep didn’t automatically mean that people woke up and came into the lab with increased inflammation markers. The responses were triggered if they engaged in a stressful conversation with their partner...”
Strange “Sea Pickles” Keep Washing Ashore in the Pacific Northwest – and Scientists Are Baffled. Yes, but are they edible? Here’s a clip from The Washington Post: “There are strange sea creatures known as “sea pickles” invading the Pacific Northwest. These gelatinous and somewhat translucent organisms, called pyrosomes, have been seen congregating, sometimes by the thousands, close to shore from Northern California up to southeast Alaska — clogging fishing nets and washing up on beaches, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Experts say that this year, the critters are appearing in very high numbers outside the normal range of the species. Most recently, NBC Bay Area reported that the sea dwellers have been causing a stir in Monterey Bay, frustrating fishermen trying to catch salmon and shrimp...”

Photo credit: “Pyrosomes aboard a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oregon in May.” (Hilarie Sorensen/NOAA Fisheries via Reuters).

TODAY: Showers and T-storms. Winds: NW 5-10. High: 75

FRIDAY NIGHT: Showers slowly taper. Low: 60

SATURDAY: Partly sunny, a drier day. Winds: NW 8-13. High: 74

SUNDAY: Mix of clouds and sun, a bit milder. Winds: N 5-10. Wake-up: 62. High: 79

MONDAY: Some sun, stray T-storm possible. Winds: SE 5-10. Wake-up: 61. High: 81

4TH OF JULY: Sunny start, late-day pop-up T-storm. Winds: SE 7-12. Wake-up: 63. High: 84

WEDNESDAY: Hot sun, noticeable heat index. Winds: SE 7-12. Wake-up: 65. High: 88

THURSDAY: Steamy sunshine, Dog Days are back. Winds: S 10-15. Wake-up: 66. High: 91

Climate Stories…

The American South Will Bear the Worst of Climate Change’s Costs. Northern tier states will fare better, but no state will avoid the impact of increasing climate volatility and weather disruption. It turns out many red states will be getting even redder (hotter) in the years to come. Here’s an excerpt from a summary of new research at The Atlantic: “…Across the country’s southern half—and especially in states that border the Gulf of Mexico—climate change could impose the equivalent of a 20-percent tax on county-level income, according to the study. Harvests will dwindle, summer energy costs will soar, rising seas will erase real-estate holdings, and heatwaves will set off epidemics of cardiac and pulmonary disease. The loss of human life dwarfs all the other economic costs of climate change. Almost every county between El Paso, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina, could see their mortality rate rise by more than 20 people out of every 100,000. By comparison, car accidents killed about 11 Americans out of every 100,000 in 2015. But in the South and Southwest, other damages stack up…”

Map credit: New York Times. Kopp, Hsiang, et al. / Science.

Climate Change is Already Hitting Home. It’s not something that’s 30 years down the road – we’re already seeing symptoms of a warmer, wetter world, including more extreme rainfall events, worldwide. Here’s an excerpt of a post from Popular Science and Peter Sinclair at Climate Denial Crock of the Week: “…According to a recent Yale survey, 7 in 10 Americans believe global warming is real and ­happening. And 6 in 10 believe it is affecting U.S. weather. But only 1 in 3 say they’ve personally felt its effects. That disconnect stuck with Heidi Cullen. “You’re never going to think of it as an issue that’s urgent unless you recognize the fact that you’re already being impacted,” says Cullen, chief scientist for the nonprofit Climate Central. Now in its ninth year, Climate Central is part research hub and part journalism outfit—an unusual hybrid that tries to connect climate change to people’s lives. The organization’s latest project, World Weather ­Attribution, identifies direct links between extreme weather events and global warming. Cullen and her team created the program after realizing that while the tools for attributing such events have evolved, the results were coming out too late to influence the conversation…”

Researchers published a landmark study in Science on Thursday that analyzes what climate change will mean for the economies of all 3,144 counties in the U.S. The analysis is the first of its kind, but the results show what’s becoming a common refrain when it comes to the impact of climate change: Rising temperatures will cause the poorest to suffer the most, even in the wealthiest nation in the world.

Union County is just one of a host of poor counties in the South that will be hit disproportionately hard by the impacts of climate change. In contrast, more wealthy counties in the northern third of the country are likely to be insulated from the effects of climate change and could even make economic gains because of new agricultural land opening up and fewer deaths due to cold weather. The findings have broad implications for county planning and the need for a strong, coordinated response to address climate change at the national level.

Researchers published a landmark study in Science on Thursday that analyzes what climate change will mean for the economies of all 3,144 counties in the U.S. The analysis is the first of its kind, but the results show what’s becoming a common refrain when it comes to the impact of climate change: Rising temperatures will cause the poorest to suffer the most, even in the wealthiest nation in the world.

Union County is just one of a host of poor counties in the South that will be hit disproportionately hard by the impacts of climate change. In contrast, more wealthy counties in the northern third of the country are likely to be insulated from the effects of climate change and could even make economic gains because of new agricultural land opening up and fewer deaths due to cold weather. The findings have broad implications for county planning and the need for a strong, coordinated response to address climate change at the national level.

A Giant Iceberg Is About to Break Off From Antarctica. Details at Fortune: “A massive iceberg is “hours, days, or weeks” away from separating from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, scientists based in the United Kingdom said Wednesday. “When it calves, the Larsen C Ice Shelf will lose more than 10% of its area to leave the ice front at its most retreated position ever recorded,” the scientists wrote. “This event will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula.” The iceberg that forms from the predicted separation could end up being roughly the size of Delaware, making it one of the largest icebergs that scientists have ever observed. The event could trigger a collapse of the entire Larsen C ice shelf, a catastrophe that could raise worldwide sea levels by four inches, researchers estimate…”

Image credit: Project Midas. “Comparison of speeds between Sentinel-1 image mosaics in early and late June 2017. The early mosaic combines displacements on the inner shelf measured between 6th and 12th June with similar ones on the outer shelf measured between 3rd and 15th June. The recent mosaic combines inner shelf displacements up to 24th June with outer shelf displacements only 3 days later highlighting a significant acceleration over those three days.”

Climate Change is Not The Only Cause of Greenland Ice Melt. Blame Sunnier Days. My first reaction: what’s causing the sunnier days? Here’s an excerpt from Newsweek: “Greenland’s ice sheet is melting faster than expected, and this has been accelerating over the past two decades. It is now the biggest single contributor to global sea level rise, accounting for 25 percent of the total. But besides warming climes, there is another culprit for the melt: sunnier days in fair Greenland. A paper published June 28 in the journal Science Advances shows that cloud cover has decreased by 14 percent from 1994 to 2009, at an average of just under 1 percent per year. That may not sound like much, but for ice, it’s a big deal. The researchers show that for every 1 percent drop in cloud cover, the amount of ice melt has increased by 27 gigatons. That’s a vast amount of water, approximately equivalent to the domestic water supply of the United States…”

File photo credit: John Sonntag, NASA.

Climate Scientists Just Debunked Deniers’ Favorite Argument. Here’s a clip from an explainer at The Guardian: “…In a new study, a team climate scientists led by Ben Santer sought to answer this question. They effectively disproved Christy’s assertion that the discrepancy was due to models being too sensitive to the increased greenhouse effect. Instead, the main culprit seems to be incorrect inputs used in the climate model simulations. The issue is that climate model simulations are run using specific scenarios. These scenarios assume specific changes in factors that influence global temperature and climate changes (known as “forcings”), like rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases and changes in solar and volcanic activity. Climate models don’t make “predictions;” rather, they make “projections” of how temperatures and other climatological factors will change in response to those forcing input scenarios. There’s also a random component known as “internal variability” due to factors like unpredictable ocean cycles…”

Graphic credit: “Remote Sensing Systems estimate of the temperature of the middle troposphere compared to the CMIP5 multi-model average (top frame), and the difference between the two over time (bottom frame).” Illustration: Santer et al. (2017), Nature Geoscience.

Crossing an Ideological Divide. Full disclosure: EEN President and former Methodist minister Mitch Hescox is my co-author for the book “Caring for Creation”: The Evangelical’s Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment.” Here’s an excerpt of an Op-Ed at The York Dispatch: “…So it was more than a tad refreshing to hear a local conservative weigh in this month in favor of acting on climate change. Mitchell Hescox, president of the York-based Evangelical Environmental Network, said in an essay he penned for the Dispatch that his organization is “part of a growing number of faith-based, bipartisan and conservative groups dedicated to caring for our children’s health by being good stewards of the earth.” He has no trouble reconciling science and religion: “Left unchecked, CO2 levels will continue to rise beyond the over 400 (parts per million) that God intended,” he writes. And he has no trouble reconciling science and political affiliation. Hescox calls on Christians of all political parties to be “good stewards of the earth...”
Three Years to Ward Off Potential “Climate Catastrophe”? I realize the situation is urgent – we don’t know what we don’t know, and tipping points are inevitable. I do get a little leary about some of the more strident gloom and doom headlines though, some people just shut down or avoid the topic when they see things like this. We don’t have much time, but whether it’s 3 years or 15 years – I don’t pretend to know. Here’s an excerpt from The Verge: “To save world from the climate change apocalypse, we need to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a group of scientists claims. We have just three years to do this, or the planet will warm to levels that kick off irreversible, catastrophic climate changes. To help avoid the worst-case scenario, the scientists set six milestones to reduce carbon emissions across sectors, including energy, transportation, and infrastructure. The goals range from expanding renewables to reducing deforestation, to issuing “green bonds” to finance climate-mitigation efforts. This position paper appears in the journal Nature, just ahead of a meeting of world leaders in Hamburg, Germany...”
Pentagon, Trump Are At Odds on Climate Change – and Democrats Are Taking Advantage. The Miami Herald reports: “…Scientists estimate that rising sea levels threaten at least 128 U.S. military bases and installations, nine of which are major hubs for the U.S. Navy. Military installations on waterfront properties are facing hundreds of floods a year, and some could be mostly submerged by 2100, according to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Military leaders have consistently warned that extreme weather patterns, drought and floods are aggravating social tensions, destabilizing regions and feeding the rise of extremist groups like al Qaida and the Islamic State. At his confirmation hearing, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called climate change a “driver of instability” that requires a “whole-of-government response” to address...”

Photo credit: “Army National Guard vehicles travel through floodwaters Aug. 14, 2016, on LA-442, west of Tickfaw, La., as rescue operations continue after heavy rains inundated the region.” Max Becherer AP.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article158716619.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article158716619.html#storylink=cpyPhoto credit: “Army National Guard vehicles travel through floodwaters Aug. 14, 2016, on LA-442, west of Tickfaw, La., as rescue operations continue after heavy rains inundated the region.” Max Becherer AP
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article158716619.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article158716619.html#storylink=cpy
Make Climate Change Bipartisan Again. As recently as 2007 there was little disagreement between Republicans and Democrats about the threat (and opportunity) posed by rapid, man-made climate change. But today the science has been swept up into a partisan political food-fight, argues an Op-Ed at The Tennessean: “…An approach that can find common ground between Republicans and Democrats is “carbon fee and dividend,” whereby a steadily rising fee is placed on fossil fuels, with the revenue returned to consumers. The fee sends a powerful price signal to the marketplace to speed up the transition to a clean-energy economy. Returning revenue to households will shield families from the impact of rising energy costs associated with the fee. To protect American businesses, a border adjustment tariff would be applied to imports from nations that do not have an equivalent price on carbon, providing a strong incentive for countries to follow our lead with a similar policy. Regional Economic Models found that, after 20 years, carbon fee and dividend would reduce emissions 50 percent while adding 2.8 million jobs to the economy…”

File image: TechCrunch.
A Huge Part of Antarctica is Melting, and Scientists Say That’s Bad News. Unusually warm water is melting ice near the coast, which may accelerate ice flows into the oceans, accelerating sea level rise. CNN.com explains: “Antarctica is experiencing weird weather, and the changes have some scientists worried about the future. There’s an area on the west side of the icy continent called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and last January, scientists found a 300,000-square-mile portion of its perimeter was melting. That’s an area roughly two times the size of California, covered in slush. According to recent research published in Nature Communications, the melt was caused by an unusually strong El Niño event around January 2016…”

Climate Change is an Energy Problem, So Let’s Talk Honestly About Nuclear. Until we can get clean, renewable energy at scale, we still need nuclear to provide a carbon-free source of energy. An Op-Ed at The Guardian has food for thought: “…Clearly then, we urgently need a nuanced discussion on our energy future to stave off the worst ravages of climate change. Yet too often this falls at the first hurdle; with old battle-lines long drawn, nuclear advocates and opponents hold their own courts, talking only to their own side and dismissing the criticism and concerns of the other. These echo chambers may be comforting, but they are ultimately detrimental to our collective wellbeing. With the chaos of climate change on our doorstep, it has never been more imperative that we make informed decisions about how best to power our world. For progress to occur, both sides need to heed each other and have an honest conversation about the advantages and risks of all forms of energy production…” (File image: Shutterstock).
The Fact Is: Facts Don’t Matter to Climate Deniers. We tend to filter out facts that may cause conflict with our friends or larger world-view, argues Eric Holthaus at Grist: “…Scientists have spent more than 30 years now trying to provide as much information in as many ways as possible and, if anything, climate denial is only getting more entrenched. What will it take for scientists to realize that this denial is a choice? Decades of communications and psychology research shows that appeals to shared goals, values, and basic decency are a more effective way of working with conservatives on climate change. In red states across the country, renewable energy is booming, and it’s not because people there necessarily “believe” in climate change. It’s because renewable energy provides solutions that make sense. Scientists and liberal politicians need to move beyond trying to convince skeptics, and start working with them. There’s no time to lose...”