Records indicate that June is now hotter than ever before, and hot weather is lingering deeper into September. This is all due to climate change. And there’s no question that these longer durations of extreme hot weather impose health risks. Environmental Protection Agency data shows that over the last seven…
The Trump administration moved quickly to dismantle federal climate regulations and is also taking efforts to stop the enforcement of climate state laws, calling them unconstitutional, unenforceable and preempted by federal laws. But the states are fighting back. “We don’t want Washington, D.C., telling us we can’t govern the way…
Chris Wright, the secretary of the Department of Energy, did not deny climate change in his Senate confirmation hearing. “The solution is to evolve our energy system,” he said. “I am for all energy systems that can better human lives and reduce emissions.” But what he really meant is what…
I recently visited the blue whales in the Sea of Cortez near Loreto, Mexico. These majestic mammals, the largest among us, are 85 feet long. They are an endangered species. There used to be 250,000 of them. Now only 10,000 or so remain. Their diet entirely consists of krill, tiny…
I was just in central California right before the Los Angeles fires started. The effects of climate change are all around us. And the only solution is to dramatically cut down on the use of fossil fuels. But how do we do that when our federal government seems to be…
The Inflation Reduction Act was one of President Joe Biden’s great accomplishments and an opportunity for real progress on climate change, and President-elect Donald Trump wants to get rid of it. “I will rescind all the unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act,” Trump said in a speech before…
I grew up in the upper Midwest surrounded by forests. Every Christmas we would go into the nearby woods to cut down a tree. I can still remember how wonderful the fresh cut northern Balsams smelled. The Christmas, or Solstice, tree is an old tradition. It started with Nordic and…
This month marks the fifth year that I’ve been writing this climate change column. It was originally published in the Albuquerque Journal North in November of 2019. In the last five years there has been progress on climate change, but as most of us know, we are not moving fast…
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines a tipping point as a critical threshold in a complex system that when exceeded can lead to change that is irreversible. We know that all our planetary tipping points are related to rising temperatures. The challenging factor is that we do not fully…
In the last few weeks as the hoopla of an election year has taken focus, we have seen the stark contrast of two distinct versions of the future presented by our two major parties. Not only does the viability of our democracy hang in the balance but the livability of…
