Extreme weather

Wet Bulb Temperature Is The Scariest Part Of The Climate Crisis

July 18, 2021 Tim Andersen, Medium. Educate! climate crisis, Extinction, Extreme weather, livable future

Wet bulb temperature is one of those features of climate change caused by global warming that often gets left out when discussing the radical changes our planet is going to experience in the coming years. Discussion has largely focused on issues such as drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, storm activity, and even unusual cold. The impacts of increased heat have been left out because we assume, incorrectly it turns out, that human beings can adapt to moderate increases in global temperature. This turns out to be false, particularly in areas prone to hot and humid weather. It all comes down to one measure: wet bulb temperature. Wet bulb temperature is the one factor, more than any other, that can render entire regions uninhabitable. Wet bulb temperature is essentially the temperature of a wet thermometer bulb such that the water is able to evaporate into the air.

Climate Breakdown And The Corporate Media

July 13, 2021 Media Lens. Strategize! climate crisis, Corporatism, Extreme weather, Media

In today’s world, the prospects for human civilisation, never mind the existence of historians in the future, look bleak indeed. According to many leading climate scientists and biologists, the most likely outcome for humanity is the collapse of what is called ‘civilisation’. They warn that it may already be too late to change course.

Heat Waves Prompt Workers To Walk Out

July 4, 2021 Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post. Resist! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workers Walkout

Alicia Lara works the drive-thru at a Jack In The Box in Sacramento. The 55-year-old mother of four says the air conditioning unit inside the restaurant tends to conk out when she needs it most, including during a recent mid-June heat wave. According to Lara, the unit was not working on June 18 when the outside temperature soared well above 100 degrees. The open window at the drive-thru brought little relief, and she feared for the safety of her co-worker laboring over the grill. “Most of the heat is in the kitchen and at the fryers,” she told HuffPost. “Even if we open the window, it’s still too hot.” Lara was one of several workers affiliated with the Fight for $15 who protested outside the restaurant on Tuesday, saying they were walking off the job because the air conditioner still wasn’t working properly.

The Heat Wave Shows Climate Change Is A Workers’ Rights Issue

July 3, 2021 Mindy Isser, In These Times. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, Worker Rights and Jobs

While the 100 million computer workers in this country are more likely to be able to work safely indoors, other urgent and necessary work must continue outdoors, no matter the severity of the weather. The entirety of the working class is (or will be) affected by climate change, but it’s farm workers, letter carriers, construction workers, sanitation workers and other outdoor workers who are unable to escape to air conditioning, and are on the front lines of the environmental crisis.

A Deadly Summer In The Pacific Northwest Augurs More Heat Waves

July 2, 2021 Bob Berwyn, James Bruggers, and Liza Gross, Inside Climate News. Educate! Canada, climate crisis, Deaths, Extreme weather

It was the most extreme heat wave on record in the Pacific Northwest. And as officials count the heat-related deaths over the next weeks, it will almost certainly turn out to be one of the deadliest. In Vancouver, British Columbia, police responded to at least 65 sudden deaths suspected to be heat-related. And the province’s chief coroner said Wednesday that at least 486 deaths likely linked to the heat had been reported since Friday. The residents of one British Columbia community, Lytton, where a temperature of 121 degrees Fahrenheit was higher than any ever recorded in Canada, were ordered to evacuate because of an encroaching wildfire. “We’ve never seen anything like this, and it breaks our hearts,” said Sgt. Steve Addison, a spokesman for the Vancouver police department.

New Climate Prediction: Likely To Reach 1.5C In The Next Five Years

May 30, 2021 World Meteorological Organization. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, United Nations

Geneva - There is about a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level in at least one of the next five years – and these odds are increasing with time, according to a new climate update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). There is a 90% likelihood of at least one year between 2021-2025 becoming the warmest on record, which would dislodge 2016 from the top ranking, according to the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, produced by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, the WMO lead centre for such predictions. Over 2021-2025, high-latitude regions and the Sahel are likely to be wetter and there is an increased chance of more tropical cyclones in the Atlantic compared to the recent past (defined as the 1981-2010 average).

Hawaii Is The First US State To Declare A Climate Emergency

April 30, 2021 Kate Yoder, Grist. Create! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Hawaii

The word “emergency” usually conjures images of ambulances with flashing lights, homes going up in flames, or tornadoes tearing through a town. But increasingly, governments are using the word to describe a slower-burning crisis: climate change. On Thursday, Hawaii became the first state to declare a “climate emergency,” joining 1,933 cities, town councils, and countries, including the European Union. According to The Climate Mobilization, a U.S.-based advocacy group, almost 13 percent of the global population now lives in a jurisdiction that has made a similar declaration. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the country’s only island state, and only one in the tropics, is signaling the need for more drastic action on climate change.

Saving Ourselves: Autonomous Disaster Relief In Texas

March 13, 2021 It's Going Down. Create! Extreme weather, Failed State, Mutual Aid, Texas

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with participants in autonomous groups across Texas, including Cooperation Denton, Stop the Sweeps in Austin, Mutual Aid Houston, Houston Tenants Union, and North Texas Rural Resilience. The first in a two part series, this episode discusses the devastating storms which rocked Texas and the Southwest and the context that the “big freeze” happened within: from anti-Black police violence and attacks on the homeless community, to widespread neoliberal policies that left infrastructure and housing stock dilapidated and on the verge of collapse.

Atlantic Ocean Current At Weakest State In ‘Over A Millennium’

February 27, 2021 Daisy Dunne, The Independent. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Oceans

The Atlantic Ocean current that plays a major role in the world’s weather is at its weakest state in “over a millennium”, researchers have found. The research combines various lines of evidence to create a “consistent picture” of how the ocean current system, which is known as the “Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation” (AMOC), has changed over the past 1,600 years. Sometimes called the Atlantic’s “conveyer belt”, the AMOC is a vast ocean current system that moves warm, salty water from the tropics to regions further north, such as the UK. The gulf stream is part of the AMOC. As the AMOC carries warm water northward, it releases heat into the atmosphere. The release of ocean heat keeps countries warm – and without it, winters in the UK could be close to 5C colder.

Half Of Texas Without Clean Water

February 22, 2021 Chase Lawrence, WSWS. Educate! Energy, Extreme weather, Texas, Water

More than 14.6 million Texans, about half of the population of the state, remained under a boil-water advisory Friday, according to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokeswoman Tiffany Young. This encompasses more than 1,225 water supply systems and 63 percent of Texas counties following the record winter storm which hit the state last weekend. In a press conference Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros stated that “we know that there are tens of thousands of leaks,” and that the Austin Fire Department responded to “thousands upon thousands of burst pipes.” In Houston, the fire department received almost 5,000 reports of burst pipes. Texas Republican officials are currently in the process of trying to pin the blame on each other for the disaster. Governor Greg Abbott blamed the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), claiming that it told state officials five days before the blackouts that everything would be under control.

Snowstorm + Capitalism = Disaster For More Than 100,000 In Mississippi

February 20, 2021 Bezaleel Jupiter and Satya Vatti, Liberation News. Educate! Capitalism, Extreme weather, Mississippi, Power outage

This week, Mississippi is experiencing unprecedented freezing conditions resulting from ice storms that blasted through the U.S. South. In addition to being unaccustomed to the freezing rain, ice, and snow, thousands of Mississippians suffering rolling blackouts and power outages, unheated homes and water shutoffs, have been left to fend for themselves. Starting Feb 15, at least 250,000 Mississippians have lost power at some point during the week; counties in the southwest to east central Mississippi are primarily impacted. About 110,000 people were still without power on Feb. 19 in the morning. Almost all of the residents of the state’s capital city, Jackson, are without water. City officials have reported lacking the necessary chemicals to treat the water, and that the distribution system is overwhelmed.

Texas’s Independent Electric Grid Leaves Millions Without Power

February 18, 2021 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Educate! Electric Grid, Energy, Extreme weather, Texas

On Tuesday, millions of Texans woke up to find themselves without power as unusually cold conditions for the state knocked out the state’s power grid. The blackouts began on Monday when the state grappled with a winter storm and record low temperatures. Over 4.3 million people in Texas remain without power as the state’s power grid struggles to keep up with high demand. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state’s grid, had originally announced 45-minute rolling blackouts starting around 1:25 a.m. in order to conserve energy. But the blackouts instead extended throughout the day and into Tuesday, and there is still uncertainty about when they will end.

Destabilized By US Imperialism, Central America Faces Climate Catastrophes

November 21, 2020 Giovanni Batz, The Red Nation. Educate! Central America, climate crisis, Extreme weather, US Imperialism

At the moment, Central America is suffering from the acceleration of climate change fueled natural disasters. On the heels of the recent Hurricane Eta and a raging pandemic, Hurricane Iota has hit the region, predominantly impacting Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and black communities. The situation has been made worse by violent and corrupt governments supported by the United States. Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Central America have long warned against climate change and environmental destruction caused by foreign-owned and operated extractivist projects.

Record 7 Million People Displaced By Extreme Weather Events In First Half Of 2019

September 16, 2019 By Olivia Rosane, Ecowatch.com Educate! Climate Change, climate crisis, Displacement, Extreme weather

In another sign of the climate crisis, a record seven million people were displaced from their homes by extreme weather events during the first half of 2019, The New York Times reported Thursday. The number comes from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), which has been using data from governments, UN humanitarian agencies and news accounts to publish annual reports since 2003. Their mid-year figures for 2019, published Thursday, marked the highest number of disaster displacements the organization has ever recorded by this point in the year.

Killer Heat In The United States: Climate Choices And The Future Of Dangerously Hot Days (2019)

July 18, 2019 Staff, Ucsusa.org Educate! Climate Change, Extreme weather, Heat

Extreme heat is poised to rise steeply in frequency and severity over the coming decades, bringing unprecedented health risks for people and communities across the country. The United States is facing a potentially staggering expansion of dangerous heat over the coming decades. This analysis shows the rapid, widespread increases in extreme heat that are projected to occur across the country due to climate change, including conditions so extreme that a heat index cannot be measured. The analysis also finds that the intensity of the coming heat depends heavily on how quickly we act now to reduce heat-trapping emissions.

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