Search Results for "Climate Change"

By Jonathan Levy, Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University; Howard Frumkin, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington; Jonathan PatzProfessor of Environmental Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Vijay LimayeAdjunct Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Trump administration took a major step in its efforts to unravel America’s climate policies on Thursday, when it moved to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding — a formal determination that six greenhouse gases that drive climate change, including carbon dioxide and methane from burning fossil fuels, endanger public health and welfare.

But the administration’s arguments in dismissing the health risks of climate change are not only factually wrong, they’re deeply dangerous to Americans’ health and safety....

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Last year was a tough time for anyone who studies climate change for a living. The United States, once respected around the world for its sprawling investments in science, suddenly reversed course. Shortly after President Donald Trump began his second term in office, his administration set to work slashing funds for America’s scientific institutions, scrapping billions of dollars in research grants and firing thousands of federal employees at agencies ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

People were “in shock,” said Aparna Shrivastava, who was a senior climate official in the Biden administration. In private chats, she found herself in conversation with dozens of experts who had recently lost their jobs or funding, but who wanted to continue studying the rapidly warming planet or trying to prevent its worst effects. But the sudden cuts left many with few options....

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is demanding answers after Justice Samuel Alito abruptly stepped aside from a blockbuster Supreme Court climate case.

The Journal's editorial board addressed the recusal in an opinion piece on Tuesday. It warned that Alito's absence from Suncor Energy v. Boulder County opens the door to a 4-4 deadlock when the justices hear arguments Monday.

"That's regrettable," the board wrote....

President Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda not only is “making everyone’s lives more expensive” but also is expected to have deadly and destructive consequences far beyond the borders of the United States, as made clear in a global emissions report released Wednesday.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) put out “The Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return” in preparation for the next UN Climate Change Conference in Türkiye. It warns that the world’s chance to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels “with ‘no or limited’ overshoot has been lost.”

While that is a global failure, a key factor is Trump’s return to power in the United States last year. After pledging to roll back his predecessor’s meager climate action policies if fossil fuel executives pumped money into his campaign, the Republican president has pursued a range of polluting actions, which include abandoning the Paris Agreement, again....

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a climate case that could make or break efforts to stop rising temperatures before they reach the point of no return.

Our planet is hotter than it has ever been, at any time, in the entire history of modern civilization.The six warmest years on record have all been within the last 10, and world scientists agree unequivocally that fossil fuel emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, is the cause.

In assessing whether the world will shift to renewables before much of the planet becomes uninhabitable, timing is everything. The non-political Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report gives only until 2030 to cap global warming at an increase of 1.5°C before climate shifts accelerate to a point that can’t be reversed. The goals of the Paris Treaty, which Trump pulled the U.S. out of because his Democratic predecessors supported it, are also to cap global temperatures at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels....

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has abruptly reversed course and will now sit out a major climate case just days before the high court opens its new term.

Alito will not participate when the justices hear Suncor Energy v. Boulder County on Oct. 5 — the first case scheduled for oral arguments this term.

“Justice Alito has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case,” a letter sent to lawyers involved in the case said, according to NBC News....