Washington Post (September 29)
“Climate change is rapidly fueling super hurricanes. An unprecedented number of storms rated Category 4 or stronger have lashed the U.S. shoreline in recent years.” Factors include “the warming waters…that give hurricanes more energy to release through crushing winds and pounding waves.” Moreover, climate change may be slowing the movement of storms, giving them “a greater opportunity to strengthen and destroy as long as day-to-day conditions remain ripe.”
Tags: Category 4, Climate change, Energy, Factors, Fueling, Hurricanes, Shoreline, Storms, Super hurricanes, U.S., Unprecedented, Warming, Waters, Waves, Winds
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (February 16)
“Once again, Texans are suffering because of a failure of disaster planning and investment to prepare for the worst. First, it was the pandemic…. This time, it’s an unprecedented — but, importantly, not unpredictable — stretch of cold weather and storms blanketing the entire state.” The resulting power outages could have been prevented. “There must be accountability. People must be fired. Companies must be fined and required to do better. Winterization of power plants must be a priority.”
Tags: Accountability, Cold, Disaster planning, Failure, Fined, Fired, Investment, Pandemic, Power outages, Prepare, Storms, Suffering, Texans, Unprecedented, Weather, Winterization
The Economist (December 5)
“Europe and America have shown that King Coal can be dethroned.” Next Asia must step up to “topple coal.” Fortunately, this “is overwhelmingly in Asia’s interest to do so. Its people, infrastructure and agriculture are dangerously exposed to the droughts, flooding, storms and rising sea levels caused by climate change….. Coal’s days are numbered. The sooner it is consigned to museums and history books, the better.”
Tags: Agriculture, Asia, Coal, Dethroned, Droughts, Europe, Exposed, Flooding, Infrastructure, Sea levels, Storms, Topple, U.S.
LA Times (December 19)
While the Trump administration is busy removing references to issues it would rather not acknowledge and covering them up with doublespeak, “the reality is that…the burning of fossil fuels by humans, spewing carbon and other greenhouse gases into the air… has increased the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. And unless we take quick and radical steps… the world as we know it will change, with species die-offs, coastline changes, more intense major storms and altered drought and rain patterns. And it will happen whether Trump uses the words ‘climate change’ or not.”
Tags: Carbon, Climate change, Die-offs, Doublespeak, Drought, Fossil fuels, Greenhouse gases, Reality, Storms, Trump
Houston Chronicle (August 26)
“Once again, a hurricane has slammed ashore on our coastline and all too many Texans will now face the daunting task of cleaning up and starting over.” Current Texans can take solace by remembering “that generations of Texans have survived storms as bad and even worse than Harvey. At the same time, let’s also remember a lesson we’ve learned through bitter experience: We can’t prevent hurricanes from hitting us, but we have to do everything we can to prepare for them.”
Tags: Cleaning up, Coastline, Hurricane, Prepare, Starting over, Storms, Survive, Texas
