Right. If you saw the (all too real) Christmas tweet from the (actual, sitting) congressman Thomas Massie, coming on the heels of the latest mass shooting, and sporting a Christmas (Prince of Peace!) theme, you may have thought the guy was a total triple “A” a-hole. And you’d be right.
And because it’s generally true that the most awful people tend to be science and climate change deniers, right, he is that as well. John Kerry called it right way back in 2020. This video is really something.
Breaking news: Congressman Massie has tested positive for being an asshole. He must be quarantined to prevent the spread of his massive stupidity. He's given new meaning to the term #Masshole. (Finally, something the president and I can agree on!) https://t.co/N1CNLPsZjc
I came across this looking for something else on my hard drive.
Long time observers will remember Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, who, with no scientific credentials, confidently predicted a sharp drop in global temperatures, back in the late 2000s. How did he do?
Well, this helps explain a lot. My Yale Climate Connections video above describes the climatic changes behind increases in extreme rains across the country and around the world, including a specific catastrophic incident in my local area.
Think your area has had more rain than usual? You’re probably right.
Think your area has had less rain than usual? Again, you’re probably right.
For our climate change investigation out this week, called Downpour, USA TODAY reporters used 126 years of monthly data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to analyze average annual precipitation at 344 climate divisions. They used daily precipitation data from weather stations to measure the change in frequency of extreme rain events across the U.S. from 1951-2020.
“We were hearing a lot about extreme rainfall, stories of flooding, people with sewer backups, people flooded out of their homes, and we wanted to know, is this happening everywhere?,” said Dinah Pulver, one of the project’s lead reporters. “How many people, how many places, are contending with this kind of rainfall?
We found more than half of the nation’s 344 climate divisions had their wettest periods on record since 2018. We calculated the same rolling averages for states.
“East of the Rockies, more rain is falling, and it’s coming in more intense bursts,” our report finds. “In the West, people are waiting longer to see any rain at all.
“Taken together, the reporting reveals a stunning shift in the way precipitation falls in America.”
At some point over the past three years, 27 states – all east of the Rocky Mountains – hit their highest 30-year precipitation average since record keeping began in 1895.
A dozen states, including Iowa, Ohio and Rhode Island, saw five of their 10 wettest years in history over the past two decades.
Michigan saw six of its wettest 10 years on record over the past 13 years.
At the opposite extreme, eight states – including five in the West – had at least three record-dry years in the same time period. That’s double what would be expected based on historical patterns.
Just six months after a “once in a thousand year” heat event in the Pacific Northwest, the same area is recording unprecedented warmth, which extends over much of North America. Below, see my Yale Climate Connections video on the June event.
A widespread and intense heatwave is roasting large portions of the U.S. and Canada, shattering daily and monthly temperature records.
Why it matters: Winter is the fastest-warming season across the U.S., and the lingering warmth is shortening the snow season in places like Colorado and Montana, where mountain snowpack is a critical source of water during the summer months.
The big picture: On Wednesday, British Columbia saw its highest temperature ever recorded during the month of December, with a high of 72.5°F recorded in Penticton, which is 250 miles east of Vancouver. This tied the country’s all-time record high for the month.
By the numbers: Temperatures across the Plains, portions of the Rockies and Central states are running as much as 35°F above average for this time of year.
Four states have tied or broken records for the hottest temperatures seen during December: Washington, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota, according to weather historian Maximiliano Herrera.
In Denver, Colorado, which often picks up heavy snow at the start and end of winter, it has not yet snowed, setting a record for the latest measurable snowfall. The forecast high temperature on Thursday is in the mid-70s, about 30°F above average for this time of year.
Records are expected to fall Thursday in Denver, Omaha, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Missouri among other locations. According to Herrera, Hettinger, North Dakota, located just north of the South Dakota border, hit 71°F on Wednesday, setting a monthly record for the state.
In Cheyenne, Wyo., the temperature reached 70°F on Thursday, setting a state record for the month of December. A monthly record was also set in Nebraska, according to the National Weather Service.
The warmth, combined with powerful atmospheric river events rolling in off the Pacific Ocean has eaten away at the snowpack in the Pacific Northwest and Canadian Rockies, contributing to flooding at lower elevations.
Working on a piece examining, among other things, how liquified natural gas exports mean that US consumers are now competing in a global market, with inevitable price rises. I’ve spoken to a number of smart people about this, including James Osborn, who covers energy for the Houston Chronicle. (above)
Until recently, the US natural gas market stood apart from the world. Exports by pipeline to Canada and Mexico increased steadily over the past decade, but North America remained a regional market. Booming production from the Marcellus, Permian Basin and other large shale gas plays kept US natural gas prices well below those in Europe or Asia.
However, that closed system has cracked open. In 2016, the first shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG) from the lower 48 states left the US by tanker. What started as a trickle has become a flood. In the first six months of 2021, US LNG exports averaged 9.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day, an increase of 42% compared with 2020 and 10% of the nation’s gas production, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
With the US Henry Hub natural gas benchmark price still well below prices on the global market, gas companies could fetch much more for their product in Europe, Japan or South Korea than at home. “This price difference has supported record volumes of US LNG exports,” says the EIA’s Victoria Zaretskaya.
The flipside is that with natural gas producers chasing higher prices overseas, even the US is beginning to feel the pinch of higher prices at home. US natural gas prices have more than doubled since the beginning of the year. Over the past decade, cheap natural gas and increasingly competitive wind and solar power delivered a knockout blow to the US coal plant fleet. However, if US natural gas prices remain high, propped up by LNG exports, renewables’ next victim could be their erstwhile ally in killing coal.
It has been another record year for renewable energy, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and rising costs for raw materials around the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
About 290GW of new renewable energy generation capacity, mostly in the form of wind turbines and solar panels, has been installed around the world this year, beating the previous record last year. On current trends, renewable energy generating capacity will exceed that of fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined by 2026.
New climate and energy policies in many countries around the world have driven the growth, with many governments setting out higher ambitions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions before and at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last month.
However, this level of growth is still only about half that required to meet net zero carbon emissions by mid-century.
Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said: “This year’s record renewable energy additions are yet another sign that a new global energy economy is emerging. The high commodity and energy prices we are seeing today pose new challenges for the renewable industry, but elevated fossil fuel prices also make renewables even more competitive.”
According to the IEA report, published on Wednesday, renewables will account for about 95% of the increase in global power-generation capacity from now to the end of 2026, with solar power alone providing about half of the increase.
The mother of Michigan school shooting suspect Ethan Crumbley — 43-year-old Jennifer Crumbley — penned an open letter to then-president-elect Donald Trump in 2016, thanking him for “allowing my right to bear arms.”
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In November 2016, Jennifer Crumbley posted her open letter to Trump on her blog, the Daily Beast reported. Her husband, James Crumbley, wrote above a link to his wife’s open letter on Facebook, “My wife can be spot on. Sometimes.”
15-year-old Ethan Crumbley was charged as an adult with terrorism causing death and 4 counts of 1st Degree Murder. He was also charged with 7 counts of assault with intent to murder and 12 counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. https://t.co/zO4mmgBM1o
In a move that I’ve been waiting for, a major announcement of new transmission that will run underground, alleviating the siting concerns that have bedeviled clean energy developers set to bring clean energy from the heartland and plains to the population centers where customers live.
There’s another key under grounding project, the so-called SOO line that is proposed across Iowa and Illinois, which has been held up by bureaucratic nonsense between regional system operators and FERC. Still hoping for that one to be built, but this announcement seems like a big deal to me.
This $11B clean infrastructure project comprised of over 20 wind and solar generation projects – all located in New York State – and a new 174-mile, underground transmission line, will enable the delivery of more than 7.5 million megawatt-hours of emissions-free energy into New York City every year. The project will help ensure New York State meets its nation-leading climate goals while creating over 8,300 jobs, and saving New York State ratepayers millions each year in energy costs in its first 25 years of operation. Environmental justice is at the core of the Clean Path NY project and we believe the new green economy must benefit all New Yorkers. The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Forward Power – a joint venture between energyRe, LLC and Invenergy, LLC – are partners on the project.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) finalized contracts for the construction of its Clean Path NY (CPNY) and Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) projects that will greatly alter the state’s energy mix.
If approved, the CPNY and CHPE projects will add to New York’s existing pipeline of large-scale renewable energy projects, comprised of nearly 100 solar and both onshore and offshore wind projects totaling 11,000 MW of clean power — enough to power over 5 million New York homes when completed. This pipeline of renewable projects will generate more than 60% of New York’s electricity once operational.
The state’s first-of-its-kind renewable energy and transmission projects are expected to drastically reduce greenhouse gases and improve air quality and generate $8.2 billion in economic development across the state, including investments in disadvantaged communities. As the largest transmission projects contracted for New York State in the last 50 years, these projects will reduce the city’s fossil fuel use for electricity by more than 80% in 2030 when combined with the state’s deployment of clean energy and offshore wind.
The is development puts New York on track for its goal of producing 70% of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030 as outlined in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection
