nuclear-news

Opinion:

¶ “Did the Hurricanes Change the Climate Debate?” • Strident denial is meeting vivid reality. Never before has the mainland United States been hit by such a powerful combination of hurricanes in the same season. Never before have we had an administration so loudly and unapologetically deny the reality of pollution-caused climate change. [HuffPost]

Hurricane Harvey’s landfall (NOAA image, Wikimedia Commons)

“According to an investigation carried out by a consortium of European newspapers, members of Azerbaijan’s ruling elite used a secret $2.9 billion slush fund — nicknamed the Azerbaijani Laundromat — to pay off European politicians, buy luxury goods, and launder money.” (See RFERL article further below).

While we don’t know yet if this implicates the Trump family, it is suggestive of how things operate in Azerbaijan, and that anyone dealing in Azerbaijan is probably at least somewhat dirty, as is probably the case for Russia.

How to explain this bizarrely located, and unfinished Trump Baku Tower in Azerbaijan? Note the tower in relation to the highway, railroad, shipping containers. It has been suggested that this location is proof of it being a money-laundering enterprise, rather than a serious project, although one cannot exclude sheer stupidity. And, reportedly, the Agalarovs are Baku Azerbaijan born intermediaries between the Trumps and…

Erosion a huge factor as burned areas grow

A wildfire burns in Texas. Photo via U.S. Forest Service.

Staff Report

The growth of wildfires in the West could double the amount of sediment moving through the region’s rivers, U.S. Geological researchers found in a new study. Increased sediments can affect both water quality and the amount of water available for communities.

The USGS scientists analyzed a collection of climate, fire and erosion models for 471 large watersheds throughout the western U.S. They found that by 2050, the amount of sediment in more than one-third of watersheds could at least double. In nearly nine-tenths of the watersheds, sedimentation is projected to increase by more than 10 percent.

Opinion:

¶ “Yes, climate change made Harvey and Irma worse” • Warm water feeds energy to hurricanes, increasing their intensity, and oceans have warmed on an average 1° to 3° F over the last 100 years. Sea levels have risen about 7 inches in that time. Throw in compound flooding from seal level rise and storm surge, and you have a perfect mix for record flooding. [CNN]

Flooding after Irma

¶ “Sachs: Big Oil will have to pay up, like Big Tobacco” • Here is a message to investors in the oil industry, whether pension and insurance funds, university endowments, hedge funds or other asset managers: Your investments are going to sour. The growing devastation caused by climate change is going to blow a hole in your fossil-fuel portfolio. [CNN]

¶ “What can Kodiak teach the world about renewable energy? A lot.” • Since 2007, Kodiak Island…

Air travel accounts for one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas pollution. @bberwyn photo.

Agency’s move could violate federal environmental laws

Staff Report

A little more than a year after determining that greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft are a threat to public health, the EPA has stopped working on developing new standards for the air industry.

That’s not surprising, given that the Trump administration has sought to undermine nearly every rule set to limit heat-trapping pollution, but environmental advocates with the Center for Biological Diversity want to know more about the latest step backward by the EPA.