Climate Change

Ian Angus challenges a left-wing magazine that promotes geoengineering, nuclear power, carbon storage and other techno-fixes as solutions to climate change. 

“To say that ‘science and technology can solve all our problems in the long run,’ is much worse than believing in witchcraft.” — István Mészáros

Five years ago, Superstorm Sandy ripped through the most populous city in the United States, spreading destruction fueled by climate change. Today, New York City's mayor said it was time to "break the cycle" by suing the culprits — fossil fuel companies.

Experts say this "historic and unprecedented year of disastrous extremes" reinforces "the fact that climate change is a threat to our health, and also a threat to our economy."

On Thursday, the Trump Administration moved to open up vast expanses of protected coastline for offshore drilling. The plan opens up 90 percent of U.S. offshore reserves to private companies: from 2019 to 2024, forty-seven new leases are planned for the waters off Alaska, California, the Eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico.

Click for an animation of temperature anomalies since 1900

December 22

Louisiana is finalizing a plan to move thousands of people from areas threatened by the rising Gulf of Mexico, effectively declaring uninhabitable a coastal area larger than Delaware.

A draft of the plan, the most aggressive response to climate-linked flooding in the U.S., calls for prohibitions on building new homes in high-risk areas, buyouts of homeowners who live there now and hikes in taxes on those who won’t leave. Commercial development would still be allowed, but developers would need to put up bonds to pay for those buildings’ eventual demolition.

December 18, 2017