In his first comments on the disaster since late last week, Biden said he wanted to ensure a possible presidential visit wouldn’t impede recovery efforts.
Climate Change
Cook County residents are now eligible for assistance, including grants for temporary housing and home repairs and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, officials said.
The United States is now at a record 15 different weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced. It’s the most mega-disasters through the first seven months of the year since the agency tracked such things starting in 1980.
July is shaping up to be the warmest month on Earth in recorded history. But that heat isn’t just impacting the atmosphere — it’s having an impact on the ground beneath our feet.
Experts now say they expect “complete mortality” of the bleached reefs in just a week, and worry reefs at greater depths could face the same fate if the unprecedented ocean warmth continues to escalate.
The long-term forecast looks bleak. The extreme heat could continue into August in some of the hardest-hit areas and even a brief glimmer of cooler hope for some parts of the country headed into the weekend will only mean new areas swelter as a heat dome slides west.
Heat preparedness has generally improved over the years. Chicago, for example, has expanded its emergency text and email notification system and identified its most vulnerable residents for outreach.
Earth’s average temperature set a new unofficial record high Thursday, the third such milestone in a week that prominent scientist says could be the hottest in 120,000 years. But it’s also a record with some legitimate scientific questions and caveats.
Cities across the U.S. from Medford, Oregon to Tampa, Florida have been hovering at all-time highs, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Beijing reported nine straight days last week when the temperature exceeded 95 F.
The last time Chicago saw nearly 9 inches of rain was Aug. 13-14, 1987, according to the National Weather Service. On average, the city gets 3.7 inches of rain during all of July, according to the National Weather Service.
Already wildfires are consuming three times more of the United States and Canada each year than in the 1980s, and studies predict fire and smoke to worsen.
The impact of climate change is being felt across the planet in ways large and small. But it is increasingly clear that the impact of climate change is not felt equally.
The entire state of Minnesota and most of Wisconsin were under air quality alerts Wednesday as a gray haze from wildfire smoke shifted south, according to the National Weather Service.
A black bear was caught on video running through the parking lot of a Gurnee daycare. Wildlife officials confirmed the sighting as the real deal.
While Canadian officials asked other countries for help fighting more than 400 blazes nationwide that already have displaced 20,000 people, air quality with what the U.S. rates as hazardous levels of pollution extended into central New York.
For the U.S. to transition to clean energy, it will take technologies beyond wind and solar to fuel airplanes, generate electricity and power industry. And the Biden administration is increasingly looking towards hydrogen to meet the demand – a source of energy that burns without pollution and that can be derived from water.
