Climate Change

"Simultaneous high levels of the two pollutants, which harm human health, are occurring with increasing frequency, researchers say."

"Dangerous levels of two air pollutants, ozone and smoke, are occurring in tandem with increasing frequency over widespread parts of the Western United States where millions of people live, researchers said Wednesday.

The two harmful pollutants are a result of worsening wildfires and extreme heat, and researchers suggest the increase is linked to climate change.

"More than 4 in 10 Americans live in a county that was struck by climate-related extreme weather last year, according to a new Washington Post analysis of federal disaster declarations, and more than 80 percent experienced a heat wave."

"U.S. President Joe Biden was due to visit Colorado on Friday to view the devastation left by a rare, winter wildfire that ravaged two Denver-area towns last week, displacing thousands of residents."

"The nation’s strongest flood-disclosure law for rental properties has taken effect in Texas and is forcing landlords to tell prospective tenants whether an apartment has been flooded and whether it’s in a flood zone."

"When the Bootleg fire tore through a nature reserve in Oregon this summer, the destruction varied in different areas. Researchers say forest management methods, including controlled burns, were a big factor."

"Illinois farmer Jack McCormick planted 350 acres of barley and radishes last fall as part of an off-season crop that he does not intend to harvest. Instead, the crops will be killed off with a weed killer next spring before McCormick plants soybeans in the same dirt."

"Soaring temperatures are rapidly thawing permafrost, leading to huge sinkholes called thermokarst. Northern fires are making the situation even worse."

"As the new year opens, President Biden faces an increasingly narrow path to fulfill his ambitious goal of slashing the greenhouse gases generated by the United States that are helping to warm the planet to dangerous levels."

"Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role. That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a “climate and ecological emergency.”"

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"Deforestation last year rose to the highest level since 2015 in Brazil's Cerrado, prompting scientists on Monday to raise alarm over the state of the world's most species-rich savanna, a major carbon sink that helps to stave off climate change."