Climate Point: Emergency or not? Stymied by Congress, Biden takes some action on climate
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I’m Janet Wilson from Palm Springs, California.
With at least 1,500 dead as record-breaking heatwaves and wildfires fueled by drought rage across Europe, Asia and the American southwest, President Joe Biden this week announced the first of what he said would be a series of executive actions to slow climate change and combat its impacts.
His biggest announcement: a plan to open the Gulf of Mexico for the first time to offshore wind farms that could power more than 3 million homes. He also directed the Department of Interior to advance wind energy development off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina, USA Today's Elizabeth Weise and Kyle Bagenstose report, and announced $2.3 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to help communities prepare for potential heat waves and flooding.
He was forced to move forward on his own after a lone Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of coal-rich West Virginia, refused along with Republicans to vote for a major Congressional climate package. Holding out slim hope that Manchin might change his mind next month, which Manchin said he would consider if inflation subsides, Biden said, "This is an emergency," adding "I will look at it that way."
Biden said he's "running the traps on the totality of the authority I have” and will decide soon whether to declare a climate emergency, per USA Today's Rebecca Morin and Maureen Groppe.
Heatwaves have become more frequent, more intense, and last longer because of human-induced climate change, as BBC reports. The world has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to greenhouse emissions from oil, coal and other industry.
Another tool his administration could use in the wake of a Supreme Court decision limiting the EPA's authority to rein in greenhouse gases from power plants could involve further reducing other harmful pollutants, like ozone and soot, over which it has clear authority, as Lisa Friedman reports for The New York Times. That also would reduce greenhouse gases as a side benefit.
In other news, Eduardo Cuevas with the Democrat and Chronicle writes about New York State's push to monitor air pollution block by block in poor neighborhoods, including the south Bronx, where a Prius dubbed Flash, for rap star Grandmaster Flash, is circling streets measuring key ingredients of harmful smog and soot. It's one story of hundreds available for a $1 subscription that lets you read in USA Today and more than 100 other papers.
Read on for more on whether cooling centers really work during heat waves, a noisy bird that's helping New England scientists, saving giant redwoods during wildfires and more.