Climate Point: Americans fret amid hottest summer. And flamingos in Ohio?
Hurricane Idalia delivered a flood of flamingos this week and the nation’s residents are increasingly pondering their warmer future.
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and environmental news. I’m Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national climate and environment writer at Paste BN.
To say hurricane season has been busy so far this year is putting it mildly. In the Atlantic, the season’s 4th hurricane, Lee, formed this week in unusually warm ocean temperatures, and in the Pacific, Hurricane Jova rapidly intensified.
Idalia, which wrecked communities in a historic landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast before barreling through Georgia and the Carolinas, proved hurricanes can both give and take away.
More than 150 flamingos arrived in the country in Idalia’s wake, showing up in ten states as of Sept. 7, from Florida to Pennsylvania and Ohio and west to Texas. Wildlife watchers were shocked to see the birds and bird watchers hit the road, trying to get a glimpse of the exotic pink birds. The interest from some birdwatchers and photographers who ventured too close has prompted urgent warnings from wildlife officials and others to give the birds some space.
Florida Audubon and others hope the birds linger and re-establishing a breeding colony in the state for the first time in a century. Experts say the birds were likely picked up from a breeding colony in the Yucatan, where Idalia lingered for several days getting organized.
Meanwhile in Florida, Idalia washed out 20% of the sea turtle nests that had been found at Navarre Beach and Pensacola Beach in the western panhandle. While the rest of the state is having a record year for sea turtle nests, the director of the Navarre Beach Sea Turtle Conservation Center, Cathy Holmes, said this is their worst season in more than 25 years, writes Tom McLaughlin with the Paste BN network in Florida.
Idalia’s landfall in beleaguered Florida was also a reminder of fears about insurance availability in the state, writes Elizabeth Weise with Paste BN.
Climate change concerns
Data shows this was the hottest summer on record and that’s causing a growing worry for many, as scientists credit the heat with making many weather events more extreme. Yet another heat wave blanketed much of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast this week.
It was also the hottest August on record – by a large margin – and the second-hottest month ever, after July 2023, according to the World Meteorological Organization and the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Ocean temperatures also continued at unprecedented high temperatures
An exclusive Paste BN/Ipsos poll found that 20% of Americans fear climate change may force them to move. A full 68% of those polled said extreme weather events will become more frequent soon, and 39% said climate change was harming their everyday life.
Climate change is personal for residents of Juneau, Alaska, where one of the city’s major tourist attractions is melting right before their eyes. The Mendenhall Glacier is receding so quickly that it might no longer be visible from its visitor center. The city is struggling with managing tourists and traffic from the cruise ships that deliver them.
In a new study, scientists directly linked greenhouse gas emissions to a decline in polar bear cub survival.
After a Montana ruling in favor of youths concerned about the climate, the Arizona Republic’s Joan Meiners asked Arizona activists and officials what the decision could mean.
Saying goodbye to Jimmy Buffett
While millions of Parrotheads and other music fans mourned the passing of Jimmy Buffett, Jim Waymer, an environment writer with the Paste BN network in Florida, wrote about the singer/songwriter’s advocacy for one of the state’s most-beloved marine mammals, the manatee. Buffett and Florida’s former governor, Bob Graham, helped co-found the Save the Manatee Club in 1981.
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