A climate tax? Hawaii is trying it.
A warming climate, rising sea levels and the role people play in both competed for headlines this week along with the approaching hurricane season, a separate but related topic for many.
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to stories about climate change, energy and the environment. I'm Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent with Paste BN in Florida, where I'll be updating my own emergency supplies over the next couple of weeks.
As lifelong Floridians, we stood on the shores of Lake Michigan on a freezing evening this spring marveling at a sign that advised staying off the shelf ice for safety. But a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan reminds us this week that climate change is altering life even in our most northern climates.
Pinpointing climate trends in Great Lakes
“The Great Lakes has officially entered a new climate era, and the past is no longer a reliable guide for the future,” reports Caitlin Looby with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
By looking at 80 years of history on the Great Lakes, a new study by the University of Michigan found weather extremes in the region increasingly will become more extreme. Researchers found they could look back in history and pinpoint when each of the five lakes and the region began shifting to a new climate reality.
That’s escalating the risks for ecosystems, fisheries, water quality and utilities, the study found. As previous climate research has done, this study traced the climate shift back to the late 1990s, around the time of one of the most powerful El Niño events on record, according to Hazem Abdelhady, a postdoctoral researcher and study co-author.
Over the past eight decades, the upper Great Lakes — Superior, Huron and Michigan — experienced the largest change in heat wave intensity. The strength of Lake Superior’s heat waves has more than tripled, according to the study. Heat wave intensity in Lakes Huron and Michigan has more than doubled. Read more about Great Lakes ice during the 2024-2025 winter season here.
Hawaii launches climate tax
Hawaii has become the first state in the nation to begin charging a climate impact fee on tourists and plans to use the money raised to make the state more resilient to climate change and for environmental stewardship. The fee will apply to travelers in hotels, short-term vacation rentals and cruise ships.
"As an island chain, Hawaii cannot wait for the next disaster to hit before taking action," said Governor Josh Green.
A warming world and greenhouse gas emissions
International experts said this week they expect human-caused warming to continue baking the globe over the next several years, with temperatures expected to remain at or near record levels.
Over the next five years, they see an 80% chance of at least one year with record global temperatures, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization, which is the U.N. weather agency, and the U.K. Met Office.
“We have just experienced the ten warmest years on record," said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett, in a statement. She added that means "a growing negative impact on our economies, our daily lives, our ecosystems and our planet."
A Paste BN investigation reviewed federal data and found that many of the 68 power plants benefiting from new federal action delaying a key clean air rule are among the nation’s worst polluters, including six that rank within the nation’s top 10 largest greenhouse gas emitters from 2023, the latest available year. The EPA has also proposed repealing the updated standards entirely, meaning plants may never have to meet them at all.
While researchers consider how a climate influenced by increasing greenhouse gas emissions will continue to warm the world, including life in the Great Lakes, the Trump administration has ordered a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to remain open despite plans for it to close on May 31.
The administration cited the energy emergency it has declared, reported Keith Matheny with the Detroit Free Press. However, the state's Public Service Commission said there isn't an emergency and argued the delayed closing of the plant, one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the state, will increase customer costs.
Clean energy also is being debated in Arizona where opponents and supporters of the federal budget bill have squared off over what it would mean for clean energy progress in the state.
Copper mine opponents lose bid for Supreme Court review
The U.S. Supreme Court turned down a request by grassroots group Apache Stronghold to hear a longstanding lawsuit over the fate of a huge copper mine at Oak Flat, east of Phoenix. The May 27 decision removes a roadblock for Resolution Copper to move forward with its project on land held sacred by Indigenous peoples.
The high court debated taking the case, brought by opponents of the mine after a series of losses in lower-court rulings. Justice Neil Gorsuch disagreed with the decision.
"Before allowing the government to destroy the Apaches’ sacred site, this Court should at least have troubled itself to hear their case," Gorsuch said. "The Court's decision to shuffle this case off our docket without a full airing is a grievous mistake — one with consequences that will reverberate for generations."
Can it really be hurricane season again so soon?
Yes. Believe it or not, the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season officially gets underway on Sunday, June 1. Although no tropical storm appears likely to get things started early, officials are reminding residents across the eastern half of the U.S. to prepare themselves now for potential impacts from landfalling hurricanes and tropical storms throughout the season that ends Nov. 30.
In the eastern Pacific, where hurricane season started May 15, the National Hurricane Center identified the first tropical storm of the season this week with the formation of Alvin.
Read on for more, including an infographic on the collapse of a Swiss glacier. Some of the stories below may require a subscription. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox once a week, sign up here.