Climate Point: Let's check in with Al Gore
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate change, energy and the environment. I'm Sammy Roth, writing to you from Palm Springs, California, where we've finally got some snow in the mountains after a dry start to the winter. It's a gorgeous sight. Hopefully it also means we don't have to worry about wildfires any more.
He missed the snow, but Al Gore was in town this week for a screening of his latest film, "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power," at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. I asked the former vice president about President Trump, the Paris climate agreement, and the "nature hike through the Book of Revelation" that was 2017. Here's my story for Paste BN about why Gore still has hope on climate change.
Here are some other things you might want to know:
MUST-READ STORIES:
2017 was a year of disasters: Last year was America's third-hottest on record, but even that doesn't quite sell how bad things got. Hurricanes, wildfires and other climate-related disasters caused a record $306 billion worth of damage in the U.S. last year, as Doyle Rice reports for Paste BN. And we're still feeling the trickle-down effects of those disasters. As Paste BN's John Bacon reports, 13 people in Southern California died in a mudslide, in an area where the devastating Thomas Fire stripped the hillsides of vegetation and left them vulnerable to flooding. As I've reported previously, the recent wildfires were almost certainly made worse by human-caused climate change.
So much for Rick Perry's coal bailout: Federal regulators rejected a proposal from Energy Secretary Rick Perry to prop up financially struggling coal plants, as Steven Mufson reports for the Washington Post. Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski suggested the decision was a "deep state" plot, but Perry's coal bailout was rejected by all five members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — four of whom were appointed by President Trump. It probably didn't help that the "bomb cyclone" battering the East Coast actively disproved Perry's argument that coal plants are needed to keep the lights on during emergencies, as Mufson reported for the Post.
ENERGY, CLEAN AND DIRTY:
Trump can't stop market forces: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wants more oil and gas drilling on public lands, including an area just outside Yellowstone National Park. But with oil demand largely flat and the U.S. already producing plenty of oil and gas, fossil fuel companies are mostly ignoring Zinke's public land auctions, as Keith Schneider reports for the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, utilities continue to invest in cheap solar and wind. One example: A huge new wind farm is expected to reduce electricity rates in Fort Collins and other Colorado cities, as Jacy Marmaduke reports for the Coloradoan.
Offshore drilling, but not in Florida: Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a big Trump supporter, was none too pleased about the Trump administration's plan to open up 90% of U.S. waters to oil and gas exploration. Lo and behold, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke removed Florida from the offshore drilling plan, as Ledyard King reports for Paste BN. No such luck for West Coast governors, who are just as unhappy as Scott but have the slight disadvantage of being on the other side of the political aisle. Trump's plan would allow new drilling off the California coast for the first since 1984 and off the coasts of Oregon and Washington for the first time ever, as Tracy Loew reports for the Statesman Journal.
POLITICAL CLIMATE:
Climate change disappearing from federal websites: Over the last year, information about climate change has been systematically removed from hundreds of federal webpages, as Coral Davenport reports for the New York Times. What you don't know can't hurt you, right? Fortunately, NASA continues to produce excellent climate change information. But Trump's nominee to lead the space agency, Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine, has questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change — and all that stands in the way of his confirmation is middling opposition from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, as Ledyard King reports for Paste BN.
Coral reefs, sea turtles under siege: More bad news this week for the incredible diversity of undersea life that depends on coral reefs. A study found that severe coral bleaching events happen five times more often than they did in the 1980s, as Doyle Rice reports for Paste BN. Another study found that 99% of sea turtles in part of the Great Barrier Reef are now being born female because of warming waters, per Paste BN's Sean Rossman. A continuation of that gender imbalance could lead to extinction.
AND ANOTHER THING:
President Trump recently misrepresented climate science on Twitter, and now Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is following his lead. As freezing temperatures blanketed the country, Bevin tweeted that the president had "fixed global warming," as James Bruggers reports for the Courier-Journal in Louisville. Of course, that's not how this works; as I explained a few weeks ago, cold weather doesn't mean climate change isn't real.
Bevin later said he was joking, as Bruggers reports. But he also said the idea that humanity has caused global warming, and should take action to stop it, is "an absolutely preposterous assumption of the authority and power of man as related to the planet."
The folks at NASA disagree. And if you ask me, human beings are mighty powerful.
That's all for this week. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me on Twitter @Sammy_Roth. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox here.