• Weather

Experts Say Record Flooding in Australia Is a Symptom of Accelerating Climate Change

• Australia
• climate change
• extreme weather
• Flooding
• rain

Thousands evacuated in Australia's worst flooding in almost half a century https://t.co/IMuH3ctNtm pic.twitter.com/InQuvXtCZB — Reuters (@Reuters) March 23, 2021 by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer The Australian Government along with the state of New South Wales have signed 16 disaster declarations after heavy rains and flooding forced 18,000 residents to evacuate the region.  Some affected areas have […]

• Climate Change
• Politics

Climate Smart Credit Ratings Would Cause Many Countries to be Downgraded by 2030

• climate change
• credit ratings
• debt
• debt service
• extreme weather
• risk
• volatility

A group of economists from Cambridge University using artificial intelligence to simulate the economic effects of climate change on the credit ratings of 108 countries over the coming decades, found that unless we reign in carbon emissions, 63 nations could have their credit downgraded by over a notch by 2030. 

Why This Matters:  This is why global climate action matters to all countries — even rich ones will have a hard time servicing their debts from the rising climate costs

• People

Bearing Witness to Climate Disasters: Lizzie Johnson

• extreme weather
• journalism
• wildfires

When Lizzie Johnson began her career as a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, she didn’t know that California’s devastating wildfires would become a beat. Since California law doesn’t allow authorities to keep journalists out of disaster areas, Johnson has bravely stepped into areas of extreme danger to bear witness to the human and environmental […]

• Energy

Biden Administration Highlights Climate Change In Texas Freeze Response

• climate change
• disaster
• energy
• extreme weather
• freeze
• Polar Vortex
• Texas

The Texas freeze and subsequent blackouts have given the Biden administration the chance to show the country how it will handle natural disasters, and they’ve already done one thing much differently than the Trump administration: acknowledged the role of climate change. And now, due to surge pricing, Texans are facing utility bills in the thousands of dollars for what little heat they got.

Why This Matters: The Biden administration wasted no time declaring an emergency and stating it would review preparation for future storms.

• Energy

How Texas’ Entire Power Grid Crumbled Under 3 Inches of Snow

• extreme cold
• extreme weather
• power grid
• renewable energy
• Texas
• winter storm

by Amy Lupica, ODP Staff Writer How was one of the largest power grids in the country, in the nation’s leading power-producing state, brought to its knees this week? Below zero temperatures literally froze mechanisms of energy generation and skyrocketing power demand leading to a power supply shortage that forced 4.2 million Texans to survive the record cold without […]

• Climate Change

2020 Breaks Another Record: Most Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters

• disaster
• Drought
• extreme weather
• flood
• hurricane
• severe storm
• wildfire

We know it was the hottest year on record (tied for the top spot with 2016), that the 2010’s were the hottest decade on record, and that the last 6 years have been the hottest ever.  Now this grim total:  in 2020 there were 22 weather and climate disasters.

Why This Matters:  Climate change is getting more and more expensive each year.