Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
An important new study out this week from researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Wisconsin at Madison reveals that hurricanes are getting stronger, just as climate models have predicted. As the New York Times explained, the analysis, of satellite images dating to 1979, shows that warming has increased the […]
Continue Reading 371 words
Hurricane season does not officially start until June 1, but the first named storm of the season is arriving early — Tropical Storm Arthur is expected to graze or even come ashore along North Carolina’s Outer Banks later today.
Why This Matters: The state of North Carolina has been battered by storms over the last few years.
Continue Reading 461 words
April’s global average temperatures tied for the warmest on record, with NOAA predicting there is a 75% chance that this year will be the warmest since temperatures records began in 1880 due to much warmer than average temperatures in northern Asia, especially Siberia, across northern and coastal central Greenland, for parts of Antarctica, areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.
Why This Matters: As carbon dioxide levels keep going up it is easier and easier to set warmest month records because it stays in the atmosphere for a long time continuing to heat us up.
Continue Reading 482 words
This year’s warm winter through most of the Lower 48 states has been great, right? Yes, but, but, but — the warm weather in the southeast was caused by the fact that the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are about 3 degrees warmer than usual, and that also increases the prospect for a very active spring tornado season and summer hurricane season.
Why This Matters: It was less than a month ago that a deadly cluster of severe tornadoes hit Nashville. What if the city had been battling the surge of the virus at the time?
Continue Reading 444 words
There are five confirmed cases of coronavirus in Puerto Rico so far, but the residents of the island are taking big steps to try to prevent the further spread of the disease, such as a strictly-enforced curfew from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. and the closure of ‘non-essential’ businesses like shopping malls or recreation centers.
Why This Matters: Puerto Rico is now home to 3.5 million Americans and it is “one of the world’s most storm-vulnerable regions,” according to the Associated Press.
Continue Reading 549 words
Take a look at the Atlantic’s roundup of images from the aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis, the equivalent of a category 5 storm that struck Japan this past week, causing billions of dollars of wreckage in its wake and claiming 66 lives. Not only did the storm sweep away Fukushima nuclear waste bags into the river […]
Continue Reading 136 wordsSubscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
