Trump Rolls Back Fuel Efficiency Standards, Latest Effort To Worsen Climate Change, It Almost Seems Like

Donald Trump, seen here overjoyed after some ICE raids,
is getting rid of fuel efficiency standards in cars,
offering false hope of "affordability" while
also doing his bit to worsen climate change.

Donald Trump says the United States is hotter than ever. 

I gotta hand it to him, he's right about that in one very unwelcome way. The climate of the U.S. - and the world - is toastier than it's been in maybe 100,000 years, thanks to fossil fuel-driven climate change. 

Trump is doing this by finding every way possible to make climate change even worse.  As we know, he's convinced it's a hoax, so why fight it, right?

The latest came on Wednesday with his announcement on fuel efficiency standards.

 As NBC News reports:

"President Trump on Wednesday said his administration would 'reset' fuel efficiency standards for passenger cars in an effort to put a lid on rising auto prices, as the administration battles inflation and an affordability crisis."

That's the way it's being framed anyway. And it's true we do have a big problem with inflation and affordability,. But if you're in the market for a car now or in the next few years, or if you just want a general break from high costs, you're out of luck on this one. 

But NBC continues:

"'The announcement is a shift in long-term fuel economy targets for model year 2031 vehicles,' said Mark Schemer, Cox Automotive's director of industry insights communications. 

'Those targets are being lowered, which may change automaker long-term strategy and product development plans and pricing, but will have little impact o prices near term,' he said."

Besides, there's evidence that the regulations make cars more expensive. A 2023 Consumer Reports analysis found that, after adjusting for inflation, vehicle prices didn't increase between 2003 through 2021, which is the period studied. This, even as average fuel economy went up by 30 percent and lifesaving technology was added to vehicles. 

Fuel economy standards also reduce costs over the lifetime of the vehicle because the car's owner ends up paying less for fuel than their neighbor who has that gas guzzler.  

The fuel efficiency standards were introduced in the Biden administration. Trump is always eager to ditch policies by any of his predecessors, whether those policies were good or bad. 

The standards Trump is getting rid of are called the Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE standards, as NPR explains, "requires that the entire fleet of vehicles sold by a given automaker, on average, get more fuel-efficient over time. Automakers who fall short have previously needed to either pay hefty fines, or buy credits from a company that over performs on efficiency, like Tesla and other all-electric automakers."

The Biden rules called for vehicles to get 2% more efficient each year. Trump now would have the efficiency increase by 0.5% annually. 

The Trump administration had already eliminated the fines associated with the efficiency rules that he's not dumping.   

This is latest among many examples of Trump's efforts to cancel anything having to do with clean energy and EV's. He has gotten rid of a tax credit that people used to buy TVs; and ended a tax credit for installing next June, earlier than planned.   

Trump is also dropping a rule that sets tough standards for soot pollution. Back in the 2024, the final year of the Biden administration, which seems like it was centuries ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that set strict standard on soot pollution.  

The EPA was trying to reduce the fine particles in the air coming from cars, trucks and industry, because that stuff causes thousands of premature deaths a year. 

Probably a good idea, since on top of the cars and trucks, we're getting more and more wildfire smoke in recent years, which also has tons of fine particles that are dangerous to breathe. 

So, we are either getting new rules, or eliminating rules in what feels like an effort to create a hotter, more polluted world. Gee, that seems healthy! Next thing you know, bonkers Health and Human Services head honcho RFK Jr. will deem heat stroke and highly polluted air healthy, since he's already doing other things to endanger our well-being. 

Not surprisingly, environmentalists are not exactly thrilled by all this.

"In one stroke, Trump is worsening three of our nation's most vexing problems: the thirst for oil, high gas pump costs and global warming," said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign for the Center for Biological Diversity. 

Previous estimates suggested the standards that Trump is getting rid of would have collectively saved Americans $23 billion in fuel costs over the years. 

As The Verge tells us, "The rules were also expected to cut gasoline use by 70 billion gallos through 2050. That would avoid 710 metric tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution, equivalent to taking more than 165,6 million gas guzzling passenger vehicles off the road for a year."

Donald Trump will no longer be president one of these days. But this efficiency rollback, like so many things he has done, will hurt Americans and people around the world for perhaps generations. 

 

Climate And Environmental Pessimism In Vermont/U.S: Heat, Smoke, Floods, Invasives And More

This gloomy thunderstorm cloud, photographed Sunday
matched my mood Monday evening as I contemplated
bad weather, climate change, and environmental threats

I fell into a negative mood last evening. 

I was sitting outside, sweating in the tropical Vermont humidity, a few hours after an alleged "cold front" had passed through town where I am, not far from the Canadian border. 

I'd tried to do some needed yard work, but it was too sultry to get much done. I figured I should just sit down and enjoy the day lilies blooming around me. 

 Mid-summer flowers usually improve my mood. Last evening, those flowers, bright as they are, weren't lifting my spirits as much as I'd like. 

Sure, Vermont was lucky with the weather once again on Monday. A few places around the state saw some strong storms, but there wasn't really any damage, no real flooding this time. That was good news.  

But as usual these days, my social media feed last evening was filled with news of new weather emergencies, probably fueled in large parts by climate change. 

A tropical system was brewing near Florida. But once again, it produced news of another one in 1,000 year rainfall event. This time it was around Plant City, Florida, which managed to receive 10 inches of rain in just three hours. Funny how those one in one thousand year flood events keep happening like, every hour. 

I continued on, doom scrolling with my iPhone, coughing a bit in the Vermont air that had once again become smoky from giant, distant wildfires in Canada. I saw we're under another air quality alert. So much for pristine Green Mountain air. 

That air quality alert will stay in effect through at least today.  It's going to be another hot, humid one, too. Health officials are telling us that the combination of sultry, tropical air, the smoke and all that means we should once again limit outdoor activity, especially if you have pre-existing health issues. 

More weather updates on my phone. New York City just had its second wettest hour on record, with 2.07 inches, half its normal monthly installment of rain.  The Central Park downpour was second only to the mega-former Hurricane Ida floods in the Big Apple in 2021.  

Subway service was suspended, roads were under water, cars were trapped, flights were delayed, What a mess!

In neighboring New Jersey, as much as six inches of rain fell in a matter of hours. Flash flood warnings were blaring in most of the Mid-Atlantic states. Parts of the New Jersey Turnpike were really rivers. Fast flowing water raced through homes and businesses in Plainfield, New Jersey, and other towns.  The governor of New Jersey declared a state of emergency. 

Emergency? Yeah, no kidding. 

Climate change is really turbocharging summer downpours. As I've written previously, it's the summer of floods in the U.S.. and that shows no signs of change.  

Day lilies glow in the hazy morning sun today in St
Albans, Vermont. Despite worries like climate change
and the environment, there's lots to be grateful for, 

I gazed up my phone at the yard as it was growing dark.  A couple fireflies blinked half-heartedly in the humid dusk. 

There used to be a lot more fireflies. I don't know whether this is a one-summer lull at my house or something else. But I do know firefly  numbers are declining. 

I used to enjoy the bats that once swooped around my deck at dusk in the summer. They're gone, too, decimated by something called white nose syndrome, a fungus that kills them, 

My crowded perennial gardens used to buzz with bees. This summer, only a few have been buzzing around. Was it this year's rainy weather or something else? I know bee populations are crashing, mostly because of our use of pesticides and a disease spreading mite that came from overseas in the 1980s. 

Global trade is great on our pocketbooks, but not on the environment.  All kinds of invasive are killing things we love.  Giant chestnut trees were lost at the turn of the 20th century Our big gracious big elms in the mid-century to dutch elm disease.

I glanced upward last night in the gathering dusk around my house at the nearby dead trees. They were deceased white ash trees, decimated by the emerald ash borer. Those dead ash trees are everywhere now, giving a winter look in spots to our oppressively hot, smoky Vermont summer. 

Next on the list potentially is our beloved sugar maples, central to Vermont's identity. Asian longhorn beetles are spreading in the U.S., and could eventually create real, disheartening trouble to our maple syrup industry.

I turned again to the weather forecast before giving up for the evening. We'll have a couple days that reach at least 90 degrees in many locations today and tomorrow.  Great beach days, right? Despite the smoke?

Well, some beaches are closed due to algae blooms. And Burlington has an unfortunate mishap at the sewage treatment plant, and that closed beaches around that city. 

By Thursday, the risk of showers and thunderstorms returns with the approach of a cold front. 

That might be a reason to lift my spirits.   The next cold front looks like it means business. We could actually have some delightfully dry and seasonably cool air by later Friday and Saturday.  A reason to go on living! 

I've always been fascinated and embrace the weather, the outdoors, nature. Sure, I get gloomy sometimes thinking about what's going on.  With climate change. Environment trouble. Invasives.  

The solution, of course, is to not let the negativity that I was experiencing last evening to linger. Do something about climate change and the environment to the best of your ability. There's only so much we can contribute, of course. 

Most importantly we need to love what we still have. And if you think about it, that's still plenty. 

Which brings us to this morning. Songbirds, as usual, were my sunrise happy alarm clock. I ventured outdoors.   The view from my house of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks beyond was obscured by smoke. 

But those day lilies happily danced in the early morning breeze and hazy sunshine, this time doing their job and making me smile. 

The woods around my house had that beautiful, soothing deep green mid-summer lushness it always has in July. The hydrangeas were decked out in their early season white blooms, flecked with delicate pink. A couple of dragonflies did their helicopter-like aerial acrobatics, expertly removing annoying biting insects from the yard. 

Despite everything, there's still a lot of beauty out there. Enjoy it. For your own sanity. 

Trump's Hate Of "Green New Deal" Will Especially Hurt Red States That Voted For Him

The "Big Beautiful Bill" is anything but for the clean
energy industry in the United States.

 Donald Trump hates so called "green energy," which is produced by sources other that fossil fuel, such as wind and solar. He calls that type of thing the "Green New Scam."

He is reversing, or plans to reverse, subsidies to states for that type of project. 

The green energy cutbacks are largely contained in the (ugh!) "One Big Beautiful Bill" that passed the House last past week. The bill has moved on  to the Senate, where it's their problem, at least for now. 

As it stands now, billions of dollars in tax incentives within former President Joe Biden's signature Inflation Reduction Act are on the chopping block. 

The bill would also end a tax credit for up to $7,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle. That would of course slow the shift to EVs. \\slow the shift to EVs.

The "Big Beautiful Bill" would also end subsidies and tax breaks for the clean energy industry. 

Trouble is, most of green money is flowing to Red States that voted for Trump. 

Republican Congress creature who love Trump face a dilemma.  All this is going to hurt the very people they represent. 

Per Washington Post:

"Republican senators now must grapple with the reality behind the slogan: Cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of clean energy subsides that are flowing to their own states."

'The majority of the government spending is creating jobs and manufacturing capacity in red states,' said Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, 'So this puts Republicans, generally and now in the Senate, in the position of having to choose whether to support the party line or maintain support for government programs that are creating a lot of economic activity in the states."

Given the recent track record of Republic Congress Creatures, I'd bet on fealty to Trump instead of what their constituents want.  That's particularly true of House Republicans, whose districts are so gerrymandered that they'll get voted in no matter what. After all, some hard core MAGAs in these districts love Trump so much they'll vote against their own interests every time.

For Senators, it's more complicated.  They represent entire states. Even the hard core red states aren't exclusively Republican.  They can still lose if Democrats turn out in force and a percentage of Republicans get disillusioned by the Trump policies and by extension their senators. 

And there will be activism. Forces are gathering against legislation to kill green energy programs. As Washington Post reports in their article about this:

"Climate advocates are mobilizing against the legislation, warning the it threatens to cede the United States' leadership role in global efforts to combat climate change. They plan to pressure Republican senators by citing home-state economic damage."

Now that the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (I still have trouble writing that without getting the dry heaves) is now in the Senate, it's probably in for a rough ride. Partly for the green energy cutbacks and certainly for a myriad of other reasons.

As WaPo says, "To pass it, Trump will  need votes from Senate Republicans who have championed the green subsidies in their home states."

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) one of the most vulnerable senators up for re-election next year, suggested....that he would push for a slower phaseout of the clean energy subsidies. An immediate phaseout, he said, would 'have a chilling effect" on 'future investments in the domestic energy sector. 

In Tillis' home state of North Carolina, the law has helped attract $23 billion in investment, according to data compiled by Atlas Public Policy and Utah State University. Forty-seven new facilities in the state - including a massive Toyota battery plant - could create about 20,000 new jobs, the data shows."

Of course, I'm not sure how a "slower phase out" would help much since the subsidies would still disappear, making investors less likely to risk their money in United States green energy. 

Tillis is probably trying to have it both ways. Like virtually all Republicans he's afraid of Donald Trump's wrath, yet he knows Trump's policies hurt the economy. Just speculation here, but perhaps Tillis is trying to buy time until Trump is no longer a problem so that the money flowing into his state through green energy subsidies will continue. 

Trump's ideas on clean energy indeed might also be shooting himself in the economic foot. Washington Post again: 

"Factories that would manufacture solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other crucial pieces of America's energy future as envisioned by former president Joe Biden and Democrats are on the chopping block."

So, other countries will take over, reaping the economic benefits instead of the United States.  Clean industries in other nations probably shouldn't worry too much about Trump's tariff spree.   These overseas clean energy companies will just find other places to sell their wares,  After all, there's plenty of markets for solar panels, turbines, batteries in Europe, Asia, Africa and a host of other places.

Fossil fuel companies, of course, love the "Big Beautiful Bill."  The American Petroleum Institute said in a statement it will "help restore American energy dominance."

The Institute shouldn't be too sure about that. 

Over the past few decades, old, dirty coal fired plants have been decommissioned. If we're so bent on returning to fossil fuel and getting rid of clean energy, it won't be so easy to develop that infrastructure.

It's hard and takes years to build new coal and gas plants. Local opposition is sure to slow down any proposals to build them. Plus, it takes forever to get the supplies, engineers and construction workers to actually construct these things. 

Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of the electricity added to the power grid in 2024 came from solar panels and industrial batteries that store the energy they capture says the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

There appears to be public support for at least some clean energy initiatives that are under the chopping block under the "Big Beautiful Bill."

A clear majority of Americans support the tax credits for electric vehicles.  Republicans obviously are less enthusiastic about the idea. But still, a Yale Program on Climate Change Communication poll found 42 percent of liberal or moderate Republican and 28 percent of conservative Republicans support the tax rebates for EVs.

We haven't even talked about how the Big Beautiful Bill advances Trump's efforts thwart efforts to fight climate change.  Which is itself a danger both to lives and the economy of the United States and the world. The increasingly extreme weather climate change has wrought is a drag on the economy, one that will continue to get worse.

Think about the disruption to industry as factories, offices and such are destroyed by giant storms, or at least shut down temporarily due to evacuations, power cuts and transportation disruptions. 

In addition to battling climate change, clean energy provisions are at least causing some benefits to employment and the economy in general for the population at large. The Big Beautiful Bill funnels money from a variety of worthwhile programs in favor of giving more money to a cadre of billionaires and millionaires, who certainly don't need it. 

It's a shameless transfer of money and power from most of us to a few very rich people. Of course, the Republicans who support this will lie their way through this, trying to convince the public - some successfully - that up is down and down is up. 

Such is the world we apparently live in these days.  

Was Four-Lane Road Through Amazon Forest Construction To Facilitate A (Checks Notes) Climate Summit?

A big highway is being cut through the Amazon rainforest
in northeast Brazil, and according to sources, it's 
hypocritically being built to facilitate a major
UN climate change conference in November. 

 Critics are accusing a Brazilian state of building a four-lane freeway through tens of thousands of acres in sensitive Amazon rain forest to, of all things, facilitate a major UN climate summit.  

The summit is scheduled for November in the city of Belem in northeast Brazil, in the Amazon not too far inland from the Atlantic Ocean. 

Officials in the  Brazilian state of Para where the highway is being built, deny the summit was the impetus behind the highway construction. 

Those officials say construction on the highway started in 2020, before Belem was announced as the location for the climate summit, known as COP30.

Brazilian and  Para state officials also said the nation's federal government is not funding the project. 

Still, locals and environmentalists are highly suspicious, to say the least, noting the sudden, fast progress of highway construction after decades of resistance. That fast pace came after Belem was selected as the COP30 site 

Per Reuters:

"Still, some locals tie recent progress on the long-discussed highway to the approaching UN summit, when tens of thousands of delegates are expected to swarm the Amazon city home to 1.3 million."

 Plus, local officials basically admitted to the BBC the highway was being built to service the COP30 climate summit.  

Per BBC

"Adler Silveira, the state government infrastructure secretary, listed this highway as one of 30 project happening in the city to 'prepare' and 'modernize' it, so 'we can have a legacy for the population and more importantly, serve people for COP30 in the best possible way."

Silveira also said the highway would have wildlife crossings for animals to pass over, bike lanes and solar lighting 

All wonderful, but they're chopping down part of a critical rain forest to do all this.   

There's other projects ahead of COP30 that might harm the Amazon rain forests too, mostly by bringing in more people. The more people there are, the more harm an ecosystem will suffer.  The Belem airport is being expanded, new hotels are under construction and the port is being redeveloped to accommodate cruise ships. 

Like unloading a 1,000 people off a cruise ship into the Amazon, or at least near it, won't harm anything. Jeez! 

As usual, it's the locals who depend on the rain forest that got screwed the most. 

People who live adjacent to the new highway so they weren't compensated for land takings. They also fear the  highway will cause an explosion of new development like warehouses, stores, gas stations and such that would mow down much more of the rain forest. 

As the BBC reports, the road would leave two disconnected areas of protected forests, fragmenting the ecosystem and disrupting the movement of wildlife.

The bottom line:

We're having a big UN conference to combat climate change. And we're flying thousands of people from all over the world to the Amazon to attend this conference. I'm not advocating a ban of air travel, but airliners are a major contributor to climate change, so there's that.

Then, we're cutting a major highway through the Amazon, which is essential a large part of the Earth's lungs. The Amazon is a major natural ally against climate change because it absorbs huge amounts of carbon dioxide.

So, the solution is to cut down some of the Amazon to bloviate about climate change in political setting.

It makes no sense.  

Kristi Noem, Trump's Pick For Homeland Security/FEMA, Pretty Bad; EPA Pick Not Great Either

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is Trumps not so good
pick for head of Homeland Security and FEMA

To nobody's surprise, as Trump keeps announcing picks for his cabinet and other top Washington jobs, it's clear we're all on our own in dealing with climate change, and the disastrous, stormy effects of climate change on the United States and the world. 

Earlier on, Trump picked a climate denier, Chris Wright, to be energy secretary.  Later on, we got a couple more not so great for the environment picks. 

Predictable but not good. 

KRISTI NOEM

Trump has picked South Dakota Go. Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security, which also oversees FEMA. 

That agency distributes billions annually for disaster recovery. With more and more people benign the way when disaster strikes, and climate change intensifying storms, this is an increasingly critical federal role, and one that will take someone willing to live in a world of reality when it comes to climate change. 

Judging from press reports, Noem is not up to the job. 

Back on December 4, the Washington Post has a damning piece comparing Kristi Noem's performance with that of Iowa during and just after a catastrophic flood event that straddled the two states on June 23

To summarize the article, Noem appeared to drag her feet in both activating responders, and then seeking FEMA help from Washington. She was more into posturing for Trump and MAGA apparently. 

Reports WaPo

"After spending million of taxpayers dollars to send South Dakota National Guard soldiers to the Mexico border, Noem did not deploy them to help prepare for the flood or cope with the aftermath. And she waited more than a month to ask President Joe Biden for a disaster declaration, leaving victims without access to federal assistance during crucial period of recovery and rebuilding."

Meanwhile, In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds, also a very conservative governor and another fan girl of Trump, was right top of the disaster 

Reynolds "oversaw a dramatically different response to the same flood just a few miles away. Reynolds immediately deployed the Iowa National Guard and requested a presidential disaster declaration before the floods had ended - a request that Biden approved the next day," reports WaPo.

Meanwhile, Noem busied herself with performance art, sending members of the South Dakota National Guard to the Mexican border as props to "prove" President Biden's supposed failed border policies and to prop up Trump's claim that he was somehow our savior from "invasions" of illegal aliens. Or something like that. 

Noem spent more than $1.3 million in South Dakota state funds through February to conduct this show.  

Even some Republicans in South Dakota were pretty aghast at Noem. Lee Schoenbeck, Republican president pro temper of the South Dakota State Senate, wrote on X, formerly Twitter:

"Gov. Kristi Noem sent troops to Texas and billed us, South Dakota taxpayer, BUT Noem said it's too expensive to use our guard to help our taxpayers fight a flood......Explain this hypocrisy???"

 Noem is also known to be skeptical at best regarding climate change and declined to take federal climate money for South Dakota. This also doesn't bode well in an age in which climate change is accelerated destructive storms and more and more people live in areas prone to storm surges, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. 

As Politico reports, Noem is one of only five governors who wouldn't accept EPA planning grants that the Biden administration offered every state to help deal with climate pollution.

And she was the only governor to opt out a new $4 billion Energy Department program that sends money to states. That one is in turn distributed to residents for rebates on energy efficient home improvements and appliances. 

South Dakota's $69 million share would have been one of the largest amounts per capita in the United States, says Politico.

Politico also lists other troubling climate policies and moves by Noem. She was among 15 Republican governors who protested a move by the Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose their risks from climate change. She was also part of a lawsuit seeking to stop the Biden administration from putting a price on the social cost of carbon emissions, though that lawsuit was dismissed.

 LEE ZELDIN

Lee Zeldin has been picked by Trump to be EPA 
administrator. Bad, but maybe not as bad as
the ones from his first administration>

Zeldin has been picked to run the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Obviously, it regulates a wide range of pollution and environmental issues. Climate change is an increasing part of that role. 

As the Washington Post describes it, Zeldin was once a moderate Republican who backed protections of wildlife habitat from development. 

Now, like so many Republicans who drank the Kool Aid, he's full MAGA.

Zeldin has said, "We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs ,and the make the US. the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water."

While keeping the United States' economy strong is a good thing, the outline he gave us there is the some of the most energy sucking, and potentially the most fossil fuel-using agenda you can come up with. 

More evidence hat Zeldin's environmentalism, such as it is, does not include combating climate change.

Trump has vowed to eliminate environmental rules that the make the fossil fuel industry faint dramatically onto the couch because those regulations are supposedly far too burdensome to bear. 

Zeldin never used to be this way, but like so many Republicans, he's suddenly clinging to Trump for dear life.  His past isn't horrible, but we'll see how he does if the Senate confirms his nomination.

When he was in the House from 2015-2023, Zeldin joined the House Climate Solutions Caucus, a group of Republicans who actually thought the GOP should play a greater role in climate policy debates. So yay!

Zeldin also in those days opposed Trump's idea to open up the East Coast to offshore oil drilling. Zeldin, from Long Island, reasonably worried an oil spill would wreck the important tourism industry there. 

Or not. That seems to have gone by the wayside.

Zeldin has since pledged to embrace Trump's drill, baby, drill approach to fossil fuels.

Still, he might be better than the two EPA administrators during Trump's first administration. Scott Pruitt, as Oklahoma Attorney General before his stint, sued the EPA fourteen times. He resigned from his EPA position in 2018 amid a series of ethics scandals.

Andrew Wheeler, who had been a coal industry lobbyist before Trump picked him, took over for Pruitt. 

Two Varieties Of Iconic Western Trees Fall Victim To This Year's Heat

Many of us probably remember Looney Tunes Coyote
and Road Runner cartoons that very often had images
of Saguaro cactus, like in this scene with the
ever-present falling ACME anvil. It got too 
hot in Arizona this year for even some Saguaros to
survive the heat. 

 Saguaro cactus, those iconic big cactus in the American Southwest -  you know, the kind that were in the background of the Looney Toons Coyote and Road Runner cartoons - are falling victim to, of all things, Arizona head.

Meanwhile, another iconic tree - Joshua trees - burned in a wildfire sweeping though the Mohave Desert. 

SAGUARO CRISIS

We already told you about the relentless heat in Phoenix during July, which caused deaths from the scorching temperatures. And serious injuries to people burned through contact with hot asphalt. 

Turns out that Saguaro cacti, though built for extreme desert heat, found this summer's scorching temperatures to much for even them. 

Even though Saguaro do fine in hot weather, they need the desert air to cool somewhat to recharge, or they will suffer internal damage. Not only did Arizona experience a record long period with daily temperatures above 110, nights were also blazing hot. 

The temperature was continuously above 90 degrees in Phoenix from July 10 through the 30th. That was too warm for the cacti to adequately recover. 

Plus, even cactus need some water. The Arizona monsoon season should late.  That's when low pressure created by desert heat eventually pulls in moisture from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, triggering thunderstorms. 

Those monsoon thunderstorms have been few and far between so far. Phoenix only had a trace of rain in July, a month that normally brings the city just under an inch of rain. 

 It has gotten a bit cooler, relatively speaking, and there is an increasing chance of monsoon storms as we go through this week. But the damage has already been done.  

The exceptional heat and dryness have caused some saguaro to lean, collapse or lose limbs. On others that appear to still be OK, internal damage caused by the heat could kill them within months or a few years.  

JOSHUA TREES

Another iconic part of nature in the Southwest is the Joshua Tree. If you need a reminder of what they look like, consult the cover of the famous 1987 U2 album "The Joshua Tree."

The so-called York Fire burned through the Mohave Desert at the beginning of this month, destroying many of these trees.   

This Joshua tree was used as the model for the artwork on
U2's The Joshua Tree album from 1987. Some idiot
vandalized and destroyed it back in 2015. A wildfire this
summer destroyed thousands more of this iconic tree,
and it's overall survival as a species is in question. 

According to CNN: 

"The Mohave National Preserve is a significant hotspot for diversity, with one conservationist calling it the 'crown jewel' of the deserts of Southern California. Joshua Trees only grow in the Desert Southwest and far northwestern Mexico, and one of the densest Joshua tree forests is within the burn area, Cody Hanford, executive director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust told CNN."

Joshua trees evolved in a place that historically never had many wildfires. Now there are plenty of them. 

Climate change has made some winters wetter, which increases levels of invasive grass in the desert. The deserts dry out in the summer, the grasses catch fire, and those blazes spread to the Joshua Trees. 

They are easily destroyed when a fire breaks out.  Major fires in 2005 and 2020 took out several other Joshua tree groves.    

In this case most recent case,  we don't know what percent of the Joshua Tree population was destroyed.  The fire as of Monday was 93 percent contained, which is good news, but it will take time to go through and see what was lost. 

Says CNN:

"'If an area with Joshua trees burns through, most will not survive and reproduction in that area is made more difficult,' the National Park Service says. 'Wildfires could also result in the loss of irreplaceable resources in the park, like historic structures and cultural artifacts."

The Washington Post estimated several thousand Joshua trees were probably lost in this summer's fire. Unlike some tree species, Joshua rarely survive fires.  

A new law has protected some Joshua trees from sprawl and development which have also endangered the species. But with fires now an ever growing threat, it's possible Joshua trees will be no gone sometime in the foreseeable future. 

Another iconic loss in the world of humans crushing some environments, and climate change contributing to make everything worse. 

 

Water Temperatures On Florida Coast A Hot Tub, Is It A Record? Doesn't Matter, Precious Coral Dying

Fish swim past bleached and dying coral off the 
coast of Florida in this image from Coral Morphalogic,

 It was a record high ocean temperature, then it wasn't. 

You probably heard the wide-spread reports that the water temperature in Manatee Bay, Florida reached 101.1 degrees. That's a pretty standard temperature for a hot tub.  

Turns out, as serious as the hot water is, it might not be a record. 

Mike Lowry, a hurricane and storm surge expert in Florida, said he found evidence that this is not a new record after all. He tweeted: "Amazingly, the water temperature at Manatee Bay FL on Monday, while historically high, may not be a record for the station. Back in August, 2017, it hit 102 F according to Everglades National Park South Florida Natural Resources Center (SDNRC) that maintains the sensor network."

Also, the water in Manatee Bay gets hot quickly because there's a lot of dark sediment floating around in it. That attracts the sun's heat, making it get toasty quickly. 

All this is not to dismiss the importance of that 101.1 degree water temperature in Manatee Bay, and the record hot water all around Florida. I'm for precision, but I'm sure not going to gaslight, or sugar coat what's going on. 

El Nino, which tends to raise ocean temperatures, and climate change have conspired to cause all kinds of problems around the world. Including creating some dangerously high water temperatures around Florida.  

CORAL CRISIS

The most serious issue with this hot tub water is the fate of the coral reefs around Florida. Hot water can have dire consequences for those coral reefs.  That's a potential tragic loss for Florida, and to some extent, the nation as a whole.   

Per the Washington Post:

"Already, scientists have reported widespread coral bleaching along parts of the roughly 360-mile long reef, the third larges on the planet. If the heat drafts on, they say, a massive coral die-off could follow, with grave consequences for fish and other ocean organisms that depend on the reefs, tourism, commercial fishing and part of the state's very identity."

The coral reefs also dissipate up to 97 percent of the energy in waves generated by storms and hurricanes. This minimizes damage from such storms along the coast. Lose the coral, lose the coastline in a future hurricane.

Coral bleaching does not mean dead coral.  But it's a big step in that direction.  WaPo again:

"The corals have endured past incidents of bleaching, a process in which stressed corals expel their symbiotic algae, known as zooxanthellae, and turn pale or white. The frequency and severity of such events has increased since the 1980s, and one of the last significant bleaching events off the Florida Keys took place in 2014."

Scientists are especially worried because these really hot ocean temperatures hit pretty early in the summer. Past coral bleaching events started in mid-August, not mid-July like this year.  

The longer bleaching persists, the more coral will die. 

"If it remains this hot for the next six weeks, we are going to see a lot more coral mortality out there,' said Cynthia Lewis, director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography Keys Marine Laboratory."

Coral does best when the water temperature is between 73 and 84 degrees, so it's got a long way to go before it can cool off.   The water temperature in most of the coral reef area near Florida is between 90 and 98 degrees.

We  probably have to get into September before water temperatures near Florida noticeably start to cool.

Once the coral is dead, there's no coming back. Some scientists liken the current situation in Florida to a wildfire tearing through a rare old growth forest. 

The coral extends from north of Miami south and southwestward through the Florida Keys to a point out in the Gulf of Mexico west of Key West.

Scientists, activists and others are actually doing rescue missions for the coral around Florida. As the Miami Herald reports:

"Dozens of scientists working to save Florida's coral reefs are scrambling to save what they can, taking the highly unusual step of removing imperiled specimens and bringing them to the Keys Marine Laboratory operated by the University of South Florida and the Florida Institute of Oceanography, one of several sites in Florida accepting refugee corals amid the marine heat wave ringing the state."

They've accepted about 5,000 corals and are at 100 percent capacity at all the saltwater aquariums the institute has. That's a tiny percentage of the corals out there. 

Some spots have already reported 100 percent coral mortality rates, which is tragic. Miami Herald again: 

"'It is just truly like holy shit. It's more than a wake-up call. What do you do when the house burns down? How do you rebuild without the pieces you need to start all over again,' said Colin Ford, a coral researcher and artist who founded Coral Morphologic."

Even the corals that can survive the high heat of the water probably lost their ability to reproduce this year. They usually reproduce in August or early September, when, if anything, the water will be even hotter. Scientists think that will hinder or cancel any attempts to reproduce.

WATER AND HURRICANES

Here's another issue that makes the hot water around Florida worrying.  Such extremely warm water temperatures is super high octane fuel for hurricanes. 

If a hurricane is approaching the Florida coast this year, and the atmosphere supports the hurricane's structure, I'd have to worry the storm would rapidly strengthen on approach to the coast, catching people off guard.

Hurricane Ian last year sort of did that in and around Fort Myers Beach.

One slim hope for the coral this year is if a fairly weak tropical storm causes cool water upwelling from the lower depths of the water. A strong hurricane would do that, too, but we wouldn't want the destruction that entails. 

Other than that, the only mechanism to cool the hot water around Florida is autumn. 

 

The Great Salt Lake Ain't So Great Anymore. Will It Disappear Entirely?

Imagery shows how much the Great Salt Lake in Utah 
shrunk between 1988 and 2021,

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is the largest salt lake in the western hemisphere. 

For now.  

Then again, believe it not, it might actually entirely disappear within five years. 

As HuffPost and many other media outlets recently reported, the Great Salt Lake in Utah has been at record lows for two years in a row. 

A new scientific report tells us this trend could make the lake fade away by the end of this decade, if not before. 

According to HuffPost:

"The lake has been steadily shrinking because so much water from the rivers and streams that feed it is being redirected for human use. This is exacerbated by the climate change-fueled mega-drought that has been parching the U.S. West for years, with less rain and snow entering the water system."

The Great Salt Lake might be big in area, as it normally covers 1,600 to 2,000 square miles. The only lakes in the United States are the five Great Lakes. 

However, the Great Salt Lake is not so great when it comes to depth. On average, it's only 14 feet deep with a maximum of 35 feet. That means there's not all that much water there that can evaporate. 

Water levels can fall dramatically during dry years and rise during wet years. When snowpack melts in the spring, the lake usually rises about 2 feet. In years with above-average snowpack, it can go up 3 to 4 feet. In 2022 and 2021, the elevation only went up about 1 foot because of the poor snowpack.

The problem now is the persistent western mega-drought. The Great Salt Lake might be seeing a minor reprieve this winter, as some of the moisture from those huge California storms are making it to the Great Salt Lake watershed. 

But not much. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, released Thursday, still has virtually all of Utah in drought, and the area around the Great Salt Lake in severe to extreme drought. 

The mega drought in the West won't disappear even if the rest of this winter proves to be wet.   If that were the only thing to consider, that would be bad enough. But us humans, as usual, are making things worse. 

The Washington Post noted that more than 70 percent of the Utah's water use goes towards growing crops to feed livestock. 

The lake has lost about 40 billion gallons of water since 2020, and conservation measures now in place aren't good enough to replace that huge amount of water, WaPo tells us. 

A recently released report by researchers from Brigham Young University said Utah and nearby states need to curb water consumption by a third to a half.  That's a pretty tall order. But such cuts, if successful, would allow 2.5 million acre feet of water to flow from streams and rivers right into the lake over the next couple of years. 

It looks as if people have been taken the Utah lake for granted. "Over the last three years the report says, the lake has received less than a third of its normal stream flow because so much water has been diverted for other purposes. In 2022, its surface sank to a record low, ten feet below what is the minimum healthy level.

Since there's so much less fresh water flowing into the Great Salt Lake, the water that's there is getting even saltier. 

Great Salt Lake's unique ecosystem makes it an important resource for migratory birds. An estimated 10 million birds depend on the lake's brine shrimp and flies. It's also an essential breeding ground for pelicans

As the Washington Post reports,  if those conservation measures aren't taken the Great Salt Lake ecosystem would collapse.  The lake is becoming too salty for even those brine shrimp and flies.  So what do all those millions of birds get for lunch and dinner at the lake? Little or nothing, if this trend continues.  

If you don't give a crap about the brine shrimp and pelicans, consider this. All that salt and sediment at the bottom of the lake contains really, really bad things like arsenic and mercury. While the Mr. Yuck stuff is under water, it's not a huge danger to a lot of people. 

But if the Great Salt Lake disappears, the sediment will dry out into sand and dust. Then Utah's notoriously gusty winds will blow all that stuff into the noses of the 1.25 million or so people in the Salt Lake City metro area.

On the political side, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said his administration won't let the Great Salt Lake

As reported by the Standard-Examiner of Ogden, Utah:

"'I'm telling people: On my watch we are not allowing the lake to go dry. We will do whatever it taes to make sure that doesn't happen,' he said.......

The governor said water conservation and the Great Salt Lake are among his top priorities to tackle with lawmakers in the 2023 legislative session that begins next week. He is supporting bills and spending around water conservation measures. 

As part of his $28 billion budget, Gov. Cox would like to see incentives offered to get agriculture producers - the state's top water user - to switch to new technologies that allow them to grow crops with less water. He has also proposed money to pay farmers not to grow crops and let the water go downstream, to purchase water rights for the lake itself and expanding cloud seeding.

'You will see additional water going into the lake. You're literally going to see releases from other reservoir systems into the lake. It's never happened before,' he said. 'You're going to see water rights going to the lake.'"

 Well, we'll see. 

The Arctic:: Humid, Rainy, Stormy, Smoky And A Typhoon?

A storm surge pushes into Nome, Alaska earlier this year
as a former typhoon raked much of the state. The Arctic is
turning wetter, stormier, more fiery and less icy due to
climate change. 

When you think of the Arctic, torrential rains, smoky skies, fires, storm surges, humid weather and typhoons don't really come to mind. 

As the latest annual report on the Arctic tells us, though, those weather patterns might not dominate the top of the world just yet, they are increasingly become factors in a rapidly warming environment.  

NOAA releases an Arctic report card every year. The latest publication, released last month,  is the 17th annual summary of a vastly changing Arctic.

Some of the top takeaways from the latest report as quoted from the document: 

"Arctic annual air temperatures from October 2021 to September 2022 were the sixth warmest dating back to 1900, continuing a decade-long trend in which Arctic air temperatures have warmed faster than the global average. The Arctic's seven warmest years since 1900 have been in the last seven years."

My take: Being the sixth warmest and not #1 is no big accomplishment. Earth has been in a La Nina pattern for three years now. That tends to cool the world a little bit. Sixth warmest isn't a great sign if we've been in a La Nina for so long. 

"Arctic sea ice extent (coverage) was higher than many recent years, but much lower than the long-term average. Multiyear ice extent, sea ice thickness and volume rebounded after a near record low in 2021 but was below conditions in the 1980s and 1990s, with older ice extremely rare."

My take: I'm glad to hear Arctic sea ice rebounded somewhat. I bet that won't be a long term trend, even if the coming year has good ice, compared to recent years. You're going to get periods when ice rebounds, then melts away again. You want to see many years of increasing sea ice to breathe any kind of sigh of relief. A year or two tells you nothing. 

"The 2021-2022 Arctic snow season saw a combination of above average snow accumulation but early snowmelt, consistent with long term trends of shortening snow seasons in several areas. 

Wetter than normal conditions predominated over much of the Arctic from October 2021 to September 2022. Precipitation has increased significantly since the 1950s across all seasons and datasets. Heavy precipitation events are more common in the North Atlantic subarctic, while much of the central Arctic shows increases in consecutive wet days and decreases in consecutive dry days." 

My take: No surprise there. A warmer world is in general a wetter world. Warmer air can hold more moisture. Given the right conditions, it can rain and snow a lot. The Arctic is still really dry compared to places, like, well, here in Vermont, but it is getting a lot wetter pretty fast on and near the roof of the world.

"The Greenland ice sheet lost ice in 2022, the 25th consecutive year of ice loss. In September, 2022, the Greenland ice sheet had unprecedented late season warming, creating surface melt conditions over 36 percent of the ice sheet on September 3, including the Greenland ice sheet's summit at 10,500 feet. This followed a July 18 large surface melt observed across 42 percent of the Greenland ice sheet surface."

My take: I'll be really surprised if there ever is another season in which the Greenland ice sheet actually expands over the course of a year. Decades ago, this happened pretty frequently. Not every year, but often enough. 

On some years the net loss of Greenland ice won't be that much, relatively speaking. But I think we're going to see more years like 2012 which was a super melt year that still has scientists gasping.

By the way, the remnants of Hurricane Fiona, which trashed southeastern Canada in late September, moved on toward Greenland, causing a smaller, but still unprecedented late season melt. 

The unseasonable melts are "challenging how researchers define the Greenland summer melt season," according to the report. 

The earlier than usual snow melt, and this summer's hot dry conditions in interior Alaska contributed to major wildfires. By July, 2 million acres in Alaska had burned. Visibility at the Fairbanks airport was reduced on several days by smoke. 

There's some geopolitical aspects to the melting Arctic as well. Shipping is increasing up there, which adds political, environmental and society effects to those living in the Arctic, and for governments competing for commerce on top of the world.  

The annual Arctic report has been generally been getting more comprehensive and detailed as the years go by. This year's edition was compiled by 147 experts from 11 nations. 

This year's model pays more attention to the indigenous population near the top of the world. Says NOAA:

"The 15th chapter of the report card, authored by a team that includes Native Alaskan scientists, describes how warming air temperatures, shrinking sea ice, shorter periods of snow cover, increased wildfire, rising levels of precipitation and changes in animal migration patterns and their abundance profoundly affect the safety, food security health, economic wellbeing and cultural traditions of indigenous people."

This chapter on how the changing Arctic is affecting indigenous people is pretty fascinating, and disturbing. 

As the Washington Post reports:

"The sea ice retreat forces hunters to travel as far as 100 miles from their homes to find walruses during the spring harvest. The thinning of sea ice has also made seal hunting dangerous in some communities."

It takes longer for indigenous people to hunt, given the more challenging conditions. With a lack of sea ice, wave heights are higher, which makes hunting on the water more dangerous. People near the Bering and Chukchi seas are also seeing more die-offs of birds like ducks and puffins because of starvation and a lack of sea ice.

Although there are naturally yearly ups and downs in the Arctic, I don't see any evidence suggesting that climate change will slow its assault on the top of the world. In fact, few people would be surprised if it all accelerates. 

Just remember: What goes on in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.