Sune Boye Riis was on a bike ride with his youngest son, enjoying the sun slanting over the fields and woodlands near their home north of Copenhagen, when it suddenly occurred to him that something about the experience was amiss. Specifically, something was missing.
It was summer. He was out in the country, moving fast. But strangely, he wasn’t eating any bugs.
The new government report on climate change, which the Trump administration released quietly a day after Thanksgiving and two days after President Donald Trump tweeted skeptically about the existence of climate change, warns that the drastic human effects on the climate could cause thousands of Americans to die and cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars.
But even before the report was made public, Americans were extremely worried about climate change.
If we keep burning fossil fuels indefinitely, global warming will eventually melt all the ice at the poles and on mountaintops, raising sea level by 216 feet. Explore what the world’s new coastlines would look like.
The maps here show the world as it is now, with only one difference: All the ice on land has melted and drained into the sea, raising it 216 feet and creating new shorelines for our continents and inland seas.
Climate change is already causing more frequent and severe weather across the U.S., and the country is poised to suffer massive damage to infrastructure, ecosystems, health and the economy if global warming is allowed to continue, according to the most comprehensive federal climate report to date.
Today, U.S. government agencies released a heavily anticipated new report about how climate change is impacting the United States. The 4th National Climate Assessment (NCA4) lays out a detailed picture of how communities across the country are already feeling the effects of climate change—from intensified risk of wildfires in California, to droughts slowing agricultural production in Iowa and much more.
A government report on the human impact of climate change that was long scheduled for release in December is now scheduled for release on Friday -- prompting speculation that it is being buried on a day when few people will be paying attention.
President Donald Trump once again cast doubt on the scientific consensus behind climate change Wednesday night because forecasters said it could be cold in parts of America this week.
“Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS,” Trump, who is vacationing in 80-degree weather at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida for Thanksgiving, tweeted late Monday. “Whatever happened to Global Warming?”
As three major fires blaze in California, we consider some of their causes, both human and meteorological. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien has been filming a NOVA documentary on megafires and witnessed the Camp Fire not long after it began. He joins William Brangham to describe that stunning experience, along with the broader scientific context around these destructive phenomena.
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:
Judy Woodruff:
Imagine flooding a desert half the size of the Sahara. Using 238 trillion gallons of desalinated ocean water to do the job. Creating millions of 1-acre-square micro-reservoirs to grow enough algae to gobble up all of Earth’s climate-changing carbon dioxide. For an encore: How about spreading the water and fertilizer (the dead algae) to grow a vast new forest of oxygen-producing trees?
Was it a wave? Maybe not. But for Democrats, it was a win.
They weathered disappointments in some high-profile races that had appeared winnable on Tuesday night, and they lost three U.S. Senate seats in the face of a challenging map. But they seized control of the U.S. House of Representatives, tipping at least 26 seats to emerge with a clear majority. In doing so, they earned the opportunity to step up oversight of the polarizing presidency of Donald J. Trump.