Climate Change This Week: Its Depressing Effects, Marching For Climate, and More!

Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.

And the chances of Donald Trump s family and fortune surviving climate change are small, dwindling daily and irreversibly as are ours.

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, as in this beautiful Brazilian tanager, is another reason to preserve carbon storing forests. Credit Dario Sanches at flickr.com

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon

OO How To Stop Deforestation: 'Indigenous People Are The Best Park Rangers. Forests soak up greenhouse gases, so how do we ensure their protection? Their inhabitants know best, studies show.

OO Forests Offer Cool Way To Ease Climate Fears New global database of trees affirms the need for greater conservation and protection of forests to slow the pace of global warming.

When we harm forests, we harm ourselves.

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NEW SOCIAL THREAT: COMPLACENCY ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Clean Power Is A Good Start but humanity needs to make far more substantial changes that involve creating sustainable populations and economies, and regrowing forests, if we are to prevent civilizational collapse from climate change.

OO Complacency Threatens Climate Change Action says a leading academic.

• Besides oil companies wanting to delay real action,
• Academics, journalists and even some green groups also foster complacency,
• By promoting that renewable power or other simple solutions can tackle global warming.
• Humanity has only a 5% chance of keeping global warming below the 2 C Paris climate agreement goal under current national action pledges.

One Child Families: A Humane Way to Make Exploding Populations Sustainable

MEH: The far more substantial changes needed are:

• attaining sustainable population levels
• that run on sustainable, not growing, economies,
• and regrowing our forests to store carbon.

OO General Electric: Talking About Climate Action, But Not Doing So Takeaways:

• Some US companies publicly defy Trump, calling for climate action, without doing so themselves,
• Trying to greenwash themselves and improve company profits via public approval.
• About 66+% of the US public will not support companies that appear to hurt the environment.
• Buy American, yes, but check that companies back up their talk with action.

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WATER, MORE OR LESS

OO California: Droughts Over; But Climate Change Isn't MEH: and if you count groundwater as part of our water budget, then well be in drought for decades, until our aquifers replenish. Meantime, we have a far smaller agricultural safety net for the next drought

OO California Snowpack Healthy Again, But Warming Looms Large at 160% of normal levels, officials now face potential flooding as snowmelt runs into streams and reservoirs already swollen with winter rains.

OO Six Images Show What Happened To Californias Drought The states surface water drought was erased this winter after massive storms dumped precipitation. Heres a look at what challenges lie ahead like preparing for the next drought.

Its Fine Until The Rains And Tides Come to the exploding cities in the Pearl River delta. Credit Josh Haner at the New York Times, modified

OO Rising Waters Threaten China's Rising Cities exploding development and populations are colliding with climate change in the Pearl River Delta.

Climate change, and land sinking under ever more development, are creating ever more intense and damaging floods, and tidal surges.

OO Vital Groundwater Depleted Faster Than Ever Globally - Global use of irreplaceable groundwater is exhausting the supply so fast that researchers say it will drive up food prices and hit international trade.

OO Peru's Floods Follow Climate Change's Deadly Extreme Weather Trend - an unusual coastal El Nio drove Peru's deluge, in another signal that weather extremes are becoming wild cards as climate change warms the oceans.

OO The Vanishing Nile: A Great River Faces A Multitude Of Threats under assault on two fronts a massive dam under construction upstream in Ethiopia and rising sea levels leading to saltwater intrusion downstream.

OO Climate Change Hits Alaskas Rural Water And Sewer Systems

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TRUMP TRUMPED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

@@ What Trump's Climate Policies Mean For Global Warming check it out: a good quick GRAPHIC summary of how:

• the US will lose out to other countries that take the lead,
• even as the US promotes policies that will only worsen climate change
• and increase its economic damage and threat to US businesses and citizens.

OO Trump's Policies Will Only Accelerate Climate Change and a warmer planet may not be able to return to the balance we once enjoyed.

OO America First" Doesn't Cut It When Fighting Global Warming - its not just wrong, but reckless.

Nature doesnt distinguish the US from the rest of the planet, so were suffering from climate change, and will suffer far more, if we dont take action.

Home to Caribou and Polar Bears And In Trumps Bullseye

OO Trump Preparing Order To Expand Offshore Oil Drilling

OO Opening Arctic For Drilling Is Trump Priority, key senator says.

OO Climate Change Would Swamp Trump's Border Wall as rising seas lift the adjacent Rio Grande River, flooding it.

The Train Just Left -- For Good in 220 cities, if Trump has his way. Mass transit keeps climate changing transport emissions down.

OO Trump To Defund Amtrak Train Service To 220 US Cities which would lose all passenger train service per Trumps budget, creating a nightmare scenario for people who depend on passenger rail, transit, commuter rail, and even regional air service, from Wall Street to Main Street.

OO Renewable Energy Cuts Affirm Administration's Motives: Pro Fossil Fuels Industry

OO The Regulatory Wrecking Ball - Trump has signed 11 deregulatory measures so far, creating extensive wreckage. 18 more rollbacks are planned.

OO Trump Plan To Slash EPA Budget Goes Even Deeper new memo shows, proposing to cut $2.5 billion, gutting all climate research and partnerships to cut industry emissions.

One Way Trump Is Killing US Babies rolling back pollution limits will increase cases of asthma, which is strongly linked to US fossil fuel pollution, and has killed US babies and toddlers, who are especially vulnerable to harm from pollution.

OO Trump Plan Would Slash EPA Vehicle Testing Budget including for vehicle emissions and fuel economy but will seek to raise fees on industry to pay for some testing, says the plan.

OO EPA Reportedly Eliminates Program Helping Cities Deal With Climate Change

OO EPA Chief Says Paris Climate Agreement 'Bad Deal' For US

The United States should continue to be "engaged" in international climate change discussions but the Paris climate change agreement is a "bad deal" for the country, the head of the EPA said Sunday. Reuters. Apr 03

OO Climate Change Booted From US-China Agenda Under Trump unlike his predecessor.

OO While America Launches Missiles, China Quietly Leads On Climate Change

OO What President Trump Can Learn About Climate Change From President Xi China is:

moving away from fossil fuels to renewable power,

making major commitments to reduce both choking smog and climate-changing carbon emissions

Its a Question of Vision: Which Do You Prefer? Under Trump, the Bureau of Land Management page literally went black, with a coal seam.

OO Public Lands Agency Changes Website From Family Visiting A Park To Black Coal - the Bureau of Land Management , which oversees nearly 260 million acres of land, including ecologically vital conservation areas, has changed the image on its homepage from a scenic park vista to a massive wall of coal.

RESISTING TRUMP

Chesapeake Bay Is Worth Saving A Mecca For Oysters and Wildlife Credit Andrew Morrell

OO Pennsylvania Resists Fed Efforts To End Chesapeake Bay Cleanup, Climate-Change Pollution

OO This Time Congress Is Not Helping Trump Destroy The Planet - He's not happy about that.

OO New York, Other States Take On Trump Over Energy Efficiency Cuts saying his suspension of rules to improve appliance energy efficiency is illegal.

Credit Anja Hoffman at twitter.com

OO Trump Has Scientists Mad Enough To March On Earth Day - By marching for truth, scientists are not being political - they are merely doing their job.

OO EPA Watchdog Could Spark Internal Clash Over Pruitts Climate Denial - the agencys scientific integrity officer, an ex environmental advocate, is tasked with evaluating EPA chiefs statements denying CO2 drives global warming.

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CLIMATE MYTH BUSTERS!

OO The Reality of Climate Change - below are some of the biggest climate myths currently trending, compared to the reality. A good place for more details is here where even more myths are busted!

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LETS MARCH TWICE!!

We Resist. We Build. We Rise. Lets March for our children and our future by marching for science on April 22nd, and for the climate on April 29th one week later.

OO April 22: Energy Grows For Worldwide March For Science,

As Trump Wages War On It - Nearly 400 marches in 37 countries will take place on April 22, demonstrating global resistance to Trump agenda.

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@@ 7 INSANE Effects of Climate Change in Your Lifetime compelling, but dont watch while eating.

OO April 29: March For A Safe Climate. says 350.org. March with hundreds of thousands of others to:

• push forward with a united vision of a clean energy economy that works for all.
• reject Trumps attack on our communities and climate,
• Push back against fossil-fuel-soaked nationalism, xenophobia, and hatred.
• Push back against corporate censorship of climate change.

Create a huge impact on our leaders, as past marches have.

You can sign up here

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HOT NEWS

OO We're Creating A Perfect Storm Of Unprecedented Global Warming If we do not reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, by 2100 the Earth will be as hot as it was 50 million years ago in the early Eocene, with CO2 levels over twice as much as today, shows a new study.

Green Plants Stored CO2 Over Millions of Years And Now Were Releasting It, As the Sun Gets Warmer

OO Intensifying Sun And Increased CO2 A 'Double-Whammy' For Climate Change Takeaways:

• Over the past 400 million years, the sun has been intensifying
• and Earth has only escaped a frying because
• plants sucked up the extra carbon dioxide,
• reducing the heat caught in the atmosphere.

• But now, were changing that,
• Literally putting CO2 back into the air
• By burning ancient dead plants, which comprise fossil fuels.

• Meanwhile, the sun keeps intensifying: both effects* will
• Warm the Earth more than previously thought.

*MEH: there is a substantial difference in the scale of change each can affect on our atmosphere: human activities that pump CO2 into the air at a huge rate are going to change the planetary heat balance over the next century far faster, especially with the help of natural feedback cycles that further add to the warming, than the changing intensity of the sun

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MELTDOWN

OO Arctic Ice Is Melting From Above and Below:

Global Warming Is Literally Turning The Arctic Ocean Inside Out and speeding the melting of Arctic ice, a major planetary thermal shield without it, Earth will warm much faster.

Takeaways from new research:

• Unlike the Atland and Pacific, the Arctic Ocean gets warmer with increasing depth.
• Because it is fed by heavier, saltier, warmer Atlantic water from the south, that stays deep normally.
• But as Arctic ice melts, the exposed surface is mixed by winds that
• Bring warmer water to the surface and speed melting of remaining ice.

The ocean's role in sea ice retreat, it used to be minimal, but as sea ice retreats it's one of those positive feedback mechanisms," a researcher said. "And we're talking a lot of heat in the Atlantic layer, it could melt all the ice in the Arctic if it were to pop up to the surface."

Spectacular Calving of Glaciers and Icebergs Illustrate the Grand Global Melt Source Wodernvision 420 at Youtube

OO Fire And Ice: Tambora, Receding Glaciers And The Birth Of Modern Climate-Research

Glaciers worldwide have experienced a constant retreat. The general trend shows even a stronger acceleration in the last 30 years, causing concern among scientists.

OO The Massive Crack In The Antarctic Ice Shelf Is Hanging On By A 12-Mile 'Thread' and once that breaks, it will release yet another massive iceberg signalling the continuing melt of ice at both poles from a heating planet.

OO The Worlds Snowiest Place Is Starting To Melt in the mountains of northwestern Japan, which have long received up to 125 feet of snow a yearbut that's starting to change.

Credit Lisa McKeon

OO Documenting Glaciers In The Dying Days Of Ice in Montanas Glacier National Park, as climate change hastens their end.

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GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OO Renewables Cut Europe's Carbon Emissions By 10% In 2015 - A surge in the use of wind and solar energy helped Europe to cut its fossil fuel consumption, says a new report.

OO More Renewable Energy For Less: Capacity Grew In 2016 As Costs Fell The world added record levels of renewable energy capacity in 2016 while spending less on clean energy development, says a new report.

OO Green Power: Wave Of The Future The price of renewable energy - especially solar power - continues to tumble, and the result is more green power generating capacity for fewer dollars.

OO Made In America: Trump Embracing Offshore Wind? Without officially fanfare, the Trump administration is deciding that the windmills can be made here after all.

OO Where The US Energy Storage Industry Is Happening Now 5 US states have the potential to become energy hub and dominate the energy storage boom, bringing together workers, universities, entrepreneurs, benefactors and favorable policies: California, Nevada, New York, Michigan, and North Carolina.

OO New Energy Goes Mainstream As Majors Muscle In Utilities are grabbing share of renewables from smaller developers.

Both Scotland and California Pursue Clean Energy Vigorously so the pairing isnt all that surprising.

OO California And Scotland Join Forces To Fight Climate Change

OO Appeals Court Upholds California's Anti-Greenhouse Gas Program

OO Kenya: Solar Micro-Grids Boost Fortunes Of Lake Victoria Fishermen solar power has help boost public access to electricity to 60% in Kenya, up from 27 % three years before.

OO The End Of Coal: EU Energy Companies Pledge No New Plants From 2020 Europes energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.

OO Australia: Coalition Supporters Back Quicker Shift To Renewable Energy unlike their national leader.

OO Ontarios First Cap-And-Trade Auction Sells Out Current Allowances,

Signals a Strong Start For the New Carbon Market but the real test of the system will be in the emission reductions it brings about.

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SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS

Source familyfarmalliance.org

OO Analyzing How Climate Change Will Affect Farm Work A new analysis indicates:

• Farmers will have to plant earlier in the spring;
• Overall, huge changes will force a major rethinking of how to farm.

OO Farming Becoming Riskier Under Climate Change

OO Hawaii: A Brain-Invading Parasite Appears To Be Spreading Due To Climate Change Takeaways:

• health officials warn residents not to touch snails or slugs with bare hands
• due to an increase in cases of people contracting a rare parasitic infection known as a rat lungworm.
• Once the nematode worm invades the brain, death often results.
• Other states where it has recently popped up include California, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida.

OO "Ecoanxiety": Climate Change Is Causing PTSD, Anxiety, And Depression On A Mass Scale

even suicide in some cases:

• Eco-disasters, both short term (eg hurricanes) and longterm (eg, drought, sea level rise) are causing mental trauma.
• Responses to climate change, including conflict avoidance, fatalism, fear, helplessness, and resignation are growing.
• Longterm disasters will cause significant chronic mental problems says a new study .
• These responses in turn are delaying national action on climate change.

OO Study: Climate Change Could Increase PTSD, Suicide, And Depression

OO Depressed About Climate Change? There's A 9-Step Program For That

• Groups for coping with grief and anger from environmental destruction are forming;
• These help people to not be overwhelmed by anger but channel it productively.
• These groups can help create seeds of action.

@@ TORNADO TWINS & TRIPLETS!!! Unusual tornado family of May 24, 2016 is a great real time view of how tornadoes form and even split into 2 or more compelling! This is Part 2 of a 3-part series of these tornadoes on May 24, 2016: view the equally compelling Part 1 , The Ultimate Tornado Up Close and Part 3 , Creepy Tornado Siren.

OO Tornadoes Striking At Record Pace In US So Far This Year Takeaways:

• The number of US 2017 tornadoes is climbing at a record pace.
• Powerful storm systems hit the West Coast,
• then head towards central and eastern U.S.,
• Creating tornadoes and other extreme weather events.

@@ How Soon Will We Use Up Our Carbon Budget For 1.5C Of Global Warming? 4 Years.

OO New Study Links Carbon Pollution To Extreme Weather Extreme weather can occur due to direct heating from global warming, but also, new research shows, from large-scale changes to the atmosphere and oceans:

• As global warming weakens the Arctic jet stream,
• It loops into the temperate zone, like the US, and stagnates weather systems,
• Causing flooding or heatwaves on the land beneath, depending on whether
• The system is a wet or hot, dry one.

When Biodiversity Is Threatened, So Are We

OO Climate Change Impacting 'Most' Species On Earth, Even Down To Their Genomes indicates 3 new studies:

• Species are changing genetically in response to climate change,
• But that doesnt mean they are adapting successfully to it.

"In many instances genetic diversity is being lost due to climate change, not just in nature but also in resources that human's depend on such as crops and timber,"

OO Climate-Driven Species On The Move Are Changing (Almost) Everything Climate change is driving a universal major redistribution of life on Earth.

OO Antarctic Ice Reveals Earth's Accelerating Global Plant Growth - Scientists compiling a record of the atmosphere based on air trapped in Antarctic ice found that rising carbon dioxide has accelerated plant growth.

OO Brazil: Climate Change, Deofrestation Help Spread Lethal Monkey Virus killing both humans and many members of endangered species of monkeys.

OO Cambodia: Angkor Wat's Ancient Collapse From Climate Change Has Lessons For Today

The powerful civilization was hammered into oblivion by drought and floods, underscoring the connections between climate and people, shows new research.

OO Disaster Alley: Australia Could Be Hit By A New Wave Of Climate Refugees a U.S. defense expert warns as people flee low-lying Pacific islands, a precursor to climate-exacerbated water insecurities that could trigger wider conflict.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Climate Change 101: Why Care? What You Need to Know - Bill Nye tells it all in five minutes amid graphic, dynamic, engaging, compelling imagery. Check it Out!

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GOOD IDEAS

Credit Joel Pett at USA Today

OO Instead of the Threat of Climate Change, Promote the Economic Upside of Its Solutions

Embracing energy efficiency and a low-carbon economy promotes:

• Jobs
• National security
• Human health

MEH: BUT SPEED IS OF THE ESSENCE: understanding the cascading threat of climate change helps speed action to a rate that prevents catastophic damage which could overwhelm our society if we do not act fast enough.

OO It's Good Business For Cities To Prepare For Climate Change

"As the impacts of climate change become more significant, cities' resilience will become a factor of competitive advantage"

OO India: Switching To Vegetables, Oranges And Papaya Could Help Save Water India could save water and reduce planet-warming emissions if people added more vegetables and fruits like melon, oranges and papaya to their diet while reducing wheat and poultry, researchers said on Wednesday. Reuters.

OO Farms Could Slash Pesticide Use Without Losses, Research Reveals

The research also shows chemical treatments could be cut without affecting farm profits on most farms.

OO India: Court Says Glaciers And Rivers Are 'Living Entities.'

Could The Same Approach Work In The US? As Indian glaciers retreat, Indian judges have moved aggressively to protect them.

UK: Diesel Pollution Now At Crisis Levels Source www.telegraph.co.uk

OO Make Car Makers, Not Drivers, Pay For The Diesel Crisis, experts say, as they do in Germany and France.

OO Salt, Silicon Or Graphite: Energy Storage Goes Beyond Lithium Ion Batteries Technologies that use gels, liquids, and molten silicon or salt could all claim a slice of the growing renewable energy storage market.

Our National Heritage Is Worth Its Maintenance and gives Americans far more happiness than any of Trumps assets. Source US Interior Department

OO US Park Service Deserves A Bigger Check Americans love their parks and bringing the parks to full flower is a win-win-win not only for the jobs and national pride the project would generate but the political popularity that would accrue to those who made it happen.

OO Engaging The Unengaged On Climate Change - people who do not seek out information about environmental trends and their consequences. This great challenge can start within our own, personal networks.

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NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

OO How Frozen Farmers Fields Are An Unexpected Culprit In Climate Change, according to a new study. When thawing, a vast expanse of farmers fields across Canada burp significant amounts of a potent climate changing gas, nitrous oxide into the air.

OO Great Barrier Reef At 'Terminal Stage': Scientists Despair At Latest Coral Bleaching Data Back-to-back severe bleaching events have affected two-thirds of Australias Great Barrier Reef, new aerial surveys have found.

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SPEAKING OUT

Paris, Home of the 2016 Global Climate Accord Source frenchseams.com

OO French Foreign Minister: The World Can't Fight Climate Change Without The US -- at least, not fast enough to prevent even further catastrophic damage.

OO Montana: Church Leaders Are Begging Their Senator To Give Up Global Warming Denial

"We cannot remain silent while a U.S. senator from Montana chooses willful ignorance of the greatest threat this state has ever faced and which is already causing extreme damage" said the church leaders.

"The simple moral truth is that United States is by far the world's largest historic contributor to the climate crisis and therefore bears the greatest responsibility for addressing it."

OO US Coal Companies Ask Trump To Stick With Paris Climate Deal arguing that the accord could provide their best forum for protecting their global interests.

Source Facebook

OO With Climate Change Deniers In Charge, Time For Scientists To Step Up says noted climate researcher Kevin Trenberth, who talks about why climate scientists need to speak out in the face of the Trump administrations denial of the facts about climate change.

OO A Timeline Of The Trump War On Science which is in full swing. Check out this interactive graphic timeline!

OO Michael Mann: Trump Must Curb Carbon Emissions By 2020

This Is Insulting, Says Award-Winning US Teacher Brandie Freeman, who used the climate disinformation packet created by the Heartland [Heartless?] Institute to show her students how some right wing organizations mislead the public on climate change. Source The Sustainable Teacher

OO US Educators Decry Conservative Group's Climate 'Propaganda' Sent To Schoolteachers

Science teachers and legislators are fighting back after a conservative advocacy organization, Heartland Institute, mailed false information on climate science to thousands of school science teachers nationwide.

OO EPA Should Not Be Allowed To Dodge Clean Power Plan Ruling, Cities And States Tell Court - urging it to reject the Trump gangs request to stall decision on cornerstone climate regulations.

We Pay The EPA To Keep Our Air, Water, and Land Clean and under Trump, it looks like well have to sue to ensure that gets done. Source news.mynahcare.com

OO EPA Staffer Leaves With A Bang, Blasting Agency Policies Under Trump In his resignation letter, longtime EPA veteran Mike Cox wrote:

The policies this Administration is advancing are

contrary to what the majority of the American people,

who pay our salaries,

want EPA to accomplish,

which are to ensure the air their children breath is safe;

the land they live, play, and hunt on to be free of toxic chemicals;

and the water they drink, the lakes they swim in, and the rivers they fish in to be clean.

Ridhima Pandeys Home State Has Been Ravaged By Climate Change and deforestation. Flash floods and landslides there killed hundreds of people and left tens of thousands homeless in 2013. Source www.independent.co.uk

OO Nine-Year-Old Girl Sues Indian Government Over Climate Change Inaction highlighting the growing concern over pollution and environmental degradation in the country.

OO Thailand: Fishermen Protest Proposed Coal-Fired Plant: 'The World Is Watching to save their livelihood and quite possibly the ecosystem of Phang Nga bay.

This Dam Kills 19 Million Fish Yearly in Tajikistan. Source Courtesty of CIF Action

OO Green Groups Condemn UN Plan To Use $130+ Millions From Climate Fund For Large Dams

warning of serious environmental consequences for the projects in Nepal, Tajikistan and the Solomon Islands.

OO Australia: Don't Fund Coal Mine, Activists Plead With Govt Agency Environmental action groups including Greenpeace, Oxfam and GetUp have said this in a signed an open letter to Australias export credit agency..

OO Canada: Teachers Urge $175 Billion Pension Fund To Flex Muscle On Climate Change

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FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES

@@ What Is The Social Cost Of Carbon? Takeaways:

• The social cost of carbon tracks just how much personal or group actions impact everyones climate.
• It tracks the costs of climate damages incurred by the carbon emissions of those actions.
• It underpins all federal climate protections.
• Trump wants to get rid of it in his government.

OO Carbon Footprint Of Canada's Oil Sands Is Larger Than Thought

OO FALSE: EPA Head Scott Pruitts Claim That Clean Coal Helped Reduce Carbon Emissions

and one of the reasons carbon emissions have been reduced to pre-1994 levels. The data show clearly that switching to natural gas and the growth of clean energy were behind this reduction.

OO Coal Is On The Way Out At Electric Utilities, No Matter What Trump Says Utilities are turning to natural gas, wind and solar to create power, a roadblock to the presidents efforts to revive the coal industry.

OO Trump Declares End To 'War On Coal,' But Utilities Aren't Listening

OO Queensland, Australia: Giant Coal Mine Granted Unlimited Water Licence For 60 Years The proposed Adani coal mine, which will be Australia's biggest, has been granted unlimited access to groundwater by the Queensland government in a move farmers fear will drain huge amounts of water. Now wait for the next big drought.

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FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. Whats not to like? Check it out!

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If we do not live sustainably,

Our children will die inhumanely.

@@ Myth vs Truth: The Huge Value of Contraception is an incisive, heartfelt recognition of the value of contraception by Sarah Brown, CEO, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

Unintended Pregnancy Costs US Taxpayers:

Unintended Pregnancies Cost US Taxypayers Nearly $11 Billion Yearly

the Guttmacher Institute

Teen Childbearing Alone Cost US Taxpayers $9+ Billion In 2010

And the costs of raising a child usually ensures decades, if not a life, of poverty for its mother.

- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Help prevent unintended pregnancies in your community:

publicize where women can access affordable contraception.

They can go here to find locations:

And there are many more actions you can do, right here .

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Check it out here , right now!

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WHY WE SHOULD ACT NOW: RISING RISKS

Daily Climate Change: Global Map of Unusual Temperatures, Oct 12, 2014

Source cci-reanalyzer.org

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is caused by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought , which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes. Dance in the rain while you can!

Much of the lower 48 states are experiencing unusually warm temperatures as are the waters that surround them.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

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There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list Ive compiled, Climate Change News Resources, at Wordpress.com here . For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here .

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you'd like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here . It's our way of letting Congress know there's a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.