The summer rolls on and the heat builds up.\u00a0 But this is not like any other summer, it\u2019s getting hotter in unprecedented ways.\u00a0 July\u2019s heat, for example, fueled ferocious wildfires, from the arctic to Greece, where more than 80 people died, to the Western states, where it feels like the entire state of California is burning.<\/p>\n
California endured its hottest summer on record in 2017. \u00a0But it\u2019s smashing single day all time temperature records this year.\u00a0 On July 6, heat records were set at UCLA (111 degrees), Burbank and Santa Ana (114 degrees), and Chino, California hit 120 degrees.<\/p>\n
In the hugely destructive Carr fire in Northern California, scientists say extreme heat and dry brush on July 26th<\/sup> reportedly helped create a devastating fire tornado as much as 500 yards wide and 38,000 feet tall, with winds exceeding 143 mph.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t blazingly hot only in the California desert. \u00a0Throughout the United States, from Maine to Nevada, new heat records were set.<\/p>\n Temperatures topped 90 degrees in the Arctic Circle. \u00a0Wildfires ravaged northern Scandinavia and Siberia; the smoke, and its air pollution, colored sunsets red in Canada and the U.S.\u00a0 In Greenland, an iceberg may break off a piece so large that it could trigger a tsunami that engulfs villages on its shores. \u00a0Recently, Sweden\u2019s highest mountain peak is no longer in first place after its glacier tip melted.<\/p>\n Heat records were also set in Armenia, France and Britain.\u00a0 Algeria (over 124 degrees) probably broke the all-time high for Africa. \u00a0Temperatures in Spain and Portugal reached 105-110 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n In Japan, 23,000 people were hospitalized in one week in July from triple-digit temperatures; since May, more than 80 people have died of heatstroke.<\/p>\n Korea \u2014 both South and North \u2014 also shattered records in July, with at least 29 people in the South dying from heatstroke. More than 3 million livestock in South Korea died.<\/p>\n In August, scientists concluded that intensifying heat waves in China\u2019s crucial agricultural area likely will \u201climit habitability\u201d later this century in the region of 400 million people. \u00a0Last year the same scientists concluded the same thing about heat in South Asia \u2014 which includes India and Pakistan and about 20 percent of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n After years of warnings, climate change has arrived \u2013 and arrived in a dangerous way.\u00a0 What often looks like a Hollywood disaster movie is the new normal for a planet seriously altered by human activity.<\/p>\n Yet, the Trump Administration seems hell-bent on doing all it can to accelerate global warming. \u00a0Last week, the Trump Administration took action to weaken the auto emissions rules set by the state of California.<\/p>\n Since the 1970s, California has been able to issue its own stricter standards on tailpipe emissions than the federal government\u2019s.\u00a0 The courts have upheld California\u2019s actions and thirteen states have chosen to follow; a group of states that make up nearly 50 percent of the nation\u2019s population.<\/p>\n This is the second step the Trump Administration has taken to weaken air pollution rules.\u00a0 Its first was to eviscerate Obama-era regulations, which required that car and trucks would average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. \u00a0Under the Trump administration\u2019s plan, mileage targets would freeze at 37 miles per gallon in 2020 for six years.<\/p>\n And freezing the vehicle tailpipe emissions will result in increases in greenhouse gas emissions.\u00a0 The same emissions that are fueling global warming.<\/p>\n Transportation accounts for about one third of the nation\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions. \u00a0In some suburban areas, that impact is greater.\u00a0 If public health and environmental policies were based on science and not greed or ideology, it would be a no-brainer to combat climate change by reducing car emissions.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the Trump Administration is intent on accelerating the catastrophe known as climate change.\u00a0 With elections looming in fewer than 100 days, voters will get a chance to decide whether science \u2013 not ideology \u2013 should drive national environmental policies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The summer rolls on and the heat builds up.\u00a0 But this is not like any other summer, it\u2019s getting hotter in unprecedented ways.\u00a0 July\u2019s heat, for example, fueled ferocious wildfires, from the arctic to Greece, where more than 80 people died, to the Western states, where it feels like the entire state of California is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2098,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}