Wildfires fueled by extreme heat and drought continue to rage across the West Coast. Climate change exacerbates drought and heatwaves that set the stage for massive conflagrations, like the Sugar Fire in Northern California which doubled in size from Friday to Saturday and produced so much smoke and ash that, … [continued]
Originally published on NRDC Expert Blog. By Mitchell Bernard Summer is just beginning, and it’s already made this much clear: The time for climate action is now. On Monday, one of the hottest places on the planet was Portland, Oregon, where record temperatures of 116 degrees caused streets to buckle and sent scores … [continued]
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met (virtually) with a bipartisan group of Western governors yesterday to discuss preparations for this year’s wildfire season, which is expected to be especially severe due to an ongoing drought fueled by climate change. “Climate change is driving the dangerous confluence of extreme … [continued]
Drive Tesla Canada shared the sad news of a Tesla owner of a brand new Tesla Model S Plaid. The vehicle has been destroyed in a fire in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured. Also, the cause of the fire is still under investigation. Drive Tesla Canada … [continued]
Fire weather is heating up across the western United States, exacerbated by an intense heatwave and ongoing severe drought. NOAA satellites are monitoring numerous wildfires and keeping watch on areas primed for ignition. As of June 17, 2021, 33 large fires are currently active, burning more than 400,000 acres in 10 … [continued]
Scientists have known last year’s Castle Fire was probably the most destructive for California’s famously fire-resilient sequoias in at least 700 years, but a draft National Park Service report obtained by the Visalia Times-Delta puts a quantitative measurement on that fire’s climate-fueled toll. Between 7,500 and 10,000 monarch sequoias — … [continued]
As if drought, flooding, extreme hurricanes, and deadly heat waves weren’t enough, climate change could make zombie forest fires more common, scientists say. Research published Wednesday in Nature found zombie fires — wildfires in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, so-called because they continue to smolder under winter snows and reignite once the snow melts — are becoming more common as global temperatures rise … [continued]
Federal officials expect climate-fueled heat and drought to drive a Western fire season at least as bad as last year, if not worse. “Starting in the Southwest and moving throughout the Western part of the United States, we’re seeing a higher level of risk, and an earlier level of risk, … [continued]
There’s a new approach that is boosting the efficiency of lithium-ion batteries that also puts out fires — making the batteries fireproof. The new approach, according to scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, is the reengineering of one of the heaviest components in batteries: sheets of copper or aluminum foil that are used to collect currents.
California energy officials said extreme heat fueled by climate change, and poor planning, led to the state’s rolling blackouts in mid-August. The preliminary “root cause analysis,” released Tuesday by the state’s three central energy agencies, acknowledged they failed to adequately plan for the extreme ‘heat storm’ that shattered temperature records across the American West.
