AMERICANS ARE STILL IN THE FIGHT

Since the day last June when President Trump took to the South Lawn of the White House to declare his intention to withdraw our country from the Paris climate accord, more than 2,600 leaders from America’s city halls, state houses, boardrooms, and college campuses have signed the We Are Still In declaration.

This network includes 1,780 businesses and investors, nine states, 252 cities and counties, 213 faith organizations, and 339 colleges and universities. Together, they represent more than 130 million Americans and $6.2 trillion of the U.S. economy.

In an open letter to the international community, We are Still In declared, “We will continue to support climate action to meet the Paris Agreement….The Trump administration’s announcement ...is ... out of step with what is happening in the United States.

“...It is imperative that the world know that in the U.S., the actors that will provide the leadership necessary to meet our Paris commitment are found in city halls, state capitals, colleges and universities, investors and businesses. Together, we will remain actively engaged with the international community as part of the global effort to hold warming to well below 2℃ and to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy that will benefit our security, prosperity, and health.”

Young Republicans Want Action On Climate

A major hurdle as the United States tries to do its part to counter climate change is resistance from Republican politicians. So far, most of them have been able to sit on the sidelines because GOP voters are less troubled by climate change than Democratic voters. Asked late last year if “the federal government should do more to protect people from global warming’s impacts,” 88 percent of Democrats said yes, compared to only 33 percent of Republicans.

But that gap may narrow significantly before too much longer. There is increasing evidence that young Republicans view climate change as a threat to our health and economy and that they believe our leaders must act. A recent survey by the Alliance for Market Solutions found that nearly 60 percent of young Republicans acknowledge that human-induced climate change is real, as do 88 percent of young Democrats. A majority of young people of both parties said they believe steps should be taken to slow or stop climate change.

“Young voters don’t necessarily have strong views on what should be done about climate change, but doing nothing is not a path that most young people, including Republicans, tend to support,” said Kristen Soltis Anderson, the Republican strategist who conducted the survey.

REALITY CHECK: WE NEED TO GET SERIOUS

Few Americans are aware of all the recent climate news because of all the headlines about the White House “palace intrigue,” the Florida high school massacre, and the fate of the Dreamers. Warning: The climate news isn’t good.

Let’s start with the leaked draft of a United Nations climate science report. It warns there is a “very high risk” the planet will pass a key warming marker, creeping above 1.5 degrees Celsius in the 2040's, The Washington Post’s Chris Mooney reported February 14. The document also says the possibility of maintaining the planet’s temperature below that level in this century is “already out of reach.”

What’s most striking, Mooney wrote, is the radical nature and rapidity of the changes that would be required to somehow preserve a world below 1.5 degrees. The document finds that the world has 12 to 16 years’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions left, from the start of 2016, if it wants a better-than-even chance of holding warming below 1.5 degrees.

CAN SKIING SURVIVE?

Do you like to ski? If so, get out there and enjoy it while you can. Dryer and warmer weather is shortening the ski season and reducing the number of resorts that will have enough snow to remain in business.

Within the next 20 years, the number of days at or below freezing in some of the most popular ski towns in the United States will decline by weeks or even a month, according to a new report by the Climate Impact Lab. In Park City, Utah, for example, an average of 194 days each year between 1981 and 2010 were at or below freezing, but that figure could be cut in half by late century if emissions continue to rise at the current rate.

In the Alps, the eight-nation mountain range that accounts for 40 percent of the world’s skier-days, resorts are facing the loss of up to 70 percent of their snow cover by the end of the century, and the snow line will be a kilometer higher – above the base of most ski areas. Even in the best-case scenarios, global warming is likely to cause snowfall to be replaced by rain across the Alps, according to a report in the European Geosciences Union journal Cryosphere.

THE HIGH COST OF IGNORING CLIMATE CHANGE

The next time you hear a politician say that our country simply can’t afford to tackle climate change, send him a copy of the new report documenting the more than $300 billion in damage caused by natural disasters last year. That figure made 2017 the most expensive year on record for disasters in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Another NOAA finding: There were 16 billion-dollar events, which has happened only once before, in 2011. (There’s a great map in the NOAA report linked above.) The list includes Hurricanes Harvey ($125 billion), Irma ($50 billion) and Maria ($90 billion); floods and wildfires in California; hail storms in Colorado and Minnesota; and three tornado outbreaks. There was drought and fire in the Plains states. The 16 events killed 362 people, according to NOAA’s report.

The previous most expensive disaster year was 2005, when events such as Hurricane Katrina caused $215 billion in U.S. damage, when adjusted for inflation. NOAA’s record of billion-dollar natural disasters goes back to 1980.