From The Guardian:

The rapidly shrinking window of opportunity for the US to pass significant climate legislation will have mortal, as well as political, stakes. Millions of lives around the world will be saved, or lost, depending on whether America manages to propel itself towards a future without planet-heating emissions.

For the first time, researchers have calculated exactly how many people the US could save by acting on the climate crisis. A total of 7.4 million lives around the world will be saved over this century if the US manages to cut its emissions to net zero by 2050, according to the analysis.

The financial savings would be enormous, too, with a net zero America able to save the world $3.7tn in costs to adapt to the rising heat. As the world’s second largest polluter of greenhouse gases, the US and its political vagaries will in large part decide how many people in faraway countries will be subjected to deadly heat, as well as endure punishing storms, floods, drought and other consequences of the climate emergency.
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/16/us-climate-crisis-millions-lives-saved

Today’s weather:

• Morning low at 6:00 am was 77° F
• Today’s high at 5:00 pm was 96° F
• Humidity was 50%
• No rain
• Mostly clear conditions

Another hot day on O’Town. While reading the depressing headlines I came across this in The Guardian:

New data has revealed extraordinary rates of global heating in the Arctic, up to seven times faster than the global average.

The heating is occurring in the North Barents Sea, a region where fast rising temperatures are suspected to trigger increases in extreme weather in North America, Europe and Asia. The researchers said the heating in this region was an “early warning” of what could happen across the rest of the Arctic.

The new figures show annual average temperatures in the area are rising across the year by up to 2.7C a decade, with particularly high rises in the months of autumn of up to 4C a decade. This makes the North Barents Sea and its islands the fastest warming place known on Earth.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/15/new-data-reveals-extraordinary-global-heating-in-the-arctic

There’s so much more happening. Russia has a methane leak at a mine that’s dumping 90 tons of methane/hour into the atmosphere. Will Russia do anything about it? Not while it’s pushing its illegal invasion of Ukraine. (link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/methane-leak-at-russian-mine-could-be-largest-ever-discovered )

Today’s weather:

• Morning low at 5:30 am was 79° F
• Today’s high at 5:00 pm was 96° F
• Humidity was 65%
• No rain
• Cloudy/hazy conditions

Correction to yesterday’s conditions: we actually had a 1/2 inch of rainfall at or a little after 9 pm.