Wildfires

Australia’s catastrophic bushfires should be an inflection point

There are not many political messages that can slip through a closed window or a locked door, but that’s just what happened last week in Australia’s biggest city. Climate change didn’t just come knocking; it slithered in under every crack, filling houses and offices across Sydney with the acrid smell of burning forests. The

How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong

Few thought it would arrive so quickly. Now we’re facing consequences once viewed as fringe scenarios. For decades, most scientists saw climate change as a distant prospect. We now know that thinking was wrong. This summer, for instance, a heat wave in Europe penetrated the Arctic, pushing temperatures into the 80s across much of

It’s the End of California as We Know It

The fires and the blackouts are connected to a larger problem in this state: a failure to live sustainably. SAN FRANCISCO — I have lived nearly all my life in California, and my love for this place and its people runs deep and true. There have been many times in the past few years when

Power shutoffs cause a battery boom in California

Contractors across California are seeing greater demand for battery storage than ever before in response to PG&E’s Public Safety Power Shutoffs. With the threat of blackouts on the 10-year horizon, customers have decided to take their power into their own hands. As has been well documented, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has begun Public

U.N. climate summit to test world’s resolve to halt warming

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - After a summer of wildfires, heat waves and hurricanes, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is banking on new pledges from governments and businesses to abandon fossil fuels during a special climate summit in New York on Monday. With Swedish teen Greta Thunberg and other activists piling pressure on delegates ahead

Extreme weather is driving the energy storage boom

Energy storage installations for homes and businesses — involving battery technology — are on the rise in areas where extreme weather threatens the electric power grid, such as flood-prone Houston, wildfire-stricken California and hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. A sustained power outage can lead to serious consequences, such as loss of income and even death. Because of

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