Environment

As gas prices skyrocket due to the energy crisis caused by President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, the White House has agreed to pay almost $1 billion to halt the construction of wind farms off the East Coast.

In a deal the New York Times called “unusual,” the Trump administration has compelled the French energy conglomerate TotalEnergies to forfeit its lease for wind farms that were to be built off the coasts of New York and North Carolina by promising to reimburse the company the $928 million it paid during the previous administration.

As the Times notes, the deal comes at a moment when the United States is grappling with its most substantial energy crisis in half a century,

“The deal is an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company for the purposes of boosting the production of fossil fuels, a main driver of climate change, while throttling offshore wind power,” says the Times. “It comes as the war in the Middle East has shocked global oil markets, prompting concerns about energy supplies.”

The project’s cancellation puts a fine point Trump’s stated ire toward wind farms, which he has espoused frequently over the past decade.

“I’m proudly telling you that we’re going to try and have no windmills built in the United States during my” administration, Trump said last week.

Since retaking office, Trump has spearheaded numerous attempts to roll back efforts to develop wind energy, including ending subsidies and attempting to block new construction. While TotalEnergies decided to accept the billion-dollar deal, other projects have successfully sued the administration to have their permits reinstated.

As the Times points out, “Some experts have argued that investments in renewable energy, including wind and solar power, can help countries protect against the volatility of oil prices, particularly during wartime.”

Trump has long borne a public hatred for wind energy, making wide-ranging, baseless claims that they cause cancer, are loud eyesores, kill “all the birds,” and are “driving whales crazy.” He has spoken against wind turbines since at least 2012, when he attempted to prevent the construction of a wind project off the coast of his Scottish golf course by claiming they would hurt the country’s tourism. When asked what evidence he had to support such a claim, his response was characteristic.

“I am the evidence,” he told the Scottish Parliament.

There are millions of Americans in the path of a potentially dangerous storm system on Monday, the Weather Channel reports.

There are already about half a million customers across the central U.S. without power Monday morning after storms moved through east of the Mississippi River overnight.

Tornadoes are also touching down Monday in Georgia. In North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington D.C., there is a chance of hurricane-force winds. That's going to mean a high likelihood of falling trees and downed power lines.

One of the best explanations of the differences between a tornado watch and a tornado warning follows the taco rule. A tornado watch is when you have all of the things to make a taco, and they're ready to go. A tornado warning is when there is a taco. The warning means that either a tornado is on the ground or there is a funnel cloud that is turning above you and could drop down at any minute.

For those who aren’t accustomed to having to dodge funnels, here are some tips:

1. Have the weather on the TV or streaming all day. Make sure the emergency alerts are set up on your phone. Some folks turn these off.
2. Keep your shoes on today. If a storm hits, you don't want to be shoe-less afterward because there will be all sorts of debris and glass on the ground.
3. Have a safe spot picked out. It should be the lowest level of your home and the center part of your house. You want as many walls between you and the outside as you can if you can’t get below ground. No windows. Not a lot of glass. Usually, this is a bathroom, even if you have a large mirror or a glass shower door.
4. Get in the bathtub
5. Children who might be home alone after school should not to put water in the bathtub.
6. Have pillows and blankets over you to protect from any flying debris. If you’re in a bathroom with glass, grab more pillows and blankets. Bicycle and motorcycle helmets are great protection, too.
7. Gather important documents, medication and electronic charges in a backpack to keep in your safe spot. Make sure your phones are charged. Put the backpack on when you start sheltering.
8. Think about things you can grab that will keep kids calm, like books to read, music to listen to.
9. Keep your animals leashed and harnessed while you’re sheltering. It means you can loop the leash on your leg or arm while you’re holding onto them and the family. If a tornado rips your roof off, your furry friend could get torn out of your arms. Having the leash attached to you means you've got a little extra protection.
10. Do not stay watching the weather on TV if you need to shelter. Take shelter and turn up the sound up as much as you can so you can hear it from the shelter. Your safety is more important than knowing exactly which neighborhood will be hit and when.
11. Check the weather before leaving the house. If you can avoid leaving the house Monday, do it. If you need to run errands, wait until everything has passed. Even if no tornadoes are expected to hit your area, if winds are strong, you could end up on a road when a tree falls on your car. Someone on the George Washington Parkway died in Northern Virginia last week when a tree fell on them during a storm.
12. If you've got school pickup Monday afternoon, keep an eye on the storm's timing. Several of the storm's bad parts north of South Carolina are scheduled to hit between 2 p.m. EDT and 5 p.m. EDT. This might mean you should leave work early or late. It might mean going to pick up the kids, parking, and staying at the school for half an hour just to be safe. School bathrooms are great places to shelter because they're often interior rooms and surrounded by cinderblocks. Stay up against the wall, cross your legs, bend down, and put your hands over your head if you don't have a helmet. Use any extra clothing you have to wrap over your head, hands, and around you.
13. Other great places to shelter if you can't get home include basements or central staircases. Parking garage staircases on the bottom floor are good spots. If you're in a public place like a big-box store, staff should know where to tell you to go. Convenience stores sometimes have large freezers that have been known to protect people. So if it is between your car and the convenience store, go inside. Get far away from windows.
14. If you're staying at home and you have a large tree in your yard, think about where that tree will fall if it comes down. Will it fall on the house right where you sit on the sofa? Will it fall right on your bedroom? Don't sit there.
15. Have a phone buddy, particularly if you're alone. Make sure your parents/siblings/kids all know that you’ll call them when you’re safe. That way, they know if you don’t call, that it's because you need help. They can contact your city's first responders with your address.

Do not get out of your car and climb under an underpass. The videos that show people doing that were only slightly swiped by the tornado. If one comes over you while you're under the underpass, it will make the wind worse. You can either get sucked out, or debris will be sent flying at you at hundreds of miles an hour. In the EF5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, in 2011, a piece of wood pierced a concrete curb.

Don't waste time opening your windows. The damage from storms doesn't come from the plummeting pressure exploding your house; it comes from wind and debris. You're wasting time taking shelter when you're running around the house opening windows.

FEMA insiders have been warning that outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s Noem’s policies are hampering operations and their ability to respond to disasters.

The consequence of that may be lives lost. Delayed contract approvals has “slowed FEMA’s ability to pre-position crucial search-and-rescue teams, left call centers understaffed, and delayed the sharing of data with state partners,” CNN reports.

When tornadoes hit the Midwest and Plains last weekend, state and local search-and-rescue crews had to work without a critical tornado-tracking tool typically provided by FEMA. The tool follows a storm’s destructive path and allows rescuers to quickly reach those most affected.

The $200,000 contract for that crucial tool was sitting on a desk awaiting approval, leaving rescue teams literally guessing on where storms had the worst impact.

CNN reports “thousands of FEMA spending requests” have stalled between Noem and FEMA acting chief Karen Evans. “Many have been slashed, others have sat for months,” sources claim and documents show.

Noem is scheduled to leave her position atop DHS at the end of March. For now, her team continues to oversee FEMA’s operations.

Beyond Noem's tight spending policies, the government shutdown has stalled activity at the DHS, which oversees FEMA. Noem directed FEMA to scale back to “bare-minimum, live-saving operations only.”

In a follow-up email to the agency’s regional leaders, FEMA’s Karen Evans wrote that “all activities at FEMA need to cease.”

Much of FEMA’s work usually continues during government shutdowns. That’s because it’s tied to the Disaster Relief Fund, a pot of money Congress provides for disasters and emergencies.

This time, staffers were told there were only four exceptions to the no-work edict: things tied to President Trump’s State of the Union address, response to winter storms, meetings on the upcoming World Cup and Olympics, and “Nuclear activities.”

“People are being told not to even open their computers,” a high-ranking FEMA official said to CNN about their regional office. “It’s the most appalling experience of my professional life.”

“It’s a huge waste of time and taxpayer money for no reason, just to make the impact of the shutdown more significant,” another FEMA official said to CNN.

Meanwhile, Noem and the Trump administration blame Democrats for the DHS shutdown. Democrats support standalone funding for several agencies, including FEMA, but face Republican opposition.

A task force to help reform FEMA is set to present its final list of recommendations in the coming weeks.

Seven states are one flood away from a toxic sludge site spilling into the community.

Mother Jones reported Friday, "Florida, New Jersey, California, Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas account for 80 percent" of the sites. "Most of this risk is already locked in."

More than 5,500 toxic sites across the U.S. could face coastal flooding by 2100, threatening to spill contaminants into surrounding neighborhoods within the lifetimes of Generations Alpha and Beta, new research warns.

Scientists at the University of California found that a wide range of hazardous facilities are vulnerable, including sites handling sewage, toxic waste, oil, gas and other pollutants that are not fully protected from sea level rise and severe flooding.

"After examining 23 coastal states and Puerto Rico, scientists found that flood risk is far from evenly distributed. Florida, New Jersey, California, Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas account for nearly 80 percent of the hazardous sites expected to be at risk by 2100," the report said.

The project examined 47,600 coastal facilities in the U.S., finding that about 5,500 are at risk of frequent flooding that could send toxic materials into nearby communities.

Current environmental safeguards do little more than delay the danger. Future generations will be forced either to build stronger containment systems that can withstand flooding or face the consequences.

“Restricting greenhouse gas emissions to the low emissions scenario makes little difference in terms of the number of projected sites at risk in the near term (2050) but would reduce the number of at-risk sites from 5,500 to 5,138 (a reduction of 362 or 7 percent of sites) in the long term," the scientists found.

Read the full study at Nature Communications.

After President Donald Trump returned to the White House almost nine months ago, his administration carried out an aggressive campaign to downsize a range of federal government agencies. And it did so with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was led by Tesla/SpaceX/X.com head Elon Musk at the time.

Agencies ranging from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) were targeted for mass layoffs. Another was the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

In a Canary Media article republished by Mother Jones on October 16, journalist Maria Gallucci details the Trump Administration's push to eviscerate the Energy Department's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) — a move that might have killed a lot of job creation.

"The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations was supposed to be a launchpad for ambitious projects to help America lead the way on cleaner power and manufacturing. Now, it's been reduced to a shell of itself," Gallucci explains. "As the Trump Administration slashes spending and fires workers across the federal government, the U.S. Department of Energy has emerged as one of the hardest-hit agencies — and perhaps no other of its divisions has been singled out as deliberately as OCED…. The situation is best summarized by the budget the White House has requested for OCED for the next fiscal year: $0."

According to Gallucci, this is a "dramatic reversal" from former President Joe Biden's energy policies.

"During the Biden Administration," Gallucci explains, "Congress endowed it with nearly $27 billion to try to scale up cutting-edge technologies that could curb planet-warming pollution from industrial facilities and power plants. Trump officials have, in recent months, hollowed out the office, canceling billions in previously issued awards for everything from low-carbon chemical manufacturing to rural energy resiliency, while also dismissing over three-quarters of its employees…. Experts and insiders warn that the tumult within OCED and the DOE more broadly is eroding the private sector's trust in the federal government and its ability to drive energy innovation."

Advait Arun of the Center for Public Enterprise told Gallucci that the Trump Administration "has really created a chilling effect on the willingness of future early-stage technology developers to work with the Department of Energy."

A former OCED staffer, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Gallucci, "We are eliminating ourselves as a leader in the clean energy space, especially for the industrial complex. What I'm seeing is China is about to slip right into that position. Just logically and economically, I don't understand the steps that are being taken."

Read Maria Gallucci's full article at this Mother Jones link.

As Hurricane Erin batters the East Coast, North Carolina has been left in the lurch by a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) badly battered by the Trump administration.

WRAL reported Tuesday that the Tar Heel State is still waiting on $13 million in federal disaster preparedness grants from FEMA.

This is on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery funds for last year's devastating Hurricane Helene, which the agency has promised but not yet delivered.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein told reporters Tuesday that $85 million would begin flowing from FEMA to the state to fund recovery from Helene.

That announcement came after Stein sent US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem a letter in July asking why she had not signed off on the disbursal of the desperately needed funds.

"Applications submitted as far back as February 2025 remain without a final decision," Stein wrote in the letter, which laid out $209 million worth of Helene recovery projects still awaiting her sign-off. "Further delay of these funds keeps communities and families in limbo, all while we are in another dangerous hurricane season."

Even though some funds are reportedly flowing, Stein says the government has yet to reimburse North Carolina for over $100 million.

"It creates real financial strain, especially on local governments, but also the state," Stein said in a press conference.

Noem's leadership of FEMA came under severe scrutiny earlier this summer after it was reported that her policies hampered the agency's ability to respond to the devastating flooding that killed at least 138 people in Texas.

In June, Noem introduced a new policy requiring all FEMA expenditures over $100,000 to be personally approved by her, which officials within the agency said led to the deployment of search and rescue teams being delayed for days.

Two-thirds of the phone calls from desperate Texans to FEMA also went unanswered after Noem allowed hundreds of contractors to be laid off just a day after the storm hit.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has implemented massive staff cuts to the agencies responsible for hurricane preparedness.

It laid off hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) storm laboratory, including hurricane hunters and researchers.

Nearly half of the National Weather Service (NWS)'s forecasting offices have been left critically understaffed, with around a quarter lacking a meteorologist-in-charge.

On the ground, there are about 20% fewer permanent FEMA staff responsible for responding to hurricanes and other disasters. Emergency training for those who remained on the job was also rolled back.

Sarah Galvez, Climate Power's senior adviser for climate urgency, says that communities in the path of Hurricane Erin "are being put at risk thanks to the Trump Administration gutting the forecasting that people rely on during extreme weather."

Since 1980, as the planet has warmed, the number of significant hurricanes (classified as Category 3 or greater) has doubled. In recent years, they have also begun to intensify more rapidly as they approach landfall, giving forecasters less time to catch them and residents less time to respond.

But as part of a multi-pronged assault on climate science, Trump has also made it harder to track these and other disasters. In May, NOAA announced that it would no longer track the number of disasters resulting in over $1 billion in damage.

"Fueled by the climate crisis," Galvez says, "major hurricanes are only becoming more frequent and severe, but Trump's reckless actions have left Americans vulnerable and unprepared."

On Tuesday, Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) introduced legislation aimed at rolling back Trump's cuts to these agencies.

"As we continue to face increasing numbers of natural disasters across our country—wildfires, floods, hurricanes—it's critically important that we equip our communities with the resources they need," Neguse said. "Whether it's the preparedness programs run by NOAA and NWS, or the response and recovery initiatives managed by FEMA, our federal agencies play a crucial role in addressing the increasing frequency of disasters."

President Donald Trump is a relentless defender of fossil fuels, including coal, and rails against what he calls the "Green New Deal scam." Trump claims, without evidence, that windmills cause cancer — a claim that quite a few scientists and environmentalists say is nonsense.

Critics of Trump's energy policy argue that not only is coal terrible for the environment and a contributor to climate change — it is also inefficient compared to green energy.

In Michigan, a coal-fired power station, the JH Campbell plant, is struggling. But the Trump Administration, according to The Guardian's Oliver Milman, is determined to keep it open despite the expense and pollution concerns.

READ MORE: Trump just crossed a line no other president ever dared to

"Donald Trump has made several unusual moves to elongate the era of coal, such as giving the industry exemptions from pollution rules," Milman reports in an article published on August 21. "But the gambit to keep one Michigan coal-fired power station running has been extraordinary — by forcing it to remain open even against the wishes of its operator. The hulking JH Campbell power plant, which, since 1962, has sat a few hundred yards from the sand dunes at the edge of Lake Michigan, was just eight days away from a long-planned closure in May when Trump's Department of Energy issued an emergency order that it remain open for a further 90 days."

Milman adds, "On Wednesday, (August 20), the (Trump) Administration intervened again to extend this order even further, prolonging the lifetime of the coal plant another 90 days, meaning it will keep running until November — six months after it was due to close."

One Michigan resident who is highly critical of the JH Campbell plant is Mark Oppenhuizen, who lives nearby and fears that pollution from the plant has made his wife's lung disease worse.

Oppenhuizen told The Guardian, "My family had a countdown for it closing. We couldn't wait. I was flabbergasted when the administration said they had stopped it shutting down. Why are they inserting themselves into a decision a company has made? Just because politically, you don't like it? It's all so dumb."

READ MORE: 'Nothing short of remarkable': Fox News hosts blasts Trump press secretary

According to Milman, keeping JH Campbell from closing down will cost a fortune.

"In Michigan, the cost of keeping JH Campbell open is set to be steep," Milman reports. "Consumers Energy initially estimated its closure would save ratepayers $600m by 2040 as it shifts to cheaper, cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind. Reversing this decision costs $1m a day in operating costs, an imposition that Midwest residents will have to meet through their bills. It is understood the company privately told outside groups it fears the administration could keep adding 90-day emergency orders for the entire remainder of Trump's term."

READ MORE: Trump's new Ministry of Truth is straight out of George Orwell

Read Oliver Milman's full article for The Guardian at this link.

Scientists and environmentalists all over the world view wind power as one of the green-energy vehicles for fighting back against the destruction of climate change. But U.S. President Donald Trump, an unwavering proponent of fossil fuels, often promotes the conspiracy theory that wind turbines cause cancer. And he reiterated his disdain for wind power during a late July visit to Scotland.

Meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump declared “And the other thing I say to Europe: We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States. They’re killing us."

The U.S. president went on to say, "They’re killing the beauty of our scenery, our valleys, our beautiful plains ― and I’m not talking about airplanes. I’m talking about beautiful plains, beautiful areas in the United States, and you look up and you see windmills all over the place. It's a horrible thing. It's the most expensive form of energy. It's no good. They're made in China, almost all of them."

READ MORE: Trump just revealed his total contempt for the rule of law

HuffPost's Ed Mazza was quick to debunk Trump's claims, noting, "Much of what the president said was wildly inaccurate. Germany gets more than a quarter of its energy from wind. Turbines last about 30 years, not eight. According to the U.S Department of Energy, it’s not the most expensive form of energy, and they’re not 'almost all' made in China."

Trump's claims about wind energy are generating a lot of discussion on X, formerly Twitter—much of it negative.

Progressive firebrand and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan tweeted, "His insane obsessions - windmills, toilet flushes, shower pressure - get not even 1% of the coverage, or mental health discussions, as Joe Biden’s verbal gaffes and frailty did."

PoliticusUSA's Sarah Reese Jones posted, "This is a total mental collapse by Trump, who shows that at 80 years old, he can't travel as he goes off on a babbling, lie-filled rant about windmills and whales while meeting with the president of the European Commission.

READ MORE: The hidden insight that changes everything you know about Donald Trump: analysis

Self-described "proud Democrat" Ron Smith wrote, "Two minutes of Trump rambling about windmills and whales: 'Wind doesn't work. It ruins the landscape, it kills the birds. They are noisy. Whales... it's driving em' crazy... They are environmentally unsound. It's the worst form of energy.' Trump is a global embarrassment."

Journalist John Nicolson commented, "Incoherent gibberish from #Trump in #Scotland."

The American Saga's Zaid Jilani tweeted, "Five city-owned grocery stores is communism but the president saying you can’t build a windmill anywhere in America is what?

Jilani also posted, "Trump has always hated windmills. Why does he hate them so much?

READ MORE: Will America call Trump's bluff — or fall for the con?

Watch the video below or at this link.

According to the Washington Post, the death count from the flash floods that ravaged Central Texas over the 4th of July Weekend has reached 109. But 161 people are missing, which, the Post reports, is "raising the possibility that the death toll could surpass 200."

During the flooding, Texans in the area were warned to "move to higher ground." But The Atlantic's Zoë Schlanger, in an article published on July 8, stressed that the flooding came so rapidly that many people didn't have time to heed that warning.

Scientists and environmentalists are stressing that the tragedy in Texas not only underscores the dangers of climate change, but also, the need for aggressively funding the National Weather Service (NWS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — both of which the Trump Administration is defunding. But according to journalist Oliver Milman, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pushed for defunding weather forecasting in the days before part of his state suffered deadly flooding.

READ MORE: Why Americans haven’t reached the Trump tipping point yet — and what it will take

In an article originally published by The Guardian and republished by Mother Jones on July 9, Milman "ensured" that President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful" spending bill "slashed funding for weather forecasting, only to then go on vacation to Greece while his state was hit by deadly flooding — a disaster critics say was worsened by cuts to forecasting."

"Cruz, who infamously fled Texas for Cancun when a crippling winter storm ravaged his state in 2021, was seen visiting the Parthenon in Athens with his wife, Heidi, on Saturday, (July 5) — a day after a flash flood along the Guadalupe River in Central Texas killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children and counselors at a camp," Milman explains. "The Greece trip, first reported by the Daily Beast, ended in time for Cruz to appear at the site of the disaster on Monday morning, (July 7) to decry the tragedy and promise a response from lawmakers."

The NWS, Milman notes, is facing "scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon Central Texas."

"Before his Grecian holiday," Milman reports, "Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) efforts to improve future weather forecasting of events that cause the sort of extreme floods that are being worsened by the human-caused climate crisis. Cruz inserted language into the Republicans' 'big beautiful' reconciliation bill, prior to its signing by Donald Trump on Friday, (July 4), that eliminates a $150 million fund to 'accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public' around weather forecasting."

READ MORE: Bloodthirsty Republicans need to stop their praying

Milman adds, "A further $50 million in NOAA grants to study climate-related impacts on oceans, weather systems, and coastal ecosystems was also removed.

According to Cassidy DiPaola, communications director of Fossil Free Media, Cruz "has spent years doing Big Oil's bidding, gutting climate research, defunding NOAA, and weakening the very systems meant to warn and protect the public."

DiPaola told The Guardian, "That's made disasters like this weekend's flood in Texas even more deadly. Now, he's doubling down, pushing through even more cuts in the so-called big beautiful bill. Texans are dead and grieving, and Cruz is protecting Big Oil instead of the people he's supposed to represent. It's disgraceful."

READ MORE: 'What kind of dummies are you?' How one comedian is 'getting under' Trump press secretary’s 'skin'

Read Oliver Milman's full article at this Guardian link or on Mother Jones' website.

In Central Texas, the death toll from flash floods has passed 100. Far-right Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, are accusing Democrats of politicizing the tragedy. But a combination of Democrats, scientists and environmentalists are saying that they have legitimate questions about the Trump Administration's major cutbacks to the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the effect they are having on disaster preparedness.

In an article published by Politico on July 8, reporters Zack Colman, Annie Snider and James Bikales stress that the questions scientists are asking aren't going away.

"Kerr County, Texas, wasn't prepared for the deluge that killed more than 100 people this weekend, despite more than a century and a half of flash flooding along the Guadalupe River," the journalists explain. "Other communities around the country may find themselves just as exposed for the next catastrophe, emergency managers and scientists warned — pointing to the soaring toll of climate change and the Trump Administration's steep cuts to weather and disaster spending."

READ MORE: 'Truly frightening': MAGA candidate ripped for posting conspiracy theory about Texas floods

The NWS and its parent organization, according to Colman, Snider and Bikales, "are reeling from mass layoffs and early retirements pushed by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency."

Moreover, the "big, beautiful bill" that Trump signed into law over the 4th of July Weekend " canceled more than $200 million in spending that was supposed to improve weather forecasting and make communities more resilient to disasters," the reporters note. And Trump is proposing eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) entirely.

Michael Coen, who served as FEMA's chief of staff under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, believes that some of the deaths in Kerr County, Texas were preventable — and told Politico that "many people did not need to die."

"(Coen) said Kerr County should have invested in better flood defenses or, at the very least, relocated camping cabins away from the river," Colman, Snider and Bikales report. "The gutting of the national infrastructure around weather emergencies comes at the same time that climate change is making severe disasters more common and more dangerous, according to studies and past warnings from the U.S. government — including during the first Trump Administration."

READ MORE: Photos: After Texas Hill Country flood, grief and recovery take hold

Former FEMA official David Maurstad warns that extreme weather events, including floods, are growing increasingly common.

Maurstad told Politico, "The frequency and the severity associated with these types of events all across the country have been substantiated over and over again. I don't know how anybody can ignore that."

The Trump Administration, Colman, Snider and Bikales note, "proposed cutting $2.2 billion from the (National) Weather Service's parent organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in its fiscal 2026 budget request, affecting virtually every program at the agency."

"It would eliminate the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research — NOAA's main research arm, which Republicans say has been too focused on climate change — and shift much of its responsibilities to the NWS and National Ocean Service," the Politico journalists explain. "Many local governments' efforts to prepare for and respond to extreme weather are already strapped by limited resources…. Kerr County's decision to forgo an early warning system is an example of how many communities are ill-equipped to protect themselves from once-unfathomable extremes, experts said."

Colman, Snider and Bikales add, "They warned Trump Administration cuts will undermine flood and other disaster preparation as climate-fueled events reset expectations for worst-imagined outcomes."

READ MORE: 'Call a thing what it is’: Trump biographer says president caused Texas flood deaths

Read the full Politico article at this link.

Many of the heated debates over President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" are focused on its draconian cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), but another controversial proposal in the U.S. Senate would privatize public lands in western states.

The proposal was introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) in early June. According to Newsweek's Hugh Cameron, the provision "would require the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to make between 0.5 and 0.75 percent of their land holdings in 11 western states available for purchase."

"While this would amount to between two and three million acres," Cameron reports in an article published on June 24, "The Wilderness Society estimates that the language of the provision could make over 250 million acres eligible for sale. The idea has long been a pet interest of Lee, who, last week, defended it against what he called 'falsehoods being circulated by the left.' Lee stated that national parks and monuments would be exempt, and that auctioning off land with 'zero recreational value' was a 'common-sense solution' to the nation's housing shortage."

READ MORE: 'Ridiculous': Critics give Karoline Leavitt a history lesson

Cameron continues, "But criticism has been far-reaching, with opponents arguing that selling off public land could have irreparable environmental consequences, and that any resulting housing developments are unlikely to serve the needs of ordinary Americans."

Some of the criticism of Lee's proposal is coming from the right, including Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Montana) — who told The New York Times that he remains "a hard no on any bill that includes the large-scale sale of public lands." And according to Punchbowl News' Andrew Desiderio, Lee's proposal is also running into problems in the U.S. Senate.

In a June 23 post on X, formerly Twitter, Desiderio reported, "SCOOP: Huge news for western states. The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that Sen. Mike Lee’s proposal to allow the sale of millions of acres of federal land fails to comply with the Byrd Rule. Montana/Idaho GOP senators have said they oppose it as well. I'm told this decision will be included in the batch of Byrd rulings slated to be released overnight tonight."

Journalist Jamie Dupree, on June 23, tweeted that Lee is "desperately trying to save his plan to sell off big chunks of federal lands in 11 western states."

READ MORE: Former Ohio senator just can’t stop trolling, gaslighting and flip-flopping

Dupree cited a June 23 tweet by Lee as an example of how aggressively he is promoting his proposal.

Lee tweeted, "Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that. Thanks to YOU — the AMERICAN PEOPLE — here’s what I plan to do: 1. REMOVE ALL Forest Service land. We are NOT selling off our forests. 2. SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE the amount of BLM land in the bill. Only land WITHIN 5 MILES of population centers is eligible. 3. Establish FREEDOM ZONES to ensure these lands benefit AMERICAN FAMILIES. 4. PROTECT our farmers, ranchers, and recreational users. They come first."

Lee added, "Yes, the Byrd Rule limits what can go in the reconciliation bill, but I’m doing everything I can to support President Trump and move this forward. Stay tuned. We’re just getting started."

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Read the full Newsweek article at this link.

The 1973 dystopian sci-fi movie "Soylent Green "— which starred Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson and took place in 2022 — depicted a hellish world in which widespread pollution and global warming had led to severe food and water shortages as well as widespread hunger and desperation. Now, in 2025, a newly released study finds that severe weather is threatening crops in a major way — and that the production of some key crops in the United States could decrease by as much as 50 percent by the end of the 21st Century.

The study was published by Nature.com on Wednesday, June 19 and was, according to CNN's Laura Paddison, "eight years in the making." It was conducted by a group of scientists, including Solomon Hsiang of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and illustrates the link between food supply and climate change.

"Of the many impacts of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis," Paddison reports in an article published by CNN that day, "damage to the global food system is one of the most terrifying. But the overall impact of climate change on crops — and how much it can be offset by farmers' adaptations — has been hard to establish and hotly debated…. The scientists analyzed six crops — maize, soybeans, rice, wheat, cassava and sorghum — in more than 12,000 regions across 54 countries. Together, these crops provide more than two thirds of humanity's calories."

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The CNN reporter continues, "They also measured how real-world farmers are adapting to climate change, from changing crop varieties to adjusting irrigation, to calculate the overall impact of global warming. Their findings are stark."

Paddison notes that according to the study, "every 1 degree Celsius the world warms above pre-industrial levels will drag down global food production by an average of 120 calories per person per day." Hsiang warns that this will increase food prices.

Hsiang told CNN, "If the climate warms by 3 degrees, that's basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast…. This is a major problem. It's incredibly expensive. As a species, we have never confronted anything like this."

Paddison reports, "Wheat, soy and maize — high value crops for a lot of the world — will be especially badly affected, the study found. If humans keep burning large amounts of fossil fuels, maize production could fall by 40 percent in the grain belt of the U.S., eastern China, central Asia, southern Africa and the Middle East; wheat production could fall by 40 percent in the U.S., China, Russia and Canada; and soybean yields could fall 50 percent in the U.S."

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The CNN journalist adds, "The only staple crop that might be able to avoid substantial losses is rice, which can benefit from warmer nighttime temperatures…. Global warming will be particularly devastating for the U.S., where it's projected to reduce yields by 40 percent to 50 percent for all staple crops except rice, Hsiang said."

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Read the study at Nature.com and find CNN's coverage here.

Long known for his aggressive support of environmentalism, former Vice President Al Gore was vehemently critical of the Trump Administration's environmental record during a Monday, April 21 speech in San Francisco.

The speech came at the beginning of the city's Climate Week, and Gore compared the Trump Administration's use of disinformation to the disinformation tactics used by Adolf Hitler's far-right government in Nazi Germany during the 1930s and early 1940s.

Gore, according to Politico's Debra Khan, told the crowd, "I understand very well why it is wrong to compare Adolf Hitler's Third Reich to any other movement. It was uniquely evil, full stop. I get it. But there are important lessons from the history of that emergent evil."

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Recalling what Germany philosophers had to say about the Third Reich, Gore explained, "It was (Jürgen) Habermas' mentor, Theodore Adorno, who wrote that the first step in that nation’s descent into hell was — and I quote — 'the conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power.' He described how the Nazis, and I quote again, 'attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false.' End quote. The Trump Administration is insisting on trying to create their own preferred version of reality.'"

During the speech, Gore noted some of President Donald Trump's debunked claims about the environment.

The former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential nominee told attendees, "They say the climate crisis is a hoax invented by the Chinese to destroy American manufacturing. They say coal is clean. They say wind turbines cause cancer. They say sea-level rise just creates more beachfront property."

Gore, according to Khan, also accused Trump of scapegoating immigrants.

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Gore told the San Francisco crowd, "We've already seen, by the way, how populist authoritarian leaders have used migrants as scapegoats and have fanned the fires of xenophobia to fuel their own rise of power. And power-seeking is what this is all about. Our Constitution, written by our founders, is intended to protect us against a threat identical to Donald Trump."

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CNN climate reporter Ella Nilsen on Sunday delivered a stunning report on President Donald Trump’s January effort to “turn on the water” in southern California as the state battled historic wildfires in the region.

As Nilsen noted, “in the first weeks of the Trump administration, the president falsely claimed there were major water shortages during the Los Angeles wildfires.”

“Trump was laser focused on releasing more California water, but the water he directed to be released never made it to L.A.,” Nilsen added.

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Indeed, on January 28, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) congratulated the Trump administration and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation “for more than doubling the Federally pumped water flowing toward Southern California in [less than] 72 hours.”

Accompanying that tweet is a photo of at least one member of the DOGE team — Tyler Hassen.

Nilsen on Sunday detailed the backstory of that DOGE photo.

“We now know that two representatives from DOGE repeatedly pressured the acting head of a federal agency that manages dams to open water pumps at a federal facility in central California — even though that facility couldn't physically do so because of planned maintenance,” Nilsen reported.

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“The two DOGE agents said they had an order from the president to do this, even though one of them was not actually a government employee at the time,” she continued.

According to the reporter, “when the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation did not relent, the DOGE agents flew to California with the goal of turning the pumps on themselves in what people familiar with the incident characterized as a stunt for a photo op.”

Nilsen said the DOGE agents “seemed fixated on getting a photograph of themselves turning these pumps on,” according to “people familiar with the incident.”

The reporter added, "One person familiar told me, quote, ‘They didn't get their photo op.'"

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As Nilsen noted, questions posed to the White House and DOGE — “including who paid for flights for the two DOGE agents to go to California” — went unanswered.

Watch the report below or at this link.

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Although oil production soared under former President Joe Biden, his administration also promoted green energy aggressively and acknowledged the dangers of climate change. Biden favored a combination of fossil fuels and green energy; President Donald Trump, in contrast, is a climate change denier who repeatedly voices his preference for fossil fuels. Moreover, Trump claims, without evidence, that wind turbines cause cancer.

In the 2024 election, Trump enjoyed his strongest support in deep red states like Alabama, Mississippi and Idaho. But according to journalist Stephen Starr, Trump's defunding of solar energy will have a negative impact in red states and is "causing panic."

In an article published by The Guardian on February 17, Starr reports, "On 20 January, Donald Trump paused billions of dollars of federal grant funding for clean energy and other projects around the country initiated by the Biden Administration's Green New Deal…. The funding is part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's $7 billion Solar for All program, which is meant to help low-income families save money on electricity costs. About $117 million was set for solar projects and initiatives in Indiana."

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Starr adds, "Communities across Indiana, a solidly Republican midwestern state, were set to benefit more than most from the Biden Administration's ambitious clean energy push in what was an ultimately failed effort to win votes in Rust belt states whose voters have abandoned Democratic Party politicians in recent decades."

Trump, Starr notes, "followed through on his election campaign promise to roll back clean energy initiative."

"Indiana isn't alone in its drive for solar energy," Starr reports. "Solar projects ranging from utility scale to single housing efforts have proved hugely popular in red states. Texas has the second-highest number of installed solar power units, after California, enough to power more than 4.5m homes. Florida follows close behind."

Starr adds, "A quarter of a trillion dollars — 80 percent of the total funding for green energy manufacturing and other initiatives — was to go to projects in Republican-leaning congressional districts across the U.S.

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Read The Guardian's full article at this link.

In Los Angeles County, countless residents have lost their homes because of historically destructive wildfires.

Southern California, with its arid climate, has long been vulnerable to wildfires and droughts. But according to many scientists, climate change is making natural disasters both more intense and more common — from wildfires in Los Angeles County to hurricanes in Florida to tornados in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Many Los Angeles County residents whose homes burned to the ground are paying off mortgages. And according to CNN Business' Jeanne Sahadi, the fact that those homes "no longer exist" doesn't automatically mean that the mortgage agreements will be discontinued.

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"Wildfires, raging floods, tornadoes and hurricanes can obliterate your home, but not your mortgage," Sahadi explains in an article published on January 27. "The hard reality is that even when you live in a federally declared disaster area — like those ravaged by wildfires in Los Angeles County or battered by hurricanes in North Carolina and other states — you still will owe the bank whatever is left on your loan, even though your house no longer exists or is uninhabitable."

Sahadi adds, "There are, however, some disaster-related relief programs that can temporarily reduce or suspend your mortgage payment for up to a year and sometimes beyond, depending on your circumstance."

The CNN business reporter urges homeowners who have suffered a major disaster to contact their mortgage services immediately.

"The types of mortgage relief a servicer can provide will be governed in part by the entity that backs your mortgage or holds it in its portfolio," Sahadi notes. "Usually, that's an individual bank or a government agency: e.g., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration, the Veterans' Administration, etc…. In the case of Fannie Mae, for instance, servicers are expected to offer relief to borrowers in cases of financial hardship, even if they'd been delinquent prior to the disaster, said Jenise Hight, vice president of the agency's single-family credit risk policy."

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Sahadi continues, "Typically, with a federally backed loan, you're likely to be offered forbearance of between three to 12 months, during which your mortgage payments will be suspended or reduced."

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Read Jeanne Sahadi's full CNN Business article at this link.