Trump Wants To Slash EPA’s Budget To The Lowest Level In 40 Years – Will push for $2.6 billion cut
By MICHAEL BASTASCH
President Donald Trump will recommend cutting the EPA budget 31 percent.
Trump will release his “skinny budget” Thursday morning, broadly laying out the White House’s budget request. Trump will push for a $2.6 billion cut to EPA’s budget, congressional staffers familiar with the request told NYT.
Previous reporting indicated Trump wanted to cut EPA’s budget 25 percent, or $2 billion, and reduce its staff by 20 percent, or 3,000 employees. But in the last couple of days, sources told reporters the cuts would likely be deeper.
Trump is expected to cut dozens of EPA global warming programs, funding to environmental groups and state grants. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said he would push to protect grants to states for environmental cleanup and water infrastructure.…
WaPo: Weather Service made poor decision in overplaying Nor’easter snow predictions
By Jason Samenow
The Weather Service, which has a mission to protect life and property, may have felt it was best serving the public by stressing the worst-case scenario for the big cities. But it’s a risky strategy that can cost credibility.
Trust is so important in weather prediction because, when it is eroded, the public may take forecasts less seriously in life-or-death situations.
The Weather Service doesn’t have to limit itself to communicating the worst-case scenario for the public to pay attention to a high-stakes forecast. The public is smarter than it is given credit for; it can understand uncertainty if it is explained well; and it appreciates knowing about changes to the forecast.
When Atlanta broadcast meteorologist Glenn Burns asked his viewers about the Associated Press report that the Weather Service decided not to revise its forecast even when presented with new information, many were insulted.
“We are not children,” said Jill Nelmark. “Give the most accurate forecast and accurate update.”
“It makes the NWS look less reliable for future events,” said Josh Walls.
“Give me the facts and trust me to make an intelligent decision,” said Kris Chandler.
“I think they should have been honest and said that it might not be as bad. But to still prepare in case it was,” said Suzanne Blanton.
The New York news blog Gothamist reacted to the AP report with this snarky headline: National Weather Service: Sorry, You’re Too Stupid To Trust With The REAL Forecast
The influential media aggregator Matt Drudge tweeted, “What is going on with National Weather Service? Lots of misses piling up.” He added: “Overreaction by govts, bad forecasting … very troubling trend.”
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CLAIM: ‘Global warming’ to shrink mammals — Horses down to size of cats
By SETH BORENSTEIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming shrank certain animals in the ancient past, and scientists think it could happen again.
Warm-blooded animals got smaller at least twice in Earth’s history when carbon dioxide levels soared and temperatures spiked as part of a natural warming, a new study says.
University of New Hampshire researcher Abigail D’Ambrosia warned that mammals — but not people — could shrivel in the future under even faster man-made warming.
“It’s something we need to keep an eye out for,” said D’Ambrosia, who led the new work. “The question is how fast are we going to see these changes.”
Three different species shrank noticeably about 54 million years ago when the planet suddenly heated up. One of them — an early, compact horse — got 14 percent smaller, going from about 17 pounds to 14.6 pounds, according to an analysis of fossil teeth in Wednesday’s journal Science Advances .
“These guys were probably about the size of maybe a dog, then they dwarfed,” said D’Ambrosia. “They may have gone down to the size of a cat.”
Another creature that contracted was a lemur-like animal that’s the earliest known primate. It shrank about 4 percent; while it may not seem like much, it’s noticeable because studies of the animal over millions of years showed it was usually getting bigger over time, D’Ambrosia said.
Previous studies have documented a similar shrinking of mammals, including another early horse ancestor, during an earlier warming about 56 million years ago. Scientists and farmers have also long tracked animals, such as cows, that shrink and give less milk during hotter stretches.
Flashback: ‘Global warming” could lead to 10ft reptiles
Could global warming lead to 10ft reptiles? Scientists say small plant-eating lizards could grow to the size of Komodo dragons
Fossils of a giant lizard discovered in Burma have led scientists to believe a rise in temperature 40 million years ago caused plant-eating lizards to grow to the size of the 10ft dragons.
Scientists previously thought that large meat-eating dragons grew larger than their herbivore cousins because of a lack of predators.
These findings now from from the University of California and University of Nebraska-Lincoln suggest that a warmer climate is needed for large lizards to grow – and that global warming could cause this to happen again.
Fossils discovered by the University of California of the Barbateux Morrisoni, pictured, have led scientists to believe that a rise in temperature 40 million years ago caused plant-eating lizards to grew to the size of the 10ft dragons. They now believe global warming could cause this to happen again
Obama-era fuel standards on Trump’s chopping block
…Triumphing Trump Targets Draconian Obama Vehicle Emissions Rules
…Doctor groups take up ‘global warming’ advocacy – ‘Will tell the public their health is threatened by’ man-made climate
Bradley J. Fikes Contact Reporter – San Diego Union-Tribune
Under a political advocacy campaign launched Wednesday, a coalition of physician groups will tell the public that their health is threatened by catastrophic man-made global warming, also called climate change. Participating doctors will also urge government action to reduce the damage believed to be caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
The campaign is one of a series of actions by political opponents of President Donald Trump, who is skeptical that man-made global warming is dangerous.
Skeptics say climate models have failed to predict the current hiatus in global warming. Global warming believers say that when properly adjusted for accuracy, temperature trends show no hiatus.
The Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health is led by Dr. Mona Sarfaty, Director of the Program on Climate and Health in the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University.
The consortium said in a press release that it represents more than half of American physicians. Its members include the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, Immunology; American Academy of Family Physicians); American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP); American College of Physicians (ACP); ecoAmerica, and Physicians for Social Responsibility.
On Wednesday, the consortium issued a report titled, “Medical Alert! Climate Change Is Harming Our Health.”
The consortium pointed to a recent study by Abt Associates, a group that works on environmental sustainability and global warming issues. The study said reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Northeastern states has prevented from 300 to 830 early adult deaths.
“Here’s the message from America’s doctors on climate change: it’s not only happening in the Arctic Circle, it’s happening here,” Sarfaty said in the press release. “It’s not only a problem for us in 2100, it’s a problem now. And it’s not only hurting polar bears, it’s hurting us.”
Sarfaty has made numerous contributions to Democratic candidates, including former president Barack Obama, 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, according to the Federal Election Commission’s website.
However, some consortium supporters are Republicans, including Bob Inglis, executive director of RepublicEN
Fmr. UN climate chief Christina Figueres to Vatican – ‘We need to be clear that Fossil Fuels Kill’
The tagline for the Jan. 27 conference — titled “Laudato Si’ & Catholic Investing: Clean Energy for our Common Home” — came by way of the October 2015 statement issued by the heads of Catholic continental bishops’ conferences ahead of the COP 21 international climate change summit in Paris: “Put an end to the fossil fuel era, phasing out fossil fuel emissions and providing affordable, reliable and safe renewable energy access for all.”
Among the leaders who spoke were Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s new dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, and Christina Figueres, the former executive secretary for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, along with:
- Mark Campanale, founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative;
- Franciscan Sr. Sheila Kinsey, executive co-secretary for justice, peace and integrity of creation commission of the International Union of Superiors General;
- Lutheran Rev. Henrik Grape of Sweden from the World Council of Churches;
- Papua New Guinea Cardinal John Ribat, president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of Oceania.
The experience of attending as a participant left me feeling surprised to see how far we have come in a few years, in our understanding and willingness to speak to the grave urgency of the climate crisis. Figueres was definitive on the need to ween the world off fossil fuels in the next few years. Though not often seen first as a Catholic, her call to metanoia was the sharpest and clearest of any of the speakers.
“This is a moral responsibility that we all share,” she said. “That moral responsibility, how are we going to ensure that it is achieved before it is too late for the most vulnerable? We need to align our moral compass … we need to be clear that fossil fuels kill.”
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Other speakers were also compelling with their words.
Cardinal Ribat said those on Pacific islands are facing rising seas on all sides. They are helpless in the face of this challenge, so even while
Report: Trump Commands State Department to Slash $10 Billion UN Funding in Half
The article said the move is “signaling an unprecedented retreat by [the] administration from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks from Syria to Yemen.”
FP used three unnamed sources for its report, which also called Trump’s directive “draconian measures” taken ahead of the planned release on Thursday of his 2018 federal budget proposal.
The budget “is expected to include cuts of up to 37 percent for spending on the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign assistance programs, including the U.N., in next year’s budget,” according to the report, which went on:
It remains unclear whether the full extent of the steeper U.N. cuts will be reflected in the 2018 budget, which will be prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget, or whether, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has proposed, the cuts would be phased in over the coming three years. One official close to the Trump administration said Tillerson has been given flexibility to decide how the cuts would be distributed.
Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told FP these budget cuts would create “chaos.”
The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR), for example, received nearly 40 percent of its budget from the United States in 2016. Cutting the U.S. contribution would “leave a gaping hole that other big donors would struggle to fill,” according to Gowan.
The left-leaning FP cites Trump’s intention to cut diplomacy and foreign assistance programs will help him increase the funding for the U.S. military by $54 billion, a “shift” from the Obama administration’s approach to the federal budget.
“State Department officials, for instance, were told that they should try to identify up to $1 billion in cuts in the U.N. peacekeeping budget, according to one source,” FP reported. “The United States provides about $2.5 billion per year to fund peacekeepers.”
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, cautioned against “slash-and-burn cuts” during her Senate confirmation hearing but is said to be reviewing the U.N.’s 16 peacekeeping missions for possible cuts.
The United States
Cheers! Trump Is Ready to Reduce the Role of Climate Change in Policy Decisions
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to release a wide-ranging executive order to reduce the role that climate change plays in policy decisions, according to a Trump administration official who reviewed a draft of the order.
The move could alter how U.S. agencies weigh regulations on a broad array of industries, from drilling, coal mining and auto manufacturing to refining.
The official on Tuesday confirmed a Bloomberg News report that the executive order will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies to overhaul their use of the “social cost of carbon,” an Obama-era policy that seeks to quantify potential economic damage from climate change for the purposes of drafting regulation.
White House spokeswoman Kelly Love declined to discuss the timing of an executive order on energy. “We have nothing to announce at this time,” she said.
Under rules put in by place by former President Barack Obama, the current cost of carbon in policy decisions is $36 per tonne, which will rise to $50 by 2030. The Trump order would direct regulators to use a “discount rate” that would dramatically reduce, or eliminate, that cost.
Discount rates are used to come up with a net present value of something whose benefits and costs will be distributed over time. In the case of carbon, the impact of emissions on the earth’s climate can take several years to appear.
Under some scenarios referenced in the executive order, carbon could have a zero or “negative value,” the source said. The source said that the order may be an initial step to ultimately phasing out the carbon evaluation entirely.
The executive order could be issued as soon as this week, the source said, and may include other energy-specific measures, like a requirement for the EPA to conduct a review of regulations that could harm energy production.
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