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TCN Journal

Reporting, analysis, summary, synthesis

As Harvey slams Texas, scientists explore links of hurricanes, climate change

Even rainier hurricanes and worse Gulf Coast flooding are possible in a warmer world, but not all the evidence is clear, according to a draft federal report on the current state of climate science.

TCN Journal August 26, 2017

Secretive border-wall work at wildlife sanctuaries galvanizes opposition

Hundreds protested in the Rio Grande Valley after word got out that federal officials and contractors were surreptitiously advancing President Trump’s border-wall project in federal and private wildlife preserves.

TCN Journal August 18, 2017

Researchers: More deadly heat waves, even with aggressive emission cuts

A team of scientists projected the number of days when potentially lethal heat and humidity will occur at different places, with and without big pollution reductions. Texas’ deadly days will soar either way, they calculated.

TCN Journal HEALTH+CLIMATE July 31, 2017

‘Consensus’ or ‘debate’ – the long battle to shape public perception continues

More Americans than ever (58 percent) now say climate change is mostly man-made, a Yale poll found. That's in line with what scientists overwhelmingly agree. Will Trump appointees sow doubt about researchers’ vast consensus?

TCN Journal July 11, 2017

Powerhouse investors tell Exxon (and Trump): Get serious about climate change

Amid signs that the president is poised to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, ExxonMobil investors broke with the company’s board, voting overwhelmingly to demand an annual report on its climate-change risks.

TCN Journal June 1, 2017

Stay or go? Texas Republicans offer competing advice on Paris climate pact

Donald Trump promised to take the U.S. out of the pollution-cutting Paris Climate Agreement. After being lobbied by Pope Francis and other world leaders to stay in the pact, Trump said he’d finally decide shortly.

TCN Journal May 28, 2017

Wheat or chaff? Weighing the substance of Trump’s actions on climate, energy

The administration’s high-profile steps to reverse Obama-era policies may all seem like big deals. But are they? TCN’s Washington correspondent, Joseph A. Davis, has a forward-looking appraisal of their relative significance.

TCN Journal DC DISPATCHES May 17, 2017

Texas conservation pioneer’s ’90s words echo in 2017’s environmental debates

Terry Hershey’s 1994 thoughts on the 25th anniversary of Earth Day – a time when environmental battles much like today’s were raging – still seem fresh. Hershey, who died in January at 94, was recently honored in Houston.

TCN Journal May 1, 2017

Signs of the times: Edgy sloganeering at Houston’s March for Science

An estimated 15,000 pro-science marchers rallied in Houston on Earth Day. It was one of hundreds of such events – billed as nonpartisan, but with a sharp anti-Trump message on many homemade signs. A TCN photo essay.

TCN Journal April 25, 2017

Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s approach to climate issues coming into focus

As he did during his tenure as Texas governor, Perry is touting an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy as a member of Donald Trump’s cabinet. That put the U.S. at odds with other G7 officials at a meeting in Rome.

TCN Journal April 14, 2017

Public opinion diverges from Trump budget’s policy outline on climate, energy

Americans’ concern about global warming is growing, according to a new Gallup poll. But the Trump administration’s spending plan would bring dramatic cuts in federal programs to address the issue.

TCN Journal March 23, 2017

New year brings hottest February and winter on record in Texas

Cold winters are growing rarer in the U.S., according to an international group of scientists who concluded “human-caused climate change played a role in the extreme heat that warmed much of the United States in February.”

TCN Journal March 13, 2017

Ignoring the experts: New EPA chief denies CO2 is main warming cause

Oklahoman Scott Pruitt hinted the Trump administration may launch a full-scale attack on the sweeping scientific consensus about human causes of climate change that underpins federal climate-protection rules.

TCN Journal March 11, 2017

Trump seems unlikely to embrace establishment Republicans’ climate plan

A carbon tax endorsed by GOP heavyweights James Baker, George Shultz and Henry Paulson – following earlier support for the idea from former Republican EPA chiefs – faces long odds, at least in the near term.

TCN Journal February 27, 2017

Trump, Congress tee up climate science for some hits; scientists push back

Scientific-integrity advocates are alarmed by early signs, such as a plan for political appointees to review EPA scientists’ work before publication. That recalled a climate-science scandal in George W. Bush’s White House.

TCN Journal DC DISPATCHES February 3, 2017

Strong signs of Trump’s resolve to gut Obama’s climate-protection programs

The new administration’s energy blueprint, added to the White House website soon after the inauguration, calls Obama’s collection of climate initiatives “harmful and unnecessary.” Then came reports of fast action to end them.

TCN Journal January 24, 2017

Sizzling streak: Third year in a row, a new planetary hottest-year record

More important than single-year records, manmade warming trends “since the 1970s are continuing and have not paused in any way,” a top NASA scientist said. Will the Trump administration heed those findings?

TCN Journal January 19, 2017

Trump now sees pollution-warming link, professes “open mind” on Paris pact

The president-elect was poised to enter the White House as denier-in-chief on climate change and avowed enemy of climate action. In an interview with the New York Times, however, were hints of a possibly changing stance.

TCN Journal November 22, 2016

Trump won. He’s an archenemy of climate protection. OK, now what?

With a big-league climate-change denier and fossil-fuels fan as president, the consequences will be enormous – even if they're still incompletely known. TCN’s Washington correspondent, Joseph A. Davis, surveys the road ahead.

TCN Journal DC DISPATCHES November 16, 2016

Climate denial in the White House, plus a rundown on other election outcomes

Trump’s victory with proposals reflecting his repeated denial of climate science and climate change was by far the election’s crucial climate/energy result. State, local votes in Texas and elsewhere produced a mixed picture.

TCN Journal November 14, 2016

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