Saturday 6th of September 2025
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global warming was calculated and published by svante in 1896....

English farmers used controlled burns of gorse 300 years ago. Too hot and dry even for cacti. Urbanisation induces genetic evolution in birds. China powering ahead with the roll out of wind and solar.

 

Peter Sainsbury

Environment: 18th century vicar describes controlled burning in English countryside

 

Being slow on the uptake, non-Indigenous Australians have only recently recognised the importance of the traditional, deliberate use of fire by Aboriginal groups (cultural, controlled or cool burning) to improve environmental health, promote biodiversity and reduce the risk of late season, very hot, destructive fires triggered by lightning.

Even less well known is that controlled burning was also practised in England in the 18th century, as illustrated by this quotation from a letter written by the Reverend Gilbert White to the naturalist Thomas Pennant around 1770:

“ … in this forest, about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the underwoods, woods and coppices, where great damage has ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that, when the old coat of heath, etc. is consumed, young will sprout up, and afford much tender brouze [shoots] for cattle; but, where there is large old furze [gorse], the fire, following the roots, consumes the very ground; so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit round looking like the cinders of a volcano; and, the soil being quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for years.”

White was an avid, keen-eyed, knowledgeable and meticulous observer and recorder of the geology, soils, flora, fauna and farming practices of his parish in southern England. He maintained a regular correspondence with fellow naturalists in which he described his observations in considerable detail. Well ahead of his time, he was a painstaking observer of behaviours (for instance of small animals such as harvest mice, swallows and his pet tortoise), of change (for instance of times of flowering) and of the relationships between, and interdependence of, species. His writings are considered a foundation of the Arcadian school of ecology that advocates a harmonious relationship between humans and nature. White met Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander and his observations influenced Charles Darwin.

Thirty-five of White’s letters to Pennant and nine to Daines Barrington were collected into a book, The Natural History of Selbourne, that was first published in 1789 and has been continuously in print ever since. One can’t help suspecting that the pastoral care associated with White’s parish was not overly taxing.

If you ever find yourselves near the Hampshire-Sussex border, I can recommend a visit to Gilbert White’s House and Garden in Selbourne, about 25km east of Winchester.

Cacti suffering in the heat

In Australia we have become very aware in the last decade of the risks of climate change to our coral reefs, especially of the causal chain from global warming to warmer oceans to marine heatwaves to coral bleaching to coral death. The Great Barrier Reef has suffered five severe heat-induced coral bleaching events in the last 10 years compared with only two previously (in 1998 and 2002) and this year the relatively unscathed reefs off Western Australia are suffering from high water temperatures.

But cacti are used to living in high temperatures; surely they are secure from the risks of global warming? Apparently not.

In the Sonoran Desert, around the junction of Mexico, California and Arizona, the tall columnar cacti that are so iconic of the area (and Westerns) are suffering from “cactus scorching”. This has been caused by exposure of the cacti to the increasingly common, extremely high temperatures and severe droughts in the area.

During periods of extreme heat or drought the tissues responsible for photosynthesis in the outer cells of the cactus become rapidly discoloured and the “skin” of the cactus turns brown. The cells’ capacity to photosynthesise is lost, the cells’ whole metabolism fails, the cells die and, if the damage is severe enough, the cactus dies. Tissue scorching is associated with a three-fold increase in the mortality of giant cacti and even among those that survive there is long-term decline in health.

Cactus scorching caused by climate change is not the only problem cacti face at present. Invasive grasses, fires, severe winds, habitat loss and opportunistic insect attacks threaten whole populations of keystone species of columnar cacti and the ecological communities that depend on them. The climate change-related threats to cacti are global, not simply in southwestern US.

How well do you know your …

Of which group of fundamentally important living organisms is “arbuscular”, the oldest and commonest of four main types? “Ericoid” and “orchid-specific” are two of the other types.

The arbuscular type is so common that it is associated with 70% of global plant biomass and yet its members do not exhibit the characteristic that we most commonly associate with this form of life. In fact, the word “arbuscular” may, possibly inadvertently, give you a clue to the answer.

Hint : a member of the fourth type has featured prominently in the news recently.

Human-induced evolution in birds

If you think that “character displacement” refers to Donald Trump pretending to be or, if you believe in miracles, actually becoming a nice guy, sorry, you’re wrong.

_“_ _Character displacement_ is an evolutionary process in which natural selection acts to alter some aspect of an animal’s behaviour or physical structure to reduce costly competition from other, usually similar, species. An often-cited example of character displacement occurs in Darwin’s finches, a group of closely related songbirds in the Galapagos Islands that evolved bills of differing shapes and sizes to specialise on different food sources. An example of character displacement involving vocalisation comes from the amphibian world: female New Mexican spadefoot toads usually prefer males with faster calls, but in areas where the New Mexican species shares space with the Plains spadefoot toad (which has a similar call), those females have evolved a preference for slower calls by males to avoid mating with the wrong species.”

In Boulder, Colorado, the expansion of the urban area, planting of deciduous fruit trees and maples and the increasing presence of bird feeders in gardens is creating an area of habitat overlap of two closely related species of chickadee. The two species look similar and have similar songs, although the Mountain Chickadees’ song contains more notes. Up to now the two species of chickadees have been geographically separated by vegetation type and altitude.

Where the two species are now cohabiting, the Mountain Chickadees are singing songs with even more notes and smaller pitch changes between the notes than the Mountains that don’t live near the Black-capped Chickadees. (The linked article has recordings and graphs of the songs.)

The researchers postulate that the Mountains are changing their tune in the areas of overlap to avoid conflict (for instance, over mates, which leads to hybridisation or nesting sites or food) with the more dominant Black-cappeds. If, in the areas of overlap, the Mountains with the changed tune have a survival advantage over those that keep the old tune, the genome of the Mountains in the area will change and the species will evolve. Perhaps into a new species that can no longer breed with the Mountain Chickadees that still live apart from the Black-cappeds.

The influence of humans on the evolution of other species has similarities with the story last week about cod in the Atlantic Ocean and reinforces the message from the article on mammalian biomass a couple of weeks ago that humans are most certainly not ‘too small to matter’ in the grand sweep of nature.

Adani coal mine has paid no tax and may never pay any

After a decade of delays to negotiate objections, Adani’s massive, controversial Carmichael mine in central Queensland started exporting coal three years ago.

During Adani’s long battle to get approval to open the mine, the company, vigorously supported by the Mining Council of Australia, loudly and frequently promised that it would pay $22 billion in taxes and royalties.

Despite generating good income from the mine’s exported coal, Adani has so far paid no tax – zilch, zero. In 2025, for example, the mine earned $1.27 billion in revenue but reported a financial loss and Adani paid no tax. It’s possible that the mine will not generate a cent of tax during its planned 60 years of operation.

The fact is that the government has received more income from me personally in fines for civil disobedience ($1100 trespass, causing an obstruction and contravening a direction) at the mine construction workers’ camp in 2019 than Adani has paid in tax.

The tragedy, of course, is that Adani has probably not broken any company or tax laws. The real fault lies with Australian Governments, not Adani.

China’s utility-scale wind and solar energy explosion

China has 1.4 terawatts (TW) of utility-scale solar and wind capacity already operating. 10% of this (140 gigawatts – GW) was added in 2014.

A further 510 GW is already under construction and 530 GW is in pre-construction phases. China accounts for three-quarters of all wind and solar projects under construction.

China’s offshore wind capacity has increased eight-fold in seven years and China now has 50% of the world’s capacity. (The US has 6% and falling.)

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/08/environment-18th-century-vicar-describes-controlled-burning-in-english-countryside/

 

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Cosmic physics was the term used by Arrhenius and his colleagues in the Stockholm Physics Society for their attempt to develop physical theories linking the phenomena of the seas, the atmosphere, and the land. Debates in the Society concerning the causes of the ice ages led Arrhenius to construct the first climate model of the influence of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), published in The Philosophical Magazine in 1896. The general rule that emerged from the model was that if the quantity of CO2 increases or decreases in geometric progression, temperature will increase or decrease nearly in arithmetic progression. Linking the calculations of his abstract model to natural processes, Arrhenius estimated the effect of the burning of fossil fuels as a source of atmospheric CO2. He predicted that a doubling of CO2 due to fossil fuel burning alone would take 500 years and lead to temperature increases of 3 to 4 °C (about 5 to 7 °F). This is probably what has earned Arrhenius his present reputation as the first to have provided a model for the effect of industrial activity on global warming.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Svante-Arrhenius

 

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

global warming...........

As temperatures around the world rise, the rare Pancic spruce, a species of coniferous tree, is at risk of extinction. 

Although sometimes planted elsewhere, this tree only grows naturally in Serbia and parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and is currently found in an area measuring about 200 square kilometers [77 square miles]. Although it has thrived in both countries for an estimated 22 million years, it is struggling to cope with drought and shrinking habitats. 

Scientists are trying to save the tree, which is considered a national treasure in both countries, using genetics, dedicated nurseries and even, potentially, planting in Scandinavia.

https://www.dw.com/en/serbia-pancic-spruce-at-risk-of-extinction-due-to-global-warming/video-73642812

 

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Hurricane Erin strengthened into a category 5 hurricane, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Saturdauy.

Erin is about 160 miles (255 kilometers) north of Anguilla, as the NHC warned of possible flooding and landslides.

Tropical storm watches have been issued for Anguilla, Barbuda, St. Martin, St. Barts, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Maarten while heavy rains are expected in Antigua and Barbuda, the US and British Virgin Islands and southern and eastern Puerto Rico. Up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain is anticipated, with isolated totals of up to 6 inches (15 centimeters), according to the NHC.

The NHC said Eric could create powerful rip currents off parts of the US East Coast later in the week, even if its eye forecast remains far offshore.

In which direction is Hurricane Erin headed?

Hurricane expert Michael Lowry said Erin is forecast to eventually take a sharp turn northeast that would put it on a route between the US and Bermuda.

"All of our best consensus aids show Erin turning safely east of the United States next week, but it'll be a much closer call for Bermuda, which could land on the stronger eastern side of Erin," he said.

Erin is the Atlantic season's first hurricane and is expected to become a major Category 3 storm late this weekend, passing around 200 miles north of Puerto Rico.

https://www.dw.com/en/hurricane-erin-intensifies-into-a-category-5-storm/a-73665049

 

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Europe is facing a severe heatwave, exposing vulnerabilities in infrastructure and healthcare. In France and the Nordics, hospitals struggle with poorly ventilated buildings, forcing surgery cancellations. Wildfires in Greece, France, and Spain add to the crisis. Is Europe ready for a hotter future?

https://www.dw.com/en/heatwave-puts-countries-across-europe-to-the-test/video-73661797

 

 

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Thousands of rescue workers continued the search for survivors on Saturday after deadly flash floods hit northern Pakistan and neighboring India.

The death toll from the floods, which were triggered by heavy monsoon rains this week, has climbed steadily as rescue efforts pick up pace after two days of torrential downpours.

 Floods leave hundreds dead in northern Pakistan

In Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, at least 344 people have died, according to authorities. 

The National Disaster Management Authority said 324 deaths have been reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a mountainous province in northwestern Pakistan.

https://www.dw.com/en/flash-floods-kill-hundreds-in-pakistan-india/a-73656252

 

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READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

 

heat kills....

 

Heat Kills. Trump Has Ensured There Will Be More Victims.

BY KENNY STANCIL/JACOBIN


We should be slashing emissions and climate-proofing our cities. Instead, Republicans are turning up the carbon spew and stripping away heat protections — effectively condemning the poor to die under rising temperatures.

 

At least 150 heat-related deaths have been recorded across the United States this year, and that was before the fossil-fuel-turbocharged heat wave in late July. Hundreds of earlier deaths remain under investigation, and coroners will have to investigate many more following the heat dome that punishedmore than two hundred million people nationwide in recent weeks. Last week, the Southwest endured a heat wave made five times more likely by climate change, and this week millions of people around the country are facing dangerous temperatures.

  

Although less visible than tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods, extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related mortality. In this country alone, heat killed roughly 2,400 people in both 2023 and 2024, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Heat-related deaths, it’s worth noting, are notoriously undercounted and likely exceed 5,600 per year nationally. Given the lag in reporting, final data for 2025 are not expected prior to the end of the year.

The reactionary choices of President Donald Trump’s administration have all but guaranteed that more people will suffer heat-related illnesses and fatalities this summer and in the future.

“Under a Trump presidency, heat experts have been driven from the civil service, federal support for heat resilience investments have been curtailed with more proposed cuts on the way, and key technical assistance programs for communities have been cancelled,” Grace Wickerson, senior manager of climate and health at the Federation of American Scientists, told me.

Heat-related casualties have already been rising over the past decade and were projected to rise further before Trump and congressional Republicans threw gas on the flames. The GOP megabill that Trump signed into law last month will expandplanet-heating fossil fuel combustion while curbing renewable power — meaning more frequent, intense, and longer-lasting heat waves as well as higher electricity rates (further aggravated by the ill-conceived buildout of Big Tech’s AI and crypto data centers) in the coming years. Beyond that legislation, the Trump administration has taken myriad steps to hamstring climate research and decarbonization, including moving to repeal the US Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding, the scientific and legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile Trump’s simultaneous assault on lifesaving federal home energy subsidies and other efforts to help people withstand extreme heat only makes matters worse. What’s more, Republican lawmakers are poised to cement at least someof the cuts initiated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and requested by Russell Vought’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the upcoming appropriations process.

All of this amounts to homicidal policymaking aimed at low-income and other vulnerable populations. At a time when we should be rapidly transitioning from dirty to clean energy and climate-proofing our cities and towns, Republicans are effectively sentencing impoverished people, already strugglingwith a protracted cost-of-living crisis, to death.

Shauna Thomas Needed More Help, Not Less

In his seminal book about the social, spatial, economic, and political factors that made the 1995 Chicago heat wave the deadliest in US history, New York University sociologist Eric Klinenberg detailed how efforts to “reinvent government” through neoliberal austerity and privatization — a precursor to Musk’s DOGE blitz — left people increasingly atomized and vulnerable, ultimately exacerbating mortality. A whopping 739 individuals perished in a single week, with isolated seniors in low-income and predominantly black neighborhoods hit hardest.

Four months ago, at the behest of DOGE and OMB, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr laid offthousands of employees, including the vast majority of HHS staffers working on heat-related issues. The entire teamresponsible for administering the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps about six million poor, elderly, and disabled households maintain safe indoor temperatures every year, was placed on administrative leave on April 1 and eventually fired.

In June, Shauna Thomas died, alone, in her St Louis–area apartment during a heat wave intensified by fossil fuel pollution. Thomas was found dead in her scorching apartment on June 23. Her utility, Ameren Missouri, had shut off her power twelve days earlier due to nonpayment, according to St Louis Public Radio.

Thomas was nearly helped by Missouri’s Hot Weather Law, which temporarily prohibits utility shutoffs when a temperature above 95 degrees Fahrenheit or a heat index above 105 degrees Fahrenheit is expected. The law was triggered on June 20, but Thomas’s electricity had already been cut off by then. The fifty-five-year-old lost access to air conditioning on June 11, when the high was “only” 88 degrees Fahrenheit — revealing the fatal irrationality of allowing disconnections between heat waves. Health risks exist at heat indexes far below 105 degrees.

  

Following pressure from advocacy groups and some House and Senate lawmakers, HHS in May released roughly $400 million in remaining LIHEAP funding. (About 90 percent of the $4.1 billionCongress approved for fiscal year 2025 had already been sent to states in October 2024 to help defray the costs of home heating during the winter.) According to Grist, HHS temporarily rehired one of the dismissed workers to help determine the disbursement of the final 10 percent.

Donald Trump’s administration has all but guaranteed that more people will suffer heat-related illnesses and fatalities this summer and in the future.

Still, that move doesn’t invalidate concerns about program continuity. As a coalition of environmental justice groups pointed out in late May, the Trump administration had forced state and local agencies “to operate under uncertainty, delaying outreach and enrollment while vulnerable residents face another summer of dangerous heat without assurance of relief.”

The Trump administration’s war on LIHEAP does not appear to have contributed to Thomas’s death because by early April, Missouri had already allocated its LIHEAP funding through the end of September. Nevertheless, her tragic passing is a cautionary tale about the lethal consequences of underinvesting in energy assistance and heat protections amid soaring temperatures. Before Musk brought his chainsaw to Washington, LIHEAP was already woefully underfunded, resulting in millions of people not receiving lifesaving resources (currently, only one in five eligible households secures aid).

The need for those resources is about to skyrocket. Killer Heat in the United States, a 2019 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), outlines how extreme heat is projected to increase nationwide in the coming decades. An interactive data tool and story map show that on our current trajectory, we should expect a mid-century (2036–2065) average of ninety-four days per year with a heat index above 90 degrees Fahrenheit and thirty-seven days per year with a heat index above 105 degrees (including three days above 127 degrees) in St Louis County, where Thomas died. That’s up from historical (1971–2000) averages of forty-eight days and four days with “feels like” temperatures above 90 and 105 degrees, respectively. By the late twenty-first century (2070–2099), St Louis County is expected to see 119 days per year with a heat index above 90 degrees and sixty-four days per year with a heat index above 105 degrees (including thirteen days above 127 degrees).

Expanding fossil fuels and undermining the nation’s uneven patchwork of home energy assistance is precisely the opposite of what should be happening right now.

“When we see tragic heat-related deaths, like that of Ms Thomas, driven by the dangerous combination of fossil-fueled climate change and access to cooling being cut off,” said Juan Declet-Barreto, senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at the Union of Concerned Scientists, “it underscores the urgency of protecting vital programs like LIHEAP and addressing the vital necessity of reducing heat-trapping emissions.”

Currently, only twenty-one states and Washington, DC, have protections against hot-weather-related utility shutoffs. This underlines the need for increased LIHEAP funding (and a concomitant requirement that states help energy-burdened households with cooling in addition to heating) along with a federal moratorium on disconnections amid extreme heat.

Despite being supported by three-quarters of all voters, including a majority of Republicans, LIHEAP is on OMB’s chopping block for fiscal year 2026. The White House has proposed completely eradicating the program, which constitutes a miniscule 0.4 percent of the $1 trillion military budget sought by Trump.

In Russell Vought’s cruel, and misguided, opinion, LIHEAP is “unnecessary.” Notably, the Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved a $20 million increase in LIHEAP funding for the next fiscal year. But even if Congress declines to defund LIHEAP, the program is still at risk; without adequate staff, Trump’s HHS could refuse to disburse money — a real possibility considering Vought’s ongoing threats to unlawfully withhold congressionally appropriated funds.

Trump’s Climate Plan: Bake the Working Class

The federal government has never done an adequate job of protecting people from extreme heat. While it was a far cry from the robust, whole-of-government effort needed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and redress lethal inequality simultaneously, former president Joe Biden’s administration began to take some belated steps in the right direction. Trump, by contrast, has moved swiftly to undo his predecessor’s limited progress. And it’s not only LIHEAP that is under attack. Trump’s anti-climate crusade and federal workforce purge has undermined the government’s capacity to tackle this public health crisis writ large.

  

Last year, the White House Interagency Working Group on Extreme Heat and the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) — launched in 2015 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the CDC — published a National Heat Strategy “to build a heat-resilient nation and promote heat resilience globally.” Agency-specific efforts to implement the plan were underway in early 2025 but have “stalled,” according to the Federation of American Scientists. The Trump administration took the plan offline, and most of the leaders who developed it either left or were pushed out of their posts. If Congress approves Trump’s proposed budget cuts, even in part, additional NIHHIS staff could be laid off, which would further degrade federal capacity to address extreme heat.

Expanding fossil fuels and undermining the nation’s uneven patchwork of home energy assistance is precisely the opposite of what should be happening right now.

In 2023, Biden announced that NOAA and NIHHIS would establish, with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Center for Collaborative Heat Modeling and the Center for Heat Resilient Communities. In May, however, Trump withdrew funding for both centers, thus hindering plans to better assess and manage extreme heat risks. Future work of this kind is in jeopardy due to Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA’s research budget.

Last year, Biden’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a proposed federal heat standard designed to protect workers from dangerously high temperatures — more than fifty years after experts at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) first recommended such a rule. Trump has not committed to finalizing the rule. OSHA held a series of informal hearings on the proposal in June and early July, but there has been silence since then, as the American Prospect reported recently.

As OSHA heard testimony during the same June heat wave that killed Shauna Thomas, at least three workers died from extreme heat: an outdoor worker in Atlanta; Mitchell Huggins, an umpire in Sumter, South Carolina; and Jacob Taylor, a postal worker in Dallas. They are among the dozens of workers in the United States who suffer occupational heat-related deaths each year, and like other heat-related fatalities, those are vastly undercounted. As with utility shutoffs, lifesaving protections for outdoor workers vary geographically, with just seven statesproviding safeguards to agricultural, construction, and other laborers. Despite the broad popularity of extreme heat protections, Kentucky recently followed Florida and Texas in preempting state and local efforts to shield workers amid federal inaction.

Experts have warned that Trump’s purge of federal heat experts, including NIOSH personnel whose research is indispensable to developing heat regulations, could make it easier for Trump to kill the rule — or enact a weakened one, which appears to be the preference of some corporate interests. Another concern is that David Keeling, Trump’s nominee to lead OSHA, will thwart strong protections given his lethal track record as a former UPS and Amazon executive.

Other Biden-era initiatives to reduce heat-related morbidity and mortality have been undercut or remain at risk. The Inflation Reduction Act opened up more than $1 billion in grant funding to increase access to trees and green spaces in neglected neighborhoods across the country. This was part of an effort to provide relief from urban heat islands — areas, typically in less affluent parts of cities, where concentrations of asphalt and industrial pollution, combined with lack of tree canopies and other greenscapes, push temperatures higher. However, Trump’s illegal spending freeze disrupted the US Forest Service’s urban and community forestry programs, and his proposed budget cuts would terminate them.

In another attack on extreme heat mitigation and adaptation, Trump’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in April canceled the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which pursued disaster risk reduction through green urban design. Vought went so far as to claw back more than $3 billion for projects that had been approved but not completed.

During his July 23 congressional testimony about the Trump administration’s abysmal response to the deadly Texas floods, acting FEMA administrator David Richardson said that the White House eliminated BRIC because it was being used to fund things like “shade at bus stops.” His incredulous delivery confirmed that in the eyes of the Trump administration, the provision of lifesaving relief from extreme heat is a frivolous waste of money. (In a July 25 court document, Richardson claimed that “FEMA has not ended the BRIC program,” but the judge was unconvinced.)

 

Even though extreme heat kills more people every year than all other forms of severe weather, FEMA has failed to treat heat waves with the same seriousness as tornadoes, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods. To a significant degree, this reflects Klinenberg’s observation that “spectacular and camera-ready” weather events “destroy valuable property” while “heat waves kill the expendable poor,” including people who are homeless or incarcerated.

Labor, environmental justice, and public health advocates have long pushed lawmakers to amend the Stafford Act to explicitly define extreme heat as a “major disaster.” But don’t expect any improvements under the Trump administration. Not long after Richardson scoffed at the prospect of improving shade at bus stops, we learned he wasn’t even aware that extreme heat is responsible for most weather-related deaths. That’s precisely the combination of Republican ignorance and callousness that is already killing people and putting more of us at risk of premature death every day.

https://jacobin.com/2025/08/heat-climate-deaths-trump-energy

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.