Multiple Mega-Fires Deliver Toxic Air, Extreme Heat, Rolling Blackouts Across Western U.S. – The Energy Mix: With “multiple mega-fires burning more than three million acres”, and millions of people in California, Oregon, and Washington State facing a mix of toxic air, extreme heat, and rolling blackouts, a month of summer wildfires is bringing some of the most dire predictions from climate scientists into day-to-day reality.

“The crisis in the nation’s most populous state is more than just an accumulation of individual catastrophes,” the New York Times reports. “It is also an example of something climate experts have long worried about, but which few expected to see so soon: a cascade effect, in which a series of disasters overlap, triggering or amplifying each other.”

“The challenge we’re facing now is the extreme fire events that we believe are climate-induced,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. And “the effects have been painfully felt,” CNN adds. “At least seven people have died since the start of this year’s fire season, according to Cal Fire, with thousands of homes reduced to embers. Many communities have had to order mandatory evacuations, and more than 170,000 recently went without power to prevent future blazes.”

Multiple Mega-Fires Deliver Toxic Air, Extreme Heat, Rolling Blackouts Across Western U.S. – The Energy Mix: With “multiple mega-fires burning more than three million acres”, and millions of people in California, Oregon, and Washington State facing a mix of toxic air, extreme heat, and rolling blackouts, a month of summer wildfires is bringing some of the most dire predictions from climate scientists into day-to-day reality.“The crisis in the nation’s most populous state is more than just an accumulation of individual catastrophes,” the New York Times reports. “It is also an example of something climate experts have long worried about, but which few expected to see so soon: a cascade effect, in which a series of disasters overlap, triggering or amplifying each other.”“The challenge we’re facing now is the extreme fire events that we believe are climate-induced,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. And “the effects have been painfully felt,” CNN adds. “At least seven people have died since the start of this year’s fire season, according to Cal Fire, with thousands of homes reduced to embers. Many communities have had to order mandatory evacuations, and more than 170,000 recently went without power to prevent future blazes.”Read More

Energy sector looking for aid and regulation delays as throne speech looms: Canada’s fossil-fuel sector is looking to this month’s Throne Speech for signs the federal government is not throwing in the towel on oil and gas.

Meanwhile Canadian climate strikers are threatening mass protests if the same speech doesn’t show a plan to eliminate all greenhouse-gas emissions produced by human activities in Canada in less than a decade.

The two visions for the throne speech, expected Sept. 23, are at odds and both are ratcheting up the pressure on the Liberal government ahead of a cabinet retreat where the Liberals are expected to make the final policy decisions for the throne speech and the plans for economic recovery from the pandemic.

Energy sector looking for aid and regulation delays as throne speech looms: Canada’s fossil-fuel sector is looking to this month’s Throne Speech for signs the federal government is not throwing in the towel on oil and gas.Meanwhile Canadian climate strikers are threatening mass protests if the same speech doesn’t show a plan to eliminate all greenhouse-gas emissions produced by human activities in Canada in less than a decade.The two visions for the throne speech, expected Sept. 23, are at odds and both are ratcheting up the pressure on the Liberal government ahead of a cabinet retreat where the Liberals are expected to make the final policy decisions for the throne speech and the plans for economic recovery from the pandemic.Read More