Disasters

"This summer volunteers are fanning out in 13 cities across the U.S. to — quite literally — take the temperature of their neighborhoods. It's part of a project to help protect people as the world warms, and in many places it's highlighting how the poorest areas suffer most from rising urban heat."

"Hurricane Laura rolled over a coast studded with refineries and chemical plants. Other storms have caused the release of toxic substances, often affecting poorer or minority communities."

"Hurricane Laura tore through a region that is home to dozens of major oil refineries, petrochemical plants and plastics facilities. Now, residents could be breathing dangerously polluted air from those sites, public health experts and local advocates say."

"Hurricanes that go from dangerous to deadly very quickly are occurring more often, research suggests." "Experts call the phenomenon “rapid intensification” and say it’s happening more frequently, thanks in part to warming ocean temperatures driven by climate change."

"Record setting conflagrations in California and Colorado have smothered residents of the two states with choking, stinging smoke. But the impact of that smoke is also being felt hundreds, even thousands, of miles away, and the health impacts may last for years after the flames subside."

"The number of fires in the Brazilian Amazon has risen dramatically in recent weeks and now achieved a bleak milestone: more than 500 major, largely illegal, fires have been detected in the region since the end of May."

"Hurricane Laura's top wind speeds nearly doubled in just 24 hours as it approached the border between Texas and Louisiana. ... Laura's rapid intensification is one hallmark of climate change. As the Earth warms up, the water on the surface of the ocean gets hotter."

"A fire at a Louisiana chlorine plant erupted with thick, billowing smoke Thursday after Hurricane Laura plowed through part of the country’s petrochemical corridor with storm surges and fierce wind, forcing residents around the plant to shelter in their homes."

"the extreme weather conditions now testing the country, one disaster overlapping with the next, are exactly what they’ve long warned us to expect in a warming world."

"An abrupt shift this week in government testing guidelines for Americans exposed to the novel coronavirus was directed by the White House’s coronavirus task force, alarming outside public health experts who warn the change could hasten the disease’s spread."