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Environment Tag

When the 115th session of the US Congress finishes, I would be hard-pressed to pick the most insane stunt organized by our illustrious representatives. I'm tempted to pick Impeachment Theater as the most senseless move. But I pick the decision to put a teenaged foreigner before Congress as an expert on climate science, setting policy that would dramatically impact our economy and national safety.

A woman named Chella Phillips of the Bahamas is being praised for her efforts to save dogs during Hurricane Dorian. She took almost a hundred canines into her home during the storm, and now she is being rewarded with donations.

Hurricane Dorian, the second most powerful storm in recorded history to hit the region, has stalled over the Bahamas. As of Tuesday morning, the hurricane is still hovering around Grand Bahama Island. Eastern U.S. is bracing for impact.
Dorian brought gusts of 225mph and up to 30 inches of rainfall on Sunday, wrecked 13,000 homes, tore down power lines and left Grand Bahama International Airport in Freeport under five feet of water by Monday morning. Experts have also warned of a possible storm surge that could send destructive waves crashing into the coast.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling Christian Democratic party (CDU) has supported plans to raise meat prices to fight climate change. The meat tax, initially proposed by the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Green Party, will sharply increase the prices of meat products by raising the tax rate from the current rate of 7 percent to 19 percent.

During my family vacation this year, we stopped in Iceland for a few days. The country was spectacular, and one of the memories I will cherish is our hike to the Solheimajokull Glacier. While hiking, I noted the glacial lake and the signs warning visitors to be worried about calving, especially during summer months. Overall, it was a worry-free day of quality family time.

A few weeks ago, we reported on the historic flooding in Nebraska that swamped part of Offutt Air Force Base. The rains have been unrelenting. The Mississippi River has hit flood levels for over a month.
The Mississippi River has been at major flood stage for 41 days and counting, and this week a temporary wall failed, sending water rushing into several blocks of downtown Davenport, Iowa.

A new NASA study shows that a major Greenland glacier once touted as one of the fastest shrinking ice and snow masses on Earth is growing again.
The Jakobshavn glacier around 2012 was retreating about 1.8 miles and thinning nearly 130 feet annually. But it started growing again at about the same rate in the past two years, according to a study in Monday’s Nature Geoscience. Study authors and outside scientists think this is temporary.

Communities across the nation have promoted the virtues of recycling, and millions of Americans have dutifully segregated their wastes to "save the planet." However, now many of those programs have started to end because of escalating costs.
Philadelphia is now burning about half of its 1.5 million residents’ recycling material in an incinerator that converts waste to energy. In Memphis, the international airport still has recycling bins around the terminals, but every collected can, bottle and newspaper is sent to a landfill. And last month, officials in the central Florida city of Deltona faced the reality that, despite their best efforts to recycle, their curbside program was not working and suspended it.

The last time we visited Poland, eco-activists were upset with its continued reliance on coal power. The shrieks of green justice warriors will likely grow louder. Poland will continue with plans to dig a canal between its main eastern coastline and the Baltic Sea despite concerns among activists and in the European Union that it could damage the environment.
The Vistula Spit is a heavily wooded sandbank 55 km (34 miles) long but less than 2 km wide which encloses a coastal lagoon. Poland shares both the lagoon and the spit with the neighboring Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, tore Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apart over her Green New Deal, calling her a "pompous little twit" because she doesn't seem to have any clue what it would take for her plan to work, realistically. "The problem with @AOC is she doesn't know whether or not she knows what she is talking about. Makes it harder to think straight," he wrote on Twitter.

Back in 2017, government officials were considering the creation of a "Red Team" to encourage debate about the scientific interpretations of studies related to the climate. Now, the White House appears to be going forward with plans to create a team of select federal scientists to review and potentially re-evaluate recent government assertions related to climate science, according to three administration officials.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is not happy about Majority Leader McConnell's decision to bring the Green New Deal up for a vote. Markey co-authored the Green New Deal, which was introduced last week. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is the House sponsor of the "bill." Via his official Twitter account, Markey accused Republicans of "sabotaging" the "movement" he's working to build by rushing a vote on the legislation.

Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled the resolution for her Green New Deal with Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA). The resolution could cost up to $7 trillion. She stated that this deal "calls for a 'national, social, industrial and economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II.'" Somehow Ocasio-Cortez managed to fit into this Green New Deal a guaranteed job and health care for everyone. On Twitter, Lee Doren found a quote that proves this Green New Deal will hit the poor people the most.