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New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Yann Arthus-Bertrand / Getty Images

Climate Change Is Already Making Hurricanes Wetter, Study Confirms

New research published in Nature Wednesday has confirmed that some of the most destructive hurricanes to pummel the U.S. in the past decade were made worse by climate change.

Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people in Louisiana, Hurricane Irma, which devastated the Caribbean and southeastern U.S. last year, and Hurricane Maria, which killed nearly 3,000 in Puerto Rico, were five to 10 percent wetter because of global warming, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found.

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Evacuated horses wait on Zuma beach as the Woolsey Fire rages in Malibu on Nov. 9. Scott Varley / Digital First Media / Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images

31 Dead, 250,000 Evacuated in California Fires as Governor Blames Climate Change

California suffered a devastating weekend as wildfires raging in both the south and north of the state killed 31 and forced 250,000 to flee their homes, BBC News reported Monday. More than 200 people are still missing.

The Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise Thursday, tied the 1933 Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles for the deadliest fire in California history when the death toll reached 29. It is also the most destructive in terms of the number of structures burned, with a total of more than 6,700 as of Saturday, ABC 7 News reported. So far it has burned more than 109,000 acres and is almost 25 percent contained as of the most recent reporting by BBC News.

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Politics
CEO of Masdar Initiative Sultan Al Jabe testifies before the former House climate change committee in 2008 before Republicans dissolved it in 2011. KAREN BLEIER / AFP / Getty Images

Climate Change Committee Likely to Be Revived by Democratic House

Back in 2010, jeggings were the hot new fashion trend, the world learned to loathe vuvuzelas and the U.S. House of Representatives had a climate change committee.

Now that the Democrats have retaken the House, one of those things is coming back. In an interview with The New York Times Wednesday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi laid out the party's plans for the next two years, including resurrecting the committee:

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Climate
The Camp Fire burns a store in Paradise in Northern California. JOSH EDELSON / AFP / Getty Images

‘We Were Engulfed in Flames’: Rapid Wildfire Devastates Entire Town of Paradise, CA

A wind-driven wildfire broke out in Northern California at 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning and took off at a rate of around 80 football fields per minute, covering 18,000 acres by 2 p.m., CNN reported.

The Camp Fire went on to engulf the town of Paradise, home to 27,000 people, forcing evacuations and damaging thousands of buildings, the Associated Press reported.

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Food
Gulf Coast oysters on the half shell at Wintzell's in Mobile, AL. donireewalker / CC BY 2.0

Hurricanes, Water Wars Threaten New High-End Oyster Industry on Gulf Coast

By Daniel R. Petrolia and William C. Walton

For Cainnon Gregg, 2018 started out as a great year. After leaving his job as an installation artist to become a full-time oyster farmer in Wakulla County, Florida in 2017, Gregg began raising small oysters in baskets or bags suspended in the shallow, productive coastal waters of Apalachicola Bay.

Raising oysters "off-bottom" this way takes a lot of time and money, but has a big potential payoff. They are destined for the high-end raw bar market, where offerings are denoted by specific appellations, like "Salty Birds" (Cainnon's oysters), "Navy Coves" (from Alabama) and "Murder Points" (also from Alabama), and can retail for twice the price of oysters harvested from traditional on-bottom reefs.

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Weather destroyed boats in an Italian harbor near Genoa. MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP / Getty Images

Tragedy in Sicily Pushes Italian Storm Deaths Above 30

A river overran banks in Sicily Saturday night, flooding a villa and drowning nine members of two families who were staying inside, The New York Times reported.

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Climate
Pexels

Putting Speed Bumps in Hurricane Alley

By Marlene Cimons

The advantages of wind power are well-known. Wind is clean, plentiful and renewable. Installing turbines in large numbers could help wean our carbon-intensive civilization from its addiction to fossil fuels. New research suggests that one day there could be another major benefit: massive installations of wind turbines could lessen the deluge when powerful hurricanes bring devastating amounts of rain onto land. During such recent storms as Harvey and Florence—which brought historic levels of rainfall—this could have meant less flooding and destruction, and fewer deaths.

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Thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. cross from Guatemala into Mexico. John Moore / Getty Images

The Climate Implications of the Migrant Caravan

The U.S. military will send as many as 5,000 troops to the country's Southern border to meet thousands of refugees and migrants who are traveling north through Mexico from Central America, The Independent reported Monday.

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Climate
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Hurricane Michael Damaged U.S. Fighter Jets Worth $6 BIllion, While Trump Neglects Climate Change

On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, just over a week after the base was largely destroyed during Hurricane Michael.

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