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G7 Summit to Be Hosted at Trump’s Miami Resort and ‘Climate Change Will Not Be on the Agenda’
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney made two controversial announcements about the 2020 Group of Seven (G7) summit: it will be hosted at one of President Donald Trump's golf resorts in Miami and it won't feature any discussion of the climate crisis.
The last red tide in Florida lasted 15 months — pictured here at Bean Point Beach. TriggerPhoto / iStock / Getty Images Plus
The red tide that plagued Florida for 15 months — killing marine life and causing respiratory problems for humans — is back, The Associated Press reported Saturday.
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Rising Seas Threaten Hundreds of Native American Heritage Sites Along Florida’s Gulf Coast
Native North Americans first arrived in Florida approximately 14,550 years ago. Evidence for these stone-tool-wielding, megafauna-hunting peoples can be found at the bottom of numerous limestone freshwater sinkholes in Florida's Panhandle and along the ancient shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for every county in the state Thursday as it prepares for what could be the strongest hurricane to hit its East Coast since Andrew in 1992, CNN reported.
Dorian, currently a Category 2 hurricane, is forecast to make landfall on Florida's East Coast as a Category 4 storm Labor Day with winds of around 130 miles per hour. However, it is not clear exactly where on the coast the storm will make landfall: It could be anywhere between the Florida Keys and southeast Georgia.
"Dorian is likely to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane while it moves near the northwestern Bahamas and approaches the Florida peninsula through the weekend," the National Hurricane Center warned on Friday.
Here are the 5 AM AST/EDT August 30 Key Messages for Hurricane #Dorian. A prolonged period of hazardous weather conditions that could last for a couple of days is possible across parts of Florida early next week. Visit https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB for more info. pic.twitter.com/5n4nGwYNfB
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 30, 2019
There were concerns earlier in the week that Dorian would wreak havoc on Puerto Rico, still recovering from Hurricane Maria nearly two years ago. But the storm brushed past the island Wednesday causing minimal damage, HuffPost reported. Dorian instead battered St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where winds of around 110 miles per hour blew the roofs off of houses.
However, what was good news for Puerto Rico could spell trouble for Florida. Because the storm was not weakened passing over the mountains of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, it is now in a position to intensify, CBS News explained. One reason it is likely to do so is that it will pass over water 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit on its way to Florida, and water warmer than 80 degrees tends to strengthen storms.
UPDATE: NOAA’s #GOES16 shows #HurricaneDorian pushing away from #PuertoRico and the #VI into the open Atlantic this afternoon. The red circle indicates the center of circulation of #Dorian. Get more from @NHC_Atlantic. pic.twitter.com/hvKZz7kL3g
— NOAA Satellites PA (@NOAASatellitePA) August 29, 2019
The storm is now predicted to blow over the Bahamas Sunday and then make landfall in Florida Monday, The New York Times reported. But Florida could begin feeling winds of at least 39 miles per hour by Saturday night. The storm is predicted to dump four to eight inches of rain on the Sunshine State. Forecasters are also worried about the potential for flooding caused by storm surges.
"All Floridians really need to monitor Hurricane Dorian," DeSantis said Thursday morning, as The New York Times reported. He advised residents to store up seven days' worth of food and medical supplies.
Floridians appeared to take him at his word. In a Facebook post Wednesday, Brooke Koontz shared photos of empty shelves at a Walmart in Port Orange, Florida, as CNN reported. She said that at one point employees brought out a pallet of water bottles.
"It was gone in seconds," she told CNN. "People were trying to race."
President Donald Trump canceled a planned trip to Poland because of the storm, as BBC News reported.
"It's very important for me to be here," he told reporters Thursday. "[It] looks like it could be a very, very big one. I have decided to send our vice-president, Mike Pence, to Poland this weekend in my place."
If forecasts are correct and Dorian hits Florida, it will be the fourth year in a row that a hurricane has hit the state, the most consecutive hurricane years since the 1940s, CNN reported. Last year's Hurricane Michael was the strongest to ever hit the Florida panhandle, and meteorologist Eric Holthaus noted that the state has never before faced two such strong landfalls two years in a row.
"We are in a climate emergency," he tweeted.
Florida has never faced back-to-back-to-back years with a landfall as strong as #Dorian is expected to be this weekend.
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 29, 2019
We are in a climate emergency. https://t.co/aunbQ4Zq0h
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Confronting the climate crisis is the No. 1 issue for 96 percent of Democratic voters, but it clocked only around seven minutes of airtime at the first Democratic Presidential debate Wednesday, Vox reported.
First Fort Myers banned plastic straws. Now it banned Roundup, or glyphosate, the controversial herbicide recently blamed for causing cancer by several juries, the News Press reports.
By Eren Erman Ozguven
When Hurricane Michael roared onto northwest Florida's Gulf Coast in October 2018, its 160 mile-per-hour winds made it the strongest storm ever to hit the region. It was only the fourth Category 5 storm on record to make landfall in the U.S.
City officials in Key West have put the cap on sunscreen—or at least varieties that contain chemicals believed to harm coral reefs and increase coral bleaching and death.
The Florida Keys is home to the third largest living coral barrier reef system in the world. The ecosystem is a habitat for fish species and other marine life and also serves as economically important touristic and recreational spot.
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Florida's longest red tide in more than a decade has killed scores of the state's most iconic marine animals.
The current outbreak, which began in October 2017 off southwest Florida, has been tied to a record 589 sea turtle deaths and 213 manatee deaths, the Herald-Tribune reported, citing figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
To Preserve National Parks in a Warming World, Reconnect Fragmented Public Lands
By Stephen Nash
The Trump administration's decision to keep many U.S. national parks open during the current federal government shutdown, with few or no staff, spotlights how popular and how vulnerable these unique places are.
Some states, such as Utah and Arizona, have spent heavily to keep parks open rather than lose tourist revenues. Unfortunately, without rangers to enforce rules, some visitors have strewn garbage and vandalized scenic areas.
The Justice Department is looking into whether former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to investigators at the Department of Interior, The Washington Post reports. Anonymous sources tell the Post that investigators at the Interior's inspector general's office raised the issue with the DOJ after suspecting Zinke may have lied during questioning over his real estate deals in Montana and his review of a Native American casino project in Connecticut.