This story originally appeared in WURD and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.
It’s not only been a summer season (now autumn) of a deadly pandemic, toxic politics, and social unrest, but the nation has also been rocked by a nonstop series of environmental calamities triggered by the human-pressed climate crisis. Hurricane Sally was a destructive, slow-moving mix of high winds and epic flooding that battered the Gulf Coast and other parts of the South last month. That was after Hurricane Laura and ahead of an unprecedented number of cyclones forming in the Atlantic for what’s building up into one of the most active — if not the most active — hurricane season on record. The entire West Coast is either literally on fire or under a blanket of choking smoke. This summer was the fourth hottest on record, with nights no longer cooler and city neighborhoods burning up due to little shade, too little tree canopy, and still lots of pollution. Meanwhile, glaciers the size of whole states are rapidly melting in the global poles, raisin... Read more
