July, 14 2023, 10:25am EDT
Nearly 120 Million People in US Under Extreme Weather Alerts as Heat Dome Descends, Summer Danger Season Off to Brutal Start
For the first time this year, nearly 120 million people in the United States and its territories, are threatened by what the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has deemed “Danger Season”—the time roughly from May through October in the Northern Hemisphere when climate change impacts in the United States are at their peak and increasingly likely to collide with one another.
Aided by El Niño, large swaths of the U.S. South, West and Southwest regions are already experiencing extreme heat, with temperatures slated to rise even further in that part of the country and extend further east as a heat dome expands this weekend and into next week. Some places may see the heat index, or “feels like” temperature, set records by exceeding 120 degrees Fahrenheit, threatening people’s health and lives while also placing tremendous pressure on the electric grid as people increase their air conditioning use.
While this heat will affect roughly one-third of people living in the United States, those experiencing poverty or homelessness, people (often people of color) living in urban heat islands, elderly adults, small children, people with cardiovascular and other health conditions, outdoor workers, and people facing electricity shut-offs are at particularly grave risk. Additionally, parts of the Northeast remain flooded from abnormally heavy rains earlier this week and some southern states are still under flood alerts.
Meanwhile, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has confirmed that this June was the hottest on record globally and, according to the United Nations, the hottest global average temperature ever was experienced in the first week of July. Ocean temperatures, including in the Atlantic, are also off-the-charts high with the danger to coral reefs proving particularly acute, and sea ice is at record lows, especially in the Antarctic. Furthermore, climate change-driven extreme heat, flooding and wildfires are being experienced by billions of people around the world.
To be extremely clear: this is not normal. Decades of dependence on fossil fuels, decades of deception and obstruction on the part of the fossil fuel industry, and decades of inaction by policymakers who have been in their thrall have landed us where we are today. This has to stop.
For more information, check out UCS’ Danger Season map, which tracks heat, wildfire weather, storm and flooding alerts. Since May 1, 43% of the extreme heat alerts were made more likely by climate change. The map also shows that nearly 34% of the people who are today under extreme weather alerts live in areas designated as disadvantaged. Climate extremes are intersecting with long-standing socioeconomic challenges and racial inequities to further heighten mounting risks.
With extreme heat on the rise because of climate change, it is critical that policymakers and regulators take steps to ensure our communities are protected and our infrastructure is more resilient to extreme weather; that fossil fuels are quickly and sharply phased down while we rapidly transition to clean energy; and fossil fuel companies are held accountable for the damage their products have caused. The United States must also take responsibility for its role in driving the climate crisis as the largest historical emitter by providing adequate climate financing and addressing loss and damage in low-income nations facing crushing climate extremes.
Below are UCS experts available to discuss current and anticipated extreme weather events in the United States; their impact on the grid; and relevant local, states, national, and international policies needed to address the climate crisis:
- Dr. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director and lead economist in the Climate and Energy Program at UCS. She is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Click here to view her biography.
- Dr. Kristina Dahl, a principal climate scientist at UCS. She is based in San Francisco, California. Click here to view her biography.
- Dr. Juan Declet-Barreto, a senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at UCS. He is based in Washington, D.C. and is fluent in English and Spanish. Click here to view his biography.
- Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, the director of climate science and a senior climate scientist at UCS. She is based in Washington, D.C. Click here to view her biography.
- Michael Jacobs, a senior energy analyst. He is based in the Boston area. Click here to view hisbiography.
- Julie McNamara, a deputy policy director in the Climate and Energy Program at UCS. She is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Click here to view her biography.
- Erika Spanger-Siegfried, the director of strategic analytics in the Climate and Energy Program at UCS. She is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Click here to view her biography.
- Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst at UCS. She is based in Washington, D.C. Click here to view her biography.
Contact UCS Climate and Energy Media Manager Ashley Siefert Nunes via email at asiefert@ucsusa.org or by phone at +1 952-239-0199 to speak with a UCS scientist or analyst.
Additional UCS Resources and Analyses:
- A 2022 peer-reviewed study “Too Hot to Work,” which found that without global action to reduce heat-trapping emissions, climate change is projected to quadruple U.S. outdoor workers’ exposure to hazardous heat conditions, jeopardizing their health and placing up to $55.4 billion of their earnings at risk between now and 2065. For the interactive mapping tool, click here.
- A 2019 peer-reviewed study “Killer Heat,” which found that without global action to reduce heat-trapping emissions, the number of days per year when the “feels like” temperature exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit would more than double from historical levels to an average of 36 across the United States by midcentury and increase four-fold to an average of 54 by late century. To get the results for a specific city or county, use the online widget. For the interactive mapping tool, click here.
- A 2019 report titled “US Military on the Frontlines of Extreme Heat,” which found that over the next three decades military installations in the contiguous United States could average an extra month of days each year when the “feels like” temperature exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
- A 2019 UCS report titled “Farmworkers at Risk,” which evaluated the risks pesticide exposure and heat stress can pose to U.S. farmworkers’ safety.
- A fact sheet on the science connecting extreme weather events, like extreme heat, and climate change.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
LATEST NEWS
'Not Just Gaza': IDF Killings in West Bank Surge to Unprecedented Levels
"These killings are taking place at a level without recent precedent in an environment in which Israeli forces have no need to fear that their government will hold them accountable," said a Human Rights Watch researcher.
May 08, 2024
The Israeli military is unlawfully killing civilians in the occupied West Bank at an unprecedented rate, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday as Israel moved forward with its ground assault on the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah.
"It's not just Gaza," Omar Shakir, HRW's Israel and Palestine director, wrote on social media, pointing to the new report's finding that Israeli forces killed more than twice the number of Palestinians in the West Bank in 2023 than in any year since 2005, when the United Nations began its data collection.
Figures cited by HRW show that the rate of killings in the West Bank was even higher during the first quarter of 2024. In 2023, Israeli forces killed 492 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 120 children. During just the first three months of 2024, the Israeli military killed 131 Palestinians in the occupied territory.
HRW noted that in numerous cases since 2022, "Israeli security forces have unlawfully used lethal force in fatal shootings of Palestinians, including deliberately executing Palestinians who posed no apparent security threat."
In one incident examined by HRW, Israeli forces fatally shot 15-year-old Taha Mahamid and his father, Ibrahim, at the entrance of a West Bank refugee camp. Israel's military then impeded ambulances as they tried to reach Taha and Ibrahim.
The Israeli military did not acknowledge its killing of Taha and his father.
"Residents said that Israeli forces had a practice of taking positions in and atop buildings in the camp to provide cover for troops to enter," HRW said. "There was no apparent basis for shooting Taha and Ibrahim Mahamid, Human Rights Watch found. They posed no imminent threat to life or serious injury, making their killings unlawful."
Richard Weir, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement Wednesday that "Israeli security forces are not just unlawfully killing Palestinians in Gaza, but have been killing Palestinians without a legal basis in the West Bank, including deliberately executing Palestinians who posed no apparent threat."
"These killings are taking place at a level without recent precedent in an environment in which Israeli forces have no need to fear that their government will hold them accountable," said Weir. "The Israeli government's permissive and discriminatory practices on the use of force and endemic impunity are one facet of the apartheid and structural violence Palestinians face every day. The unlawful killings in the West Bank will continue so long as the Israeli authorities' systemic repression of Palestinians continues."
"Repeated unlawful killings and endemic impunity are among the inhumane acts that make up the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution."
Since Israel launched its latest assault on Gaza following a deadly Hamas-led attack in October, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has surged, with both settlers and soldiers targeting civilians and effectively wiping entire communities "off the map."
HRW's new report observes that in recent years, Israeli officials—including some who are now key members of the far-right Netanyahu government—"have encouraged soldiers and police to kill Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis, even when they are no longer a threat."
"In October 2022, Itamar Ben-Gvir, now the national security minister, said while running for election that it should be legal to use lethal force against anyone throwing stones," the group noted.
The U.S., Israel's top ally and arms supplier, has done little in response to deadly violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. In March, the Biden administration sanctioned a handful of extremist settlers.
The Biden State Department recently concluded that at least five Israeli military units are responsible for gross human rights violations but has thus far declined to sanction them, allowing the units to continue receiving U.S. aid.
"Repeated unlawful killings and endemic impunity are among the inhumane acts that make up the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution that Israeli authorities commit against Palestinians," HRW said Wednesday. "Governments should suspend arms and other military support to Israel because of the risk of complicity in grave abuses in Palestine, take action to ensure accountability including supporting the International Criminal Court's probe into serious crimes committed in Palestine, and impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for grave abuses."
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Bernie Sanders Condemns Israel's Destruction of Gaza Universities
"There are no protests on the college campuses in Gaza," said the Vermont senator. "You know why? Because every one of the 12 universities in Gaza has been bombed and destroyed."
May 08, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday denounced the Israeli military's total decimation of Gaza's universities during floor remarks on protests that have broken out on American college campuses over the past several weeks.
"There are no protests on the college campuses in Gaza," said Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. "You know why? Because every one of the 12 universities in Gaza has been bombed and destroyed."
Sanders' remarks came during a floor debate over a Republican resolution ostensibly aimed at condemning antisemitism on college campuses. GOP lawmakers and President Joe Biden have repeatedly smeared campus protests against Israel's assault on Gaza as antisemitic and ignored the prominent role Jewish students have played in the nationwide demonstrations.
After Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) attempted to pass the GOP antisemitism resolution via unanimous consent, Sanders—who is Jewish—rose to block the measure, criticizing it as insufficient and proposing an alternative that condemns antisemitism as well as all other "forms of bigotry in this country, whether on college campuses or elsewhere, including Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, and the growing attacks against the Asian American community."
Sanders' proposed resolution also expresses support for "the right of students and all Americans to peacefully protest," whereas Scott's measure attacks recent campus protests as "hotbed[s] of blatantly antisemitic rhetoric and action."
"The fact of the matter is that 67% of Americans, according to recent polls, support the United States calling for a cease-fire, and 60% oppose sending more weapons to Israel," Sanders said. "And that's what the protesters are talking about: They are asking why it is we are complicit in the humanitarian disaster taking place in Gaza."
Watch Sanders' remarks:
LIVE: Today I offer a simple resolution:
NO to antisemitism.
NO to Islamophobia.
NO to racism and bigotry in all its forms.
YES to free speech and protest under the 1st Amendment, whether on a college campus or across our nation. https://t.co/czTwnQnz6b
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 7, 2024
According to the United Nations, more than 80% of the Gaza Strip's schools have been damaged or reduced to ruins by Israeli forces since October, including all of the enclave's universities.
Last month, a group of U.N. experts said that "it may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as 'scholasticide.'"
"The persistent, callous attacks on educational infrastructure in Gaza have a devastating long-term impact on the fundamental rights of people to learn and freely express themselves, depriving yet another generation of Palestinians of their future," the experts added. "Students with international scholarships are being prevented from attending university abroad."
American campus protests against Israel's assault on Gaza have offered some measure of hope to Palestinian students whose lives have been thrown into chaos by the U.S.-backed war.
Hala Sharaf, a second-year medical student who moved to Cairo to resume her studies amid Israel's assault, toldAl Jazeera that the U.S. student campus demonstrations "have made us feel so hopeful for rejecting what America and Israel are doing to us."
"The student protests in America make me feel like I'm not alone," said Sharaf. "My message to them is to keep the focus on Gaza. Don't forget about Gaza."
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Rights Groups Urge Biden to Make Delayed Report on Israel's Use of US Arms Public
The report—due Wednesday under the terms of a White House directive—has been indefinitely postponed, according to congressional aides.
May 07, 2024
Before Tuesday's reporting that the Biden administration will delay a highly anticipated report on whether Israel is using U.S. military aid in compliance with international law, a coalition of advocacy groups circulated a letter urging the White House to share the document with the public once it's published.
In February, President Joe Biden issued National Security Memorandum (NSM)-20, which requires Secretary of State Antony Blinken "to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments" receiving U.S. arms "that the recipient country will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law" and then provide Congress with periodic reports "to enable meaningful oversight."
The first report is due by Wednesday. However, four congressional aides
toldPolitico Tuesday that publication would be postponed indefinitely.
"It is not clear if your administration intends to... make this report available to the public," coalition members Amnesty International USA, Defending Rights & Dissent, Freedom of the Press Foundation, National Press Photographers Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, and Reporters Without Borders said in a letter to Biden drafted ahead of Politico's reporting.
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible," the groups added.
Access to the document, the coalition argued, "will allow the press to more fully and accurately report on how elected leaders are making decisions about military aid to foreign countries" and "will help Americans make informed judgments about our leaders' decisions on foreign military aid."
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible."
The letter comes as Israel uses U.S.-supplied arms and ammunition to wage what hundreds of international legal experts and others say is a genocidal war on Gaza. These include 155-millimeter artillery shells and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels.
Aided by artificial intelligence-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces commanders are ordering strikes they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Even the U.S. military—which since 2001 has killed hundreds of thousands of people during the open-ended so-called War on Terror—avoids using 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated areas due to the tremendous damage they cause.
One prominent U.S. military historian called Israel's Gaza onslaught "one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history," comparing it to the Allied firebombing of Dresden during World War II, which also killed tens of thousands of civilians.
The letter also comes as the Biden administration reportedly believes that Israel's nascent ground invasion of Rafah does not cross the president's "red line" warning that any "major operation" in the southern city—where more than 1 million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents—would damage U.S.-Israeli relations.
The International Court of Justice found in January that Israel is "plausibly" perpetrating genocide in Gaza, where Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockades have left more than 123,000 Palestinians—most of them women and children—dead, injured, or missing since October 7, and hundreds of thousands more suffering full-blown famine.
While the Biden administration has accepted the Israeli government's claims that it is not breaking international law when using American weapons, a number of House Democrats have challenged Israel's assurance, citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by IDF troops in Gaza, and by soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Officials at the United States Agency for International Development also concluded in a confidential April memo to Blinken that Israel is violating NSM-20 by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the besieged Gaza Strip as children there starve to death.
Furthermore, a leaked State Department memo revealed last month that officials at four of the agency's bureaus concluded that Israel's assurances of legal arms use are "neither credible nor reliable."
In addition to NSM-20, federal legislation including the Arms Control Export Act and Leahy Laws also proscribe U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators—although there are many examples of these statutes being ignored for the benefit of key allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other nations.
"The public has a profound interest in understanding how the U.S. ensures that its military aid doesn't go to human rights abusers," Caitlin Vogus, deputy advocacy director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement Tuesday.
"If the Biden administration can stand behind its decisions about defense assistance, it should have no reason to withhold the report that members of Congress will see from the press and the public," Vogus added.
While Biden has criticized Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza and is reportedly holding up two shipments of precision-guided bombs to send a message to Israeli leaders, the president continues to affirm his steadfast support for Israel and has recently approved the transfer of more warplanes, 2,000-pound bombs, and other arms to its key Middle Eastern ally. The administration is also pushing Congress to approve the sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic members of Congress asked Blinken to explain what they called "highly unusual" moves by the Biden administration to bypass lawmakers in order to fast-track emergency military aid to Israel. Biden—who recently signed off on $14.3 billion in new armed aid to Israel atop the $4 billion it already gets from Washington each year—has also come under fire for approving more than 100 weapons sales to Israel since October.
Human rights defenders slammed Biden's reported decision to postpone publication of the report due on Wednesday.
"It's obvious why Biden is burying the NSM-20 report on Israel: He won't hold Israel accountable," Georgetown University adjunct professor Josh Reubner asserted on social media. "There's no way to conclude that Israel hasn't violated assurances it won't use U.S. weapons to break international law or block aid. Of course it's doing both."
Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer asked: "Hey, Joe Biden, what are you hidin'?"
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