The National Intelligence Council released a report predicting that the pandemic, along with climate change leading to mass migration, will be highly destabilizing over the coming two decades.

Washington Post story here.

A clear-eyed opinion piece that appeared in the NY Times.

From the New York Times:  The EPA has announced new rules that will limit the agency's ability to rely on scientific research when writing public health rules.

Critical habitat protections will be diminished.

NPR report:  "In a move that critics say will hurt plants, animals and other species as they face mounting threats, the Trump administration is making major changes to how the Endangered Species Act is implemented....."

"Hope is contagious."  Story in The Guardian.

The TV show Sixty Minutes ran a segment this weekend on a lawsuit making its way through the courts in the Pacific Northwest.  Titled "Juliana vs. United States," the suit seeks to have the government stop supporting fossil fuel use.  The lawsuit was filed in 2015 by Oregon lawyer Julia Olson on behalf of 21 children —the "climate kids" — that she recruited from environmental groups around the country.  The plaintiffs submitted evidence indicating that as early as 1965 the government had information on the cumulative dangers of fossil fuel usage, and ignored it.

Here's some background on the program.  

 A very important report on a huge setback to efforts to stop climate change during the first Bush presidency.

NY Times story.

By congressional mandate, scientists from multiple federal agencies prepare a National Climate Assessment every four years.  A final draft report completed this year concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now.  The report received little attention until it was just published in the New York Times.  Scientists leaked the draft out of concern that the Trump administration might try to suppress it.

Here is a quote from the New York Times article reporting on the climate assessment report:

The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) of warming over this century compared with today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius. 

With moderate climate action, there will be more hot days.  With no action, things will be far worse.  NYT article here.

From the Washington Post:

"Climate change and ocean research would suffer sharp cuts in the Trump budget proposal for the Commerce Department, which aims for a reduction of 16 percent, or $1.5 billion, much of that targeted at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."  Most affected would be coastal research programs. More here.

In the steady drip, drip, drip of Trump legislation threatening nature, survival, and the Great Society, Republicans in the House of Representatives have introduced a bill, HR 717, intended to weaken the Endangered Species Act.  The bill, known as the Listing Reform Act of 2017, would amend the Endangered Species Act to require review of the economic cost of adding a species to the list of endangered species or threatened species, or for other purposes.  More info from The Verge . 

Here's Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker on the irony of Scott Pruitt's Senate confirmation hearing for the position EPA head occurring on the same day that NASA and NOAA announced that 2016 had been warmest year since record keeping began.

Here's a Washington Post article detailing the dangers posed to the environment by improperly recycled electronic devices.  The article notes that health concerns for communities near such burn/recycle areas include infertility, childhood development problems, impaired lung function, liver and kidney damage, inheritable genetic damage and mental health problems

On its way out, the Obama White House recommended research into the controversial concept of geoengineering as a means to slow or reverse global warming.  New York Times story here.

As President-Elect Trump moves toward contravening the Paris agreement, how can he ignore these Pew Research Center graphics on what the world thinks about climate change?

Can anyone doubt that Donald Trump's election will be disastrous for our planet's future? Here's a New York Times story on the threat to domestic regulations and to Paris climate agreement.