Pentagon revised Obama-era report to remove risks from climate change

Internal changes to a draft Defense Department report de-emphasized the threats climate change poses to military bases and installations, muting or removing references to climate-driven changes in the Arctic and potential risks from rising seas, an unpublished draft obtained by The Washington Post reveals.

Wave-driven flooding and overwash on Roi-Namur Atoll,
 Republic of the Marshall Islands, where the U.S. military’s
 Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site is located. 

The earlier version of the document, dated December 2016, contains numerous references to “climate change” that were omitted or altered to “extreme weather” or simply “climate” in the final report, which was submitted to Congress in January 2018. While the phrase “climate change” appears 23 separate times in the draft report, the final version used it just once.

Read the story from The Washington Post - “Pentagon revised Obama-era report to remove risks from climate change.”

Australia’s solar power boom could almost double capacity in a year, analysts sa

A record-breaking month of rooftop installations and a flood of large-scale solar farms could almost double Australia’s solar power capacity in a single year, industry analysts say.

Solar farm approvals and record rooftop installations
 expected to ‘turboboost’ production.

A massive solar energy boom is being predicted for 2018, after an unprecedented number of industrial solar farms were approved by the New South Wales and Queensland governments last year.

Last month also became the biggest January on record for rooftop installations, according to the renewables website RenewEconomy and industry analysts SunWiz.

Read The Guardian story by Naaman Zhou - “Australia’s solar power boom could almost double capacity in a year, analysts say.”

The Pentagon Warned That Climate Change Threatens Half of America's Military Installations

Nearly 50% of U.S. military installations across the globe face increased risk of a slew of climate change-related threats including extreme temperature, flooding and drought, according to a Pentagon report.

The report, which comes in response to a request from Congress to study the issue, comes as the Trump Administration has sought to discredit the science of climate change including by removing the issue from its National Security Strategy last year.

But the report, which relied on a survey of military officials located at bases across the globe, outlines in detail the specific threats facing a variety of outposts as well as military installations that harmed by past extreme weather events linked to climate change. Sites along the West, East and Gulf coasts all face flooding from storm surge. Drought threatens facilities across the country with a particularly high concentration in California and parts of the prairie states. Wildfires pose threats across the Mountain West.

Read the Time story by Justin Worland - “The Pentagon Warned That Climate Change Threatens Half of America's Military Installations.”