Hurricane Dorian became the first major hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic season when it made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on Sept. 1 in the Bahamas. At least 43 people in the Bahamas were killed with many others left missing. This season has, so far, seen four named hurricanes.
The big picture: NOAA's Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a "near normal" season this year. It's also predicting a range of 9 to 15 named storms — 4 to 8 of which could become hurricanes.
A decade after millennials' hopes and dreams faded with the Great Recession, Generation Z is taking to the streets to proclaim climate change their era's defining issue.
Driving the news: In New York, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg confronted world leaders Monday: "I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to [us] for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."
16-year-old Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg implored world leaders in a passionate, angry and tearful speech Monday to act urgently on climate change at the opening of a United Nations summit.
"I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words."
Today's UN summit and the past 2 days are bringing fresh pledges by countries and corporations as the UN warns that the world faces warming levels that vastly exceeds the Paris agreement targets.
Why it matters: Secretary-General António Guterres warned Monday, "Science tells us that on our current path, we face at least 3-degrees Celsius of global heating by the end of the century."
Climate activists disrupted Washington, D.C.'s Monday morning commute by blocking key intersections to protest "the systems that created and perpetuate the climate crisis," per Shut Down D.C., the protest group that organized the strike.
The big picture: The organizers planned the shutdown on the same day that the United Nations hosts global leaders for its climate change summit at the UN General Assembly.
More sophisticated energy systems will be needed for the diversified, intelligent electric grids of the future, but blockchain technology — one widely promoted solution — may require a long list of difficult tradeoffs.
Why it matters: The power sector is becoming more distributed and decarbonized, with increasing amounts of intermittent renewables, energy storage and other smart technologies deployed across the grid. If new energy markets can't make a symphony of these varied assets, the result could be a dysfunctional cacophony.
NEW YORK — The United Nations climate-change summit kicks off here today, a week after oil prices jumped more than they ever have in history.
The big picture: These two developments offer a window into how Americans view energy and the environment today — with relatively low oil prices making room to worry more about the environment.
As world leaders gather in New York City for the United Nations Climate Action Summit Monday, a UN report warns climate change is accelerating — with the Earth on track for the warmest 5-year period on record.
"Climate change causes and impacts are increasing rather than slowing down. Sea level rise has accelerated and we are concerned that an abrupt decline in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, which will exacerbate future rise. As we have seen this year with tragic effect in the Bahamas and Mozambique, sea level rise and intense tropical storms led to humanitarian and economic catastrophes."
— World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas
Hundreds of people attended a memorial service Sunday to mark the loss of Pizol glacier in the eastern Swiss Alps to global warming, NPR reports.
Why it matters: ETH Zurich university glacier specialist Matthias Huss told CNN that Pizol had "disappeared" after losing 80-90% of its volume since 2006. An April study by European researchers warns that from 2017 to 2050, about 50% of glacier volume in the Alps will vanish, "largely independently of how much we cut our greenhouse gas emissions."
A higher frequency of natural disasters in the U.S. is putting a strain on first responders who are already grappling with lower staff numbers, AP reports.
The big picture: While the population of career firefighters has increased in recent years, approximately two-thirds of the United States' 30,000 fire departments are made up of volunteers. Per the National Volunteer Fire Council, the number of volunteer firefighters has dropped from 814,850 to 682,600 over the past 4 years.
Texas authorities linked a 5th death to the remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda Saturday, as receding floodwaters revealed the extent of the damage from one of the United States' wettest tropical cyclones on record, AP reports.
The impact: From Houston to across the Louisiana border, hundreds of buildings were damaged by the former tropical storm, according to AP. More than 40 inches of rain fell in southeast Texas over 4 days before floodwaters began receding Friday, per the National Weather Service. Several flood-impacted roads remained closed Saturday, Texas authorities said.
