Climate Week: A Spotlight on Solutions – WABE - WABE 90.1 FM
Climate Week: A Spotlight on Solutions - WABE
October 2-8 is NPR’s Climate Solutions Week. NPR is dedicating an entire week to stories and conversations about the search for climate solutions. In observance, we’re sharing some of WABE’s coverage of one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Exploring Climate Solutions
Climate Change – Extreme Weather
Climate change-related extreme weather is hitting with catastrophic consequences. Deadly wildfires ripped through Maui, killing at least 97 people, with many still missing. At least eight people died in Europe after severe storms, 31 people died from flooding in Brazil, and more than 80 million Americans lived through blazing temperatures and heat alerts. It all comes as the planet reaches an alarming milestone this summer. The summer of 2023 was Earth’s hottest since global records began in 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
WABE’s Award-Winning Series “The Heat Effect”
Atlanta can now expect an average of 18 more days of 90+ temperatures compared to 1970, based on the trend. Average summer temperatures have risen by 2.9 degrees since 1970, according to Climate Central. Climate change is making it hotter. Across the Southeast, temperatures are going up, and heat waves are getting longer and more frequent. But in many places, Georgians are adapting and working to help the people who are most vulnerable. Check out WABE’s award-winning series The Heat Effect.
More Climate News
September 26, 2023
State program trains Georgia's growing green workforce
September 20, 2023
Biden uses executive power to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps
September 6, 2023
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”