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15 of the Best Foods to Buy in Bulk

by KitNAQUktjpuuluz Posted on March 17, 2019

Buying food in bulk can help you save money and cut waste. But that only works if you actually end up consuming everything you purchase. Using FoodKeeper ? a database for food quality standards from the USDA, Cornell University and the Food Marketing Institute ? here are 15 foods that should stay fresh for a long time, making them excellent options to buy in bulk.

1. Chia seeds

Credit: Diana Taliun/Getty Images

Consume within: 18 months

?Chia seeds are often referred to as a superfood due to their impressive concentration of omega-3 fats, fiber, magnesium, calcium and antioxidants,? according to Healthline. They can be a bit pricey, so you?ll get more bang for your buck when you buy in bulk. Store them in the pantry, and they should be fresh for about a year and a half.

2. Cinnamon (ground)

Consume within: 3 to 4 years

Many spices have a shelf life of several years, so don?t hesitate to stock up on the ones you use most often. If you?re a cinnamon fan, you?ll be happy to hear it can last for up to four years, as long as it?s stored in an airtight container in the pantry. Another seasoning you might want to buy in bulk? Salt. It can maintain its quality indefinitely when stored in a well-sealed container.

3. Coconut oil

Consume within: 3 years

Many oils tend to spoil in a matter of months. For instance, olive or vegetable oils last six to 12 months in the pantry (and three to five months after opening), according to FoodKeeper. But coconut oil can stay fresh for up to three years when stored in a cool, dry place. ?Coconut oil ? is more resistant to oxidation than other vegetable oils,? Healthline says. ?Plus, unrefined virgin coconut oil contains powerful antioxidants that are thought to help protect the oil from spoilage.?

4. Dried beans

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Consume within: 1 to 2 years

Store dried beans in the pantry, and they can stay fresh for up to two years (and one year after opening). Although they take some work to prepare, they?re typically the most economical choice when it comes to beans ? especially when you buy in bulk. Older beans might take longer to get tender, according to Food Network. So you should keep them in an airtight container to preserve their quality for as long as possible.

5. Dried fruit

Consume within: 6 months

If you can?t manage to eat all your fresh fruit before it goes bad, you might want to try some dried fruit. Many dried fruits ? such as raisins, apricots, mangoes and cranberries ? will last about six months when stored unopened in the pantry. After opening, it?s best to move the fruit to the refrigerator, where it will stay fresh for about six months (compared to one month opened in the pantry). ?Keep in mind that dried fruit is higher in calories and sugar than fresh fruit and should be eaten in small amounts,? Healthline says. ?Choose unsweetened dried fruit whenever possible to limit added sugar intake.?

6. Frozen berries

Consume within: 8 to 12 months

Frozen fruit also can be a great alternative if you often find yourself with spoiled fresh fruit ? especially for berries. ?Frozen berries are similar in nutritional value to fresh berries and can be purchased in bulk at lower prices,? Healthline says. Varieties ? including blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, cherries, cranberries and raspberries ? typically last for less than a week in the refrigerator but for up to a year in the freezer, according to FoodKeeper.

7. Frozen vegetables

Consume within: 8 months

Just like with fruit, if you don?t eat your veggies fast enough you might want to consider some frozen options. Frozen vegetables often are nutritionally similar to fresh produce. And sometimes they might even ?contain more vitamins and phytonutrients than days-old fresh items, though additional cooking and storage after defrosting may close that gap,? according to Harvard Medical School. Just be aware of any added ingredients, such as salt, that are in the frozen varieties.

8. Nuts

Credit: ThitareeSarmkasat/Getty Images

Consume within: 1 year

In general, FoodKeeper says nuts in a jar or can last about a year when stored in the pantry, though certain varieties have slightly different lifespans. After opening, they?ll maintain freshness for roughly two to nine months in the pantry, four to six months in the fridge and six to 12 months frozen. Plus, nuts still in their shells tend to last longer than shelled nuts. And even though they can be tedious to crack, that extra work might be worth it. ?An extra benefit of nuts in the shell is that it takes more time and effort to prepare them than shelled nuts, which may slow eating and lead to a reduction in calorie intake,? Healthline says.

9. Oatmeal

Consume within: 1 year

If you?re an oatmeal fan, stock up on this heart-healthy food. ?Oats are high in B vitamins, magnesium and zinc, as well as a particular type of fiber called beta-glucan, which may help lower cholesterol, reduce blood sugar levels and increase feelings of fullness,? Healthline says. And according to FoodKeeper, the oats can last six to 12 months after opening, as long as you store them in an airtight container in the pantry.

10. Pasta (dried, no eggs)

Consume within: 2 years

Fresh pasta can last for a couple of months in the freezer. But dried pasta can maintain its quality for about two years in the pantry ? and one year once it?s opened. ?After opening, store the remaining pasta in an airtight container to prolong its shelf life, and toss it if you find any bugs or off odors,? Food Network recommends.

11. Peanut butter

Consume within: 1 year

Natural peanut butter can be a little pricier than the more processed alternatives. But it should be good for about a year when stored in the refrigerator ? and for up to four months after you open it. So it?s likely worth it to spring for the large container if you tend to eat peanut butter a lot. The more processed peanut butters have similar lifespans, but they often can be stored in the pantry.

12. Popcorn (kernels in a jar)

Credit: Teen00000/Getty Images

Consume within: 2 years

Whole popcorn ? the kernels that typically come in a jar with no additives ? can be a very healthy snack. ?Popcorn is high in fiber, phosphorus, manganese, zinc and polyphenol antioxidants,? according to Healthline. And it can stay fresh for up to two years in the pantry ? one year once the container is opened. So spend fewer bucks a pop by getting this snack in bulk.

13. Quinoa

Consume within: 2 to 3 years

Uncooked quinoa can last a whopping three years if it?s stored in a tightly sealed container in the pantry. And when you buy in bulk, you usually can get this nutritious little seed (technically speaking, it?s a pseudocereal and not a whole grain) at a much better price. Quinoa is one of the few complete protein sources from a plant, meaning it has all nine essential amino acids. And it?s full of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and more, making it a great choice for a bulk buy.

14. Rice

Consume within: 2 years (white, wild), 1 year (brown)

Rice is another grain that you shouldn?t hesitate to buy in bulk. White and wild rice will stay fresh for up to two years ? one year after opening if you keep it in the pantry and six months if you store it in the fridge. Brown rice has a slightly shorter lifespan overall, but it also keeps for about a year in the pantry and six months in the fridge after opening. ?Just watch for bugs or other contaminants (and if you find any, toss the whole container),? Food Network says.

15. Tea

Credit: 4kodiak/Getty Images

Consume within: 18 to 36 months (bag), 2 years (loose)

If you?re a tea drinker, you?ll be happy to know you can save some money by buying in bulk without sacrificing freshness. According to FoodKeeper, tea bags will last up to three years in the pantry, and loose tea will keep for about two years. Aim to consume your tea about a year after opening. For peak quality, store tea bags in their original box or a sealed container to limit exposure to odors and moisture, The Kitchn recommends. Likewise, keep loose tea in something airtight that will keep out light.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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15 of the Best Foods to Buy in Bulk

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Pro-Trump billionaires continue to bankroll climate denial

by KermitBowman Posted on February 27, 2019

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This story was originally published by the HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The GOP megadonor family that gave more than $15 million to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign maintained its position as a key funder of climate change denial in 2017, dishing out nearly $5 million to nonprofits and think tanks that peddle misinformation about the global crisis, according to their latest tax records.

The continued largesse by the deep-pocketed but secretive Mercer family included a $170,000 donation to the CO2 Coalition, a right-wing think tank that argues Earth benefits from humans pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. William Happer, a retired Princeton physics professor whom Trump recently tapped to lead an ad hoc panel to conduct “adversarial scientific peer review” of near-universally accepted climate science, co-founded the group in 2015.

Hedge fund tycoon Robert Mercer funds the Mercer Family Foundation, and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer, directs it. The foundation’s six-figure gift to the CO2 Coalition accounts for a quarter of the $662,203 the coalition raised in 2017. The think tank received its first donation of $150,000 from the Mercers in 2016.

The CO2 Coalition was established out of the defunct George C. Marshall Institute, another conservative think tank that cast doubt on climate science before folding in 2015. Happer, a seasoned climate change denier, left the CO2 Coalition last September to serve as Trump’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies on the National Security Council.

Happer has called climate science a “cult,” claimed Earth is in the midst of a “CO2 famine,” and said the “demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.”

The Mercers divvied out a total $15,222,302 to 37 nonprofits in 2017, according to the foundation’s most recently available 990 tax form, which researchers at the Climate Investigations Center shared with HuffPost. That’s down from the approximately $19 million they gave to 44 nonprofits one year earlier.

Roughly one-third of all the foundation’s 2017 contributions — just shy of $5 million — went to nonprofits that oppose federal regulations targeting greenhouse gas emissions, challenge the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is an immediate crisis, or promote or funnel cash to denial proponents.

“It appears that climate denial is a priority of the Mercer family,” Kert Davies, director of the Climate Investigations Center, told HuffPost.

The foundation could not be reached for comment Tuesday. And the CO2 Coalition did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

For the second year in a row, the Mercers gave $800,000 to the Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based libertarian think tank that has gained influence during Trump’s tenure and applauded the president’s first year in office as “a great year for climate realists.” The Mercers have given Heartland a total of $6.7 million since 2008.

The foundation also upped its contribution to the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a group founded by Art Robinson, a biochemist floated as a candidate for Trump’s national science adviser and whom FiveThirtyEight dubbed “the grandfather of alt-science.” Robinson used the organization to circulate an infamous and bogus petition that claimed 30,000 scientists had declared there is no evidence of anthropogenic climate change. The Mercers gave the group $500,000 in 2017, up from $200,000 the previous two years. The foundation has given the group nearly $2.2 million since 2005.

The Mercers in 2017 also made a first-time donation of $200,000 to the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (formerly the American Tradition Institute), a climate denial group that has received funding from coal companies and repeatedly filed lawsuits in an effort to obtain the personal emails of climate scientists.

Foundation money also went to the Media Research Center ($2 million), the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research ($450,000), and the Cato Institute ($300,000). Donors Trust, a conservative group that has funneled millions of dollars to climate denier groups like Heritage and the American Legislative Exchange Council, received $500,000, down from $2.5 million in 2016. Mother Jones called Donors Trust “the dark-money ATM of the right.”

The White House’s plan to convene a group of fringe researchers for a new climate panel is the latest in an ongoing effort to discredit and downplay decades of all-but-irrefutable climate science — a torch that has long been carried by Mercer- and fossil fuel-funded think tanks.

In May 2017, the CO2 Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and dozens of other climate denial groups signed onto a letter calling on Trump to fully withdraw from the historic 2015 Paris climate accord. Doing so, they told Trump, was “an integral part of your energy agenda.” Less than a month later, Trump announced plans to do just that.

In addition to Happer, those under consideration for the White House panel include retired MIT professor Richard Lindzen. Last year, Lindzen spearheaded a letter signed by more than 300 climate skeptics urging Trump to pull the U.S. out of the United Nations’ climate change agency.

Lindzen is both on CO2 Coalition’s board of directors and a distinguished senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C., that is funded by the fossil-fuel billionaire Koch brothers.

It appears the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report that scientists from 13 federal agencies released in November, will be a prime target of the new committee, according to reporting by The Washington Post and E&E News. That dire report, which the Trump administration signed off on but the president said he doesn’t believe, concluded that planetary warming “could increase by 9 degrees F (5 degrees C) or more by the end of this century” without dramatic emission reductions.

In a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to introduce legislation to defund Trump’s “fake climate panel,” should the president move forward with it. As an “ad hoc group,” the committee would not be required to meet in public or be subject to public records requests, according to The Washington Post.

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Pro-Trump billionaires continue to bankroll climate denial

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets biblical on Sarah Huckabee Sanders

by margaretbrookins Posted on January 25, 2019

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It’s as official as it ever was: The White House doesn’t want to be held responsible for acting on climate change.

In an interview on Fox News Tuesday night, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s urgent calls to action on climate change: “Look, I don’t think we’re going to listen to her on much of anything, particularly not on matters we’re gonna leave in the hands of a much, much higher authority, and certainly not listen to the freshman congresswoman on when the world may end.”

This came in response to an interview Cortez did on Monday with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, during which she emphasized the 12-year deadline to slash carbon emissions enough to avoid the worst ravages of climate change. She told Coates that young people are looking for bold moves on climate change, and condemned the “abdication of responsibility” by those currently in power.

In the third round on Wednesday, Cortez turned to the bible in a Twitter thread.

Others, like climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe, quickly chimed in.

The congresswoman summed it up by saying: “You shouldn’t need a Bible to tell you to protect our planet, but it does anyway.”

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets biblical on Sarah Huckabee Sanders

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Minnesota youth demand Green New Deal in meeting with governor

by DemiDealba Posted on January 10, 2019

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On Wednesday, more than 100 youth from across the state ascended the snow-free steps of the Minnesota capitol building to meet with newly inaugurated Governor Tim Walz and demand comprehensive action on climate change.

The group, Minnesota Can’t Wait, was there to push for a Green New Deal. Organizers called it the country’s first youth-led, state-level effort to demand the policy, which pairs labor and environmental justice efforts. In response to the meeting, Walz announced that he would immediately establish a statewide cross-agency working group on climate change.

Minnesota’s winters are warming faster than almost anywhere else in the country. In their conversation with the governor on Wednesday, youth spoke of their love of outdoor ice skating and dog sledding, but also their fear of the rise in infectious diseases and climate disasters.

Minnesota Can’t Wait wants state government to tackle the issue from all angles: In addition to pressuring the governor and legislature on Green New Deal legislation, the group calls for a ban on fossil fuel projects and executive action to regulate emissions. The demands are in line with what IPCC scientists say is necessary to stabilize global warming at 1.5 degrees C, the point above which change is expected to become large enough to disrupt society at a grand scale.

“The idea is that we stop making decisions based on what is politically possible and start doing what is necessary,” said Lia Harel, age 18, from Hopkins, Minnesota. “That’s been the driving force in getting these youth to act, because we don’t have time to wait any more.”

The event was inspired by sit-ins organized by the Sunrise Movement in congressional offices in Washington, D.C., and around the country in recent weeks, and wasn’t originally intended to include a meeting with the governor. However, a representative from Climate Generation, a Minnesota-based youth organization that helped plan the event, said that once they informed the governor’s office of the sit-in, they decided to invite the youth in for a meeting.

“What you’re asking for is concrete changes, which is what you should be asking for,” Walz told the youth. “This move is a tangible evidence of where we are going to go.”

Minnesota’s new state legislative session kicks off with Democrats just one Senate vote away from total control, and a new House committee explicitly focused on climate change for the first time.

“I met with youth climate leaders several weeks ago,” said Jean Wagenius, the state representative chairing the new House climate committee, in an email to Grist. “We will be working with them to rapidly accelerate efforts to reduce climate change gases.”

Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, who is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and the highest-ranking Native woman ever elected to executive office in U.S. history, attended the event, too. Flanagan said the issue of climate change was especially personal for her. Her tribe has fought for years to protect their lands from pipeline development, and now, she hopes the inclusive approach demonstrated on Wednesday could be a model for other states.

“We talk about having a table where the people who are directly affected by issues can pull up a chair and make sure that they’re seen, heard, and valued,” Flanagan said in an interview with Grist after the event.

That willingness from elected leaders to listen to youth describe the need for radical climate policy has been rare so far. With federal action toward a Green New Deal seemingly stalled for now, youth are hoping for quicker progress at the state level.

That could happen in Minnesota. In Walz’s inauguration address this week, he made a clear call for bold climate action. “Instead of burying our head in our hands when it comes to our changing climate or to providing affordable housing, accessible healthcare and good-paying jobs, we must tackle them head on,” Walz said.

Towards the end of his conversation with Minnesota Can’t Wait, Walz asked the youth to go back to their communities and make the case for the radical change that would benefit future generations as well as the state’s current economy.

It helped that his daughter, Hope, was also there, on her 18th birthday. At one point, she raised her hand, stood up behind her father, and said, “I’m just going to ask how I can get involved with the group, you know, so there’s a better chance of him following through.”

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Minnesota youth demand Green New Deal in meeting with governor

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CBO dismisses costs of global warming, posing hurdle for climate legislation

by LynwoodKroll1 Posted on December 21, 2018

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This story was originally published by the HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

In a baffling repudiation of the federal government’s own scientists, the Congressional Budget Office last week said that climate change poses little economic risk to the United States in the next decade.

The statement, which went so far as to highlight dubiously positive effects of rising global temperatures, poses a potential hurdle for future legislation to curb surging greenhouse gas emissions, experts said, and amounts to textbook climate change denial.

Buried on page 292 of a 316-page report titled “Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2019 to 2028,” the CBO said: “Many estimates suggest that the effect of climate change on the nation’s economic output, and hence on federal tax revenues, will probably be small over the next 30 years and larger, but still modest, in the following few decades.”

“That’s just completely false,” Gary Yohe, an environmental economist at Wesleyan University, said by phone Wednesday. “There are no references to these ‘many estimates,’ and the following part of the paragraph cherry-picks.”

The report — first noted on Twitter by investigative reporter David Sirota — goes on to tout positive effects like “fewer deaths from cold weather” and “improvements in agricultural productivity” as some of “the more certain effects of climate change on humans over the next several decades.”

The stunning remarks directly contradict the National Climate Assessment, which found that, by 2100, crop damage, lost labor, and extreme weather will cost the U.S. economy upward of $500 billion a year. That’s “more than the current gross domestic product of many U.S. states,” according to the report, drafted by researchers at 13 federal agencies.

In October the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change determined that unabated global warming beyond 2.3 degrees F above preindustrial levels would cause $54 trillion in damage and that the world is likely to hit that average temperature increase unless world governments halve emissions by 2030.

In a lengthy statement to HuffPost, the CBO referred to three of its own past reports, including one that said, “Even under scenarios in which significant climate change is assumed, the projected long-term effects on GDP would tend to be modest relative to underlying economic growth.”

“Although CBO has not undertaken a full analysis of the budgetary costs stemming from climate change, it has recently analyzed the potential costs of future hurricane damage caused by climate change and coastal development,” read an excerpt from one report highlighted in the statement. “All told, CBO projects that the increase in the amount of hurricane damage attributable to coastal development and climate change will probably be less than 0.05 percent of GDP in the 2040s.”

The agency’s report attributed differing climate predictions to “the imperfect understanding of physical processes and of many aspects of the interacting components (land, air, water, ice, and all forms of life) that make up the Earth’s climate system.”

In an as-yet-unpublished study shared with HuffPost, Yohe calculated that hurricane damage alone totaled $2.9 trillion from 1998 to 2018. Of that, he found $2.25 trillion (about $107 billion per year) could be attributed to climate change. That sum is up from $900 billion ($45 billion per year) from 1978 to 1997.

The CBO finding could delay efforts to pass long-overdue climate legislation in the next few years and provide ammunition to combat any such measures for lawmakers who have long denied the scientific realities of global warming on ideological grounds.

“Anybody writing legislation is going to have to understand that using budgetary effects is not necessarily going to get you a long way to getting passage,” said Mark Harkins, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute.

The CBO, established as Congress’ official budget scorekeeper in 1974, may be identifying a “difference between the impact on the budget and the economy,” said Stan Collender, a federal spending expert who runs the website The Budget Guy.

“If CBO said it, it’s serious and credible,” he said, adding that the assessment “decreases the political imperative” for sweeping climate policies like the Green New Deal that Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a Democrat from New York) and more than 40 other Democrats have vowed to champion in the next Congress.

But some say the CBO increasingly poses an obstacle to policies needed to curb global warming and halt worsening poverty, in the name of misplaced concerns about the national deficit. Among them is Stephanie Kelton, an economist at Stony Brook University and a proponent of modern monetary theory, the concept that, under a currency like the dollar, a government can print as much money as it wants without fear of going bankrupt.

When the CBO found that Republican tax cuts to the rich and corporations would inflate the national deficit, the GOP attacked the nonpartisan agency, and the White House claimed the CBO’s math “doesn’t add up.” While objecting to the GOP’s tax cut for the wealthy in an era of climate crisis, Kelton lauded the political will to challenge the traditional debt calculus.

“Everyone’s got to stop being so freaking deferential to the CBO,” she said by phone. “Republicans weren’t afraid to call them out and say their numbers were wrong. They dismissed it. I just think Democrats need to stand up when it comes time.”

Federal efforts to combat climate change should be met with the kind of seemingly unlimited bipartisan support that exists for military spending to defend the country from foreign threats, Kelton said, calling the CBO report “out of step with what the scientific community and others are telling us.”

“You’ve got to figure out a way around the CBO,” she said. “If they’re going to become an obstacle, you either have to go around or through or you remove the obstacle.”

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David Attenborough’s dire climate warning: ‘Our greatest threat in thousands of years’

by GayAbdullah Posted on December 5, 2018

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This story was originally published by the HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

David Attenborough, the famed naturalist and conservation advocate, issued a dire warning for the world during a speech at the United Nations’ annual climate summit on Monday: Act now, or the natural world, humanity included, may soon collapse.

“Right now we’re facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” Attenborough, 92, said. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

The comments came at the beginning of a two-week climate conference in Katowice, Poland, where emissaries from nearly 200 nations are meeting to determine how the world can dramatically scale back greenhouse gas emissions to abide by the landmark Paris climate agreement and, by doing so, stave off the worst effects of climate change.

“The world’s people have spoken. Their message is clear: Time is running out,” Attenborough said Monday. “They want you, the decision-makers, to act now. They’re behind you, along with civil society represented here today.”

The conservationist is serving in the “People’s Seat” during the conference, a role in which he will present comments from members of the public affected by climate change to the dignitaries and officials present at the summit.

The U.N. released a dire report in October that warned of severe, climate-related effects by as early as 2040 unless there is dramatic action to curb global emissions. The effects would include a mass die-off of coral reefs and an increase in extreme weather events. The world is working to implement the commitments made under the Paris Agreement but is still far off track from preventing catastrophic levels of warming.

At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump has regularly denied the existence of climate change and its links to humanity. Following the White House release last month of a sweeping, 1,656-page report that warned of a bleak future for the country, Trump alluded that he was too intelligent to believe in the phenomenon. He has also moved to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris pact.

The U.N. has urged world leaders to unveil ambitious efforts to tackle emissions, calling this month’s summit the most important in years.

“Climate change is running faster than we are, and we must catch up sooner rather than later, before it is too late,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said at the beginning of the event. “For many people, regions, and even countries, this is already a matter of life or death.”

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David Attenborough’s dire climate warning: ‘Our greatest threat in thousands of years’

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As Trump questions warming, climate report warns of dire risks to U.S.

by JeseniaDelaney Posted on November 24, 2018

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This story was originally published by HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The United States already warmed on average 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century and will warm at least 3 more degrees by 2100 unless fossil fuel use is dramatically curtailed, scientists from more than a dozen federal agencies concluded in their latest in-depth assessment.

The 13-agency consensus, authored by more than 300 researchers, found in the second volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment makes it clear the world is barreling toward catastrophic — perhaps irreversible — climate change. The report concluded that warming “could increase by 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century” without significant emissions reductions.

“Observations of global average temperature provide clear and compelling evidence the global average temperature is much higher and is rising more rapidly than anything modern civilization has experienced,” said David Easterling, chief of the scientific services division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. “This warming trend can only be explained by human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

It’s the sort of staggering reality the Trump administration seems eager to minimize. Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump antagonized climate scientists by tweeting, once again, that he believes cold weather disproves long-term trends of a warming climate.

“Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS – Whatever happened to Global Warming?” he posted Wednesday on Twitter.

That the White House opted to release the long-awaited update on climate change ― which Congress mandates the administration provide every four years — on Black Friday, a popular shopping holiday the day after the Thanksgiving holiday, indicates it wanted fewer people to see the news about the findings. Monica Allen, a spokeswoman for NOAA, repeatedly pushed back against questions about when the White House decided to move up the release of the report.

“The decision was made in the last week or so,” she said. “Please, I ask you to focus on the content of the report. The substance.”

The report adds to an ever-growing, all-but-irrefutable body of scientific research that shows climate change is real and driven by human carbon emissions ― a reality that President Donald Trump and his team refuse to accept as they pursue a fossil fuel-focused, “energy dominance” agenda.

Last year, the U.S. Global Change Research Program released a special report ― the first volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment ― that found Earth has entered the warmest period “in the history of modern civilization,” with global average air temperatures having increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 115 years. And in October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading United Nations consortium of researchers studying human-caused climate change, issued a report warning world governments must cut global emissions in half over the next 12 years to avoid warming of 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond which climate change is forecast to cause a cataclysmic $54 trillion in damages.

A series of devastating natural disasters, worsened by rising temperatures, made those findings tangible. In October, Typhoon Yutu, the most powerful storm all year, struck the Northern Mariana Islands, plunging the U.S. territory into chaos just a year after Hurricane Maria left thousands dead in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. California, meanwhile, is suffering its deadliest and most destructive wildfire on record during what was once the state’s rainy season.

Last year was the United States’ second-hottest in history, and the costliest in terms of climate-related disasters, with a record $306 billion in damages. Sixteen of the last 17 years have been the warmest on record globally.

In January, the Trump administration unveiled a proposal to open nearly all U.S. waters to oil and gas development. It has since worked to roll back safeguards adopted after the catastrophic 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In October, the Department of the Interior approved the development of the first oil production facility in Arctic waters off Alaska, but the company behind the project has since had to extend its construction timeline due to dwindling sea ice brought on by Arctic warming, as NPR reported.

The latest findings are likely to bolster the growing protests and legal battles over climate change. Over the past two weeks, activists in the United States and United Kingdom staged major demonstrations. In Washington, youth activists with the climate justice group Sunrise Movement stormed Democratic leaders’ offices demanding support for the so-called Green New Deal, the only policy to emerge in the American political mainstream that comes close to the scale of economic change needed to make a serious dent in national emissions. British activists stopped traffic this week as part of the so-called Extinction Rebellion.

The assessment could have weight in some critical court cases. The Supreme Court is considering a landmark suit brought by 21 plaintiffs between the ages of 11 and 22, who accuse the federal government of violating their civil rights to a safe climate by pursuing fossil fuel-focused energy policies. And various states and cities are suing big oil companies over climate damages, a number that could grow since Democrats scored victories in a number of attorney general seats in the midterm elections.

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As Trump questions warming, climate report warns of dire risks to U.S.

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Young activists and Ocasio-Cortez push Pelosi for Green New Deal

by JIYKelle8195347 Posted on November 15, 2018

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The young climate activists clustered into California Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office this week to demand a “Green New Deal” hadn’t wasted any time. As soon as it became clear that Democrats will have a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, they descended on Washington to exert whatever clout they had.

The protest in Pelosi’s office was organized by the Sunrise Movement, a group of young people who have been pushing for climate action for a little over a year. They may have some sway with Pelosi, who issued a supportive statement while they were occupying her office on Tuesday. But with a Republican-held Senate and Donald Trump in the White House, the chances of enacting meaningful climate legislation next year are close to zero. So what’s their strategy here?

Varshini Prakash, Sunrise’s co-founder and communications director (and one of our Grist 50), said they have two objectives. First, they want all Democrats in leadership positions to stop accepting contributions from fossil fuel interests. And they want Pelosi to back something along the lines of a “Green New Deal,” a massive government mobilization to build a new, non-polluting, economy while also creating jobs.

Prakash said she was under no illusions about Pelosi’s ability to drive a climate bill through a Republican-controlled Senate, but she believes both of the group’s objectives could still be satisfied. Politicians don’t need anyone’s permission to stop taking oil money, and Democrats could set up a select committee in the House to begin laying the groundwork for a massive climate jobs program. As it happens, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newly elected Representative from New York, joined the protesters outside Pelosi’s office, and has already proposed such a committee.

House Democrats need to start hammering out policy now, Prakash said, so that they will have strong legislation to pass when climate-conscious politicians take the Senate. In the meantime, Sunrise will be building a campaign to elect politicians who will support their cause at both the state and federal level. “This is definitely not a one-off event,” she said.

In a statement, Pelosi said she welcomed “the presence of these activists” and noted that she has already recommended reviving a select committee on climate change, which Republicans disbanded when they took the House in 2011.

That’s not enough for Prakash. “The old committee was toothless,” she said “It had no funding and no ability to put forward legislation — its purpose was to make connections and raise awareness. The time for messaging to the public about climate change is over, we need action.”

Pelosi’s office had no comment when we requested a response, but Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, told reporters that even Pelosi’s proposal for a select committee goes too far. It’s unnecessary, Pallone said, because the environmental policy committee he is expected to lead can handle the job.

In her statement, Pelosi said that many Democrats had campaigned on something that looks very much like a Green New Deal. “House Democrats ran on and won on our bold campaign for a $1 trillion investment in our infrastructure that will make our communities more resilient to the climate crisis, while creating 16 million new good-paying jobs across the country.”

Environmental journalist Mark Hertsgaard, who might have been the first person to use the term “Green New Deal” back in 1998, said Pelosi needs to embrace the rhetoric of young activists if she wants this idea to take fire.

“The next step is to get Pelosi to use those words, Green New Deal,” Hertsgaard said. “She’s already on board, but her statement about 16 million jobs and $1 billion investment in infrastructure, that’s policy wonk talk out of Washington.The average person can understand what a Green New Deal is.”

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The Puerto Rican diaspora gets ready to flex its political power

by EileenRubinstei Posted on September 20, 2018

It has been one year since Hurricane Maria laid waste to Puerto Rico and one week since President Trump denied official reports that the storm took nearly 3,000 lives. To honor those lives and demand accountability for failures in the federal response to the storm, thousands are expected to march on the White House, Trump Tower, and Mar-a-Lago today.

“From the day Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, President Trump has shown a level of of indifference and callousness towards the people of Puerto Rico that is nothing short of reprehensible,” José Calderón, president of the Hispanic Federation, said in a statement announcing nationwide actions. “It is time for our elected officials to feel the brunt of our outrage and let it be known that we will remember in November whether they stood with us or not.”

A coalition of civil rights, faith-based, labor, and advocacy groups have called for a national week of action that they’re calling “Boricuas Remember.” They are leading mass vigils and marches in D.C., Florida, and New York today, as well as other events across the country through the 22.

In a separate but coinciding effort at New York’s Union Square this evening, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Yampierre, and Naomi Klein will join other big names, grassroots leaders, and artists who are calling for community-led solutions and a just transition away from fossil fuels.

Protest organizers say that policymakers can expect the thousands hitting the streets today to also march to ballot boxes during this year’s elections. Since Hurricane Maria, at least 135,000 people have moved from Puerto Rico to the mainland U.S. and could make a major impact now that they’re eligible to vote in congressional and presidential elections.

At the end of August, the “Respeta Mi Gente” coalition launched in Central Florida to activate Puerto Rican voters and center their priorities during 2018 midterm elections in the swing state. Frederick Velez, the campaign director for Respeta Mi Gente, says disaster resiliency is a top priority. “No. 1 is, how can we use the power of the million Puerto Ricans in Florida to affect congressional legislation so that we can get a good recovery and rebuild in Puerto Rico?” says Velez, adding that it’s important to not only repair the infrastructure but to ensure that the territory is prepared for another disaster.

Former New York City council speaker and campaign director of Power 4 Puerto Rico Melissa Mark-Viverito says the Puerto Rican community is geared up to shape policy across the country. “If we are decisive in these elections,” says Viverito, who is speaking at a vigil in New York today, then, “what comes with political muscle is political leverage.”

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The Department of Defense wants to protect itself from climate change threats it’s helping to spur

by MaxineBorowski Posted on August 15, 2018

The Department of Defense may be one of the only parts of the Trump administration that openly admits that climate change is a threat. On Monday, President Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $717 billion in spending and advises the military to prep for climate-related flooding and sea-level rise. The nearly trillion-dollar package will be spent on “the finest planes, and ships, and tanks, and missiles anywhere on Earth,” Trump said from Fort Drum in upstate New York.

Problem is: This same federal agency, which is actively planning for global warming, is getting new toys that are capable of emitting tons of carbon.

CNBC outlined some of the big-ticket items in the DoD’s goodie bag. They include: $7.6 billion for 77 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, $85 million for 72 Black Hawk utility helicopters, and $1.56 billion for three coastal combat ships (the Navy had only requested one).

A single F-35 fighter has an internal fuel capacity of nearly 18,498 pounds. If each of the 77 fighter jets uses up just one tank, that would amount to more than 1.4 million pounds of fuel. A Black Hawk helicopter has a 360-gallon fuel tank, and the combat ships each can lug nearly 150,000 gallons.

Although it’s been difficult to get hard numbers on the DoD’s total carbon footprint, it’s largely accepted that the U.S. military is likely the single biggest energy consumer in the world. The department said that it sent out more than 70 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2014 — roughly the amount of C02 the entire country of Romania produced that year — but that number excludes hundreds of overseas bases, vehicles, and anything classified as a national security interest.

Basav Sen, climate justice project director at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, pointed to another climate threat: The White House, even before President Trump, has made securing access to oil and gas a national security imperative. And indeed, the U.S.’s latest security strategy outlines “energy dominance” as a key priority — which includes protecting global energy infrastructure from “cyber and physical threats.” He points to the Iraq War as a recent example of the U.S. intervening in an oil-producing region with the intent of securing the crude supply.

“When you’re pumping money into the military, you’re not just pumping money into an institution that burns a lot of fossil fuels and emits a lot of greenhouse gases,” Sen says, adding that funds also go to providing armed protection to the fossil fuel industry under the guise of national security. “That is really, really disturbing.”

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