Climate Change Will Get A Whole Lot Worse Before It Gets Better, According To Game Theory

Wired - Roger Highfield

A firefighter douses flames from a backfire in San Andreas, California. Getty Images / JOSH EDELSON / Stringer

It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.
According to new research published in Nature, humanity will witness marked sea level rises and frequent killer heatwaves before governments take decisive action against climate change.
And to predict the future, mathematicians have turned to game theory.
The paper, published by a team of mathematicians, uses game theory to explain why it is so hard to protect the environment, updating it so they could model the effects of climate change, overuse of precious resources and pollution of pristine environments.
The bad news is that the model suggests that, when it comes to climate change, things might have to get demonstrably worse before they can get better.
The good news, on the other hand, is that game theory could help policymakers to craft new and better incentives to help nations cooperate in international agreements.
The researchers used one of the best known social dilemmas in game theory — called the tragedy of the commons — to reach their predictions. The tragedy of the commons was first described in the 19th century by William Forster Lloyd, an Oxford University political philosopher. Lloyd analysed the overuse of common land (also known as a "common") by people who had rights to use it — to graze their sheep, for example — to air the idea that resources that do not clearly belong to an individual or a group are likely to be overexploited, since conserving them isn’t in the interest of the individual.
The idea was later made famous by American ecologist Garrett Hardin, in a 1968 paper published in the journal Science. The tragedy of the commons has become one of the most used metaphors among experts to illustrate our chronic inability to sustain a resource that everybody is free to use and, alas, just as free to abuse.
We see examples of this dilemma in our daily lives, from litter on the subway to the reluctance to empty the dishwasher in the shared student kitchen. The most extreme example, however, is the current environmental crisis.
Previous attempts to come up with a mathematical model of the environmental tragedy made the unrealistic assumption that the commons remained unchanged as people exploited them – they played the same game in every round of the model. These approaches could not study the effects of a degrading environment, such as an increasingly overfished sea or a river as it was being polluted, for example. In their new Nature paper Martin Nowak of Harvard University, working with Christian Hilbe and Krishnendu Chatterjee of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, and Stepan Simsa of Charles University in Prague, detail a more faithful way to model – and understand - the dilemma with mathematics.
“It is based on the simple idea that our actions today change the game we can play tomorrow,” Nowak says. The games in question involve encounters between people where they can either work together and cooperate or pursue their own selfish motives instead. “Depending on what you and I are doing, we move to another game so, as an example, you and I write an article together and, if we do well, we may do a book and, if this continues, we might set up a research institute.”
When they explored the new mathematical model, the scientists found that this dependence on players’ actions could greatly increase the chance that players cooperate, provided the right conditions were in place. “We have shown how environmental feedback can spur cooperation,” says Nowak, who has spent decades exploring the laws of cooperation.
These feedback factors include how quickly our resources — be it the ocean or the planet’s ozone layer — degrade. This might explain why relatively rapid action to ban chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons were prompted when a dramatic drop in atmospheric ozone that protects life from the Sun's harmful UV rays was detected by a British team working in Antarctica in 1985. A global agreement to protect the stratospheric ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol, was finalised in 1987 and went into force a couple of years later.
This is not the case with climate change. Although we know that glaciers are shrinking, sea levels are rising, and extreme weather events — from hurricanes to heatwaves — are becoming more intense, these effects are often complex and occur over longer timescales, so establishing a clear link between them and climate change is less straightforward. This, according to Nowak, might explain why it has been more difficult to come up with effective international cooperation to curb climate change driven by greenhouse gases.
The new mathematical model suggests the global environment has to deteriorate in a dramatic way – hurricanes becoming more intense, more droughts and heatwaves – before our eyes before governments will be spurred on to make things better. “When human activity leads to drastic environmental deterioration, through global warming, cooperation becomes the winning strategy,” Nowak says.
However, this new mathematical model also enables policymakers to explore future possibilities raised by climate models and explore next steps on a more rational basis. “This opens up many new possibilities,” says Nowak. Because key impacts of climate change occur over a long timescale, one option is not to rely on environmental decline to spur policymakers into action. Instead we need to devise incentives that work over much shorter timescales, say a year or so. “We even show which feedback is needed,” Nowak says.
“You could give people, cities or countries financial incentives to work together on a problem and, if they succeed, they get these incentives and can move to bigger and more complex problems, along with even larger rewards.” The financial incentives hinge on the actions of the players, whether they are people or countries. “Cooperation leads to more valuable games, defection to less valuable ones, and can be designed to occur quickly enough to make a difference,” Nowak says. “This new approach is a game changer.”

Links

• Data Shows Sea Level Rise Will Threaten Over 300,000 Homes
• How Scientists Tracked Antarctica's Stunning Ice Loss
• Endangered Species and the Case for ‘Sanctuary Cities’
• The Potential Pitfalls of Sucking Carbon From the Atmosphere
• Can a New Kind of Consumerism Help Fight Climate Change?
• Humans Tracked Iceland's Glaciers For Ages. Now, Tech Does

Why Climate Change Is A Security Matter

World Resources Institute - Kitty van der Heijden

Mopti riverfront
Photo by Mark Abel/flickr

On a satellite map of Mali, the Inner Niger Delta looks like a giant green smudge on a beige, sandy background.
It is remote, remarkable and a reminder of the complex interplay between some of the biggest issues facing Europe and climate change.
The delta itself is lush, blessed with a water supply from the Niger River that has turned this part of the semi-arid Sahel into a veritable oasis.
But it is also vulnerable.
The natural balance between its people, its ecosystem and the waters that give it life can easily be upset, with shockwaves reaching as far away as Europe. In the Netherlands, which is grappling with issues such as security and migration, the Niger Delta is a reminder of the irrevocable links between these issues and the impact of climate change.
The Sahel is no easy place to live, sandwiched between the blank expanse of the Sahara desert and the fertile coast of West Africa. The Inner Niger Delta stands out against the rest of this water-scarce region, fed by the great Niger River. It rises in the hills of Guinea before describing a giant crescent through Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, then down to Nigeria and its outlet on the Gulf of Guinea.
During its passage through Mali, something remarkable happens: not long after the regional capital of Mopti, the river splits, spreading out across the land in a myriad of channels, many of which sink into the earth as though absorbed by a sponge. As it leaves this landlocked delta, it regathers as a more regular river for the remainder of its journey.
Unsurprisingly, the watery wealth of this delta region has a profound impact on the landscape and its people. It supports a wealth of small-scale agriculture and fishing, with countless villages and settlements on tiny islands in between the channels. But the balance that sustains the delta is a fine one, and several factors make it complicated.

At the Edge of the Sahara
Up on the edge of the Sahara are the bases of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and training bases for the international coalition – including Dutch soldiers and police - that is combatting it. These insurgents are known to target delta communities, which are themselves being disrupted by discord between generations: ubiquitous mobile phones have contributed to a younger generation of delta residents becoming dissatisfied with the lives led by their elders.
Indeed, many migration routes from West Africa to Europe cut through the region, bringing the influence of the trafficking gangs. Upstream, dam projects in Guinea and Mali itself threaten to disrupt the flow of the Niger into the delta. Meanwhile, water-hungry commercial agriculture for crops such as sugar cane has arrived, funded by outsiders including the Chinese. And then there is the climate.
Few things have the capacity to disturb the balance of the Inner Niger Delta as much as climate change. Rising temperatures could destroy livelihoods, threaten the Malian economy and turn more people towards escape routes – whether to urban slums, migration routes north to Europe or the ranks of AQIM. Places like the Inner Niger Delta are ground zero for climate change. What happens there will also affect what happens in Europe.
The danger is evident, but what can be done about it? The first step is to recognize these critical linkages. That is why I recently attended a High Level Conference on Climate, Peace and Security in Brussels, convened by the Head of the European External Action Service, Federica Mogherini. One area that was discussed was the role of data in helping us understand what is happening in places like the Inner Niger Delta, and the complex interplay between natural and human factors.
World Resources Institute is currently one of the partners involved in a project called the Water, Peace and Security initiative, funded in part by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is aimed at combining data to produce an early warning system. Elsewhere, measures such as infrastructure spending or financial tools can be part of the solution. But these only serve to mitigate or warn about the problem.
The second step, then, is more familiar. We must continue – and increase – our efforts to slow down man-made climate change. Instead of thinking about a bald figure like 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), think of the impact of global warming in places like the delta. This underlines the urgency of our shift to a low-carbon circular economy.
This is not just about signing off on international commitments or future competitiveness, but our own fundamental security interests: the sustainability of vulnerable regions like the Inner Niger Delta is as critical for our own security as it is for those who call those places their home.

Links

• When It Comes to Climate and Security, “We’re All in the Same Canoe”
• Webinar: Introducing Climate Watch: A Tool for Researchers and Decision Makers
• 2017 Was the Second-Worst Year on Record for Tropical Tree Cover Loss
• The Human Cost of Climate Change

Global Temperature Rises Could Be Double Those Predicted By Climate Modelling

The Guardian - Lisa Cox

Researchers say sea levels could also rise by six metres or more even if 2 degree target of Paris accord met

Researchers say temperature and sea level rises could be much more extreme than previously believed. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

Temperature rises as a result of global warming could eventually be double what has been projected by climate models, according to an international team of researchers from 17 countries.
Sea levels could also rise by six metres or more even if the world does meet the 2 degree target of the Paris accord.
The findings, published last week in Nature Geoscience, were based on observations of evidence from three warm periods in the past 3.5m years in which global temperatures were 0.5-2 degrees above the pre-industrial temperatures of the 19th century.
The researchers say they increase the urgency with which countries need to address their emissions.
The scientists used a range of measurements to piece together the impacts of past climatic changes to examine how a warmer earth would appear once the climate has stabilised.
They found sustained warming of one to two degrees had been accompanied by substantial reductions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and sea level rises of at least six metres – several metres higher than what current climate models predict could occur by 2100.
“During that time, the temperatures were much warmer than what our models are predicting and the sea levels were much higher,” said Katrin Meissner from the University of New South Wales’s Climate Change Research Centre and one of the study’s lead authors.
She said the effects today would mean populous urban areas around the world and entire countries in the Pacific would be underwater.
“Two degrees can seem very benign when you see it on paper but the consequences are quite bad and ecosystems change dramatically.”
Meissner said potential changes even at two degrees of warming were underestimated in climate models that focused on the near term.
“Climate models appear to be trustworthy for small changes, such as for low-emission scenarios over short periods, say over the next few decades out to 2100,” she said. “But as the change gets larger or more persistent ... it appears they underestimate climate change.”
The researchers looked at three documented warm periods, the Holocene thermal maximum, which occurred 5,000 to 9,000 years ago, the last interglacial, which occurred 116,000 to 129,000 years ago, and the mid-Pliocene warm period, which occurred 3m to 3.3 m years ago.
In the case of the first two periods examined, the climate changes were caused by changes in the earth’s orbit. The mid-Pliocene event was the result of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations that were at similar levels to what they are today.
In each case, the planet had warmed at a much slower rate than it is warming at today as a result of rising greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans.
“Observations of past warming periods suggest that a number of amplifying mechanisms, which are poorly represented in climate models, increase long-term warming beyond climate model projections,” Prof Hubertus Fischer of the University of Bern, one of the study’s lead authors.
“This suggests the carbon budget to avoid 2°C of global warming may be far smaller than estimated, leaving very little margin for error to meet the Paris targets.”

Links

• Global warming may be twice what climate models predict
• Adani coal port faces possible 'stop order' after traditional owners object
• How Australia's climate policies came to be poisoned by pragmatism
• Australia being 'left behind' by global momentum on climate change
• Climate change: global deal reached to limit use of hydrofluorocarbons
• Officials admit no modelling shows how Australia will meet Paris climate pledge
• Australia's emissions won't fall by 2030 without greater climate action, modelling shows
• Investors controlling $13tn call on G20 leaders to ratify Paris climate agreement
• Paris agreement is a strong signal that 'we will solve climate crisis', Al Gore says
• Australian politics cools off on climate change – even as the temperature rises

Pope Francis Warns Against Turning Earth Into Vast Pile Of 'Rubble, Deserts And Refuse'

The Guardian - Associated Press

Francis also denounces ‘sterile hypocrisy’ of those who turn a blind eye to the world’s poor

Pope Francis is greeted by a migrant at a mass to commemorate the fifth anniversary of his visit in Lampedusa. Photograph: Vatican Media/Reuters

Pope Francis urged governments on Friday to make good on their commitments to curb global warming, warning that climate change, continued unsustainable development and rampant consumption threatens to turn the Earth into a vast pile of “rubble, deserts and refuse”.
Francis made the appeal at a Vatican conference marking the third anniversary of his landmark environmental encyclical “Praise Be.” The document, meant to spur action at the 2015 Paris climate conference, called for a paradigm shift in humanity’s relationship with Mother Nature.
In his remarks, Francis urged governments to honor their Paris commitments and said institutions such as the IMF and World Bank had important roles to play in encouraging reforms promoting sustainable development.
“There is a real danger that we will leave future generations only rubble, deserts and refuse,” he warned.
The Paris accord, reached by 195 countries, seeks to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change by curbing global greenhouse gas emissions via individual, non-binding national plans. President Donald Trump has said the US will pull out of the accord negotiated by his predecessor unless he can get a better deal.

Friday’s conference was the latest in a series of Vatican initiatives meant to impress a sense of urgency about global warming and the threat it poses in particular to the world’s poorest and most marginalised people.
Recently, Francis invited oil executives and investors to the Vatican for a closed-door conference where he urged them to find alternatives to fossil fuels. He warned climate change was a challenge of “epochal proportions”.
Next year, Francis has called a three-week synod, or meeting of bishops, specifically to address the church’s response to the ecological crisis in the Amazon, where deforestation threatens what he has called the “lung” of the planet and the indigenous peoples who live there
On Friday, Francis also thanked aid groups that rescue and care for migrants and denounced the “sterile hypocrisy” of those who turn a blind eye to the world’s poor seeking security and a dignified life.
Francis celebrated a mass for migrants and those who care for them in St Peter’s Basilica, calling attention to their plight as Europe, the US and other countries increasingly closing their doors, ports and borders to them.
The intimate service marked the fifth anniversary of Francis’ landmark visit to Lampedusa, the Sicilian island that for years was the primary destination of migrants smuggled from Libya to Europe. During that trip, Francis’ first outside Rome after his 2013 election, he denounced the “globalisation of indifference” that the world showed migrants fleeing war, poverty and climate-induced natural disasters.
Speaking in his native Spanish, Francis thanked the representatives of aid groups in the pews for embodying the Good Samaritan “who stopped to save the life of the poor man beaten by bandits”.
“He didn’t ask where he was from, his reasons for travelling or his documents. he simply decided to care for him and save his life,” the pope said.

Links

• Big Oil CEOs needed a climate change reality check. The pope delivered
• Pope attacks 'globalisation of indifference' in Lampedusa visit
• Pope's climate change encyclical tells rich nations: pay your debt to the poor
• Pope laments 'meaningless lives' in tying human trafficking to climate change
• Pope Francis warns of destruction of Earth's ecosystem in leaked encyclical

Fighting Climate Change Means Fighting Inequality and Intolerance

Nexus Media - Phil Newell*

Marginalized groups are acutely threatened by rising temperatures.

Source: Pexels

Intersectionality is a big word with a simple meaning: social, economic and political issues are all connected. Climate change is emblematic of this truth. Though it’s usually regarded as a technological or scientific issue, climate change’s disproportionate impact on minority communities makes it an issue of racial inequality. The fact that those who have the fewest resources are the least capable of rebuilding after a disaster renders it an issue of economic inequality. Climate change also disproportionately hurts women, people with disabilities, the elderly and the very young. Furthermore, widespread discrimination mars efforts to study the rise in temperature and advocate for solutions. Dealing with climate change means dealing with inequality and intolerance.

Prejudice undermines science
Last month, Nexus Media reported on a study that found that in the years after Barack Obama took office, white Americans were less likely to see climate change as a serious problem. The finding held even after controlling for partisanship, ideology, education, church attendance and employment. The study further noted a link between racial resentment and climate change denial. While this research leaves many questions unanswered, its findings accord with the experience of many people of color who work on climate change.
Dr. Marshall Shepherd, the second African-American President of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), recounted in Forbes how fellow scientists critical of his work “channeled their disagreement into direct or subtle insults involving my race or credentials.” As Shepherd noted, racially charged attacks are not only a form of harassment, they are distract from the substance of scientific research. Further, such attacks discourage capable young people of color from joining the ranks of climate scientists and meteorologists at precisely the moment when their talents are needed most. Currently, just 2 percent of AMS members are African-American. Even fewer are Hispanic or Native American.

Marshall Shepherd. Source: Wingate Downs/University of Georgia

A lack of diversity undermines advocacy
Like scientific bodies, large environmental groups are guilty of a lack of diversity. These organizations are largely bereft of the talents and perspectives of people of color. For years, advocates have focused on threats to polar bears while ignoring the more immediate and disturbing threats that air pollution and climate change pose to marginalized communities. African-American children, for example, die from asthma attacks at ten times the rate of their white peers, and yet Americans are more likely to see climate change as an environmental issue than a public health issue.
University of Michigan sociologist Dorceta Taylor explained how green groups should address this disparity in a recent interview with Yale360. “One of the things they should be doing is stop being so afraid of people of color, and meet them, interact with them, cultivate them, and start recruiting them,” she said. “If all the people I talked to, and knew, and interacted with were black, no one would take me particularly seriously — I have to engage multi-culturally.”

Dorceta Taylor. Source: University of Michigan

Xenophobia obscures the suffering of climate refugees
It is impossible to ignore the allegations of drugging, water contamination, and physical and mental abuse of children at the hands of the American government. The separation of immigrant families will likely have long-term psychological ramifications on these children. This is a crisis of humanity and, like most everything else, it too has a climate connection.
One of the tent cities erected to house children in Texas has faced temperatures upwards of 100 degrees F, offering little respite for the imprisoned. Many of those immigrants are coming from the Dry Corridor of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, where the climate change fueled both drought and deluge, wreaking havoc on subsistence farmers. Combined with years of horrific violence stemming from US policies, climate change is leaving vulnerable populations with little choice but relocation.
As climate change worsens, more and more people will leave their homes to start somewhere new, which is why, as Kate Aronoff of In These Times recently argued, abolishing ICE is good climate policy. As climate change creates more refugees, Aronoff argues that the just response is compassion, not militarism, that we should open our arms and our borders to those who are seeking to escape from an increasingly hostile homeland.
Climate scientist Kate Marvel wrote in Scientific American that adapting to climate change means learning empathy. “Climate change happens in the world we build for it,” she explained. “Climate adaptation requires seawalls and drought-tolerant crops; it also needs institutions, laws, and the basic ability to recognize humanity in others. We’ll need new infrastructure and technology, to be sure, but I doubt we can innovate our way to decency.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents take part in a training exercise, 2011.
Source: Department of Homeland Security

Misogyny and heteronormativity hamper our responses to climate change
Just as racism and xenophobia impair our ability to respond to climate change, so do misogyny and heteronormativity. Recently, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson argued that “climate change is a man-made problem and must have a feminist solution.” She added, “Feminism doesn’t mean excluding men, it’s about being more inclusive of women and — in this case — acknowledging the role they can play in tackling climate change.”
One woman leading that charge is University of Washington paleoclimatologist Sarah Myhre, who has written about the abuse she has faced as a scientist, a systemic problem that discourages more women from entering the field. “As a student and then a professional scientist, I have been assaulted, raped, harassed, demeaned, belittled, and threatened on the job,” she wrote in The Stranger. “That is right. Every single professional gig that you might read on my CV comes with a litany of backstories of abuse and violence.” Myhre counts herself among numerous women researching climate change who regularly face sexist attacks from climate change deniers.
The LGBTQ+ community also faces prejudice that will make it difficult to deal with climate disruption. Gay youth are more likely to be homeless than straight youth, and they are more likely to see discrimination at church-run shelters, for example. Ironically, numerous far-right religious leaders have blamed homosexuality for natural disasters.

Sarah Myhre. Source: UC Davis

No issue exists in a vacuum, including climate change. That the issue is so multifaceted may seem overwhelming, but it is good news for climate advocates. It means they can fight on more fronts and and with more allies. That’s a deal they should be happy to take.

*Phil Newell writes for Nexus Media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art and culture.

Links

• Four Ways Climate Change Affects Women More Than Men
• Disability and Disaster Response in the Age of Climate Change
• Impact of Climate Change on Elder Health
• Children's health 'uniquely' affected by climate change, pediatricians say
• Why Climate Change Affects Poor Neighborhoods The Most
• EPA scientists find black communities disproportionately hit by pollution
• Adapting to Climate Change Will Take More Than Just Seawalls and Levees
• Climate change a 'man-made problem with a feminist solution' says Robinson
• Why Climate Deniers Target Women

Under Fire For Ethics Scandals, EPA Chief Pruitt Resigns

Reuters - John Whitesides

WASHINGTON - Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, who had been lauded by President Donald Trump for his aggressive efforts to roll back environmental regulations, resigned on Thursday under heavy fire for a series of ethics-related controversies.


Pruitt was one of Trump’s most polarizing Cabinet members, slashing regulations on the energy and manufacturing industries, including a move to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature program to cut carbon emissions from power plants, dubbed the Clean Power Plan.
He was also instrumental last year in lobbying Trump to withdraw the United States from the global 2015 Paris climate accord to combat global warming.
But Pruitt lost favor with Trump’s inner circle after a string of controversies including first-class travel at taxpayer expense, lavish spending on security, the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office and accusations that he used his position to receive favors, such as a discounted rental on a high-end condo from an energy lobbyist’s wife.
“The unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us,” Pruitt said in his resignation letter.
Trump announced the resignation on Twitter and said EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former mining industry lobbyist, will become the regulatory agency’s acting chief on Monday. Wheeler is widely expected to continue Pruitt’s efforts to roll back and streamline regulation, something that Trump had promised in his presidential campaign.
“Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this,” Trump wrote. Trump told reporters later that Pruitt had approached him and offered to resign as opposed to being pushed out.
Wheeler said in a message to EPA employees that he was “both humbled and honored” to lead the agency. “I look forward to working hard alongside all of you to continue our collective goal of protecting public health and the environment on behalf of the American people,” he said.
Democrats and environmental advocacy groups cheered the departure of Pruitt, a close ally of the fossil fuel industry who has often questioned mainstream climate change science.
“Scott Pruitt’s reign of venality is finally over. He made swamp creatures blush with his shameless excesses. All tolerated because Trump liked his zealotry. Shame,” Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly said.
The Environmental Working Group, a public health and environment watchdog, called Pruitt “unquestionably the worst head of the agency in its 48-year history.”

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt takes questions about the Trump administration's withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accords during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

Pruitt, as Oklahoma’s attorney general before heading up the EPA, had sued the federal agency more than a dozen times on behalf of his oil-drilling state.
Pruitt also rankled some Republican lawmakers, including in Midwest corn-producing states, with his efforts to overhaul a U.S. policy requiring biofuels like corn-based ethanol in gasoline.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said Trump made the “right decision.”
Other Republicans, as well as coal and oil industry groups, said in statements on Thursday that Pruitt had been a good friend to industry.
“Scott Pruitt did great work to reduce the regulatory burdens facing our nation while leading the Environmental Protection Agency,” said Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, from Pruitt’s home state of Oklahoma.

“Policy Will Remain”
Pruitt’s interim replacement, Wheeler, was formerly a lobbyist for Murray Energy [MUYEY.UL], the country’s largest underground coal mining company, and also worked for Inhofe – a self-described climate skeptic - on efforts to combat climate legislation.
Matt Dempsey, an energy lobbyist at consultancy FTI, said Wheeler will be less controversial than Pruitt but without altering the agenda.
“He will be less political and more straightforward in his approach to the job, which is better for the Trump administration agenda in the long run. The politics will pass but the policy will remain,” Dempsey said.
Pruitt was facing around a dozen investigations into his tenure, including his frequent use of first-class flights and his spending on security – which the agency has defended as necessary to defend him against unprecedented threats.
Travel records showed the U.S. government spent $17,000 in taxpayer money on a December trip to Morocco to promote U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, which is not part of the EPA’s jurisdiction. The Washington Post reported that a longtime Pruitt friend and lobbyist helped arrange the trip and later registered as a foreign agent representing Morocco.
In one of the investigations, the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that the EPA violated two laws by installing the $43,000 phone booth for Pruitt’s office without telling lawmakers first. Pruitt said his staff never told him the cost.
Some of the ethics accusations against Pruitt also involved jobs for his wife. Emails obtained by the Sierra Club environmental group showed Pruitt had an aide contact the chief executive of a fast-food chain about his wife becoming a franchise owner.
The Washington Post reported Pruitt had aides also try to get his wife a job at the Republican Attorneys General Association with a salary topping $200,000.
Pruitt also had an employee carry out his personal errands, including researching the purchase of an old mattress from the Trump International Hotel, according to an interview transcript released by congressional Democrats last month.
A source close to Trump said the controversy over the search for a used Trump International Hotel mattress was the last straw for Trump with Pruitt because it involved the Trump Organization.
During congressional testimony in April, Pruitt was unapologetic for the controversies, often blaming his staff for any agency missteps.

Links

• The ethics scandals that eventually forced Scott Pruitt to resign
• Scott Pruitt is out, far too late
• After Scott Pruitt
• Former EPA Head Says Pruitt's Resignation Is 'Way Overdue'
• U.S. renewable fuel credits rise as EPA chief resigns: traders

All-Time Heat Records Have Been Set All Over The World During The Past Week

Fairfax - Jason Samenow

Washington: From the normally mild summers of Ireland, Scotland and Canada to the scorching Middle East, numerous locations in the Northern Hemisphere have witnessed their hottest weather ever recorded over the past week.
Large areas of heat pressure or heat domes scattered around the hemisphere led to the sweltering temperatures. No single record, in isolation, can be attributed to global warming. But collectively, these heat records are consistent with the kind of extremes we expect to see increase in a warming world.
Let's take a tour around the world of the recent hot-weather milestones.

The sun peaks around the Washington Monument as geese float down the Potomac River in Washington as a hot day breaks on Sunday. Photo: AP

North America
A massive and intense heat dome has consumed the eastern two-thirds of the United States and south-east Canada since late last week. It's not only been hot but also exceptionally humid. Some of the notable all-time records include:  Denver tied its all-time high-temperature record of 40.5 degrees Celsius on Thursday; Burlington, Vermont, set its all-time warmest minimum temperature ever recorded of 26.6 degrees on Monday; Montreal recorded its highest temperature in recorded history, dating back 147 years, of 36.6 degrees on Monday. The city also posted its most extreme midnight combination of heat and humidity.

Europe

People relax on Bournemouth beach in Dorset , England, on Sunday as the hot weather continued across the country. Photo: PA

Excessive heat torched the British Isles late last week. The stifling heat caused roads and roofs to buckle, the Weather Channel reported, and resulted in multiple record highs in Scotland, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.

Eurasia
A large dome of high pressure, or heat dome, has persistently sat on top of Eurasia over the past week, resulting in some extraordinarily hot weather.
In Tbilisi, Georgia, on Wednesday, the capital city soared to 40.5 degrees, its all-time record, while Yerevan, Armenia, temperatures soared to 42 degrees, a record high for July and tying its record for any month.

The foot of the Kaskad or the Cascade in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Photo: Michele Mossop

Several locations in southern Russia topped or matched their warmest June temperatures on record on Thursday.

Middle East
Qurayat, Oman, posted the world's hottest minimum temperature ever recorded on June 28: 42.6 degrees.
These various records add to a growing list of heat milestones set over the past 15 months that are part and parcel of a planet that is trending hotter as greenhouse gas concentrations increase because of human activity.

World temperatures were broken in Oman last week. Photo: Alamy

In late May 2017, the western town of Turbat in Pakistan hit 53.5 degrees, tying the all-time highest temperature in the country and the world-record temperature for May.
It followed the hottest temperature ever observed on Earth during the month of April — 50.2 degrees also in Pakistan.

Links

• Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week
• A city in Oman just posted the world’s hottest low temperature ever recorded: 109 degrees
• Why are more than 100 television meteorologists around the world wearing this tie?
• The U.S. just observed its warmest 3-, 4-, and 5-year spans on record