2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #08

This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!

Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts

• Mapped: How extreme weather is destroying crops around the world& & Extreme weather can harm food production in many different ways.& by Orla Dwyer, Design by Tom Prater, Interactive, Carbon Brief,, Feb 13, 2025
• `Everything we had floated away`: Hurricane Helene survivors help each other as disinformation swirls& & Mountain communities in southern Appalachia begin rebuilding after climate crisis-fueled disaster.& by Nina Lakhani in Barnardsville, North Carolina, with photographs by Thalia Juarez, The Guardian, Feb 16, 2025
• Rescues are ongoing in flooded Kentucky and a new winter storm and brutal cold are incoming& & & by Amanda Musa, Mary Gilbert, Robert Shackelford & Lauren Mascarenhas, CNN, Feb 17, 2025
• Al Gore: Action on climate is 'unstoppable', despite recent shifts in US policy& & & by Robin Pomeroy & Natalie Marchant,, Climate Action, World Economic Forum, Feb 17, 2025
• Arctic Air Mass Brings Dangerous Temperatures to Parts of the U.S.& & And a winter storm could dump up to a foot of snow from the Central Plains to the East Coast.& by Nazaneen Ghaffa, Weather, New York Times, Feb 18, 2025
• Update: How’s U.S. winter weather changing in a warming world?& & Cold extremes are indeed waning over most of the midlatitude Northern Hemisphere, but a decade-plus debate on the Arctic’s role continues.& by Bob Henson, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Feb 18, 2025
• Rising Risks U.S. housing market could lose nearly $1.5 trillion in value due to rising costs of climate change& & & by Diana Olick, CNBC News, Feb 19, 2025
• Study Shows Glaciers Have Lost '3 Olympic Swimming Pools Per Second' Since 2000& & One researcher said the findings support calls "for urgent and concrete actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and associated warming."& by Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, Feb 20, 2025
• Why the U.S. has been home to Earth’s most unusually cold air this year& & Lobes of the polar vortex, like an octopus’s tentacles, have frequently lashed the United States this year.& by Ben Noll, Weather, Washington Post, Feb 21, 2025
• An Economist`s Dire Forecast About Just How Much Climate Change Will Impact GDP& & Modeling shows an estimated loss of global GDP of up to 50 percent in coming decades—unless we make changes now.& by Jenni Doering, Inside Climate News, Feb 22, 2025
• An Economist’s Dire Forecast About Just How Much Climate Change Will Impact GDP& & Modeling shows an estimated loss of global GDP of up to 50 percent in coming decades—unless we make changes now.& by Jenni Doering, Living on Earth/Inside Climate News, Feb 22, 2025

Climate politics and policy

• Former EPA Officials Blast Effort to Rescind Climate Funds, Calling It a Political ‘Smokescreen’& & EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is aiming to take back money intended for clean energy projects in disadvantaged communities after accusing the previous administration of mishandling funds.& by Aman Azhar, Justice & Health, Inside Climate News, Feb 14, 2025
• Trump Has Thrown a Wrench Into a National EV Charging Program. Can He Make It Disappear?& & From Love’s Travel Stops across the nation to Priester’s Pecans in Alabama, electric charging projects across the country have been thrown into chaos by the Trump directive. Could they be stopped for good? Experts say it’s unlikely.& by Lee Hedgepeth, Aman Azhar, Jake Bolster, Lisa Sorg & Sarah Mattalian, Energy, Inside Climarte News, Feb 13 2025
• A Focus On 1.5ºC May Be The Wrong Way To Frame The Climate Emergency& & & by Steve Hanley, Clean Technica, Feb 15, 2025
• Gulf Coast ‘Superfund’ laws aim to make Big Oil pay for climate damage& & News laws to hold oil and gas responsible for costs associated with climate change provide ‘hope’ for activists — and a legal target for the industry& by Terry L Jones, Floodlight, Feb 13, 2025
• How Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' pledge is affecting other countries& & & by Navin Singh Khadka, BBC News, Feb 18, 2025
• The Carbon Brief Profile: Germany& & As part of a series on how key emitters are responding to climate change, Carbon Brief profiles Germany &- the nation with both the most renewable power and the highest emissions in Europe.& by Carbon Brief Staff, Carbon Brief, Feb 18, 2025
• Trump administration rescinds congestion pricing for New York City& & Daily $9 fee designed to reduce traffic in heart of Manhattan and raise billions to upgrade subway train and bus systems& by MAYA Yang, US News, The Guardian, Feb 19, 2025
• ‘The path forward is clear’: how Trump taking office has ‘turbocharged’ climate accountability efforts& & ‘Make polluters pay’ laws, led by blue states AGs, and accountability suits will be a major front for climate litigation for the coming years& by Dharna Noor, US News. The Guardian, Feb 18, 2025
• Electric vehicle adoption is stumbling, but still growing amid geopolitical clashes& & Trump wants to disincentivize EV purchases in the U.S., and sales in Europe declined in 2024, but in China and the rest of the world, EV sales are soaring.& by Dana Nucciteilli, Articles, Yale Climate Connections, Feb 20, 2025
• RFK Jr., Onetime Environmentalist, Kills NIH Climate Change Programs& & He pulled HHS support from projects that aim to protect Americans’ health.& by David Corn, Environment, Mother Jones, Feb 19, 2025
• American scientists say their work is under attack and ask Canadians for help& & & by Jaela Bernstien, What on Earth? CBC News, Feb 20, 2025
• Trump energy chief says there are upsides to ecological collapse& & Seven Democrats voted to confirm this man. Seven!& by Emily Atkin, Heated, Feb 20, 2025
• Cuts to U.S. weather and climate research could put public safety at risk& & Firings and budget cuts could slow emergency disaster response and weaken resilience efforts. & by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson, Yale Climate Connections, Feb 21, 2025
• Trump Order Shifts the Financial Burden of Climate Change Onto Individuals& & & by Abrahm Lustgarten, Environment, Feb 21, 2025
• ‘Viciousness’ of Trump’s climate attacks stuns even his critics& & President Donald Trump has attacked nearly every aspect of the U.S. effort to confront rising temperatures.& by Benjamin Storrow & Jean Chemnick, Energy & Environment, Poliltico, Feb 22, 2025

Climate Science and Research

• Scientists have a new explanation for the last two years of record heat& & Rising temperatures are fueled, in part, by declining cloud cover — which could be a potential climate feedback loop.& by Shannon Osaka, Climate, Washington Post, Feb 14, 2025
• How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn`t want you to see& & 'If we can't see it, it can't hurt us.'' Not true. Here's how to keep seeing. & by Eric Nost, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Guelph, Alejandro Paz, Energy and Environment Librarian, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), The Conversation - Articles (US), Feb 14, 2025
• Skeptical Science New Research for Week #8 2025& & Already the eighth edition for 2025 of our weekly survey of academic climate research as well as goverment and NGO reports touching on matters of climate.& by Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack, Skeptical Science, Feb 20, 2025

International Climate Conferences and Agreements

• In Trump’s shadow, IPCC set to make key decision on timing of climate science review& & With the US not expected to show up at the IPCC meeting, countries have a final chance to agree whether assessment reports could inform the next UN scorecard of climate action& by Matteo Civillini, Climate Home News, Feb 21, 2025

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science

• Is CO2 plant food? Why are we still talking about this?& & The climate-denier zombie argument that, unlike plants, won't die& by Andrew Dessler, The Climate Brink, Feb 20, 2025

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions

• Sabin 33 #20 - Is offshore wind development harmful to whales and other marine life?& & & by Sabin Climate Law, Skeptical Science, Feb 18, 2025

Miscellaneous (Other)

• 2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #07& & A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 9, 2025 thru Sat, February 15, 2025.& by Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz, Skeptical Science, Feb 16, 2025
• How Trump's 'drill, baby, drill' pledge is affecting other countries& & & by Navin Singh Khadka, BBC News, Feb 17, 2025