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Tag: Climate and env

  • Tornado threat continues as southern towns assess damage

    Tornado threat continues as southern towns assess damage

    JACKSON, Miss. — Tornadoes damaged numerous homes, destroyed a fire station, briefly trapped people in a grocery store and ripped the roof off an apartment complex in Mississippi and Alabama, and meteorologists said the threat of dangerous storms remained Wednesday near the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

    The National Weather Service had warned that strong twisters capable of carving up communities over long distances were possible as the storm front moved eastward from Texas, threatening a stretch of the United States where more than 25 million people live. Emergency responders had no reports of fatalities, but were waiting for daylight to make sure.

    The “threat for supercells capable of all severe hazards continues,” forecasters said, after multiple tornado warnings were issued starting Tuesday afternoon and continued through the night.

    In the west Alabama town of Eutaw, video from WBMA-TV from showed large sections of the roof missing from an apartment complex, displacing 15 families in the middle of the night.

    “We’ve got power lines, trees just all over the road,” Eutaw Police Chief Tommy Johnson told WBRC-TV. “In the morning when we get a little daylight, we’re going to do a door-by-door search to make sure no one is trapped inside or anything like that.”

    A suspected tornado damaged numerous homes during the night in Hale County, Alabama, where the emergency director said more than a third of the people live in highly vulnerable mobile homes.

    “I have seen some really nice mobile homes tied down, but they just don’t stand a chance against a tornado,” Hale County Emergency Management Director Russell Weeden told WBRC just ahead of the storm.

    The weather service confirmed that tornadoes hit the ground in Mississippi. Images of the wreckage in Caledonia showed a grocery store damaged, a fire station shredded and a house toppled, but Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency Director Cindy Lawrence told WTVA-TV that everyone escaped injury.

    Hail stones crashed against the windows of City Hall in the small town of Tchula, Mississippi, where sirens blared and the mayor and other residents took cover. “It was hitting against the window, and you could tell that it was nice-sized balls of it,” Mayor Ann Polk said after the storm passed.

    High winds downed power lines, and flooding was a hazard as more than 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain fell within several hours in some places. More than 50,000 customers in Mississippi and Alabama were without electricity Wednesday morning, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility outages.

    About 100 people hunkered down in a tornado shelter in Starkville, Mississippi, where Craig Ceecee, a meteorologist at Mississippi State University, said he peered out at “incredibly black” skies. Ceecee has assembled a database of Mississippi tornado shelters, and found several towns without any.

    “I’ve had to go through events without (shelters), and trust me, they were scary,” Ceecee said.

    Meanwhile, heavy snow has snarled traffic in some parts of the Upper Midwest.

    Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport tweeted Tuesday afternoon that its runways were closed due to fast snowfall rates and reduced visibility. Air traffic websites showed some inbound planes circling or diverting to other airports such as St. Cloud, Minnesota, and Fargo, North Dakota. The National Weather Service reported nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters) of snow on the ground at the airport by noon.

    The airport said it was able to reopen its first runway hours later, and planes were landing as scheduled on Wednesday.

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    Michael Warren in Atlanta, Jill Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas; Michael Goldberg in Jackson, Mississippi; Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

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  • Climate activist blasts leaders holding onto fossil projects

    Climate activist blasts leaders holding onto fossil projects

    SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate slammed world leaders Tuesday who persist in backing new fossil fuel projects despite science warnings that this will push temperatures across the planet to dangerous highs.

    Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century if possible. But scientists say that with about 1.2 Celsius (21. Fahrenheit) of warming already reached, that target is likely to be missed.

    “The focus for many leaders is about making deals for fossil fuel lobbyists, surviving the next election cycle and grabbing as much short-term profit as possible,” Nakate said at an event on the sidelines of the U.N. climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

    She warned that the annual meeting is being infiltrated by oil and gas representatives who are turning it into “a sales and marketing conference for more pollution and more destruction and more devastation.”

    Environmental groups have counted more than 600 delegates with links to the fossil fuel industry at the two-week meeting.

    Nakate cited research from the International Energy Agency stating that there can be no new investment in coal, oil or gas if the world is to stay below 1.5 C.

    This was being undermined by massive public spending on fossil fuel subsidies, partly as a result of the fallout from Russia’s attack on Ukraine which has triggered a scramble for alternative sources of oil and gas.

    “You are sowing the wind and frontline communities are reaping the whirlwind,” she said. “You are sowing seeds of coal, oil and gas while frontline communities are reaping havoc, devastation and destruction.”

    Many developing nations are disproportionately impacted by climate change as they are less able to adapt to extreme weather exacerbated by global warming.

    Nakate called out those countries that have issued new licenses for oil and gas exploitation in their territorial waters, or promised investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure in Africa.

    Jochen Flasbarth, a long-time German climate negotiator, said Nakate was right to highlight the urgency of tackling climate change but questioned her criticism of politicians concerned about elections.

    “You might be right that politicians sometimes have a short-term view, but (you should) still make the best out of these elections,” he said, adding that “it is young people who increasingly did not go to elections over the last ten years” in many democratic nations.

    Flasbarth told Nakate that young people “need to collaborate” with democratic processes to help “strengthen democracy around the world.”

    Nakate’s speech came as negotiators at the conference haggle over numerous thorny issues including increasing efforts to cut greenhouse gases and providing more financial help to poor nations.

    Ministers began arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday to provide a push for the meeting to clinch a substantial deal by its schedule close on Friday.

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    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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