powerpoint presentation on climate change and global warming

Climate Matters • November 25, 2020

New Presentation: Our Changing Climate

Key concepts:.

Climate Central unveils Our Changing Climate —an informative and customizable climate change presentation that meteorologists, journalists, and others can use for educational outreach and/or a personal Climate 101 tool.

The presentation follows a ”Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework, inspired by climate scientist Scott Denning. This allows the presenter to comfortably explain, and the viewers to easily understand, the causes (Simple), impacts (Serious), and solutions (Solvable) of climate change. 

Our Changing Climate is a revamped version of our 2016 climate presentation, and includes the following updates and features:

Up-to-date graphics and topics

Local data and graphics

Fully editable slides (add, remove, customize)

Presenter notes, background information, and references for each slide

Supplementary and bonus slides

Download Outline (PDF, 110KB)

Download Full Presentation (PPT, 148MB)

Updated: April 2021

Climate Central is presenting a new outreach and education resource for meteorologists, journalists, and others—a climate change presentation, Our Changing Climate . This 55-slide presentation is a guide through the basics of climate change, outlining its causes, impacts, and solutions. This climate change overview is unique because it includes an array of local graphics from our ever-expanding media library. By providing these local angles, the presenter can demonstrate that climate change is not only happening at a global-scale, but in our backyards.

This presentation was designed to support your climate change storytelling, but can also double as a great Climate 101 tool for journalists or educators who want to understand climate change better. Every slide contains main points along with background information, so people that are interested can learn at their own pace or utilize graphics for their own content. 

In addition to those features, it follows the “Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework inspired by Scott Denning, a climate scientist and professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University (and a good friend of the program). These three S’s help create the presentation storyline and outline the causes (Simple), impacts (Serious), and solutions (Solvable) of climate change. 

Simple. It is simple—burning fossil fuels is heating up the Earth. This section outlines the well-understood science that goes back to the 1800s, presenting local and global evidence that our climate is warming due to human activities.

Serious. More extreme weather, rising sea levels, and increased health and economic risks—the consequences of climate change. In this section, well, we get serious. Climate change impacts are already being felt around the world, and they will continue to intensify until we cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

Solvable. With such a daunting crisis like climate change, it is easy to get wrapped up in the negative impacts. This section explains how we can curb climate change and lists the main pathways and solutions to achieving this goal. 

With the rollout of our new climate change presentation, we at Climate Central would value any feedback on this presentation. Feel free to reach out to us about how the presentation worked for you, how your audience reacted, or any ideas or topics you would like to see included. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & SPECIAL THANKS

Climate Central would like to acknowledge Paul Gross at WDIV-TV in Detroit and the AMS Station Science Committee for the original version of the climate presentation, Climate Change Outreach Presentation , that was created in 2016. We would also like to give special thanks to Scott Denning, professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and a member of our NSF advisory board, for allowing us to use this “Simple, Serious, Solvable” framework in this presentation resource.

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What is Climate Change? PowerPoint Presentation

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What’s the difference between climate change and global warming?

The terms “global warming” and “climate change” are sometimes used interchangeably, but "global warming" is only one aspect of climate change.

“Global warming” refers to the long-term warming of the planet. Global temperature shows a well-documented rise since the early 20th century and most notably since the late 1970s. Worldwide since 1880, the average surface temperature has risen about 1 ° C (about 2 ° F), relative to the mid-20th century baseline (of 1951-1980). This is on top of about an additional 0.15 ° C of warming from between 1750 and 1880.

“Climate change” encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet. These include rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times. These are all consequences of warming, which is caused mainly by people burning fossil fuels and putting out heat-trapping gases into the air.

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Research shows bumblebee nests are overheating due to climate change, threatening future populations

by Frontiers

As a result of the climate crisis, global warming is driving up temperatures around the world—and bumblebees, like humans, are struggling to cope with homes that can't beat the heat.

In a new article published in Frontiers in Bee Science , scientists identify rising heat as a potential culprit for the decline in bumblebee populations worldwide, compromising bumblebees ' ability to construct livable nests in which healthy larvae can develop.

"The decline in populations and ranges of several species of bumblebees may be explained by issues of overheating of the nests and the brood," said Dr. Peter Kevan of the University of Guelph, Canada, lead author of the article.

"The constraints on the survival of the bumblebee brood indicate that heat is likely a major factor, with heating of the nest above about 35 degrees Celsius being lethal, despite the remarkable capacity of bumblebees to thermoregulate."

There are many bumblebee species around the world, living in many different environments. Lots of these species are in a decline linked to climate change , but identifying a causative factor has proven difficult.

However, by reviewing the literature, Kevan and colleagues identified a critical commonality between these species, regardless of geographic range: the optimal temperature of their nests, 28–32 degrees Celsius.

"We can assume that the similarity reflects the evolutionary relatedness of the various species," said Kevan.

Because this characteristic appears to be common between so many species, it may have limited evolutionary plasticity, meaning the bumblebees would find it hard to adapt to rising temperatures, and would struggle to remain within their thermal neutral zone—a point at which staying the right temperature requires minimal metabolic expenditure. Heat stress that takes a species out of this range is dangerous.

"Excessively high temperatures are more harmful to most animals and plants than cool temperatures. When conditions are cool, organisms that do not metabolically regulate their body temperatures simply slow down, but when temperatures get too high metabolic processes start to break down and cease," said Kevan. "Death ensues quickly."

Reviewing 180 years of literature, Kevan and colleagues found that bumblebees seem to be able to survive at up to 36 degrees Celsius and develop optimally at around 30–32 degrees Celsius—though this might differ between species and biogeographical conditions. While bumblebees have some behavioral adaptations that allow them to thermoregulate, this may not be enough to deal with climate change.

Additionally, the bumblebee colony also acts as a "superorganism," where reproductive fitness is dependent on the collective survival and reproduction of the colony rather than individual bees.

One bumblebee may cope better with the heat than another, but if the nest is too hot to raise healthy larvae the whole colony suffers, regardless of individual bumblebees' adaptation.

On a wing and a prayer

"The effect of high nest temperatures has not been studied very much, which is surprising," said Kevan. "We can surmise that nest temperatures above the mid-30s Celsius would likely be highly detrimental and that above about 35 Celsius death would occur, probably quite quickly."

Studies of honeybees show that higher nest temperatures compromise bee queens' strength and reproductive ability, and lead to smaller worker bees in poorer condition. If heat has a similar effect on bumblebees, so that colonies produce less healthy offspring at a higher temperature, then global warming could be directly leading to their decline.

To ensure that bumblebees continue to thrive, the scientists call for more research into what they say is an understudied aspect of bumblebee ecology: nest morphology, material properties, temperature , and thermoregulation. It may be possible for some bumblebee colonies to adapt their nest site choice and form or behavior to cool their nests.

Ground-penetrating radar could help study ground-nesting species, while flow-through respirometry analysis of nests at different temperatures might help scientists gauge the stress placed on the bee colonies inside. We need both to understand how different colonies cope with the same conditions and how different species cope with different conditions, including whether some bumblebee species have broader thermal neutral zones, affording them more resilience.

"We hope that future scientists may take the ideas we present and apply them to their own research on bumblebee health and conversation," concluded Kevan.

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Nine practices from Native American culture that could help the environment

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the world has experienced profound ecological changes. Wildlife populations have decreased by 69 percent , the result of habitat loss caused by rapid industrialization and changing temperatures. 2023 was the hottest year on record.

Certain ancient practices could mitigate the deleterious effects of global warming. From building seaside gardens to water management in desert terrain, these time-honored practices work with the natural world’s rhythms. Some might even hold the key to a more resilient future and a means of building security for both Indigenous communities and other groups disproportionately impacted by climate change.

Zuni waffle gardens

Jim Enote, 66, has been planting a traditional Zuni waffle garden (or hek’ko:we in the Zuni language) since before he could walk.

“My grandma said I started planting when I was an infant tied to a cradleboard,” said Enote, who grew up on the water-scarce Zuni Pueblo on the southeastern edge of the Colorado plateau. “She put seeds in my baby hands, and I dropped seeds into a hole.”

Enote has continued this ancient garden design, creating rows of sunken squares surrounded by adobe walls that catch and hold water like pools of syrup in a massive earthen waffle. The sustainable design protects crops from wind, reduces erosion and conserves water.

“Water is scarce here and becoming more so every year,” said Enote, referring to the increasing drought and heat caused by climate change. “So, I continue planting waffle gardens.”

‘Good fire’

Before European settlers traveled to the American West, Indigenous people managed the landscape of northern California with “cultural burns” to improve soil quality, spur the growth of particular plants, and create a “healthy and resilient landscape,” according to the National Park Service.

“The Karuk have developed a relationship with fire over the millennia to maintain and steward a balanced ecosystem,” said Bill Tripp, director of natural resources and environmental policy for the Karuk Tribe. “A good portion of the resources that we depend on, in the natural environment, are dependent on fire.”

But in the mid-19th century, Indigenous burning was outlawed. Not only did that cause the Karuk to lose a vital part of their culture, but also, it invited potentially worse wildfires. The burns had reduced the amount of fuel accidental fires feed on.

Podcast episode

“They [forestry agencies] suppressed fire for so long we’re experiencing these massive burns,” said Tripp. A 2023 study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 10 of the largest wildfires in California’s history occurred in the last 20 years.

“And, of course, they’re [fires] being exacerbated by climate change,” he said.

Prescribed burning has returned as state and federal agencies recognize the importance of fire in managing forests. In 2022, California passed legislation affirming the right to cultural fire and is considering another bill (backed by the Karuk Tribe) to reduce the barriers to cultural burns on tribal lands.

According to the Karuk Tribe, “Passage of this bill would be an act of cultural and environmental justice.”

Ancient irrigation

In New Mexico, there are 700 functioning acequias, centuries-old community irrigation systems that have helped the parched state build water resilience.

These acequias — a design from North African, Spanish and Indigenous traditions — were established during the 1600s. The name can refer to both the gravity-fed ditches filled with water and the farmers who collectively manage water. Unlike large-scale irrigation systems, water seepage from unlined acequias helps replenish the water table and reduce aridification by adding water to the landscape. The earthen ditches mimic seasonal streams and expand riparian habitats for numerous native species.

“For one, it’s a very good and sustainable system to take water from one source and put it into the community,” said Jorge Garcia, executive director of the Center for Social Sustainable Systems and secretary of the South Valley Regional Association of Acequias. “Without acequias, none of those ecosystems would exist in the way we know them today.”

“We need to maintain those knowledge systems, especially if we continue through dry years,” said Garcia. “We're going to need all of that to survive.”

The original carbon capture technology

U.S. forests are carbon sinks, sequestering up to 10 percent of nationwide CO2 emissions. Indigenous forestry can play a critical role in reducing global warming by restoring biodiversity and health to these ecosystems, including the management of culturally significant plants, animals and fungi that contribute to healthier soil.

“We know that most of the carbon in the forest is stored in the soil, and healthy soil depends on diversity,” said Stephanie Gutierrez, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the forests and community program director for Ecotrust. “So, when forests are managed for a diversity of species or purpose and management outcomes, this will lead to better climate outcomes as well.”

Yet tribal forestry remains severely underfunded and underutilized on public lands. Indigenous Hawaiians are reintroducing ancient food forests once destroyed by overgrazing, logging and commercial agriculture. These biodiverse edible forests increase food security and build nutrient-dense soils that sequester carbon .

“Just think about that potential if we implemented tribal forestry practices on [not just] tribally owned lands. Adjacent landowners, community forests, national and state forests and parks should also work with tribes to incorporate their techniques,” Gutierrez said.

Dryland farming

The Hopi nation in Arizona receives an average of 10 inches of rain per year — a third of what crop scientists say is necessary to grow corn successfully. Yet Hopi farmers have been cultivating corn and other traditional crops without irrigation for millennia, relying on traditional ecological knowledge rooted in life in the high desert.

“I like to call traditional ecological knowledge the things my grandfather taught me,” said Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a Hopi dryland farmer and academic. Hopi farming practices include passive rainwater harvesting, myriad techniques to retain soil moisture, and a reliance on traditional seed varieties superbly adapted to the desert.

“The fact we are able to raise crops such as maize with only 6 to 10 inches of precipitation as opposed to the standard 33 inches of precipitation is outstanding,” Johnson said.

As climate change drives increased drought and heat in the region, Johnson looks to the knowledge and practices that have survived thousands of years of climate extremes. “Our agriculture is integrated into our cultural belief system that has sustained us for millennia,” he said.

Restoring salmon runs

In recent decades, an Indigenous-led plan has begun to restore salmon runs on the Klamath River.

The salmon began to disappear in 1918 when the first of five dams blocked the path of the Chinook salmon as they made their way upstream to spawn.

“The river was cut in half,” said the Yurok Fisheries Department Director Barry McCovey Jr. of the devastating impact the dam had on the salmon runs that Indigenous people depended on. Chinook salmon populations on the Klamath River have since declined by an estimated 90 percent due to habitat loss, poor water quality and climate change.

“We’re seeing the system slowly heat up,” said McCovey, explaining that elevated water temperatures can lead to increased disease and toxic algae blooms. “You layer climate change on top [of habitat loss], and it’s not good news for salmon or anything that relies on a healthy river.”

After removing the dams and implementing a massive river restoration, the salmon are returning. “The river, in its natural state, had that climate change resiliency built into it,” McCovey said.

Resilient seeds

Seventy-five percent of global crop diversity has been lost in the past century, further threatening food security as agriculture becomes increasingly vulnerable to climate change.

“Our oral histories and the historical record show extreme droughts,” said Aaron Lowden, a seed keeper and traditional farmer from the Acoma Pueblo, a village west of Albuquerque. “This isn’t the first time they’ve [seeds] been stressed out.”

As former program director for Ancestral Lands and now Indigenous Seedkeepers Network program coordinator at the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance , Lowden has successfully returned dozens of varieties of traditional arid-adapted seeds such as Acoma blue corn, Acoma pumpkin, Acoma melon and other crops to his pueblo.

For Lowden, building this biodiversity is both a response to climate change and a step in restoring the health and sovereignty of the Acoma people.

“Our people were systemically removed from these lifestyle ways and practices,” said Lowden, who has seen disproportionately higher rates of hunger , diet-related disease and food insecurity in tribal communities. “For me, it’s been trying to dismantle all of that.”

Swinomish clam gardens

When Swinomish fisherman Joe Williams walked onto the shore of Skagit Bay in Washington to help build the first modern clam garden in the United States, he was overwhelmed with a sense of the past and present colliding. “It was magic, really,” said Williams, who also serves as the community liaison for the Swinomish tribe. “I could feel the presence of my ancestors.”

For thousands of years, the Swinomish built and maintained clam gardens on the coasts of the Pacific Northwest. They constructed rock terraces in low-tide lines to increase shellfish production. The gardens also help the clams weather the impacts of a changing climate by moderating water temperature and expanding habitat threatened by rising seas and ocean acidification.

“That was how [ancestors] provided food for their communities, tending these gardens, living through climate change from then to now,” Williams said.

“We are rediscovering this way of life that sustained our people through past natural climate change events,” he said. “We can utilize the playbook that our ancestors left us in terms of adapting to a fast-changing environment.”

Climate-smart Indigenous design

In the field of architecture, Indigenous knowledge and technologies have long been overlooked. Julia Watson’s book “Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism,” published in 2019, examines Indigenous land management practices that represent a catalogue of sustainable, adaptable and resilient design, from living bridges able to withstand monsoons in northern India to man-made underground streams, called qanats, in what is now Iran.

“Gatekeeping how we technologically innovate for climate resilience by the West can really limit us,” Watson said. “We’re looking for solutions that can adapt to climate extremes and huge fluctuations. These Indigenous technologies evolved from those conditions, molded by huge fluctuations, extreme fire events, water and food scarcity, and flood events.”

Some of the techniques and solutions work with nature instead of attempting to conquer it.

“[Indigenous technologies] are really intelligent and capture the DNA of the ecosystem and communities,” Watson said. “What’s incredibly sophisticated is a technology shaped by man and nature working together.”

More on climate change

Understanding our climate: Global warming is a real phenomenon , and weather disasters are undeniably linked to it . As temperatures rise, heat waves are more often sweeping the globe — and parts of the world are becoming too hot to survive .

What can be done? The Post is tracking a variety of climate solutions , as well as the Biden administration’s actions on environmental issues . It can feel overwhelming facing the impacts of climate change, but there are ways to cope with climate anxiety .

Inventive solutions: Some people have built off-the-grid homes from trash to stand up to a changing climate. As seas rise, others are exploring how to harness marine energy .

What about your role in climate change? Our climate coach Michael J. Coren is answering questions about environmental choices in our everyday lives. Submit yours here. You can also sign up for our Climate Coach newsletter .

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New study calculates climate change’s economic bite will hit about $38 trillion a year by 2049

FILE - People watch the sunset at a park on an unseasonably warm day, Feb. 25, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. A new study says climate change will reduce future global income by about 19% in the next 25 years compared to a fictional world that’s not warming. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

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FILE - A man buys a cool drink from a roadside vendor on a sunny day in Mahawewa, a village north of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Feb. 29, 2024. A new study says climate change will reduce future global income by about 19% in the next 25 years compared to a fictional world that’s not warming. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File)

Climate change will reduce future global income by about 19% in the next 25 years compared to a fictional world that’s not warming, with the poorest areas and those least responsible for heating the atmosphere taking the biggest monetary hit, a new study said.

Climate change’s economic bite in how much people make is already locked in at about $38 trillion a year by 2049, according to Wednesday’s study in the journal Nature by researchers at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. By 2100 the financial cost could hit twice what previous studies estimate.

“Our analysis shows that climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world, also in highly-developed ones such as Germany and the U.S., with a projected median income reduction of 11% each and France with 13%,” said study co-author Leonie Wenz, a climate scientist and economist.

These damages are compared to a baseline of no climate change and are then applied against overall expected global growth in gross domestic product, said study lead author Max Kotz, a climate scientist. So while it’s 19% globally less than it could have been with no climate change, in most places, income will still grow, just not as much because of warmer temperatures.

For the past dozen years, scientists and others have been focusing on extreme weather such as heat waves, floods, droughts, storms as the having the biggest climate impact. But when it comes to financial hit the researchers found “the overall impacts are still mainly driven by average warming, overall temperature increases,” Kotz said. It harms crops and hinders labor production, he said.

“Those temperature increases drive the most damages in the future because they’re really the most unprecedented compared to what we’ve experienced historically,” Kotz said. Last year, a record-hot year, the global average temperature was 1.35 degrees Celsius (2.43 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The globe has not had a month cooler than 20th century average since February 1979.

A man buys a cool drink from a roadside vendor on a sunny day in Mahawewa, a village north of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Feb. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File)

In the United States, the southeastern and southwestern states get economically pinched more than the northern ones with parts of Arizona and New Mexico taking the biggest monetary hit, according to the study. In Europe, southern regions, including parts of Spain and Italy, get hit harder than places like Denmark or northern Germany.

Only Arctic adjacent areas — Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden — benefit, Kotz said.

It also means countries which have historically produced fewer greenhouse gas emissions per person and are least able to financially adapt to warming weather are getting the biggest financial harms too, Kotz said.

The world’s poorest countries will suffer 61% bigger income loss than the richest ones, the study calculated.

“It underlies some of the injustice elements of climate,” Kotz said.

This new study looked deeper than past research, examining 1,600 global areas that are smaller than countries, took several climate factors into account and examined how long climate economic shocks last, Kotz said. The study examined past economic impacts on average global domestic product per person and uses computer simulations to look into the future to come up with their detailed calculations.

The study shows that the economic harms over the next 25 years are locked in with emission cuts producing only small changes in the income reduction. But in the second half of this century that’s when two different possible futures are simulated, showing that cutting carbon emissions now really pays off because of how the heat-trapping gases accumulate, Kotz said.

If the world could curb carbon pollution and get down to a trend that limits warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, which is the upper limit of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, then the financial hit will stay around 20% in global income, Kotz said. But if emissions increase in a worst case scenario, the financial wallop will be closer to 60%, he said.

That shows that the public shouldn’t think it’s a financial “doomsday” and nothing can be done, Kotz said.

Still, it’s worse than a 2015 study that predicted a worst case income hit of about 25% by the end of the century.

Marshall Burke, the Stanford University climate economist who wrote the 2015 study, said this new research’s finding that the economic damage ahead is locked in and large “makes a lot of sense.”

Burke, who wasn’t part of this study, said he has some issues with some of the technical calculations “so I wouldn’t put a ton of weight on their specific numerical estimates, but I think the big picture is basically right.”

The conclusions are on the high end compared to other recent studies, but since climate change goes for a long time and economic damage from higher temperatures keep compounding, they “add up to very large numbers,” said University of California Davis economist and environmental studies professor Frances Moore, who wasn’t part of the study. That’s why fighting climate change clearly passes economists’ tests of costs versus benefits, she said.

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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Five Things to Know About Biden’s New Power Plant Rules

The administration issued a major climate regulation aimed at virtually eliminating carbon emissions from coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels and a driver of global warming.

By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman

The Biden administration has effectively moved to end the use of coal to keep the lights on in America. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency issued four major regulations designed to slash multiple forms of toxic and planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s dirtiest source of electricity.

The most consequential of the new rules is aimed at nearly eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from the coal plants. The other three rules would cut the emission of mercury, a neurotoxin linked to developmental damage in children; restrict the seepage of toxic ash from coal plants into water supplies; and reduce the discharge of wastewater from the plants.

Once implemented, the rules are widely expected to result in the shuttering of nearly all the nation’s remaining coal plants by 2040.

Here’s what to know about President Biden’s new moves to clean up coal power .

Are the New Rules a Big Deal?

In a word, yes.

Electric utilities have already had to comply for decades with other environmental regulations. Operators of coal plants have been forced to install technology like “scrubbers” to remove toxins, like mercury, or to invest in safer ways to dispose of coal ash and wastewater from their facilities.

But the new standards are by far the most sweeping, and the industry says they are impossible to meet. There is no widely used technology available to substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plant smokestacks. There is one very expensive technique, called carbon capture and sequestration, where emissions are trapped before they reach the atmosphere and are stored underground. But that process has never been deployed in any coal plant in the United States. The cheapest way to comply may be to just shut down the nation’s roughly 200 remaining coal plants.

When Do the New Rules Take Effect?

Under the plan, existing coal plants that are slated to operate through or beyond 2039 must reduce their greenhouse emissions 90 percent by 2032. Plants that are scheduled to close by 2039 would have to reduce their emissions 16 percent by 2030. Plants that retire before 2032 would not be subject to the rules.

But the aging nature of the country’s existing coal plants means that many of the facilities could shut down before they would have to meet the most stringent limits. More than 200 coal plants closed in the past decade, putting the average age of remaining plants at almost 50. The life span of an American coal plant is about 60 years, and roughly one-quarter of the existing 200 plants are already slated to retire within the next five years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Where Are These Coal-Fired Power Plants?

Coal plants are scattered throughout the country , with the largest numbers in Pennsylvania, Texas, Indiana, Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia and Iowa.

How Much Electricity Comes From Coal?

Coal use in the United States has plummeted since 1990, when it produced half of the nation’s electricity. Last year, coal was responsible for 16.2 percent of electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Renewable energy — wind, solar, hydropower, biomass and geothermal combined — has already overtaken coal and made up 21.4 percent of power generation in 2023. Natural gas was responsible for 43.1 percent of the nation’s electricity.

Can the New Rules Be Overturned?

Yes, in two ways.

Republican-led states and the coal industry are all but certain to challenge the rules in court. The Supreme Court has already restricted the way in which the E.P.A. can regulate power plants and the conservative-leaning court could further throttle the administration’s efforts.

A second Trump administration also could spell trouble for the regulations. Former President Donald J. Trump has vowed to promote fossil fuels and to roll back Mr. Biden’s regulations if he is elected in November.

Coral Davenport covers energy and environment policy, with a focus on climate change, for The Times. More about Coral Davenport

Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities. More about Lisa Friedman

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For cicadas, it's safety in numbers. Is climate change throwing off their timing?

A cicada in sync with its brood is a cicada with a chance.

The insects’ synchronized emergence is an evolutionary strategy, scientists say. Birds, raccoons and other predators can eat only so many of them. So the more cicadas emerge together, the better the odds that more will live on to reproduce and pass along their genes. 

“They have the safety-in-numbers strategy,” said Chris Simon, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut who studies the insects.

The rare cicadas that lose track of time and emerge without their kin, by contrast, are sometimes called “stragglers.” Most small groups of stragglers get snapped up and don’t survive to reproduce. 

“Natural selection has favored individuals who wait, because the ones who don’t wait get eaten,” Simon said.

This summer, the number of periodical cicadas is expected to be extra large, as two broods emerge at the same time. The last time these two emerged together was in 1803. Tens of billions of the insects are predicted to surface . Users of the Cicada Safari app , which is designed to report cicada sightings and help scientists track the insects, have tallied more than 1,000 sightings in Georgia and hundreds in North Carolina and Alabama. 

Periodical cicadas fall into two categories of brood, or age class: those that take 13 years to emerge and those that take 17 years. Temperature seems to trigger when they pop out, but how exactly they set their internal clocks or communicate when to come up from the ground together remains somewhat mysterious. 

What’s more, scientists say they’ve noticed some changes in the insects’ rhythms, which has led to hypotheses that rising temperatures may be rewiring the internal clocks of some periodical cicadas.

Gene Kritsky, an entomologist and cicada expert at Mount St. Joseph University in Ohio, said that as average temperatures have climbed higher because of global warming, the dates of emergence have shifted earlier in the calendar year.

“Cicadas are insects of the climate,” he said, adding, “They’re now emerging almost 10 days to two weeks earlier than they did in 1940.” 

John Cooley, a University of Connecticut cicada researcher who maps cicada broods, said he expects the bugs’ range to shift northward as the climate warms and the plant species they prefer shift north.

He also noted an increase in reports of stragglers, a trend that is intriguing researchers. 

“If you look at the data, we definitely have more reports of straggling now than we ever did in the past,” Cooley said. “That could be because there’s more straggling than there was in the past or because we have the internet and if you see this strange bug in the yard, you can send it in.”

Simon said Brood XIII, which is emerging this year, produced a record number of stragglers in 2020.

“This time four years ago, there were so many that they were out for the entire four weeks,” she said. “They weren’t completely eaten. They were able to sing and lay eggs. So they could be forming a new population.”

“They’re definitely responding to climate warming and growing season length,” Simon added.

Simon has a theory about how climate change may be playing a role: She thinks rising temperatures are lengthening the growing seasons of the plants that cicadas feed on, supercharging the insects’ development underground. That, in turn, may cause many more “stragglers” to emerge early. Eventually, she said, the entire population will adapt and shift timing.  

Simon predicted that 17-year cicada broods will shift to become 13-year cicadas. And 13-year cicadas might emerge every nine years. 

If the theory proves true, it would be yet another example of how climate change is disrupting the regular cadences that have governed the natural world.  

Periodical cicadas, which are harmless to people, are distributed across the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. Unlike annual cicada species, which reappear every year, the emergence of cicadas like the ones popping out now in the Southeast is a special event. The U.S. is home to 12 broods that emerge on 17-year cycles and three broods that have 13-year cycles.  

During their years underground, periodical cicadas spend their time feeding on plant roots. Once they’re above ground, they participate in a song-filled mating ritual, trying to lay eggs before they become lunch for a bird or a raccoon.

Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly how cicadas select a particular span of days to emerge together. 

Although temperature clearly plays a role, ground temperatures are rarely uniform in cicada habitat, and the insects are often buried at different layers in the soil. A study this year said there’s not an obvious explanation for the success of cicadas’ coordination and suggested that scientists should investigate whether they can communicate beneath the ground. 

“Nobody’s ever studied this,” Simon said.

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at [email protected].

Watch CBS News

Bumblebee babies are dying in their nests because global temperatures are getting too warm, study finds

By Li Cohen

May 3, 2024 / 10:32 AM EDT / CBS News

Scientists have been warning for years that bumblebee populations are declining , posing a risk to the vital role that pollinators have in helping maintain food and plants across the world. New research has found a "major factor" in why. 

The answer? It's getting way too hot. 

Like humans, bumblebees' bodies thrive best within certain temperature thresholds. Based on 180 years worth of literature, University of Guelph environmental science professor Peter Kevan and his team found that bumblebees are most likely to survive up to 36 degrees Celsius, or 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Their optimal temperature range for development is between 30 and 32 Celsius, or between 86 and 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the species. 

Bumblebees do have the ability to thermoregulate, meaning they can somewhat control the heat throughout their bodies. But Kevan said that natural skill does not seem to be enough when it comes to their nests and the larvae that rely on them to grow. 

The optimal temperature range for bumblebee nests is between 82.4 and 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit. And when the heat rises just slightly higher to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, Kevan said it becomes "lethal, despite the remarkable capacity of bumblebees to thermoregulate."

"We can surmise that nest temperatures above the mid-30s Celsius would likely be highly detrimental and that above about 35 Celsius death would occur, probably quite quickly," Kevan said.

Average global temperatures have been significantly rising in recent decades. Last year was the hottest ever recorded and 2024 has only seen back-to-back heat extremes, with many cities across the world seeing record-high temperatures in winter. The situation is only expected to worsen as the continued burning of fossil fuels emits gases that trap heat from the sun, amplifying temperatures. 

"Excessively high temperatures are more harmful to most animals and plants than cool temperatures," Kevan said. "When conditions are cool, organisms that do not metabolically regulate their body temperatures simply slow down, but when temperatures get too high metabolic processes start to break down and cease. Death ensues quickly."

It's not the only reason bumblebee populations are declining – habitat loss, pesticides, diseases and wildflower loss are also factors. There are more than 250 bumblebee species worldwide, and in the U.S. alone, there are 49 species of bumblebees. In recent years,  two species have gone extinct, according to the U.S. Forest Service. 

But Kevan's team found that the heat seems to be difficult for bumblebee species to adapt to, leading to their development of dangerous heat stress. 

And with bumblebees, a detriment to one can easily become a detriment to all. The research, published in Frontiers in Bee Science on Friday, explains that bumblebee colonies are "superorganisms" in which overall survival is collective and depends on the colony's ability to produce offspring as a whole. Essentially, even if some bumblebees can take the heat, the ones that can't pose a threat to the colony's future. And if it's so hot that the baby bees are dying before they exit their larval stage, "the whole colony suffers," the press release says. 

"Excessive heat is clearly a major issue for perhaps most species of bumblebees," the study says, "and it is the factor considered in most detail for the effects of climatic warming."

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• Environment

Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.

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