Climate change is a primary cause of Buffalo's recent weather woes
Smokey air you can see and smell. High temperatures. Yuck. Blame it on climate change, brought to you by the fossil fuel industry and the "drill baby drill" crowd. It’s been a couple of miserable weeks for. . .
Smokey air you can see and smell. High temperatures. Yuck. Blame it on climate change, brought to you by the fossil fuel industry and the "drill baby drill" crowd. It’s been a couple of miserable weeks for weather, first with the heat dome, then the smoke drifting in from wildfires in Canada. More than one factor is at play, but climate change is certainly a significant one. ReportsCBS News:Canadian officials openly blame human-caused climate change for the shifting warmth, snowpack and drought patterns that underpin its shiftingwildfireseasons. U. S. experts told CBS News that while climate change doesn’t necessarily tell the entire story of any single fire season — factors likeforest managementalso play a role — its fingerprints on this one have been difficult to miss. To whichInside Climate News adds:Recent researchshows climate extremes, like the deadly 2021 heat dome over the Pacific Northwest and this summer’s early heat wave in Europe that killed more than 5,000 people, would have been impossible without human-causedwarming. Climate change is a man-made disaster created first and foremost by the fossil fuel industry, aided and abetted these days by Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans. Trump’s response to all of this is tothreaten Canada with tariffs. How unserious. Subscribe to our free weekly newslettersSpeaking of unserious, Pete Hegsethwants to test the testosterone levels of U. S. soldiers. Really? Meanwhile, CNN reportsthe military under Hegseth has held off conducting a standard intelligence reviewof the March bombing that killed 120 schoolgirls in Iran. Is there a bigger mess in local government than the Buffalo Board of Education?Superintendent Pascal Mubenga has resigned in the face ofallegations of sexual harassment and abuse of authority, while board member Lewis “Muki” Hawkins is under investigation of claims of harassing, threatening and retaliatory conduct. This follows theresignation of another school board member, Cindi McEachon, who cited the district’s dysfunction in stepping down. David Robinson writes for The Buffalo News thatour local economy is in a “no hire, no fire” phase. While the region had its best month for job growth this year during June – adding 1,100 jobs – that gain mostly offsets some of the softness we have endured in other months. So, in the big picture, the Buffalo Niagara job market is in the same place that it was in October, according to new data released Thursday by the state Labor Department. “We’re just plodding along,” said Timothy Glass, the Labor Department’s regional economist in Buffalo. Ken Kruly, in his Politics and Other Stuff, reports how much money local and state candidates haveraised and spent on their upcoming elections. No one is sitting on more money than the$1,268,061Tim Kennedy has in his state Senate campaign committee. Among active state candidates, Sen. Rob Ortt leads with$537,930. An independent review of New York’s state prisons finds themstuck in a brutal past, New York Focus reports. While lawmakers and the prison agency commissioner preach rehabilitation, guards still see themselves as stewards of punishment, the report revealed. Many adhere to an “us versus them” mentality, and corrections officers perceived to be soft on prisoners are branded “inmate lovers” and ostracized, it said. It found that officers are able to disregard rules around use of force — by obstructing the view of body cameras, for instance, and relying too heavily on pepper spray. And DOCCS does a poor job of tracking violent incidents: Guards mostly use pen and paper to submit use of force reports, which often exclude key data points, making it difficult to detect trends and hotspots. Anne Applebaumgivesher take on Lindsay Grahamin the Atlantic:When Trump won, Graham understood, as did so many others, that he would have to make some important choices. For a while, he went silent. In the spring of 2016, I saw him at one of those conferences in Europe. He seemed too depressed to speak. But then, like many other Republicans—and, more important, like many other people who have lived under political occupation or experienced radical regime change—he made the decision to abandon his previous ideals, to bury the patriotism that was once so important to him, and to become, instead, a loud, opportunisticcollaborator. Thelatest Doonesburylistens in on a White House briefing. Meanwhile, a salute toPat Oliphant, who has died at the age of 90. One of the great editorial cartoonists of his era. Here’s asampling of his work. The Platters sing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” on Ed Sullivan. posted 12 hours ago - July 20, 2026