Co-Author of Chilling Climate Change Report Warns of Imminent Threat to Economy
*By Christian Smith*
If you didn't find this weekend's dramatic climate report unsettling, read it again.
Andrew Light, distinguished senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and co-author of the report, said on Cheddar Monday that the effects of climate change are imminent ー unless the federal government acts now.
"It is threatening almost every sector of the economy ー of course more so those sectors that are dependent on natural resources," Light said.
"We should start moving with the most effective and efficient policies that can begin switching our energy sources in earnest from fossil-fuel based to non-fossil fuel based, and also begin to lead the entire country on measures towards adaptation and resilience."
The Trump administration released its dire findings on the Friday after Thanksgiving, timing many have called suspicious ー among them, Politico reporter Matt Daily, who thinks officials meant to bury the news on a holiday weekend.
"I don't know if burying it on Black Friday was a very successful tactic," Daily told Cheddar, noting that the attempt to downplay the news only handed environmental advocates a new line of criticism against the administration.
The [National Climate Assessment](https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/), which is required by federal law to be published every four years, found that climate change will cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century and will endanger thousands of American lives each year. The White House issued a [statement](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/25/climate/trump-climate-report.html) saying that the report, which was instituted under the Obama administration, was "largely based on the most extreme scenario” of global warming.
Daily disagreed.
"That's a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly," Daily said. "The report offers quite a wide range of what's possibly coming our way by the end of the century."
Light noted that some states and cities were already moving in the right direction ー but he added the federal government needs to take the lead.
"The U.S. federal government is not leading even though we are seeing states and cities do quite a lot," Light said.
State and county taxpayers will be asked to commit a record $850 million in public funds toward construction of the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium as part of a 30-year lease agreement.
As the war enters its second month, Russia may be changing course on its strategy in Ukraine. After suffering heavy losses, forces around the capital city of Kyiv appear to have stopped offensive operations and are now shifting their focus to taking over the south and east of the country. Terrell Starr, a foreign affairs reporter at The Atlantic Council, breaks down the latest from Kyiv. "Logistically this war has been a disaster. They have far more troops than [the] Ukrainian army has. What they don't have is good planning. The planning has been incredibly poor," he said.
Catching you up on what you Need to Know on Mar 28, 2022, with peace talks resuming in Ukraine as early as today, Colorado wildfires causing evacuations, Shanghai, China, ramping up restrictions once again, the Oscars debacle between Will Smith and Chris Rock, and more.
Volatility continues to be the name of the game when it comes to crypto. Bitcoin, the most valuable digital token, saw a small jump today - one of several small rallies throughout the month of March. Caitlin Cook, vice president of crypto education company Onramp Academy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
