Texas Floods Could Worsen Housing Market Issues
www.newsweek.com

... The flash floods that claimed the lives of at least 135 people in Texas Hill Country on July 4 also impacted thousands of properties that stood along their path of death and destruction, according to estimates by researchers at data-driven tech company Cotality.

Using rainfall, stream gage, and property data, Cotality experts recreated the footprint of the flash floods in central Texas, finding that over 38,600 homes in nine counties deemed eligible for individual and public assistance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are likely to have been damaged during that tragic weekend. ...

The cost of home insurance has skyrocketed in recent years in Texas, reaching an average annual cost of $4,585 this year -- 117 percent more than the national average of $2,110, according to NerdWallet.

Premiums are so expensive that many homeowners cannot afford them, and some are choosing to renounce paying extra for flood coverage, which is not included under the standard homeowner policy. ...

Southwestern drought likely to continue through 2100, research finds
arstechnica.com

... The drought in the Southwestern US is likely to last for the rest of the 21st century and potentially beyond as global warming shifts the distribution of heat in the Pacific Ocean, according to a study published last week led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. ...

UN's top court says failing to protect planet from climate change could violate international law
apnews.com

... The United Nations' top court in a landmark advisory opinion Wednesday said countries could be in violation of international law if they fail to take measures to protect the planet from climate change, and nations harmed by its effects could be entitled to reparations.

Advocates immediately cheered the International Court of Justice opinion on nations' obligations to tackle climate change and the consequences they may face if they don't. ...

Trump's latest plan to undo the holy grail' of climate rules: Never mind the science
www.politico.com

... The administration's approach, led by White House and Justice Department officials, would focus on a legal rather than a scientific rationale for repealing the so-called endangerment finding.

The Trump administration plans to argue that federal law does not require agencies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, in a move designed to derail virtually all U.S. limits on climate pollution, according to three people familiar with the upcoming proposal. ...

OpEd: The real reason why Trump is killing the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawai'i
www.theregister.com

... When you don't like the message, what do you do? You shoot the messenger, of course.

That's the strategy being employed by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration as it works to avoid, ignore, or bury data that prove the reality of anthropogenic global warming and its evil twin climate change.

Case in point: The Trump administration recently released its draft budget [PDF] for the country's premier analytical agency focused on Earth systems, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Among the many cuts to NOAA research proposed in the draft was one that would represent a death blow to the Mauna Loa Observatory, the source of the data fueling the most iconic chart in all of climate research, the time-honored and justly venerated Keeling Curve.

This chart, begun by young researcher Charles David Keeling way back in 1958, chronicles the seasonal rise and fall -- and unrelenting upward spiral -- of the most abundant and consequential greenhouse gas heating our planet: carbon dioxide (CO2). ...