The draft platform committed Hillary Clinton to a carbon tax, a climate test for future pipelines and tighter rules on fracking. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP

The Democrats’ draft platform won’t be ratified until the convention, but climate activists are already hailing it as a ‘monumental victory’...

Obilić, 5km outside the Kosovan capital Pristina, is surrounded on three sides by two Tito-era coal power plants and a coal mine. It has some of the worst air pollution in Europe. Photograph: Karl Mathiesen

The World Bank is poised to support a new coal plant that would modernize Kosovo’s creaking energy infrastructure, but also lock the young nation into a future powered by a regressive fossil fuel...

(Pew Global Attitudes Project)

Different cultures span the globe — and with that comes different sentiments about fear...

Computer model projection of high temperatures on Thursday, July 21, 2016. Image: Weatherbell analytics

A well-advertised, intense and long-lasting heat wave is gearing up across the middle of the U.S. on Monday, and is not forecast to ebb until at least a week from now...

Satellite image showing the smoke from forest fires in Russia, with hot spots marked in red. Image: NASA worldview

It is fire season in Siberia, which means vast tracts of boreal forests are ablaze. As occurred in 2015, smoke is turning skies a bright orange across eastern Russia, China and other downwind areas...

SUMMARY: In “best of” Radio Ecoshock interviews, Dr. Tim Garrett says civilization must collapse to avert devastating climate change. Dr. Peter Ward says Nature may not have friendly plans for us.

You want the big picture? Here it comes. I’ve picked two of my favorite power interviews from years of interviewing scientists, authors and experts.

Mary Robinson says new UK tax breaks for oil and gas will cost taxpayers billions. Photograph: Jean-Marc Ferré/UN Photo

Climate change envoy singles out both countries for subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and says the UK has lost its position as a climate leader...

Large moulin on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet. Two recent studies of ice sheet motion and melting suggest that surface melting can produce dramatic drainage and seismic shifting on the Greenland Ice Sheet. But, surface melt that eventually lubricates the bottom of the ice sheet and accelerates its slide over bedrock may not be enough, by itself, to cause catastrophic loss of ice sheet mass: photo via Science Express, 17 April 2008

The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting at a near-record pace, thanks to some unusually warm weather and early season surges...

This summer’s record-breaking temperatures hasten glacier, permafrost melt...

House Science Committe Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) is coming to the defense of fossil fuel companies that are accused of deceiving the public on climate change to maximize their own profits. Photograph: Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images

The fossil fuel industry copied Big Tobacco’s racketeering playbook. They’re following the same path to court, where tobacco lost...

Computer model projection of the "misery index" of heat and humidity on July 18, 2016. Image: http://earth.nullschool.net

A noteworthy weather pattern will evolve next week across the lower 48 states, featuring a massive and intense area of high pressure sprawled out across the center of the country, like an annoying partner taking up the entire bed while snoring loudly. 

It's been clear for several days that a prolonged heat wave is coming, particularly for the Plains, portions of the Midwest and Southeast...

credit: Pinterest

A historic flood event continues in China, where torrential monsoon rains along the Yangtze River Valley in central and eastern China since early summer have killed 237 people, left 93 people missing, and caused at least $22 billion in damage, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Thursday...

Temperature difference from normal January-May 2016. (NOAA)

It is perhaps the most frustrating response I encounter as a meteorologist when I write about climate change. It stems from doubts about climate change or the view that it’s a political issue, one that shouldn’t contaminate straight weather reporting.

“Stick to the weather,” people say...

(Photos: Getty Images; photo-illustration: Marc Fusco)

Alberta, home to the tar sands, is about to see a renewable energy boom—and former oil field workers are spearheading the effort...

Credit: AntonioMartin / Wikimedia Commons

A leaked marketing strategy document prepared by oil behemoth Shell and revealed by EnergyDesk shows that Shell hopes to build brand loyalty, especially amongst young people, by repositioning itself as a leader in building a carbon neutral economy — even while the company plans to do nothing to actually rein in emissions from its operations or its product...

A CL-415 water scooping aircraft drops water on the Tetlin River Fire along the Tetlin, Alaska on June 18, 2016. Image: Isaac Hofstetter/Alaska Division of Forestry/AP

Alaska has seen a years-long streak of astonishing warmth, with the warmest year-to-date and warmest June capping it off so far this year...

U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo file:Wikimedia Commons

The government is being warned to prepare for an impending stream of refugees from the Pacific as low-lying atolls are swamped by sea-level rise over the coming decades...

There is reason to eye the ocean warily, as these men do as super typhoon Nepartak approaches the coast of Taiwan last week, as global warming increases the chances of stronger, more damaging storms. Credit: Reuters

The currents are releasing 20 percent more heat than 50 years ago. Japan, China and Korea will warm faster and can expect more storminess, researchers say...