The Guardian reviews a recent report from the World Meteorological Association, which concludes that the Earth is heating up faster than previously expected. It is now a statistical possibility (luckily only 1%) that the average annual temperature on the planet could reach 2°C above preindustrial levels before 2030. This would require multiple natural phenomena (such as El Niño) to occur simultaneously, but the fact that this is even possible underscores how rapidly the world is warming. One of the lead authors of the report noted that 2025 is likely to be one of the three hottest years on record. The Washington Post notes that, “by 2050, more than 5 billion people — probably more than half the planet’s population — will be exposed to at least a month of health-threatening extreme heat when outdoors in the sun, up from 4 billion in 2030 and 2 billion at the turn of the century.”

Right on cue, blistering heat waves struck the eastern U.S. and southern Europe. The Washington Post reports that Portugal was expecting a high of 109°F, and authorities were issuing health and safety warnings for people living there and in Spain, France and Italy. The heat is being enhanced by marine warming in the Mediterranean, and by an air mass that caused extraordinary heat in the eastern U.S. before moving across the Atlantic. The Post describes record-breaking heat in the U.S. that was combined with very high humidity, exposing 265 million people to dangerous conditions. The heat and humidity were also driven by above-average ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic. These ocean temperatures are expected to contribute to a summer of high humidity in the eastern U.S.

Demonstrating the global nature of the problem, the first-ever heat advisory was issued for central Alaska, where Grist reports that temperatures are set to climb into the mid-to-high 80s. While this may not seem hot to many people, this is well above normal highs for communities that are habituated to much lower temperatures and have no air conditioning. In fact, buildings are carefully constructed to keep heat in, and so they can turn into ovens with 22 hours of sunlight.

CNN explains how climate change is making heat waves more common, intense and longer-lasting. Heatwaves are also occurring over a longer period each year, and are more serious as they are now often accompanied by more humidity. Nighttime temperatures have been warming faster than daytime, which exacerbates the health consequences as people are unable to cool down.

In The Atlantic, Adam Serwer describes the broad-based attack on knowledge by the Trump Administration, whose actions are leading the U.S. into a new Dark Age. He notes that the list of government-supported research triumphs — now targets of Trump — “is practically endless: commercial flight, radar, microchips, spaceflight, advanced prosthetics, lactose-free milk, MRI machines.” Agricultural, medical and information-technology advances, including the Internet, GPS and touchscreens, were also the products of government-supported research. By suppressing inquiry and data, Trump is also attacking the mechanisms of accountability, as accountability requires information, and lack of public knowledge saps demand for change. The consequences are alarming: “this purge will dramatically impair the ability to solve problems, prevent disease, design policy, inform the public, and make technological advancements. Like the catastrophic loss of knowledge in Western Europe that followed the fall of Rome, it is a self-inflicted calamity. All that matters to Trumpists is that they can reign unchallenged over the ruins.”

The New Republic also focuses on Trump’s war on science, noting that if an enemy wished to weaken American economic, military and political strength, this is what they would do. The religious support for “this anti-rationalist ideology” cannot be ignored, as “a large subset of the Christian nationalist movement, for instance, claims climate science is not merely a hoax but a secular plot to undermine religion.” These forces are allied with the “tech bros” who think they have the science they need “and AI will do the rest.” This anti-science fervor, combined with “unprecedented levels of sheer incompetence,” is sowing the seeds of health, climate and other crises that will erupt over the next 20 years but could have been avoided.

The Trump Administration’s effort to crush science at American universities is changing our connection to global research. The New York Times reports that foreign students and early-career scientists are finding that positions in the United States are unavailable or unattractive. One German scientist who has taught in the U.S. provided an interesting observation. “The acceptance of risk and seemingly crazy leaps of inspiration woven into American attitudes help produce a research environment that nowhere else can quite match. The result has been decades of innovation, economic growth and military advances. There is something very deep in [American] culture that makes it very special. It’s almost like a magical ingredient.” An Indian PhD candidate noted that American science has long been revered abroad. “It is sad to see that the hero is coming down from the pedestal,” she said.

The New York Times reports on new research that concludes “the world’s glaciers are on track to shrink significantly over hundreds of years.” How much ice is lost is still a function of how much warming occurs, and limiting warming to 1.5°C would keep twice as much ice on the planet than a temperature rise of 2.7°C, which is the current trajectory. While the projections of most climate models stop around 2100, the world’s large glaciers will take hundreds or even thousands of years to respond to rising temperatures. The authors note that melting glaciers increase the risk of deadly floods and landslides. Indeed, Reuters describes the recent collapse of a glacier in Switzerland that demolished most of a mountain village. The video of the collapse is astonishing. Luckily scientists were able to predict the instability, and village inhabitants were evacuated.

The New York Times reports on the growing sale of hybrid vehicles, which are taking market share away from EVs. Car buyers are responding to higher mileage with a lower price tag. “In the first three months of this year, hybrids — including cars that can and cannot be plugged in — made up about 14 percent of all light vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Department of Energy. That was around twice the market share of fully electric vehicles in that period.”

Canary Media notes that, despite the challenges facing EVs, in southern California “the transition away from diesel trucks, which emit a disproportionate share of the transportation sector’s planet-warming and health-harming emissions, is moving forward in the face of federal policy obstacles. Two big all-electric charging depots opened in April to serve clean trucks operating in the region, which is home to the busiest seaport complex in the country and is the epicenter of U.S. electric truck adoption.” These charging stations also serve as fancy truck stops, with food, drink, restrooms, Wi-Fi and 24-hour security and customer support. These developments are part of larger plans for an electric-truck corridor on I-10 from California to Texas.

Inside Climate News explains that, this summer, the Texas grid faces the lowest probability of blackouts in years, despite industrial electrification, hotter temperatures and other factors driving increased demand for electricity. The reason for this is the expansion of solar with battery storage throughout the state. The grid added 9,600 MW of capacity over the last year, which includes 5,395 MW of solar, 253 MW of wind and 3,821 MW of energy storage. The heat in Texas will be relentless, as the past three summers were three of the six hottest summers since 1895. The head of the Texas grid operator stated that the grid “is as reliable as it has ever been and it is as ready (as ever) for the challenges of extreme weather.”

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