It sure seems like extreme weather is increasingly common: floods, droughts, extreme rainfall, powerful snowstorms, hurricanes and so on. But we tend to focus on recent events and often give them undue emphasis. So, it is reasonable to ask whether extreme weather really is more common these days.
In 2017, the United States spent a record $306 billion on weather and climate-related disasters, making it the costliest and most damaging year on record. The wildfires out west, Hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Harvey, the Minnesota hailstorm, and the midwest drought are just some of the costly examples. Officials say that already-bloated figure will increase further in the coming years as temperatures rise.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted to ban expanded polystyrene, the foam plastic used in food packaging, packing peanuts, coffee cups, and more. It is one of the most extensive bans of this type in the U.S.
Each year, more than 25 million shipping containers enter the U.S. All too often, highly destructive forest pests are lurking among their imported goods. Wood boring insects arrive as stowaways in wood packaging, such as pallets and crates. Other forest pests and pathogens hitchhike in on foreign-reared plants bound for American nurseries.
