“There are dozens of climate models, and for decades they’ve agreed on what it would take to heat the planet by about 3° Celsius. It’s an outcome that would be disastrous—flooded cities, agricultural failures, deadly heat—but there’s been a grim steadiness in the consensus among these complicated climate simulations,” Bloomberg reports.

“Then last year, unnoticed in plain view, some of the models started running very hot. The scientists who hone these systems used the same assumptions about greenhouse-gas emissions as before and came back with far worse outcomes. Some produced projections in excess of 5°C, a nightmare scenario.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s wife appeared to publicly break with her husband over support for Greta Thunberg’s climate change activism, Politico reports.

Said actress Louise Linton, in a now-deleted Instagram post: “I stand with Greta on this issue. (I don’t have a degree in economics either).”

“Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sharply criticized the financial credentials of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday, saying the 17-year-old should study economics at college before lecturing the U.S. on fossil fuel investments,” CNBC reports.

Said Mnuchin: “Is she the chief economist or who is she? I’m confused… After she goes and studies economics in college she can come back and explain that to us.”

“The Trump administration will finalize a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands and other water bodies, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens,” the New York Times reports.

“From Day 1 of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s ‘Waters of the United States’ regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in the coming weeks, is the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling and endangered species protections.”

Related: What are forever chemicals?

President Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he didn’t know anything about Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg but called her “very angry.”

“President Trump bragged Tuesday about the American economy and rejected warnings that the world is barreling toward an environmental crisis, a key concern at this year’s World Economic Forum,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

Said Trump: “We must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.”

In an annual letter to CEOs, BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said: “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” CNBC reports.

He added: “But awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.”

Charles Blow: “I can’t quite remember the moment when I became radicalized about protecting the environment and the planet, but it happened last year. That’s late in life, I know. At 49 years old, it is very possible and even likely that I have more years behind me than in front of me, but that is when it happened.”

“Before that, I didn’t do more than was required by law.”

Also, read my wife’s blog, Green That Life. She had some really good insights from our recent vacation in Iceland.

“Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me?”

— Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, quoted by NBC News, on what she would say to President Trump.

“Continued deforestation and other fast-moving changes in the Amazon threaten to turn parts of the rainforest into savanna, devastate wildlife and release billions of tons carbon into the atmosphere,” the Washington Post reports.

“Combined with recent news that the Arctic permafrost may be beginning to fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and that Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at an accelerating pace, it’s the latest hint that important parts of the climate system may be moving toward irreversible changes at a pace that defies earlier predictions.”

Said scientists Thomas Lovejoy and Carlos Nobre: “The precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we. Today, we stand exactly in a moment of destiny: The tipping point is here, it is now.”

Michelle Obama tweeted some encouraging words for Greta Thunberg:

“Don’t let anyone dim your light. Like the girls I’ve met in Vietnam and all over the world, you have so much to offer us all. Ignore the doubters and know that millions of people are cheering you on.”

Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was named Time magazine’s 2019 “Person of the Year,” the Today Show reports.

Time: “For decades, researchers and activists have struggled to get world leaders to take the climate threat seriously. But this year, an unlikely teenager somehow got the world’s attention.”

President Trump ordered a federal review of water efficiency standards in bathroom fixtures and complained that “people are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once” in homes with low-flow appliances that aim to conserve water, Bloomberg reports.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attending the UN climate change conference in Madrid this week and told reporters she would not discuss the impeachment inquiry while she was abroad, NBC News reports.

Washington Post: “Global temperatures are on pace to rise as much as 3.9 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, according to the United Nations’ annual ‘emissions gap’ report, which assesses the difference between the world’s current path and the changes needed to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.”

“Should that pace continue, scientists say, the result could be widespread, catastrophic effects: Coral reefs, already dying in some places, would probably dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Some coastal cities, already wrestling with flooding, would be constantly inundated by rising seas. In much of the world, severe heat, already intense, could become unbearable.