© Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty ImagesMelting permafrost in Alaska.
In a dire new report released Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency says there are several climate indicators signaling that global warming is intensifying.
In the report - which was delayed three years by the Trump administration - the EPA says there are "multiple lines of evidence that climate change is occurring now and here in the U.S., affecting public health and the environment." In Alaska, at almost every spot measured by scientists, permafrost has warmed since 1978, and in 33 spots studied in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, coastal flooding is happening with more regularity.
The EPA also found that heat waves are happening in U.S. cities three times more often than they did in the 1960s, and because Americans crank their air conditioners to deal with scorching temperatures, over the last 50 years summer energy use has nearly doubled.
"We want to reach people in every corner of this country because there is no small town, big city, or rural community that's unaffected by the climate crisis," EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters on Wednesday. "Americans are seeing and feeling the impacts up close with increasing regularity."