While on autopilot, Teslas can mistake a full moon for a yellow traffic light. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its sixth assessment, and the news is grim: Climate change is here, humans are “unequivocally” causing it, and a slow response by the world’s nations means that a temperature rise of 1.5°C is locked in and irreversible. A two-foot rise in sea levels by the end of the century is likely. The report does say that further increases can be limited, but only if humanity quickly stops burning fossil fuels.  

The temperature in Sicily hits 119.85°F, the highest ever recorded in Europe.

On Wednesday, August 11, half the US population was subject to heat advisories. 

Six hundred more people died in the late-June “heat dome” heat wave in the Pacific Northwest than would typically die in that period. The acknowledged death toll in Oregon and Washington is 194, including at least three workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration nevertheless refuses to set national standards for acceptable heat and humidity levels. 

California’s Dixie Fire burns nearly half a million acres. It is the largest single fire in state history. Sheriffs seeking to evacuate people in the path of the fire are encountering armed resistance. When people refuse to leave, sheriffs ask them for information on their next-of-kin. 

The hydroelectric power plant at California’s Oroville Dam, one of the state’s largest, is shut down because the water level in the reservoir is too low.  

A heat wave in Siberia unleashes huge amounts of methane from previously frozen limestone formations, a source “much more dangerous” than thawing peatlands. 

ExxonMobil is kicked out of the Climate Leadership Council, an industry group that lobbies for a carbon tax, after a company lobbyist is secretly recorded saying that Exxon only supports such a tax because it knows it will never be implemented. 

SUVs emit more carbon dioxide than all but six countries.  

Start-up ride-sharing company Revel offers all-electric service in New York City with a fleet of 50 Teslas.