Periodically, Bulletin – through the service of the Associated Press – will provide our readers with a roundup of recent editorials from around the globe. This week the topics are the recent heat wave and corporate tax evasion.

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

Summer in California. Foto: Damian Dovarganes/AP

Climate and corporate tax evasion, topics for this weeks editorials.

Editorial roundup: High temperatures

BRUSSELS (AP) — Just as the European Union was announcing plans to spend billions of euros to contain climate change, massive clouds gathered over Germany and nearby nations to unleash an unprecedented storm that left death and destruction in its wake. Despite ample warnings, politicians and weather forecasters were shocked at the ferocity of the precipitation that caused flash flooding that claimed more than 150 lives this week in the lush rolling hills of Western Europe.

Climate scientists say the link between extreme weather and global warming is unmistakable and the urgency to do something about climate change undeniable. 
 Scientists can’t yet say for sure whether climate change caused the flooding, but they insist that it certainly exacerbates the extreme weather that has been on show from the western U.S. and Canada to Siberia to Europe’s Rhine region. 
 ”There is a clear link between extreme precipitation occurring and climate change,” Wim Thiery, a professor at Brussels University, said Friday. 
 Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of ocean physics at the University of Potsdam, referring to the recent heat records set in the U.S. and Canada, said ”some are so extreme that they would be virtually impossible without global warming..” 
 Taking them all together, said Sir David King, chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, ”these are casualties of the climate crisis: we will only see these extreme weather events become more frequent.” 
 For Diederik Samsom, the European Commission’s Cabinet chief behind this week’s massive proposals to spend billions and force industry into drastic reforms to help cut the bloc’s emissions of the gases that cause global warming by 55% this decade, this week’s disaster was a cautionary tale. 
 ”People are washed away in Germany ... and Belgium and the Netherlands, too. We are experiencing climate change,” he said on a conference call of the European Policy Centre think tank. ”A few years ago, you had to point to a point in the future or far away on the planet to talk about climate change. It’s happening now — here.” 
 And climate scientists point toward two specific things that have contributed to this week’s calamity. 
 First, with every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperature, the air can take in 7% more humidity. It can hold the water longer, leading to drought, but it also leads to an increase in dense, massive rainfall once it releases it. 
 Another defining factor is the tendency for storms to hover over one place for far longer than usual, thus dumping increasing amounts of rain on a smaller patch of the world. Scientists say warming is a contributing factor there, too. A jet stream of high winds six miles (nearly 10 kilometers) high helps determine the weather over Europe and is fed by temperature differences between the tropics and the Arctic. 
 Yet as Europe warms — with Scandinavia currently experiencing an unusual heat wave — the jet stream is weakened, causing its meandering course to stop, sometimes for days, Thiery said. 
 He said such a phenomenon was visible in Canada too, where it helped cause a ”heat dome” in which temperatures rose to 50 C (122 F). 
 ”And it is causing the heavy rain that we have seen in Western Europe,” he said. 
 Even if greenhouse gas emissions are drastically curbed in the coming decades, the amount of carbon dioxide and other planet-heating gases already in the atmosphere means extreme weather is going to become more likely. 
 Experts say such phenomena will hit those areas that aren’t prepared for it particularly hard. 
 ”We need to make our built environment — buildings, outdoor spaces, cities — more resilient to climate change,” said Lamia Messari-Becker, a professor of engineering at the University of Siegen. 
 Those that don’t adapt will risk greater loss of life and damage to property, said Ernst Rauch, chief climate and geoscientist at the reinsurance giant Munich Re. 
 ”The events of today and yesterday or so give us a hint that we need to do better with respect to being ready for these these type of events,” he said. ”The events themselves are not really unexpected, but the order of magnitude probably has surprised some.”

People use rubber rafts in floodwaters after the Meuse River broke its banks during heavy flooding in Liege, Belgium, Thursday, July 15, 2021. Heavy rainfall is causing flooding in several provinces in Belgium with rain expected to last until Friday. Photo: Valentin Bianchi/AP

”There is a clear link between extreme precipitation occurring and climate change,” says scientist.

Experts: Europe floods show need to curb emissions, adapt

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Danish toymaker Lego said Wednesday it had asked a Utah-based gun company to stop producing a product that makes a pistol look like it is covered with the famous multi-colored building brick.

”We have contacted the company and they have agreed to remove the product from their website and not make or sell anything like this in the future,” Lego said in a brief statement. 
 The design creates a customized semi-automatic Glock weapon that has a strong resemblance to a Lego toy. 
 On its Instagram account, Provo-based Culper Precision said had made the Block 19 ”to create an opportunity to talk about the enjoyment of the shooting sports and the joy that can only be found in marksmanship practice and training.” 
 ”We here at Culper Precision are grateful for the attention that Block19 is currently getting across the globe,” they said. They also insisted people have the right to customize their property, but also noted that responsible gun owners take measures to secure their firearms. 
 The company did not immediately return messages seeking further comment. The product page for the Block19 had been taken down as of Wednesday. 
 Shannon Watts, founder of the gun-control group Moms Demand Action, drew attention to the product on Twitter last week, and on Wednesday called the it ”a recipe for disaster.” 
 ”We have already seen tragedies happen when unsecured firearms are around children and they don’t look like toys,” she said in a statement. Unintentional shooting deaths by children of themselves or others rose more than 30% between March and December of 2020 as compared to the same time frame the year before, the group’s research found. 
 That increase comes during a record-breaking surge in U.S. gun sales that began as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last year. Gun rights are politically important in conservative states such as Utah, which joined several other states in loosening gun laws this year by rolling back requirements for people to get permits to carry guns in public. 
 Lego was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The name is derived from the two Danish words LEg GOdt, which mean ”Play Well.”

Lego was founded in 1932. Photo: Paul Hudson CC BY 2.0

US company had a customized Glock with strong resemblance of a Lego toy.

Lego tells US company to stop making guns look like its toys

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The left-leaning government of Greenland has decided to suspend all oil exploration off the world’s largest island, calling it is ”a natural step” because the Arctic government ”takes the climate crisis seriously.”

No oil has been found yet around Greenland, but officials there had seen potentially vast reserves as a way to help Greenlanders realize their long-held dream of independence from Denmark by cutting the annual subsidy of 3.4 billion kroner ($540 million) the Danish territory receives. 
 Global warming means that retreating ice could uncover potential oil and mineral resources which, if successfully tapped, could dramatically change the fortunes of the semiautonomous territory of 57,000 people. 
 ”The future does not lie in oil. The future belongs to renewable energy, and in that respect we have much more to gain,” the Greenland government said in a statement. The government said it ”wants to take co-responsibility for combating the global climate crisis.” 
 The decision was made June 24 but made public Thursday. 
 The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there could be 17.5 billion undiscovered barrels of oil and 148 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off Greenland, although the island’s remote location and harsh weather have limited exploration. 
 When the current government, led by the Inuit Ataqatigiit party since an April’s parliamentary election, it immediately began to deliver on election promises and stopped plans for uranium mining in southern Greenland. 
 Greenland still has four active hydrocarbon exploration licenses, which it is obliged to maintain as long as the licensees are actively exploring. They are held by two small companies. 
 The government’s decision to stop oil exploration was welcomed by environmental group Greenpeace, which called the decision ”fantastic.” 
 ”And my understanding is that the licenses that are left have very limited potential,” Mads Flarup Christensen, Greenpeace Nordic’s general secretary, told weekly Danish tech-magazine Ingenioeren. 
 Denmark decides foreign, defense and security policy, and supports Greenland with the annual grant that accounts for about two-thirds of the Arctic island’s economy.

Sisimut, the second largest city on Greenland. Photo: Lars Pehrson/SvD/TT