DL Open Thread Wednesday, March 25, 2026

New Castle County residents should brace for a tax increase. County Executive Marcus Henry proposed a 17.2% hike of the property tax rate to the county council last night.

The median annual payment on the new rate in unincorporated New Castle County is $102 more per year, according to finance chief Del Grande. The 25th quartile is $78 more, and the 75th quartile is $138 more.

Chief Financial Officer David Del Grande ran down the budget and why they need to raise taxes. Rising costs, lack of federal funding from COVID-19 relief and a structural deficit of $42 million structural put the county on its financial heels, despite $18 million in internal cuts. Funds from the county’s tax stabilization reserves were pulled to make up for it.

Another special election, another kick in the teeth for Republicans. This time a Democrat flipped the Florida state House district that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Emily Gregory beat Trump-endorsed Jon Maples 51-49, a 21-point reversal from 2024 results in a district Trump carried by 11 points in the presidential election.

From the We Are So Fucked file, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization released its https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/earths-climate-swings-increasingly-out-of-balanceState of the Global Climate 2025 report Wednesday, and the news is even worse than you’d guess.

The Earth’s energy balance measures the rate at which energy enters and leaves the Earth system. Under a stable climate, incoming energy from the sun is about the same as the amount of outgoing energy.

However, increasing concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – to their highest level in at least 800,000 years have upset this equilibrium.

The Earth’s energy imbalance has increased since its observational record began in 1960, particularly in the past 20 years. It reached a new high in 2025.

“Scientific advances have improved our understanding of the Earth’s energy imbalance and of the reality facing our planet and our climate right now,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “Human activities are increasingly disrupting the natural equilibrium and we will live with these consequences for hundreds and thousands of years.”

“On a day-to-day basis, our weather has become more extreme. In 2025, heatwaves, wildfires, drought, tropical cyclones, storms and flooding caused thousands of deaths, impacted millions of people and caused billions in economic losses,” said Celeste Saulo.

The warming of the atmosphere including near the Earth’s surface (the temperatures that humans feel) represents just 1% of the excess energy, whilst about 5% is stored in the continental land masses.

More than 91% of the excess heat is stored in the ocean, which acts as a major buffer against higher temperatures on land. Ocean heat content reached a new record high in 2025 and its rate of warming more than doubled from 1960-2005 to 2005-2025.

Another 3% of the excess energy warms and melts ice. The ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland have both lost significant mass and the annual average Arctic sea-ice extent for 2025 was the lowest or second lowest on record in the satellite era. Exceptional glacier mass loss occurred in Iceland and along the Pacific coast of North America in 2025.

The warming ocean and melting ice are driving the long-term rise in global mean sea level, which has accelerated since satellite measurements began in 1993.

Ocean warming and sea level rise will continue for centuries, according to projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Changes in ocean warming, and deep ocean pH are irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales.

Forecasters already are warning that this year’s El Nino cycle could be particularly severe. All that heat built up in the ocean is why.

And finally, a heartwarming story to help counteract all the bad news. A group of seven dogs, stolen from a village in northeastern China, escaped their captors and, with a corgi leading the way, made a 17-kilometer trek back to their homes. The dogs were first spotted walking along a highway. The man who took the video said he tried to lead them to safety but they ignored him; he posted the video online and a dog rescue group began tracking them until they reached their home village. Though the dognappers haven’t been found, it’s suspected they were stolen for the dog meat trade, prompting calls for a national ban.

The floor’s yours.