Now that the polar cold wave is descending upon the U.S., it is time to pull up this xkcd webcomic by Randall Munroe from Jan 2014 and show it to the climate change deniers who will soon be pointing to snowballs and braying "what global warming?"
The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the past 1m years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools” for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s.
In the United States, it is not broadly known that the fossil fuel industry quietly funds a national lobbying campaign that has introduced draconian anti-protest bills in at least 18 states. These laws threaten anyone protesting at an oil or gas facility with huge fines and serious prison sentences; some states even impose criminal liabilities on non-profit advocacy groups that support the protesters. These are really laws of intimidation designed to stop protest before it happens.
New data shows average global temperatures in September were not just the hottest ever recorded, but 0.5C above the previous record for the month. They were about 1.8C above temperatures in pre-industrial times, before humans started pumping vast amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Exxon is the largest oil company in the US and has been accused of purposely misleading the public about the threat of climate change. It spent more than $37m funding groups promoting climate denial in the US between 1997 and 2008.
For climate action, there are solutions where money, time and resources should be focused, and there are distractions that typically serve things other than moving the needle on climate emissions.
Just went to another universe via #LinkedIn
It´s like time travel into a world without #COVID19 or #ClimateBreakdown
a world where people post happy pictures of financial gains, product sales and worldwide business travel.
If I am here, it is #ClimateDiary#MaskUp and people losing their job for not wanting to fly.
but for my mental health, I´d rather prep for community here, than live in pretend buisnessland - I just dont have any energy left to act like I would care for companies profits
As the world sweltered through the hottest three month spell in human history this summer, extreme weather disasters took more than 18,000 lives, drove at least 150,000 people from their homes, affected hundreds of millions of others and caused billions of dollars of damage.
A new study in the journal Science has found that millions of forest carbon credits approved by Verra, the world’s leading certifier, are largely worthless and could make global heating worse if used for offsetting.
The last eight years have been the eight hottest on record. This year is on track to be the hottest year in recorded history, and this Fourth of July might have been the hottest day in the past 125,000 years.
Climate change is ravaging the planet. We are now seeing floods, droughts, extreme weather disturbances and wild fires causing unprecedented damage. If there is not bold, immediate and united action by governments throughout the world, the quality of life that we are leaving our kids and future generations is very much in question.
In every newsroom in every community, climate crisis needs to be thought of not as a beat, but as a through-line involving everything we do. No corner of the newsroom is exempt – not business or culture, not sports or city hall.
The Indian government continues its unrelenting pursuit of coal power while ordinary Indians succumb to the heat in record numbers.
While developed nations bear the bulk of the responsibility, developing nations cannot turn a blind eye the impacts of #ClimateBreakdown and their role in it.
All governments need to act NOW, not just set benchmarks and targets that are never met
“It is so difficult to comprehend that this is just the beginning in terms of the extreme heat. Our experts say at 3C there will be even more extreme heatwaves which last for a month or more. This will be unbelievable. Governments around the world have the power to stop this. European governments are choosing not to take their part. We cannot stand by and watch this happening.”
“I can’t get people to bat an eyelash. It’s like there’s something wrong with our brains that we can’t understand just how grave this situation is.”
“I think the right to a healthy environment is actually the foundation that we require to enjoy all other human rights. If we don’t have a living, healthy planet Earth, then all the other rights are just words on paper.”
David Boyd, who served as UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment from 2018 to April 2024
Alarm as German climate activists charged with ‘forming a criminal organisation’
“This is the first time in German history that a climate protest group that uses measures of peaceful civil disobedience is charged as a criminal organisation."
“Paragraph 129 of the German criminal code is to combat organised crime. Its application to non-violent protest criminalises civic engagement and thus restricts democratic freedoms."
Climate scientists say the heat and other extreme weather is in line with three decades of scientific prediction amid humanity’s relentless carbon emissions. It might, in fact, be the tip of the iceberg compared with what is to come.
Next year will probably not only see record or near-record heat, it will also likely see a surge in flooding events. The influence of El Niño will cause the US to experience three times the number of “nuisance” flooding events next year than it did in 2000.
Biden: “I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of a climate crisis anymore. Just look around. Historic floods. I mean, historic floods. More intense droughts, extreme heat, significant wildfires have caused significant damage.”