Welp, I know what will lead tomorrow’s WTF Daily Update…
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The biggest DUH of the year goes to…
Anyone who reports that climate change has had an impact on the US lol
“Most people think that climate change will harm Americans, but they don’t think it will happen to them.”
That right there is just about everything you need to know at this point about why none of this is scaring people in the general population enough to get the ball rolling.
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All the major delays from here on out are “politics” in the sense that we’ve had enough information for quite some time to act, and although we don’t yet have the means to “solve” the problem outright, we should be seriously pursuing mitigation strategies to stave off the worst outcomes.
Scientists were concerned enough and began to dig into climate research in the '70s, after which they really started to ramp up investigative efforts. By end of the '80s, they knew with confidence global warming was already underway (not “if”). By late '90s, they knew with confidence what many of the major contributing factors and overarching impacts of climate change would be. In the 2000s, they continued to refine to what extent the planet would warm, how much of the warming is caused by humans, and what the ensuing range of consequences will be over the remaining 21st century if we continue down our current path.
This new report is “simply” yet another reminder the clock is ticking.
To add to what the 1st NYT article said, record high temperatures vs. the number of record low temps in the U.S. used to be close to 1-to-1 back in the 1950s. Today the ratio is 4-to-1.
There are literally hundreds of educational websites on the topic, but here are a few of my favs to explore:
- Climate Signals is an excellent interactive website that organizes and examines the underlying contributing factors to recent and ongoing weather events. (Also check out their “Related Sites” and “Real Time Data” links.)
- Climate Feedback is run by climate scientists who peer-review news articles for credibility and explain what is and is not accurate.
- Climate Action Tracker has a data portal and provides progress reports by individual country on measures taken to meet climate-related goals.
- Climate Hot Map by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows key facts, climate change impacts, and potential solutions by region on a map (U.S. focused).
- Carbon Brief has a map showing recent extreme weather events attributed to climate change around the world with a summary blurb of event type and a link to the original scientific publication.
- NOAA’s Climate.gov Event Tracker is similar but links to news reports for the extreme weather event.
- States at Risk has a “preparedness report card” evaluating 5 major threat categories (e.g., drought, fires, etc.) each state is currently experiencing.
- Environment America has an extreme weather map but differentiates itself by providing some stories from people who were affected by the specific event.
- Climate Analytics is a highly rated independent climate think tank with blog articles, media, and other publications. (Other great news blogs are Climate Central and World Resources Institute.)
And just for fun, this network graph analysis of twitter conversations at the beginning of last year’s Paris Climate Conference has really interesting graphics. You can see who the “influencers” were and how segregated our info bubbles are.
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Related: Guardian obtained internal emails from the USDA’s division that oversees farmers’ land conservation and soil health. The conversations reveal staff were told to censor certain climate-related terms and phrases.
USDA’s advice to staff on climate change language
Avoid → use instead
Climate change → weather extremes
Climate change adaptation → resilience to weather extremes/intense weather events: drought, heavy rain, spring ponding
Reduce greenhouse gases → build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency
Sequester carbon → build soil organic matter
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As a follow-up to the NYT article on the final consensus draft of the Climate Science Special Report, the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine posted a statement to their social media accounts stating the following:
An article published in The New York Times today mentioned the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s review of the Climate Science Special Report. To clarify, the U.S. Global Change Research Program asked the National Academies to review the draft report and the findings were released publicly in March this year.
So it was officially published March 14, 2017 by NASEM, and according to NYT’s correction, the draft was not leaked, nor were they the first to publish it. Apparently, it was available on the Internet Archive since January.
Correction: August 9, 2017
An article on Tuesday about a sweeping federal climate change report referred incorrectly to the availability of the report. While it was not widely publicized, the report was uploaded by the nonprofit Internet Archive in January; it was not first made public by The New York Times.
And here is another well-informed citizen living near the coast in Florida:
It’s just like the old story about slowly raising the heat under a frog in a pot of water…so slow he doesn’t realize until he’s cooked. 
Weather is always changing and it’s SO much prettier to think that everything is normal, just like always…because once you admit to it, you really need to fix it. And the more you look into it, the less “convenient” it is- like rising coastal waters where so many live and where commerce happens.
But we all eat…we all depend on farming, large or small. Climate disruptions challenge our food supply, making shortages more likely. Large farming is more common but less resilient, thanks to mono-crops. (we’d do well to remember the Irish potato famine?) And it’s not just food…water is
even more critical to life, yet we’re allowing the greedy few to put it at risk with chemical contamination of streams, rivers & groundwater…and we’re stupidly allowing unknown toxic chemicals to be pumped into the ground for fracking, to the point we even get earthquakes from the resulting pressure. WTF?
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