Arguments
2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #6
Posted on 6 February 2021 by John Hartz
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 31, 2021 through Sat, Feb 6, 2021
Editor's Choice
Got Climate Anxiety? These People Are Doing Something About It
Distress over global warming is increasing, but formal and informal support networks are springing up, too.
Hoi Chan
After Britt Wray married in 2017, she and her husband began discussing whether or not they were going to have children. The conversation quickly turned to climate change and to the planet those children might inherit.
“It was very, very heavy,” said Dr. Wray, now a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “I wasn’t expecting it.” She said she became sad and stressed, crying when she read new climate reports or heard activists speak.
Jennifer Atkinson, an associate professor of environmental humanities at the University of Washington, Bothell, became depressed after students told her they couldn’t sleep because they feared social collapse or mass extinction.
There are different terms for what the two women experienced, including eco-anxiety and climate grief, and Dr. Wray calls it eco-distress. “It’s not just anxiety that shows up when we’re waking up to the climate crisis,” she said. “It’s dread, it’s grief, it’s fear.”
Click here to access the entire article as originally published on the New York Times website. The remaining portion of the article contains many embedded links to available resources.
Got Climate Anxiety? These People Are Doing Something About It by Susan Shain, Climate & Environment, New York Times, Feb 4, 2021
Articles Linked to on Facebook
Sun, Jan 31, 2021
- Massachusetts lawmakers quickly approve climate change bill by Steve LeBlanc, AP News, Jan 28, 2021
- Former U.S. Climate Leaders Press Biden on Amazon Deforestation by Lisa Friedman, New York Times, Jan 29, 2021
- Extraordinary voyage: on the trail of the trillion-tonne runaway iceberg by Robin McKie, Environment, The Observer/Guardian, Jan 31, 2021
- Tracking Biden’s environmental actions by Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis & John Muyskens, Climate & Environment, Washington Post, Updated Jan 29, 2021
- Biden and Pope Francis Could Make a Climate Change Miracle by Timothy Naftali & Christopher White, Foreign Policy, Jan 31, 2021
- The Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People, Opinion by Adam Grant, New York Times, Jan 31, 2021
Mon, Feb 1, 2021
- Climate Change Ravaged the West With Heat and Drought Last Year; Many Fear 2021 Will Be Worse by Judy Fahys, Science, Inside Climate News, Jan 31, 2021
- Alpine plants face extinction as melting glaciers force them higher, warns study by Phoebe Weston, Environment, The Guardian, Jan 29, 2021
- Regional Climate Weeks to Drive Forward Climate Action in 2021 and 2022, UN Climate Change News, Feb 1, 2021
- Dizzying pace of Biden's climate action sounds death knell for era of denialism by Oliver Milman, Environment, The Guardian, Jan 30, 2021
- The Energy 202: Biden puts Trump’s climate policies under a microscope — and career officials lend a hand by Juliet Eilperin, Politics, Washington Post, Feb 1, 2021
- Two-thirds of the world’s population think climate change is an emergency by Jariel Arvin, Vox, Jan 29, 2021
Tue, Feb 2, 2021
- Warming Trends: Airports Underwater, David Pogue’s New Book and a Summer Olympic Bidby the Coldest Place in Finland by Katelyn Weisbrod, Science, Inside Climate News, Jan 30, 2021
- Launch of UN Race-to-Zero Emissions Breakthroughs, UN Climate Change News, Jan 28, 2021
- New Report Reveals Top 10 Insights in Climate Science in 2020, UN Climate Change News, Jan 27, 2021
- How a Young Activist Is Helping Pope Francis Battle Climate Change by David Owen, Annals of Geography, The New Yorker Magazine, Feb 1, 2021
- Wildfire smoke may carry ‘mind-bending’ amounts of fungi and bacteria, scientists say by Joseph Serena, Los Angeles Times, Feb 1, 2021
- Sea Levels Are Rising Faster Than Most Pessimistic Forecasts by Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg Green, Feb 2. 2021
- Norway’s trillion-dollar wealth fund sold the last of its investments in fossil fuel companies by Jariel Arvin, Vox, Jan 29, 2021
- Science of the storm: Rising Arctic temperatures bring wild weather around the world. by John Schwartz, New York Times, Feb 1, 2021
Wed, Feb 3, 2021
- Every US state will see below freezing temperatures over the next week by Jennifer Gray, CNN, Feb 2, 2021
- Lessons from Africa on climate change adaptation, Guest Post by Prof Declan Conway & Dr Katharine Vincent, Carbon Brief, Feb 1, 2021
- American Cities Are Way Underreporting Their Carbon Footprints by Matt Simon, Science, Wired Magazine, Feb 2, 2021
- Climate change is a crisis. But should President Biden declare a national emergency? by John Morales, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Feb 3, 2021
- How Fast Will Biden Need To Move On Climate? Really, Really Fast by Lauren Sommer, Environment, NPR News, Feb 2, 2021
- America is too often failing students on climate change by Ann Reid & Val Benavidez, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Feb 3, 2021
Thu, Feb 4, 2021
- Updated yardstick begs question: What's 'normal' in a changing climate? by Bob Henson, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Feb 3, 2021
- Think You Have It Bad? Try Living in Perth, Australia, Right Now by Molly Taft, Earther, Gizmodo, Feb 3, 2021
- It may get so bitterly cold after this week's blizzard in the Midwest that engine antifreeze would solidify by Derek Van Dam, CNN Feb 4, 2021
- Biden's climate executive orders are a mini-Green New Deal by Dana Nuccitelli, Articles, Yale Climate Connections, Feb 3, 2021
- The Energy 202: GOP directs ire for Biden's climate agenda at John Kerry by Dino Grandoni & Andrew Freedman, Politics, Washington Post, Feb 4, 2021
- This popular and proven climate policy should be at the top of Congress’s to-do list by Leah Stokes & Sam Ricketts, Vox, Feb 4, 2021
Fri, Feb 5, 2021
- Bay Area cities have banned gas to fight climate change. But not Los Angeles by Sammy Roth, Climate & Environment, Los Angeles Times, Feb 3, 2021
- France not doing enough to tackle climate change, court rules by Pierre Bairin & Amy Woodyatt, CNN, Feb 3, 2021
- Global heating to blame for threat of deadly flood in Peru, study finds by Dan Collyns, Environment, The Guardian, Feb 4, 2021
- The Energy 202: Biden creates new climate adviser role at NASA by Dino Grandoni & Andrew Freedman, Politics, Washington Post, Feb 2, 2021
- Deadlines loom for Capitol Hill action on Trump-era climate issues, Commentary by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, & Benjamin Santer, Articles, Yale Climate Connections, Jan 26, 2021
- Got Climate Anxiety? These People Are Doing Something About It by Susan Shain, Climate & Environment, New York Times, Feb 4, 2021
- New Bill From Blumenauer, Ocasio-Cortez, and Sanders Demands Biden Declare a National Climate Emergency by Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, Feb 4, 2021
- Science suggests possible climate link to Covid-19 by Tim Radford, Climate News Network, Feb 5, 2021
Sat, Feb 6, 2021
- An invisible, odorless gas is pitting Texas against the Biden administration by Bill Weir, CNN, Feb 5, 2021
- One year since Australia's devastating wildfires, anger grows at climate change 'inaction' by Nick Baker, NBC News, Feb 4, 2021
- New Report Maps Out the U.S. Road to Net-Zero Emissions by John Fialka, E&E News/Scientific American, Feb 5, 2021
- Religion Meets Climate Change by Robert Hunziker The Good Men Project, Feb 4, 2021
- Science mom: UW scientist joins campaign to teach fellow mothers about climate change, by Chris Hubbuch, Wisconsin State Journal, Feb 6, 2021
- Climate plan is a jobs creator, Opinion by Gina McCarthy, CNN, Feb 5, 2021
There is strong evidence climate change is an existential threat to various plant and animal species with up to 50% of species under threat, according to a David Attenborough documentary I was watching last night. Past mass extinction events are strongly associated with climate change. Its not clear to me why climate change would literally lead to extinction of the human race, even in tropical regions. Im not aware of any published science saying this. It is clear it could lead to sharply increased mortality with plenty of studies suggesting this. It is clear it could cause collapse of modern civilisation, but that is not extinction.
The trouble is by just saying "existential threat" or "extinction level event" this is rather general and vague, and young people might assume it means the human race. No wonder they get anxious. Children need to be told a more accurate and nuanced picture.