Posted on 30 June 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz

Story of the week

Our Story of the Week is extreme weather juiced by our climate fumble creating an extreme start to summer across the Northern Hemisphere:

• ‘Catastrophic flooding’ in Upper Midwest prompts evacuations as record-breaking heat wave broils the West and mid-Atlantic

• Hajj heat wave deaths underscore climate threat for most vulnerable

• Nearly 2 million people stranded as second wave of devastating floods hits Bangladesh in less than a month

• Billions of people just felt the deadly intensity of climate-fueled heat waves

As University of Massachusetts professors Mathew Barlow and and Jeffrey Basara explain in another article in this week's listing, we know this isn't normal summer weather. This won't come as a shock to most of us. "Plain as the nose on your face" is hard to avoid— or deny. Perhaps this is why we're seeing our own explainer against "it's not happening" fading into its sunset years (if our access statistics are any guide). 

Now that we're properly roasting, are we done with denial of human-caused climate change? Not exactly, because of some basic facts:

• The fundamental fix for our climate mess is energy modernization, shrugging off our old habit of burning hydrocarbons.
• The faster we step into this future, the less that outmoded energy firms reliant on fossil fuels will be able to monetize the resources they control.

Hence it doesn't need a rocket scientist to see an obvious way for any energy firm stuck in the past to optimize its stale resources: delay energy progress by all means possible. If all once has to sell is inconvenient and awkward melting ice, modern refrigeration is very bad news and must be discouraged at all costs. It's no different with fossil fuels. 

Previously (and still to some extent) encouragement to procrastinate was accomplished by fairly crude denial of fairly basic physics we've had in our grasp for a span including three centuries. Now— with the evidence of our changing of our climate being increasingly plain to see— we're seeing a novel and malign form of "energy transition" wherein the focus of effort by the fossil fuel industry on delaying the invitable march of technological progress shifts. No longer are we not changing the planet but rather the wretched mess we're making with our energy anachronism is a necessary and even hopeful feature of human progress, as detailed in yet another article from this week's collection. The gist of "innovation" by parties interested in freezing our energy clock is nicely covered in The New Climate Denial Is Based on These Six Terms, via Genevieve Guenther writing for The New Republic. 

Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:

Before June 23

• Billions of people just felt the deadly intensity of climate-fueled heat waves, Ciimate, Washington Post, Sarah Kaplan & Scott Dance. "Scorching heat across five continents set 1,400 records this week and showed how human-caused global warming has made catastrophic temperatures commonplace."
• "The Day After Tomorrow" is one of the only true climate change films. Why do scientists hate it?, Salon, Matthew Rosza. "Salon spoke with the director and co-writer of the 2004 sci-fi blockbuster about scientific accuracy in Hollywood"
• Analysis: Wind and solar added more to global energy than any other source in 2023, Renewables, Carbon Brief, Simon Evans & Verner Viisainen.
• The U.S. is finally making serious efforts to adapt to climate change, Eye on the Storm, Yale Climate Connections, Jeff Masters. "A major bill before Congress could help the country prepare for the coming climate storm."

June 23

• Hajj heat wave deaths underscore climate threat for most vulnerable, Washington Post, Susannah George, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, Samuel Oakford. Many of those who died this month from extreme heat in Saudi Arabia were unregistered pilgrims without access to cooling facilities during the Hajj.
• ‘Catastrophic flooding’ in Upper Midwest prompts evacuations as record-breaking heat wave broils the West and mid-Atlantic, Weather, CNN, Dalia Faheid.
• 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, June 16, 2024 thru Sat, June 22, 2024.
• Cloud Shift From Day To Night Amplifies Global Warming, Eurasia Review, Staff.
• Nearly 2 million people stranded as second wave of devastating floods hits Bangladesh in less than a month, World/Asia, CNN, Helen Regan.

June 24

• How America`s "Most Powerful Lobby" Is Stifling Efforts to Reform Oil Well Cleanup in State After State, ProPublica, Mark Olalde. In New Mexico, oil companies agreed to work with regulators to find a solution to the state’s more than 70,000 unplugged wells. After months of negotiations, the industry turned against the bill it helped shape.
• The New Climate Denial Is Based on These Six Terms, The New Republic, Genevieve Guenther. Lede: "The new obstructionist approach doesn’t say global warming isn’t happening. Instead, it argues we don’t need to phase out oil and gas."
• Climate crisis driving exponential rise in most extreme wildfires, The Guardian, Damian Carrington Environment editor. Scientists warn of ‘scary’ feedback loop in which fires create more heating, which causes more fires worldwide
• Have We Already Gone Past 1.5 (C ) Degrees of Warming?, Resources/Explainers, Australia's Climate Council, Staff.
• A group of young people just forced Hawai?i to take major climate action, Grist, Naveena Sadasivam. The historic agreement comes two years after 13 youth plaintiffs sued the state Department of Transportation.
• New Research: Forget Individual Climate Targets, We Need Collective Goals, News, Drilled, Rishika Pardikar. "Two new pieces of research suggest that we need to reconsider the terminology around '1.5°C-aligned' and 'net-zero' pledges."

June 25

• Newly identified tipping point for ice sheets could mean greater sea level rise, The Guardian, Damian Carrington. Small increase in temperature of intruding water could lead to very big increase in loss of ice, scientists say
• At a glance - What caused early 20th Century warming?, Skeptical Science, John Mason.
• Kids Are Particularly Vulnerable to Extreme Weather. What Are We Doing About It?, Today's Climate, inside Climate News, June 25, 2024, Kiley Price. "A growing body of research shows the hazards of climate change on children’s public health. Many countries’ climate adaptation plans don’t take that into account, experts say."

June 26

• Trump and Biden can’t ignore costly climate impacts in tomorrow’s debate, Opinion>Energy & Environment, The Hill, Paul Bledsoe.
• Scientists identify new Antarctic ice sheet ‘tipping point,’ warning future sea level rise may be underestimated, Climate, CNN, Laura Paddison.
• How do you picture a heat wave?, Yale Climate Connections, Bob Henson. From beaches to morgues, illustrating a heat-wave story is riddled with challenges.
• Extreme heat waves aren’t ‘just summer’: How climate change is heating up the weather, and what we can do about it, Environment & Energy, The Conversation US, Mathew Barlow & Jeffrey Basara.
• Report: Campaigners Are Targeting Financial Backers with Lawsuits Against Fossil Fuel Funders, DeSmog, Isabella Kaminski. LSE’s annual review identifies a small but growing number of legal challenges to stem the flow of finance to projects that accelerate climate change.
• The world’s fourth mass coral bleaching is underway, but well-connected reefs may have a better chance to recover, Environment & Energy, The Conversation US, Annalisa Bracco.

June 27

• Factcheck: How `scary-sounding numbers` are being used to mislead the UK about net-zero, Carbon Brief, Simon Evans. During the 2024 UK general election campaign, politicians and newspapers have used a series of “scary-sounding numbers” to mislead voters about net-zero.
• The Five Top Misleading Climate Claims of the 2024 UK Election Campaign, DeSmog, Adam Barnett. From rumours of ‘ripping out boilers’ to ‘road pricing’, DeSmog corrects some of the misinformation circulating ahead of polling day.
• The growing carbon debt, The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather. Why the climate change is different from other environmental challenges
• The media is still falling short on climate, HEATED, Emily Atkin & Arielle Samuelson. "HEATED analyzed 133 breaking news stories about recent climate-fueled weather in the United States. The results were dismal—but there were some bright spots."
• Study Maps Giant Slush Zones as New Threat to Antarctic Ice, Science, Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn. "Waterlogged areas could cause more ice shelves to crack or disintegrate, leading to faster sea level rise.

June 28

• Translation #20 of The Conspiracy Theory Handbook published!, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler. Bulgarian marks the 20th translation of this important handbook!
• Supreme Court Overturns Chevron Doctrine: What it Means for Climate Change Policy, Inside Climate News, Marianne Lavelle. The high court sweeps away a ‘Goliath’ of modern law, weakening agencies’ legal authority as courts weigh Biden’s policies to cut greenhouse gases.
• Scientists just got closer to solving a major Antarctic puzzle, Grist, Sachi Kitajima Mulkey. Two new papers find threats that climate models haven't accounted for, including a tipping point under the ice.
• Climate change got a question in the presidential debate. It didn’t get much of an answer.  "Biden alluded to the Inflation Reduction Act, while Trump went on an incoherent rant about 'H2O' " by Joseph Winters, Politics, Grist, June 28, 2024

June 29

• Fact Brief - Does temperature have to rise before CO2 does?, Skeptical Science, John Mason. Another fact brief published in collaboration with Gigafact!
• `It's not beautiful, but you can still eat it`: climate crisis leads to more wonky vegetables in Netherlands, The Guardian, Senay Boztas. Crowdfunding scheme salvages ‘imperfect’ fruit and veg following the country’s wettest autumn, winter and spring on record