Calls to Action... Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Reviews... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week...
Looking ahead...
Sat Sep 8 is an extremely important day for climate activists because they will be gathering in cities throughout the world to Rise Up for Climate. If you re not already plugged into an event in your area, you can easily do so by going to the official Rise Up for Climate website. From the global campaign's website:
On September 8, we’re planning thousands of rallies in cities and towns around the world to demand our local leaders commit to building a fossil free world that puts people and justice before profits.
No more stalling, no more delays: it’s time for a fast and fair transition to 100% renewable energy for all.
Real climate leadership rises from below. It means power in the hands of people not corporations. It means economic opportunity for workers and justice and dignity for frontline communities that are the hardest hit by the impacts of the fossil fuel industry and a warming world.
Looking inside...
Be sure to check out the next two sections of this digest — Story of the Week and Opinion of the Week. They address two inter-related issue re the human race's ability to come to grips with the reality of man-made climate change and the need to effectively mitigate it starting now.
Looking behind...
Something that flew under my radar screen when it was released earlier this year...
Narrated by Danny Glover, A documentary special reveals how climate change science has been under systematic attack; the multi-million dollar campaign allowed a climate change denier to be elected president (a new version with updated content and music)
TRNN Documentary: Trump, The Koch Brothers and Their War on Climate Science, May 23, 2018
TRNN = The Real News Network, Baltimore, MD
*The views expressed in this section are those of John Hartz and do not necessarily reflect consensus views of the SkS author team — it's nearly impossible to achieve consensus within a herd of cats.
Following Sweden’s hottest summer ever, Greta Thunberg decided to go on school strike at the parliament to get politicians to act
Why bother to learn anything in school if politicians won’t pay attention to the facts?
This simple realisation prompted Greta Thunberg, 15, to protest in the most effective way she knew. She is on strike, refusing to go to school until Sweden’s general election on 9 September to draw attention to the climate crisis.
Her protest has captured the imagination of a country that has been struck by heatwaves and wildfires in its hottest summer since records began 262 years ago.
Every day for two weeks, Thunberg has been sitting quietly on the cobblestones outside parliament in central Stockholm, handing out leaflets that declare: “I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.”
Thunberg herself is a diminutive girl with pigtails and a fleeting smile – not the stereotypical leader of a climate revolution.
“I am doing this because nobody else is doing anything. It is my moral responsibility to do what I can,” she says. “I want the politicians to prioritise the climate question, focus on the climate and treat it like a crisis.”
When people tell her she should be at school, she points to the textbooks in her satchel.
“I have my books here,” she says in flawless English. “But also I am thinking: what am I missing? What am I going to learn in school? Facts don’t matter any more, politicians aren’t listening to the scientists, so why should I learn?”
The Swedish 15-year-old who's cutting class to fight the climate crisis by David Crouch, Science, Guardian, Sep 1, 2018
Would you put your child or grandchild on a plane that has a one chance in 20 of a disastrous crash?
It’s hard imagining anyone doing that, but it is essentially what we are doing to our kids and grandkids by not raising our voices about climate change and the 1-in-20 chance that disaster lies ahead for them. It is bad enough that we are likely on the path to exceed the 3.6 degree Fahrenheit goal stated in the Paris Agreement, which will result in dire consequences such as increasing droughts and wildfires and inundation of low lying coastal areas because of sea level rise.
If we continue on that path without taking the necessary actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is a 5 percent chance of catastrophic consequences — even an existential threat to humanity by mid-century, according to experts at the Scripps Institute.
Uncontrolled climate change could result in disaster for our kids. Will we do something?, Opinion by Mike Hoffman, USA Today, Aug 1, 2018
With all signs highlighting a switch, from the La Nina to the forecast El Nino (formally called El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO) climate pattern for this fall 2018, and winter too, meteorologists and climatologists expect to have a better idea of how strong this El Nino event will become by late October into November.
"Looking at the latest 30-day and 90-day maps generated (for this Autumn 2018 which the Climate Prediction Center issued Aug. 16, 2018) it appears we're witnessing the incorporation of an El Nino event into the outlooks," said Allen Dutcher, associate state climatologist, Nebraska State Climate Office-Lincoln. "During the past four weeks, there's been a subtle shift toward a wetter pattern across the southern Plains, while the northern Plains has slipped towards the dry side."
Most weather signs are pointing to an El Nino weather pattern this fall and winter by Amy G. Hadachek, The Fence Post, Aug 31, 2018
[To be added.]
Posted by John Hartz on Sunday, 2 September, 2018
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