Dear Journalists of Canada: Start Reporting Climate Change as an Emergency

On May 6, the United Nations released a scientific report warning that around a million species are threatened with extinction due to human activity, including climate change. But, according to an analysis by Media Matters for America, on the day of that release, the nightly newscasts of ABC and NBC felt it was more important that their audiences learned about the birth of the newest royal baby — someone who will likely never have any say over their day-to-day lives. And I’ve found most of Canada’s 15 most-read English language daily broadsheets felt the same way.

Few media stories mentioned the demonstrable connection
between the climate crisis and increasing wildfire activity in
BC last summer, even though it was one of the major reasons
why that season was the worst on record.

Between May 6 and 7, 13 of those newspapers failed to front stories about the United Nations’ devastating finding. Instead, the National Post ran a story about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son, with 10 others teasing that birth on their front pages. Eight of the teasers were placed above-the-fold, next to a photograph, or both — drawing reader attention to pictures of Harry, Meghan and their beaming well-wishers.

Read the story from The Tyee by Sean Holman - “Dear Journalists of Canada: Start Reporting Climate Change as an Emergency.”

Galilee Basin mine plans understated water impact, government report says

Coalmines planned in the Galilee Basin – including Adani’s Carmichael mine – understated the likely impacts on surrounding water resources, a federal government scientific report has found.

 Green groups say the report shows Adani’s Carmichael
plan and other mines have been approved based on
inadequate environmental information.

The bioregional assessment report into the cumulative impact of coalmine proposals was published quietly last week. It was compiled by experts from the CSIRO, Geosciences Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology and the federal environment department.

The report modelled information from seven of 17 proposed coalmines in the Galilee and found there was a greater than 95% chance that they would cause hydrological changes to the Belyando River Basin.

Read the story from The Guardian by Ben Smee - “Galilee Basin mine plans understated water impact, government report says.”

Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted

This is the summer when, for many, climate change got real. The future looks fiery and dangerous. Hot on the heels of Trump, fake news and the parlous state of the Brexit negotiations, despair is in the air. Now a new scientific report makes the case that even fairly modest future carbon dioxide emissions could set off a cascade of catastrophe, with melting permafrost releasing methane to ratchet up global temperatures enough to drive much of the Amazon to die off, and so on in a chain reaction around the world that pushes Earth into a terrifying new hothouse state from which there is no return. Civilisation as we know it would surely not survive. How do we deal with such news?

 ‘A new scientific report says that even fairly modest
future carbon emissions could set off a cascade of
catastrophe.’  Wild fire in Athens, Greece.

As a research scientist in this field, I can give some nuance to the headlines. One common way of thinking about climate change is the lower the future carbon dioxide emissions, the less warming and the less havoc we will face as this century progresses. This is certainly true, but as the summer heatwave and the potential hothouse news remind us, the shifts in climate we will experience will not be smooth, gradual and linear changes. They may be fast, abrupt, and dangerous surprises may happen. However, an unstoppable globally enveloping cascade of catastrophe, while possible, is certainly not a probable outcome.

Read the opinion piece from The Guardian by Simon Lewis - “Don’t despair – climate change catastrophe can still be averted.”

Trump administration releases report finding ‘no convincing alternative explanation’ for climate change

The Trump administration released a dire scientific report Friday calling human activity the dominant driver of global warming, a conclusion at odds with White House decisions to withdraw from a key international climate accord, champion fossil fuels and reverse Obama-era climate policies.

To the surprise of some scientists, the White House did not seek to prevent the release of the government’s National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by law. The report affirms that climate change is driven almost entirely by human action, warns of a worst-case scenario where seas could rise as high as eight feet by the year 2100, and details climate-related damage across the United States that is already unfolding as a result of an average global temperature increase of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900.

Read The Washington Post story - “Trump administration releases report finding ‘no convincing alternative explanation’ for climate change.”