Year 3, Month 4, Day 2: Relax And Float Downstream / It Is Not Dying…

The Christian Science Monitor runs a Reuters story on a recent study in Nature Climate Change, confirming that yes, we dunnit:

London

Extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by manmade global warming, a study in the journal Nature Climate Change said on Sunday.

Scientists at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Research used physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations to link extreme rainfall and heat waves to global warming. The link between warming and storms was less clear.

“It is very likely that several of the unprecedented extremes of the past decade would not have occurred without anthropogenic global warming,” said the study.

The past decade was probably the warmest globally for at least a millennium. Last year was the eleventh hottest on record, the World Meteorological Organisation said on Friday.

This is essentially a recycling of my usual irresponsible-media letter, with the addition of the mayfly/sequoia analogy. Maybe the CSM will finally publish me. Sent March 27:

Given the disconnect between the “if it bleeds, it leads” style of news reporting and the careful and deliberate style of scientific communication, it’s amazing that our media pays any attention whatever to issues of climate change.

After all, the transformation of the Earth’s climate takes place in long arcs of time: decades, centuries, millennia — while the longest span our media can competently address is the two-year gap between elections. It’s like asking mayflies to comment on sequoias.

What those climate scientists are telling us, in their careful and deliberate way, is that we’re already in a whole lot of trouble — and if we don’t act rapidly, it’s going to get immeasurably worse. While there’s no doubt that sensible energy and environmental policies are essential, it’s also incumbent on our news media to pay more, and better, attention to the gravest existential threat our species has yet faced.

Warren Senders