Gotta say — CNN takes a lot of criticism in recent months, much of it deserved. Trump Town Hall of infamy, an increase in MAGA-appeasing both-sides-ism, etc. But you know what else? Their climate coverage the past few years has been excellent, as mainstream news sources go. Layperson-accessible, easy to understand, appropriately sober and concerned but never histrionic, and well researched.
This morning CNN published a story explaining that yesterday, July 4, 2023, was the highest-ever global air surface temperature yet recorded. This measurement is a summary tally, pooled from readings taken consistently from devices all over the planet, approximately 2 meters above the surface.
Their helpful chart above in title, tells the tale. You can see the anomaly right away — red, 2023, an intense series of surges in recent weeks. Biggest surge happening right now.
Everybody’s got anecdotes. To riff from Shakespeare, the devil can cite anecdotes for his purpose. A few GOP legislators were delighted years ago to bring snowballs from DC into the chamber to scoff at the entire climate change issue. And, sure, it’s statistically inevitable that somewhere on earth right now the temps are much cooler than average. But that’s the value of consistent global readings. Is the planet getting warmer? Is polar ice increasingly melting? Is total sea level rising? Are total severe weather incidents increasing? Yes, and yes, and yes.
As our own Pakalolo has written tirelessly, it increasingly appears that Earth’s climate systems may be entering a set of feedback loops. Patterns that feed themselves and accelerate the warming air and the melting ice.
Parenting a wonderful 5 year old kid, psychologically I often do not know what to do with this information, let alone how to even let it in, fully ingest it. Easier to write a grocery list, pay a dental bill, clamber through our mostly-happy-enough domestic life day by day. But that’s not enough. Our household switched to an EV and we reuse/recycle plenty, but we need to do more, somehow. We all do.
And as much as it’s on us consumers to do more, it’s REALLY on those in power to do much more.
I tend to be a pragmatist — you know, “well.. I want X, but (channeling Pelosi) are the votes there?” But the data coming in suggests that we all, pragmatists and deniers and concerned activists alike, are frogs in the same pot of slowly boiling water. Pragmatism may need to rethink its approach.
