Michael Riordon

the view from where I live

Tag Archives: global warming


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Mayday, Mayday!

DSCF2066Peony at first light, my garden, June 2014

Where I live in eastern Ontario, Canada, an unusually cool, wet spring has generated sumptuous gardens, planting problems for farmers, hordes of hungry mosquitoes, and complaints from people bound for the beach.

But in the big picture, on the only planet we have, yesterday the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its latest global climate report:

  • May 2014 was the warmest May on record.
  • Four of the five warmest Mays on record have occurred in the past five years.
  • May 2014 marked the 351st consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th-century average.

When will we ever learn?

Scientists wrestle with urgent conundrums in Bold Scientists: dispatches from the battle for honest science, due September 20, 2014 from Between the Lines.

 

 


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What are we waiting for?

As Atlantic gales batter the south of England, and historic rains swamp other parts of it, a scan of mainstream British print media reveals that less than 1 in 10 of the stories about the floods venture to suggest any possible link to climate change.

Can we talk about climate change(Photo: Climate Outreach)

At the same time, polls indicate that two thirds of people in the UK have never talked about climate change outside their immediate social circle, and a third of people have never talked about it with anyone at all.

I strongly suspect that the British are not unusual in their deathly silence on this most vital of all subjects.  But:

This short February 13 commentary looks at one local attempt to break the silence, and make the link.

More on scientists and climate change/global warming in Pesky Facts: unspun science for dangerous times, coming from Between the Lines, autumn 2014.