We are fine and glad to live up a hill, but in shock, with the region around us devastated by the heaviest and longest lasting rain I have ever experienced and unprecedented floods. At least 160 people are dead here, more in neighbouring Belgium, and many more missing. This is in Germany, one of the …
Continue reading 1.5°C is way too high: thoughts from a flood-stricken German valley
In Germany, where I live, the country's highest court, the Federal Constitutional Court, - unnoticed by much of the international media – recently issued a game-changing verdict in a case initiated by campaigners supported by groups including Fridays for Future and Greenpeace. The plaintiffs argued the government was failing to act on climate change. The …
Continue reading German High Court win for climate activists is good news for the Arctic
February 27th is International Polar Bear Day. In the rapidly warming Arctic climate, sea ice is declining at record rates, destroying the habitat the bears need to survive. Rapid emissions cuts could still ensure their long-term survival. Otherwise, all but a few populations could collapse by 2100.
I would love to be looking forward to the 2020s as the decade when the Arctic as we have known it will be saved; climate change decisively halted; emissions will peak; fossil fuels become true fossils; sustainable living will be the 'in' -thing. The Arctic will not become ice-free in summer after all. And Fridays …
Continue reading 2020 – Crunch time – or squelch time – for the Arctic?
Another year, another COP... What's a year in the history of a planet? And as we head for 2020 – the start of a new decade - what's ten years in the evolution of the earth? The UNFCCC tells us COP25 serves to “build ambition ahead of 2020, the year in which countries have committed …
Continue reading COP25 and the Arctic: stakes high, expectations low as tipping points tumble
The latest figures from the NSIDC do not make happy reading. The Arctic sea ice extent averaged for October 2019 was 5.66 million square kilometers (2.19 million square miles), the lowest in the 41-year continuous satellite record. The experts tell us this was 230,000 square kilometers (88,800 square miles) below that observed in 2012—the previous …
Continue reading Arctic sea ice record low. Can we communicate our way out of climate paralysis?
Recently, the picture editor of the Guardian, Fiona Shields, published a piece explaining "why we are going to be using fewer polar bears and more people to illustrate our coverage of the climate emergency". She writes: "At the Guardian we want to ensure that the images we publish accurately and appropriately convey the climate crisis …
Continue reading Polar bear pictures and the climate emergency
