Global boiling
August 4, 2023
On 27 July Secretary-General António Guterres gave a press conference at United Nations headquarters. He spoke about climate change against the backdrop of widespread floods, terrestrial and marine heatwaves and wildfires unfolding around the world and in the context of new data coming in from the World Meteorological Organization and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate …
Climate change and health: Early and late warnings
February 10, 2023
Last week I saw various tweets from the Wellcome Trust announcing a new funding scheme that will support research on the impacts of #ClimateChange on human health, centring on communities most at risk (an announcement that by the way, was illustrated with a tryptic of photos of lone individuals dealing with a flood, a fire …
Climate change and language change
July 1, 2022
For over ten years I have now been thinking and writing about extreme weather events, especially floods and fires, and how they are verbally and visually represented in the media and beyond. Over that decade the issue of extreme weather has become increasingly topical and people no longer hesitate to discuss this topic in the …
The concept of net zero hangs in the balance
November 12, 2021
‘Net zero’ has been in the air for a while and I let it waft over me without taking much notice. However, a few days ago I read Ken Rice’s thoughts on this matter on his And Then There’s Physics blog. He argues against a “recurring narrative that the concept of net-zero is flawed”, saying …
Hurricane Harvey: Some reflections on climate change communication
August 29, 2017
Hurricane Harvey has hit Houston and its aftermath is causing extreme flooding. This made me think… I remember sitting in an airport lounge in 2005 somewhere watching Hurricane Katrina unfold on TV screens and beginning to think about climate change as a social issue. A year or so later I started to notice the spread of a …
COP21: A new chance for common sense and common action?
November 30, 2015
Professor Michael Brüggemann and his research team at the University of Hamburg have set up a blog called Media Watch Blog. This blog will report on the Paris climate summit, COP21, as it unfolds. Here is my contribution to the blog, reposted below in a slightly longer version. ••• The 2015 United Nations Climate Change …
Lukewarmers
May 14, 2015
On 3 May (2015) Tamsin Edwards wrote an article for The Observer entitled “The lukewarmers don’t deny climate change. But they say the outlook’s fine” (see here for a discussion; I should point out that Tamsin didn’t choose the title for this article). This prompted Steven Mosher to write the following comment: “Lukewarmers have come …
Climate scepticism in Australia
May 8, 2015
Much has been written about those who doubt various tenets of mainstream climate science. Much of this literature has focused on the United States. Far less attention has been paid to Australia, despite the fact that climate change has emerged as a central issue for Australian politics and science. When studying the use of various …
Global warming is dead, long live global heating?
February 4, 2014
This post emerged from a weekend conversation between Mike Hulme, Brigitte Nerlich and Warren Pearce. It is also available as a pdf. There has been a lot of talk recently about a so-called ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ in global warming. Some argue that it poses a serious challenge to established climate science and may undermine its …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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