Sunny climate, stormy climate | Edition #4
Welcome to the fourth edition of Sunny climate, Stormy climate - your weekly dose of climate news
Hello and welcome to the fourth edition of Sunny climate, Stormy climate! Here, every week I bring to you 5 stories about the climate
3 stormy ones - concerning stories that are a source of alarm
2 sunny ones - green shoots that tell you that all is not yet lost
So let’s look at what we have this week!
Stormy news
Vietnam records highest ever temperature at 44.1 degree celsius
Farm workers have to finish work by 10 am to avoid the heat; Source: BBC news What are we talking about?
The series of countries around the world recording new highs in temperatures continues. This week its closer home. Vietnam’s april heat wave is continuing into May with the highest ever temperature of 44.1 deg C being recorded in the northern Thanh Hoa province on 7th May. Thailand also recorded 44.6 deg c that is equaling a previous record. Myanmar recorded 43.8 deg c, which is the highest temperature in a decade. (Couple of weeks back we spoke about Spain)
Why is this a concern?
There is an increasing trend of hotter and hotter summers that are affecting our daily lives that scientists have clearly attributed to climate change. The temperatures are so high that it is becoming impossible to be outdoors for work or travel in the hottest parts of the day. This has impacts like schools being shut down, factory and farm timings being adjusted to start before dawn and end before 10 am and for companies to declare work from home for jobs that have the luxury of remote work.
Climate scientists being targeted by climate deniers on Musk’s Twitter
Example of a tweet by Donald Trump where he is blatantly denying climate change, quoting Patrick Moore who is in fact NOT the co founder of Greenpeace but a paid spokesperson for polluting industries for more than 30 years! What is happening?
Top scientists have claimed that there is a huge increase in abuse from Climate deniers on the social media platform ‘Twitter’ since Elon Musk took over the platform in October last year. This has happened through a combination of
Key figures who were entrusted with prioritising ‘trusted’ content (including Twitter’s Chief sustainability officer) being fired and
The accounts of popular climate deniers (like Trump) being reinstated
Why is this a problem?
This creates an obstacle in important climate related news reaching people, aids in spreading misinformation and has actually resulted in some scientists getting tired of the abuse and leaving the platform altogether.
Wildfires raging in Canada, exacerbated by ‘heat dome’ conditions
Wildfires raging in Alberta, Canada; Source: The New York Times What is happening?
Wildfires have been raging for more than 2 weeks in western Canada. Almost 1 mn Ha of land has been burned so far. The province of Alberta declared a state of emergency and almost 30000 people have been forced to evacuate.
While the rain in the earlier part of the week helped reduce the temperatures, there is now expectation of ‘heat dome’ conditions that are likely to push temperatures to record highs and worsen the fires.
Why is this concerning?
Scientists have said that a ‘heat dome’ conditions are extremely rare in this part of the world at this time of the year. A recent study from the Climate Central found the upcoming ‘heat dome’ the “clear fingerprints of climate change” and has made the record-breaking temperatures five times more likely.
Spring temperatures in the region have been drier and hotter than normal in recent years, pushing the start of the fire season earlier and earlier. But with more than 410,000 hectares of forest burned since January – more than double the amount typically burned in an entire season.
Sunny news
RBI is talking about climate change
What are we talking about?
Every year, the Reserve Bank of India publishes a report on the state of currency and finance in India. This year, the RBI decided to surprise everyone with their theme — ‘Towards a Greener Cleaner India’.
The 4 chapters in the report are titled - 1: The Climate strikes back, 2: The macro-economic effects of climate change, 3: Climate change and the financial sector and 4: Policy options to mitigate climate risks
If you really look at the report only 20 pages really talk about climate change, but its a start
Why do we say its good news?
For one, while the impact RBI can directly have on policies and initiatives that support sustainability are limited, it its definitely non zero. and the fact that RBI is talking about it right in the theme, tells us this is top of mind.
Secondly, the more climate change becomes a part of the mainstream narrative, the more pressure we build on institutions (government and corporates alike) to take action and the better chances we have of seeing real change
Norway is showing the world what an EV future can look like
What are we talking about?
Last year, 80 percent of new-car sales in Norway were electric, putting the country at the vanguard of the shift to battery-powered mobility. The country will end the sales of internal combustion engine cars in 2025 and all city buses will be electric by the end of the year.
It has also turned Norway into an observatory for figuring out what the electric vehicle revolution might mean for the environment, workers and life in general.
So what is the good news?
TLDR: A 100% EV city with all the benefits imagined may be possible without the infrastructure fully crumbling
The air in Oslo, Norway’s capital, is measurably cleaner. The city is also quieter as noisier gasoline and diesel vehicles are scrapped. Oslo’s greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 30 percent since 2009.
Levels of nitrogen oxides, byproducts of burning gasoline and diesel that cause smog, asthma and other ailments, have fallen sharply as electric vehicle ownership has risen
There has not been mass unemployment among gas station workers and the electrical grid has not collapsed.
There are problems, of course, including unreliable chargers and long waits during periods of high demand.
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