Posted on 12 June 2016 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights

Using the metric of comments garnered, the two most popular of the articles posted on SkS during the past week were:

• Trump and global warming: Americans are failing risk management by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
• Scientists: 2016 likely to be hottest year on record despite looming La Niña by Roz Pidcock (Carbon Brief)

El Niño is Over

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the past year’s El Niño was no more. The declaration comes a few weeks after Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, the other big El Niño monitoring group, also declared it dead and gone.

That means ocean temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are now near normal. But they might not stay that way for long as odds are pointing to a cooling in the region that could herald the arrival of a La Niña event later this fall.

El Niño Had a Good Run, But Now It’s Over by Brian Kahn, Climate Central, June 9, 2016

Toon of the Week

Quote of the Week 

Is there not, however, a danger that academics may lose their independence if they get too closely involved either with corporate interests or with environmental activism?

Holm* says that independence must be maintained if academics are do their work properly: “I am a staunch believer in the university as a space to stand aside, to dig deeper: we actually do need ivory towers to do this. But I’m also committed to being a passenger on the same bus as every other citizen. If I learn that that bus is driving us towards an abyss, I need to do something about it.”

*Poul Holm, Environmental Humanities Centre, Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub

The art of changing the climate debate by Paddy Woodworth, Irish Times, June 11, 2016 

SkS in the News

John Coook's Ten Years On: How Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth made its mark was reprinted by IFL Science.

The Debunking Handbook is cited by Atul Gawande in his commencement address at the California Institute of Technology, on Friday, June 10th. The address constitutes the article, The Mistrust of Science published in the New Yorker magazine.

SkS Spotlights

The Third Pole is a multilingual platform dedicated to promoting information and discussion about the Himalayan watershed and the rivers that originate there.  The project was launched as an initiative of chinadialogue, in partnership with the Earth Journalism Network. It is a registered non-profit organisation based in New Delhi and London, with editors also based in Kathmandu, Beijing, Dhaka and Karachi.

We work with an international network of experts, scientists, media professionals and policy makers to share knowledge and perspectives across the region.

We aim to reflect the impacts at every level, from the poorest communities to the highest reaches of government, and to promote knowledge sharing and cooperation within the region and internationally. We welcome your comments and contributions.

Contact info@thethirdpole.net to write for us, contribute data or join our network. 

Coming Soon on SkS 

• Republican leaders are scared of a carbon tax (Dana)
• Study: Most fossil fuels unburnable without carbon capture (Simon Evans)
• Development banks threaten to unleash an infrastructure tsunami on the environment (Bill Laurance)
• Guest Post (John Abraham)
• Timeline: How BECCS became climate change’s ‘saviour’ technology (Leo Hickman)
• 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25 (John Hartz)
• 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #25 (John Hartz)

Poster of the Week

SkS Week in Review 

• 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #24 by John Hartz
• Climate scientists have warned us of coral bleaching for years. It's here by John Abraham (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
• Ocean Heat Comes Back to Haunt Coral Reefs by Rob Painting
• Trump and global warming: Americans are failing risk management by Dana Nuccitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
• Scientists: 2016 likely to be hottest year on record despite looming La Niña by Roz Pidcock (Carbon Brief)
• Climate change and the value of daring by Joseph Robertson & David Thoreson (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
• 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #23 by John Hartz

97 Hours of Consensus: Richard Pancost

Richard Pancost's bio page

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