When 17 Climate Narratives Add Up to No Narrative
How many climate narratives are in use today, even if we limit the list to narratives being used to advocate for a serious societal response to climate change? Quite a few, and the list below could be a lot longer if narrower narratives were separated out, e.g. the Soil Carbon Narrative (which right now is […]
Who Would You Invite to a Serious “Save the Climate” Strategy Session?
There have been hundreds of climate change conferences over the years, most with no ambition to come up with a strategy for “saving the climate.” Plenty of “calls to action,” and plenty of statements of what “needs to happen,” but coming up with a plausibly workable strategy is much harder than reiterating yet again what […]
The Fourth National Climate Assessment: Catastrophic Messaging?
The recently released Fourth U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) has received a great deal of attention due to the severity of climate change impacts the report portrays. The NCA and the IPCC’s recently released 1.5 Degrees Special Report together have been widely characterized as portraying a climate change state of emergency. Some observers have gone […]
If Only We Knew What We Know About Climate Change in Oregon
When it comes to climate change, Carla Odell’s “if only we knew what we know,” is an apt metaphor, particularly given Woodrow Wilson’s point that “there is not an idea in our heads that has not been worn shiny by someone else’s brains.” Imagine what we could accomplish on climate change in Oregon if everyone […]
The Water Will Come: Tackling Willful Blindness on Climate Change
Jeff Goodell’s book, The Water Will Come, was recently released as another addition to the sea level rise bookshelf. But the question the book really raises is one of willful blindness and whether we can overcome that willful blindness on sea level rise in particular, and on climate change in general. In this post, I’ll […]
Creating Climate Knowledge for You on Patreon
I have been working on responses to climate change and climate change decision-making for almost 30 years. I’ve served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but most of my career has been spent working with organizations around the world on everything to do with climate change. Whether calling it climate change or global […]
Climate Change and Hurricanes
Watch our new video! In this video, we explore media coverage of the links between climate change and Hurricane Harvey, and evaluate the common assertion that we can now finally stop debating whether such links exist (an assertion we heard after Hurricane Katrina by the way). The video doesn’t advocate for or against climate science, […]