💡 Warp News #196
⚡ Fusion power breakthrough is repeated. 🌳 Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has decreased. 💰 Fewer and fewer poor countries.
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⛈️ How extreme is the weather?
In Sweden, where I live, it has been raining heavily in recent days, which has resulted in floods. This summer in Europe, we saw high temperatures. In other parts of the planet, there are large wildfires.
When you experience this combined with news media reporting, along with doomsday rhetoric about the climate, it's easy to get swept up.
Climate change is real and is a major problem for humanity, but the fight against it is not helped by talk of doomsday. This is my opinion, but also the opinion of the newly elected chairman of the UN's climate panel, the IPCC.
"If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then it paralyzes people and prevents them from taking the necessary actions to deal with climate change," he says in an interview.
Therefore, it may be appropriate to remind ourselves of what the IPCC has found regarding extreme weather.
So far, they have only noted a clear trend in two out of thirteen forms of extreme weather.
This doesn't mean that it cannot change with continued warming, or is changing now, but simply that it is the latest the IPCC has concluded.
Nor does that change what we have experienced in Sweden, Europe and the rest of the world in recent weeks, but I share it with you to facilitate having two thoughts in mind at the same time, as Hans Rosling often reminded us.
Here's what it looks like:
Extreme precipitation: yes, an increase is seen.
Floods: no noticeable trend.
Other storms: no noticeable trend.
Thunderstorms: no noticeable trend.
Lightning strikes: no noticeable trend.
Hail: no noticeable trend.
Heatwaves: yes, an increase is seen.
Extreme winds: no noticeable trend..
Tornadoes: no noticeable trend.
Meteorological and hydrological drought (what is commonly referred to as drought): no noticeable trend.
Lack of soil moisture (so-called agricultural drought or ecological drought): the probability of an increase is 50-50.
Tropical cyclones: no noticeable trend.
Forest fire weather: the probability of an increase is 50-50.
The compilation is made by Anders Bolling for Warp News.
Anders Bolling
In the last newsletter, I wrote about rain panels. The results claimed by the researchers have been questioned, and are also suspected because it was published in a Chinese scientific journal by Chinese researchers. Sometimes quite spectacular results slip through in such cases.
However, I have not yet confirmed whether the results are accurate or not, so for the time being, the article is still there, but with a small warning inserted at the beginning of the text.
Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist
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💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
⚡ Fusion power breakthrough is repeated (now even more energy out than in)
US scientists achieve net energy gain in fusion reaction for the second time. The latest experiment produced more energy than the first one conducted last year.
🌳 Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has decreased by a third
Deforestation in the Amazon decreased by 34 percent during the first half of the year compared to 2022. In July, the region entered a dry season with an increased risk for deforestation. Was the positive trend interrupted then?
💰 New data: Fewer and fewer poor countries (including Gaza and the West Bank)
A drastic decline in low-income countries since the 1980s. 80 percent of nations saw a gross national income per person improvement in 2022. Gaza and the West Bank move up to the upper-middle income group.
🌡️ New IPCC chairman: Talk of doomsday doesn't help in climate efforts
"If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyzes people", says the new chairman of the UN:s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
💰 O'Shaughnessy Ventures launches grants program
Five people have been selected as the inaugural recipients of the O’Shaughnessy Grants. Each will receive a $10,000 grant.
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