Stories from June 2021

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The first month of the boreal winter was tragically one for the record books, with astounding heat events in Europe, Russia and North America dominating the news there (though less so elsewhere).

June’s apotheosis came in the last few days of the month when the mountain town of Lytton, British Columbia, Canada experienced an unthinkable 49.6°C.

Meanwhile extreme drought ravages the American west, not to mention the large Indian Ocean nation of Madagascar, while a study landed that finds that over the last four decades the onset of “tropical rainfall” was delayed, yet monsoons are “likely to get worse”.

Not unexpectedly we must drearily relay the information that Arctic sea ice situation is bad, badder than previously expected, and that the monster in the Antarctic basement with the incongruous name, Pine Island Glacier, is being enabled by the slow fading of its supporting ice shelf.

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From the world of humans comes further news that many movers and shakers are getting the message. Multinational CEOs have become greenies,

the Keystone XL                                           pipeline has caved,                                                             pressure on the coal industry                                                     continues, and calls mount                                                             for the national-                                                                        ization

of oil                                                                        companies.

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Sometimes there                        is not much positive news but this month                       we found these heartwarmers:                    It seems clouds cool us more than we                             thought. And Russian forest sequesters more carbon than we thought. There. Just for you. You’re welcome.

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Oh, and action continued on the part of millions of wonderful, concerned (frightened) people including those ultimate dispensers of peer-reviewed info, the IPCC, who released a draft report which noted, among other things, that severe climate impacts will hit sooner than expected. And that climate tipping points actually are, it seems, really serious. No, make that ummm, cataclysmic.