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Colin J. Carlson Profile picture
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Mar 2 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Jokes aside, I got curious about this - when an IPCC assessment report comes out, what do presidents say in the State of the Union address? So I looked back... 🧵
Tonight: some brief mentions of energy transition; next to nothing on impacts or the urgency of the problem. (@robinsonmeyer is right in above thread: this is *how* Joe Biden talks about climate change.)
Notable: no mention of the IPCC report that came out two days ago in #SOTU22. It turns out this is kind of a unique circumstance to have been in, though, because the State of the Union was so late in the year.
Dialing back the clock seven years to AR5, we have two contenders for possible mentions:

- WG I: Sept. 30, 2013
- SOTU: Jan. 14, 2014
- WGII: Mar. 31, 2014
- WGIII: Apr. 15, 2014
- Synthesis Report: Nov. 2, 2014
- SOTU: Jan. 20, 2015
What did Obama have to say in 2014? A lot! Not the greatest energy policy in history, but some pretty in-depth discussion of climate impacts and some affirmation of the science - much more than tonight, at least.
What did he have to say in 2015? Much more affirming the science of both warming and impacts, some more focus on emissions but less specifics on energy transition, and an unexpected nod to national security. That sure is climate, baby!
What about, dare we ask this, AR4 / the Bush era?

AR4 WGI and WGIII: June 2007
AR4 WGII: July 2007
AR4 SYR: September 2007

No nearby State of the Union to be found.
Bush's 2008 SOTU, his last one, is fun though: a bit of general stuff about clean energy, and some good old fashioned clean coal. Alright. Not sure what I expected.
Going back another seven years, the matrix starts to glitch a bit. 2001 was not a real year. This is the IPCC front page for AR3. You can't even find the report from here. It's a ghost town.
We're far back enough that you also have to actually go into the reports to find useful info on the release dates. WGI was adopted Jan. 17-20, 2001, which is promising for SOTU; WGII was Feb. 13-16, 2001; WGIII was Feb. 28 - Mar. 3, 2001.
Bush's first State of the Union was Feb. 27, 2001 - the last time we were within a couple day radius of IPCC.

As you can imagine: no mention of global warming.
I have made the conscious decision not to go further back. AR2 was released in 1995; recorded history started in 1996 when I was born.
What have we learned from this?
🌡️ Biden faring the best on energy talk
🌡️ But, he could have talked about impacts
🌡️ Nothing on the science but let's be real: it's settled
🌡️ IPCC had a unique opportunity here and their comms + public conversations didn't capitalize on it
BONUS ROUND: the "Global warming of 1.5°C" Special Report came out in October 2018. In the 2019 SOTU, I am heartbroken to tell you there was no mention of climate change. Just this:

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Colin J. Carlson Profile picture
Mar 2
Yesterday we published the highest-resolution snapshot of the vertebrate-virus network; today, we're announcing our next big data project. If you help us pull it off, it could change everything from climate change research to early warning systems for spillover.
We don't normally announce data projects so early in development, but over the last few months, we've started to feel like all roads lead to the same place: this is the step disease ecology needs to take if we want to answer the big questions. It's also utterly doable.
Take a look at how @GBIF has transformed biodiversity science. When I was an undergrad, ecologists were still hesitant to put their most valuable data online; now there's a billion points - and a completely different scientific field. We can immortalize just as much data.
Read 4 tweets
Colin J. Carlson Profile picture
Mar 1
I've applied for bigger NSF grants as an early career prof than the funding that entire African countries have received to work on climate change research *over 30 years*. It's hard to wrap your mind around how severe the adaptation gap really is.
It's hard to contextualize these kinds of numbers sometimes, but $1-10m is easily the size of, say, most of the say 2-5 year research grants you apply for as a scientist. One grant's worth.
Also: external funders are interested in protecting African biodiversity from climate change, but health? poverty? Those aren't getting their day in the sun. Speaks to huge conversations @seyeabimbola @paimadhu + other folks are pushing about decolonizing global health Image
Read 5 tweets
Colin J. Carlson Profile picture
Mar 1
If - like me - you sometimes feel a bit lost when you hear climate experts talk about "transformative social change," I have a bit of a theory about why. Heartfelt thoughts from a scientist who worked on the new #ipcc report 🧵
Let's start with the basics. The @IPCC_CH report released yesterday is clear about the need for transformative change - like the Special Report on 1.5C was before, like the @IPBES transformative change assessment will be. There are no half solutions to a planetary emergency.
I'm really grateful to other climate activists on Twitter and offline, who give me faith that we have both the courage to make those changes and the power to center them around ideas of justice and kindness.
Read 40 tweets
Colin J. Carlson Profile picture
Mar 1
If, in the two years of pandemic response, you found the phrase "I am begging you to care about other people" rattling around your brain: I am as a climate scientist begging you, today, to care about other people. It feels like this report is passing by unnoticed.
I'm speaking to everyone but especially public health folks. I feel utterly seasick at the idea that tomorrow I'll have to scroll through hundreds of Covid and Ukraine tweets to find the odd climate change one. I am begging you to listen. Dear god.
This report isn't the same as the one that came out a few months ago. It isn't the same as every other report. This is a huge moment for understanding the scale of loss of life that's coming. I need you to look at the stereogram just for five minutes until you see the shape
Read 5 tweets
Colin J. Carlson Profile picture
Feb 28
A key point from the #ipcc summary for policymakers: vaccines matter. New platforms like @CEPIvaccines can be tools for climate adaptation; but vaccine equity will sit at the heart of their efficacy. Covid shows us how this could become a point of climate injustice 💉⚖️ Image
We've known this problem was coming for years, though - as just one example, before the pandemic started, Morgan Stanley was using our research to scout out billions in potential revenue from dengue vaccines in the U.S. and Europe.

morganstanley.com/ideas/climate-… Image
(When I say our, I don't mean the royal we - here's our original study, led by @SadieRyan with a great team; you'll see these numbers and maps pop up at a few different points in the #ipcc report)

journals.plos.org/plosntds/artic…
Read 4 tweets
Colin J. Carlson Profile picture
Feb 28
I'm an author on the new #ipcc report and I study the connections between climate change and emerging diseases. 🧵: is climate change connected to Covid? Could it cause more pandemics? Here's some of what the report says. (And also my own shameless thoughts)
You probably know that wildlife trade, agriculture, and deforestation are all driving disease emergence. But the new #ipcc impacts report shows that climate change is the backdrop for all of that. (Ch. 2, p. 41) Image
There's a great FAQ in chapter 2: "How does climate change increase the risk of diseases?" The short version: climate change is transforming every aspect of ecosystems. Growing human-wildlife contact gives that a chance to play out in human health. ImageImage
Read 15 tweets

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