a couple of weeks ago i met a man working one of the hardest jobs in the transition to a clean economy 1/ patrick burrichter cooks for a dozen berlin hospitals that offer patients a “planetary health” diet - one that is rich in plants and light in animals 2/

a couple of months ago i went to a yacht show in a tax haven and asked dozens of people how they felt about their carbon footprints 1/ the responses ranged from denial and disinterest to excuses to acceptance and action, but what was striking was how similar they were to the ways in which middle-class people in rich countries justify their own polluting lifestyles 2/

this week the guardian launched its new european edition with an investigation that found 98% of us live in areas where the air is clogged with more toxic particles than doctors recommend we breathe 1/ concentrations of fine particles are highest in skopje, which i visited last month, where bad air makes people die 2-3 years too early and hits the economy with sick days, brain drain, healthcare spending and self-imposed lockdowns 2/ theguardian.com/world/2023/sep…

i find it kinda hard to make people realise how much heat hurts so imagine a jumbo jet fell from the sky this morning and killed everyone on board 1/ that’s about how many people are dying from heat every day in europe right now, if this summer is anything like the last, only without you hearing about the lives they lived or the grief of their loved ones 2/ https://t.co/YjI9rjWLUknature.com/articles/s4159…

i spoke to scientists, negotiators and observers at the secret approval session of the big new climate report about how badly governments watered down the text in the political summary on which they eventually signed off 1/ heatmap.news/politics/ipcc-… the intergovernmental panel on climate change writes reports with summaries for policymakers that are drafted by scientists then approved, after fierce negotiations, by delegates from 195 countries pushing their own interests 2/

the most powerful climate report of the decade was published on monday, after 195 governments fought over the words in its summary for policymakers, and the only media allowed in the room just published its account of who lobbied for what 1/ the earth negotiations bulletin is allowed into approval sessions of the hotly contested ipcc summaries for policymakers (though, as a couple of scientists have pointed out, they do not have access to the huddles where detailed discussions happen) 2/ enb.iisd.org/58th-session-i…

one phrase that scientists and journalists love, but which has never made any sense to me, is "avoid the worst impacts of climate change" 1/ there is no such thing as the worst impacts of climate change: however bad things get, they can still get worse, until everyone is dead, and even then there's other species to think about, so the actual worst case is wiping out all life on earth 2/

the world's top scientists have written a landmark report about climate change and 195 countries just signed off on a summary that lays out surprisingly clearly what must happen to fossil fuels to keep us safe 1/ most of the greenhouse gases that have polluted the atmosphere, making heat waves hotter and coastal floods stronger, came from burning fossil fuels and using them in industry 2/

an australian climate charity got a polling agency to ask people about extreme weather and mental health and the numbers of people hit are just jaw-dropping 1/ put 5 australians in a room and 4 will tell you they were hit by an extreme weather disaster in the last 3 years 2/

1/ spoke to columbia journalism review about how journalists can cover climate better and in a nutshell:
-read the science
-state facts instead of framing them as opinions
-highlight hypocrisy
-speak more simply
-be critical of solutions but not dismissive
cjr.org/covering_clima… 2/ any reporter or editor can become better at their job by sitting down with the latest report from the intergovernmental panel on climate change and reading up on the facts that tell the full climate story (it's not just physics, it's societal and tech)

https://twitter.com/NiranjanAjit/status/1516791660344131589

there are a few times a year when broadcasters care about the accelerating demise of a hospitable planet so here are some tips for climate scientists doing tv and radio interviews to use airtime effectively 1/ write summary sentences that are blunt and robust: include an actor and a verb, swap big words for small ones, stress hypocrisy, cut jargon, avoid mechanisms, prefer past tense to future, check facts, be precise, withhold opinions 2/

fossil fuel companies being honest on linkedin, a slowly updating thread 1/ glencore, the world's biggest coal shipper, is hiring a climate change leader to provide expert support on cutting emissions but only requires them to have one year of relevant work experience 2/

a new report on the state of climate action looked at 40 indicators of change and found not a single one is on track to keep the world from heating to the level at which world leaders promised to try to stop global warming 1/ 5 of the 40 indicators are heading in completely the wrong direction: burning more fossil gas to make electricity, making steel less cleanly, driving more, destroying mangroves faster, and pumping more pollution from farms 2/

slowly reading through some of the internal documents that oil executives were forced to turn over to congressional investigators and the honesty on display here is wild 1/ here is a senior lobbyist at shell discussing communication strategies for a workshop on carbon capture and storage that it jointly sponsored in 2019 2/

the degrowth movement to cut carbon pollution by shrinking rich economies is speculative and could hurt wellbeing, which might be enough to dismiss it if the exact same critique didn't also apply to the green growth ideology world leaders are betting on 1/ dw.com/en/degrowth-gr… the current plan to stop the planet heating, laid out in climate models and political promises, is for all countries to grow their economies as they build clean energy infrastructure and burn fewer fuels that release heat-trapping gasses 2/

more than 1 in 10 people on the planet are living through a heat wave made stronger and more likely by climate change and i can only find three news articles that mention fossil fuels the deccan herald and times of india both quote @FrediOtto, a leading expert in extreme weather attribution, who specifies that burning coal and other fossil fuels has made every heat wave hotter

here is a quick thread for anybody who didn't read the 3 ipcc reports published in the last year (hello, politics, business and news editors) summarizing what hundreds of the world's top scientists concluded in their mega-review of the academic literature on climate change 1/ "it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land" 2/

this morning the @IISD_ENB, the only media allowed into the approval session of the new un climate solutions report, published their account of how governments tried to influence the summary for policymakers that they ultimately signed off on 1/ there are several examples of governments successfully lobbying to water down language in a way that protects domestic industries or avoids them having to take more financial responsibility for having warped the climate but 2/

germany's climate minister just said he will not tell anybody how long to shower for but will start a small information campaign with tips on how to save energy this is very much a side-point to the plans announced today to accelerate the roll-out of renewable energy, and he made clear the campaign plans are in their early stages, but still surprising to see movement here

the new un report on climate solutions does not identify industry lobbying as a problem in its summary for policymakers or technical summary but the full report documents it over and over again 1/ corporations and trade associations often lobby against measures they deem detrimental 2/

two of the most powerful sentences in the technical summary of the new ipcc report did not make it into the government-approved summary for policymakers left: technical document written purely by scientists

right: the summary for policymakers that government officials approved