Our climate emergency: there’s more information out there than you can shake a stick at. When it comes to diving deeper into the data, it helps to know who you can trust and where to go for reliable information. Here are four great recommendations.
Let’s kick the list off with Word Forest’s Special Scientific Advisor, Professor Bill McGuire. Bill has been an advocate for the planet for decades. He writes Cool Earth on Substack and he penned a piece for The Guardian recently that stated: ‘This idea of a 1.5C temperature threshold is in the news again because just-published research has revealed that several catastrophic climate tipping points are in danger of being crossed at around this level of warming, including collapse of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, which would lock in about 12 metres of sea-level rise.
To have a fair chance of keeping this side of 1.5C, emissions have to fall by 45% in little more than 90 months, and I am on record as saying that this is practically impossible. But it’s worse than that. It is perfectly feasible that we will crash through the 1.5C guardrail even earlier.
The UK Met Office, for one, forecast in 2021 that there was a 40% or more chance that 1.5C would be breached temporarily at least once in the following five years. This means the average temperature would be above 1.5C one year, but likely return below it the next – and we will fluctuate around that number before crossing it permanently some time in the future.’
Our Patron, Met Office meteorologist and TV weather presenter, Clare Nasir, also bats for the Clean Green Team through broadcast and written media. She contributed to The Hell and Horror of the Climate Crisis recently, stating that: ‘The onset of something called attribution studies has made our messaging easier and clearer. We are able to communicate now what we have been seeing and feeling and understanding for a lot longer.’
Clearly communicated environmental education is a vital component in the war against global heating, and Word Forest takes it as seriously as we do reforestation. (Speaking of which, be sure to check out our Educational Learning Platform. We have a few free courses you might be interested in and there’s lots more lined up to help you expand your eco-horizons.)
Your support enables Word Forest to fight the fire that is our climate emergency and to ‘rehabilitate the arsonists’, by facilitating vital education!
Tropical reforestation initiatives are – without a shadow of a doubt – one of the most powerful ways to reduce climate chaos and achieve climate justice. Please click here if you’d like to make a donation on behalf of yourself, your family or your business – thank you.
Another of my other favourite Go To’s for hot-off-the-press info on meteorological matters is the National Centres for Environmental Information (NCEI). They maintain one of the most significant archives on Earth and you can access a great deal of comprehensive oceanic, atmospheric and geophysical data at the click of a button.
The NCEI assists another eco-behemoth that you might like to add to your bookmarks: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Their remit is to meet the growing need for high value data by supporting projects like the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act and the NOAA Blue Economy Initiative.
I thought I’d share a handful of recently collated statistics in the hope that it might encourage you to share this article on your social media, make a donation to our work and/or subscribe to our newsfeed – every single action helps.
Here’s a selection of startling statistics from NOAA’s January 2023 Global Climate Report.
- January in Austria was 4.0°C above average in the lowlands and 1.6°C above average in the mountains.
- Belgium recorded a temperature this month that was 1.5°C warmer than the long-term average.
- Latvia, in addition to experiencing its third wettest January this year, recorded an average temperature 2.4°C above the long-term average for the month.
- January in Estonia followed a similar wet and warm pattern to its southern neighbour. Rainfall was 137% of the average, while temperatures were 2.0°C above the long-term average.
- Across the Baltic Sea, Denmark followed a similar pattern. Average temperature this January was ninth warmest on record at 2.2°C above the climate normal. It was also the wettest January ever recorded since records began in 1874.
- Italy ranked 11th warmest on record for January at 0.96°C above average.
- Mean temperatures across the United Kingdom for January were slightly above average, at 0.4°C above the 1991-2020 average for the month.
- Pakistan reported a January temperature that was 1.25°C below average.
- Meanwhile, Australia, while 35% wetter than average, had a January temperature equal to the long term average for the month.
Bill, Clare and millions of other educators are needed right now to encourage positive action on deforestation and living lightly on the planet by changing the ways we live and do business. There can never be too many environmentalists. It’s up to each and every one of us to embrace this advocatory role as a messenger on a mission to clean the air we breathe all over the world, especially as some of the details can weigh heavy on hearts and minds.
The time for putting our hands over our eyes and our ears has long passed.
Together, we can make the planet an even more incredible place if we get everyone on the same page. Imagine for a moment how amazing that could be.
Tracey West and The Team
