Notices by Steve Easterbrook (steve@fediscience.org)

New rule. If you've worked on #cryptocurrency and/or #blockchain, your email requesting doing a PhD under my supervision goes straight in the trash.

#CareerLimitingChoices

Also, no I will not join your research project looking at how #LargeLanguageModels and #GenerativeAI can help solve climate change. There is no possible world in which that makes any sense.

In two months time, there's a total eclipse across N. America. The path of the total eclipse will...
(checks notes)
...miss Toronto by about 10km. It goes straight up Lake Ontario, so I can't even just head out to the suburbs!

Time for a trip to Niagara, I think!

@Brendanjones
The key thing is to avoid binary language. Saying the 1.5C goal is implausible, or we will certainly breach it, or cross it (or whatever) all sounds like we have (or we will) "cross a line". It sounds like game over, we lost. Think about how crossing the line in sports is equated with winning or losing.

Terms like "overshoot" imply a quantity to be managed, rather than a final state, especially if immediately followed by language that frames it that way.

@Brendanjones
But getting the language right is tricky. If you just say we’re certain to breach the 1.5 limit, people (outside the climate science community) tend to hear “game over”, which feeds into doomerism.

I prefer to say there is now no doubt we will overshoot the 1.5 limit, so we need to focus on minimizing the overshoot. Every fraction of a degree will bring more irreversible damage.

For my #CHI colleagues: Surely you understand we live in a climate emergency? So how come you're having a discussion about changing the format of your (massive) annual conference without once mentioning its #CarbonFootprint?

We desperately need to stop flying academics around the world at the drop of a hat. Some of your options would help, but to remain silent on this is truly bizarre.

It's 2023. Climate Change should factor into *every* operational decision.

https://chi.acm.org/finances-and-format-shaping/

"Devoting the most valuable real estate in the world to the parked car [is] an absolutely insane thing to do. Why on earth should wealthy car owners be entitled to unlimited free use of taxpayer funded space to store their personal property?"
#WarOnCars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8&t=308s

Carbon #offsets have utterly failed, and are a dangerous distraction from real emissions cuts. It's time to phase them out.
Opinion from my colleague, Jessica Green in Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/false-promise-carbon-offsets

The term "natural gas" is pure #greenwashing. Let's start calling it what it is: #methane gas. Or, use it's full name:
"the powerful greenhouse gas methane"

See essay by @emorwee: "The urgent need for methane literacy":
https://heated.world/p/the-urgent-need-for-methane-literacy

@hanscees @sundogplanets
Now go watch the movie “Gravity”. It will sear the Kessler effect into your brain.

Carbon credits go up in smoke. The whole idea of offsetting was always largely bullshit, intended to avoid the hard work of actually cutting emissions.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/24/carbon-credit-speculators-could-lose-billions-as-offsets-deemed-worthless-aoe

Anyone who boasts about their “net-zero by 2050” plan, but can’t say what they are doing to make steep emissions cuts *this year* is selling you a steaming pile of bullshit
#ClimateChange #EmissionsCuts #NetZero

What we imagined climate change deniers would say when the climate catastrophes came, versus what they actually are saying...
https://boingboing.net/2023/07/19/tom-the-dancing-bug-what-we-imagined-climate-change-deniers-would-say.html

@emilymbender To be fair, some climate scientists think "just stop burning carbon" *is* the solution. Like "just stop training the models (for six months)"

Welcome all you journalists covering the climate beat!

@ahiatt (coveringclimatenow.org)
@AmandaSchrepf (Science Et Vie)
@AnneENConnor (freelance)
@craigawelch (NatGeo)
@davelevitan (grid.news)
@guacamayan (REDD Intelligence)
@ianlivingston (WaPo)
@izzieramirez (Vox)
@jtemple (MIT Tech Rev)
@kmk (CBC Montreal)
@LelaNargi (freelance)
@lorinc (Spacing, Globe&Mail)
@MikeDiGirolamo (Mongabay)
@nitishpahwa (Slate)
@ThinInk (Lighthouse Reports)
@voooos (Science Mag)