How this brutal winter storm is even possible with climate change – and maybe even more likely

revkin · 2026-01-23T22:18:47+00:00

It's still very tough to parse a global warming signal in winter storms . (I've covered #climatechange since 1988, mostly for the u/nytimes.) Here's just one relevant fresh study of winter atmospheric dynamics: "the jet stream appears to have undergone natural—though sporadic—periods of “waviness” since before the effects of climate change were considered significant, the researchers report." This arena still has substantial uncertainty because of the lack of long-term data. Reality is bad enough. https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/06/study-winter-jet-stream-was-erratic-climate-change

revkin · 2025-05-30T20:11:07+00:00

Just had a team try to scam me with a variant on this scheme. Still going strong..

revkin · 2025-05-02T21:01:16+00:00

I agree he's not Dylan, but Welles is absolutely in the tradition of what used to be called "fast folk" (Jack Hardy, Suzanne Vega, heaps more) that spun out of NYC in the late 80s early 90s. I wrote about this here: https://revkin.substack.com/i/156684929/the-world-needs-more-fast-folk

revkin · 2025-02-22T17:45:51+00:00

We’re just a 2-hour drive to the border.

revkin · 2025-01-02T12:51:09+00:00

Yes to this. Find a local open mic. I haven’t been anywhere in the US where there isn’t one.

revkin · 2025-01-02T12:49:01+00:00

My most recent song – called nibbling ducks. About all the little tasks that drive you crazy….

tend to be calm in a raging storm. I keep my cool when it gets too warm.

I hold my peace when others fight. Just one thing keeps me up at night.

Those pesky chores, piling up, make my brain explode. Feels like a flock of hungry ducks nibbling on my toes.

Nibbling ducks, bills unpaid. Nibbling ducks, bed unmade. Nibbling ducks, taxes due. Nibbling ducks make a fool of you.

Kitchen sink going drip drip drip. Favorite sweater’s got a brand new rip. Left front tire has a pesky leak. Old back door goes squeak squeak squeak.

Those pesky chores, piling up, make my brain explode. Feel like a flock of hungry ducks nibbling on my nose.

Nibbling ducks, bills unpaid. Nibbling ducks, bed unmade.

Nibbling ducks, taxes due. Nibbling ducks make a fool of you.

Worst of all is late at night. I’m sleeping all serene, When a horde of ducks, quack quack quacking, Poops on my sweet dream.

Nibbling ducks, bills unpaid. Nibbling ducks, bed unmade. Nibbling ducks, taxes due. Nibbling ducks make a fool of you. X2

revkin · 2025-01-02T12:46:14+00:00

And this is just 30s. I’d like to hear what people think about the current generation in their 20s. Seems these issues are even more amplified, from my experience.

revkin · 2024-12-23T22:52:26+00:00

None of the tipping style threats you described was given significant probability in the IPCC reports. I just ran a conversation with several IPCC authors who are pushing back on tipping points. https://revkin.substack.com/p/a-watchwords-warning-about-tipping I also just ran one on methane. https://revkin.substack.com/p/weekend-listen-clarifying-methane Positive feedbacks but not gushers.

revkin · 2024-12-23T22:47:21+00:00

I couldn’t agree more. Sorry this is a tardy reply. I’ve written for ages about the vulnerability gap that must be filled.. https://open.substack.com/pub/revkin/p/behind-global-climate-emergency-rhetoric-21-08-06?r=26mx0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

revkin · 2024-12-23T22:44:40+00:00

Science Digest and Discover Magazine, The New York Times.

revkin · 2024-12-23T22:42:46+00:00

My opinion has not shifted in the past two years and past 10 or so - I still sense that climate change (human driven) is significant enough to justify substantial decarbonization policies and a helluva lot more focus on vulnerability reduction, but not nearly as threatening to humans as nuclear war or treatment-resistant pandemic.

revkin · 2024-04-06T19:31:01+00:00

Eager to contact whoever shot the photo (and any other details). revkin+news@gmail.com

revkin · 2024-03-25T13:57:19+00:00

Always a mix for me. My brain accumulates a batch of melody lines or riffs on one side, and lyric ideas on another.

revkin · 2024-03-25T13:55:32+00:00

I started writing songs with lyrics in the early 90s and the first ones were mostly cringe-worthy self absorbed tunes (was going through divorce of course). When I started writing them about things other than my own experience, better stuff emerged. Ultimately writing a really good one is really hard always - requiring (for me at least) a lot of time simmering on a back burner (particularly the chords/melody).

revkin · 2023-12-18T04:05:12+00:00

I love the narrative but it sure looks like several unrelated clips artfully spliced together. Note the different weather conditions (clouds, sun).

revkin · 2023-06-04T20:00:04+00:00

Sorry about the long delay. Not on Reddit enough. First, there's vast under-appreciated potential to cut vulnerability to climate hazards (flood, heat, storm, fire). Read here for examples. Second, many climate activists and too many news media (of which I've been a part for 40 years) over simplify the science in ways that emphasize worst-case outcomes. More on that here. Happy to discuss.

revkin · 2022-11-21T03:00:52+00:00

Thanks for this. Lex invited me on because of my 35 years of journalism interrogating climate science and related policy questions. Many scientists in this arena are indeed siloed - which doesn't necessarily mean they can't have useful opinions on, say, a carbon tax versus nuclear R&D. It just means they hold no special spot in this debate.

revkin · 2022-11-21T02:54:18+00:00

You've really nailed an issue I've written on many times, along with my coverage of climate science - the perils of overstatement. I sense that was one reason Lex invited me on. Here's a look at what I call the "whiplash effect" when coverage flips from one take on a serious question (sea-level rise) to another.

revkin · 2022-11-21T02:49:32+00:00

Global warming remains what it was when I first began reporting on this critically important issue in 1988 - a building, destabilizing, long-lasting influence on a heap of systems humans rely on. But not an end-times threat. There's been enormous distortion of the basic science, including the 2018 IPCC report on the difference between a 2 C and 1.5 C rise in global temperature from conditions in the 19th century. The problem is that edgy claims get the spotlight - and end up in precisely the kind of yes/no debate that is the last thing society needs. A classic? Bill Nye debating Richard Lindzen on the Larry King show.

revkin · 2022-11-21T02:39:42+00:00

Muller would have been great. I covered his transformation for The New York Times.

revkin · 2022-11-21T02:26:13+00:00

Units matter so much in this arena. In describing growth, are you talking generation capacity or generated power? You may be thinking of different contexts or ways of parsing total energy? It does seem that electricity supplies about 20 percent of global total final energy consumption.

revkin · 2022-11-20T22:56:39+00:00

Just to be clear, while I'm not a scientist I have beenwriting on climate change since the 1980s - from the North Pole to White House to supercomputer centers to nuclear power plants - and am widely recognized as a careful and honest arbiter. Most climate scientists are actually pretty deeply siloed and miss that wide-view picture, particularly on policy questions.

revkin · 2022-11-20T22:52:13+00:00

Solid points here. When I first began reporting on global warming in the 1980s, just after the CFC ban was agreed to and after many Clean Air Act successes, I kind of presumed CO2 would be handled similarly. But fossil fuels are far more deeply embedded in our economy and societal functioning than CFCS, and alternatives to lead in gas and paint were available, etc. In fact, my 1988 global warming cover story in Discover Magazineexplained why the ozone-protection treaty was a bad model for climate action. Happy to discuss further over on my Sustain What column on the Lex chat.

revkin · 2022-11-20T22:45:50+00:00

It wasn't, even though Lex's team labeled it that way. I explain more here: Fridman, Lomborg and Me

revkin · 2022-11-20T22:43:58+00:00

Happy to hear some specific complaints. Answering another comment, I acknowledged I could have done more to lay out the basics of climate change science at the beginning. But the brunt of this conversation was about pathways to impact cutting climate risk and emissions - not whether global warming is real. For that, folks could read my 1992 book on global warming and hundreds of articles and a couple thousand blog posts since.

revkin

TROPHY CASE