Jeff Goodell on Attribution Science in the NYT: The Science That Has Oil Companies Running Scared – Gift Link

Jeff Goodell on Attribution Science in the NYT: The Science That Has Oil Companies Running Scared – Gift Link

Goodell, author of ‘The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet’ argues that no matter how the US Supreme Court rules in a liability lawsuit brought against Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy by the city of Boulder, it will not kill attempts to hold those responsible for the impact of climate change accountable.

In fact, he writes, “the age of accountability for the fossil fuel industry has just begun and has a bright future. The reason for that is the emergence of a powerful field of climate science known as attribution science”, which measures how much human-caused climate change influences the frequency, intensity, and likelihood of specific extreme weather events. [Here is a Union of Concerned Scientists piece with a longer explanation on how it works.]

The simple truth is, the climate accountability genie is out of the bottle, and the Supreme Court is unlikely to jam it back in. Even if the court sides with Suncor, attribution science will continue to move forward, filling in the gaps between cause and effect in our understanding of how climate works.

And

In the end, the promise of attribution science is that it helps us see a storm or a heat wave or a flood not as an act of a god or the whim of Mother Nature, but as a disaster that has been knowingly shaped or intensified by particular human actions. And by identifying perpetrators and victims, it transforms the question of who should pay for climate damages into a moral question as much as a legal one.

Gift link.

Related coverage on the case:

Bill McKibben in NYT Op-ed: ‘We can’t keep on like this. It’s simply inhuman.’ – Gift Link

Bill McKibben in NYT Op-ed: ‘We can’t keep on like this. It’s simply inhuman.’ – Gift Link

Lots of people I know are feeling this way.

In a NYT op-ed headlined ‘I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This.’, Bill Mckibben writes:

Psychologists have claimed that evolutionary biology leaves humans ill equipped to deal with giant, slow-moving problems. But suddenly we live in a moment when problems are speeding and piling up.

The climate crisis now consists of walls of water sweeping down Nepali rivers, obliterating entire towns in the blink of an eye, and wildfires that wipe out California neighborhoods in hours. And we’re confronting the birth and Bunyanesque growth of a new technology, artificial intelligence, that, according to some of its creators, is fairly likely to kill us all in the near future. We have to sit and listen as men worth unfathomable sums speculate about whether our species will survive their companies’ initial public offerings.

Six of the biggest fossil fuel companies are projected to earn $2,967 a second in profits in 2026, new Oxfam research finds, ahead of the first global conference this week on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia. This marks an increase of almost $37 million a day compared to the 2025 profits of these six corporations – Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and TotalEnergies. Their total projected fossil fuel profits of 2026 are $94 billion: enough to provide solar power for the energy needs of almost 50 million people in Africa.

And concludes:

.. if human survival and economic resilience are important goals, so is a world calm enough to meet the needs of the human nervous system. We can’t keep on like this — it’s simply inhuman. We’re creating a world that’s fit only for something artificial.

Gift link.

Inside Climate News: Europe’s Extreme Summer Triggered Cascading Climate Shocks

Inside Climate News: Europe’s Extreme Summer Triggered Cascading Climate Shocks

A good summary by Bob Berwyn of the Copernicus Summer 2026 report released yesterday, on a summer of “record heat, severe drought and compounding impacts that tested Europe’s infrastructure and resilience” that affected just about everything, including “water supplies, energy systems, transport, ecosystems and agriculture, along with human health”.

Link.

Le Monde: Summer 2026 was hottest on record in Western Europe, yet still no political awakening

Le Monde: Summer 2026 was hottest on record in Western Europe, yet still no political awakening

In their report on the Copernicus Summer Review 2026, Le Monde notes the EU’s inability to act on climate, in spite of EU Commision President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledgment that “On climate change, this summer was the summer of truth.”

“One of the defining characteristics of summer this year is that it was not a single record; it was multiple records,” said Samantha Burgess, climate strategy lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. “We’ve seen these compound impacts of climate change where we’ve seen record heat, record dryness, record wildfire risk.”

But at the EU’s political level, nothing, other than an absence of any real shock.

“There was no reaction; the climate issue is not among the priorities,” said Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, head of the energy center at the Institut Jacques Delors.

Link.

Guardian: World’s oceans absorbed record heat equal to 40 times annual global energy use

Guardian: World’s oceans absorbed record heat equal to 40 times annual global energy use

All the energy used by the earth’s entire population in one year all adds up to about half of a zettajoule.

A record-breaking 23 zettajoules of heat was sunk into the world’s seas last year, leaving ocean waters hotter, higher and less hospitable, a report has found.

The explosive addition of thermal energy, which was almost 40 times greater than all the energy humanity used that year, comes amid far-reaching changes to the deep water bodies fundamental to life on Earth.

Sea levels have risen by about 3.8mm per year since 1999, and at a faster rate of 4.2mm per year between 2012 and 2025, according to the 10th edition of the Copernicus ocean state report. It found the global ocean has become 17% more acidic in the last 40 years.

And

The scientists found a clear acceleration of sea level rise in the western Mediterranean, even as the eastern part showed uneven gains. The entire sea has warmed by 0.32C per decade, the report found, driving up marine heatwaves, particularly in the last few years.

The report comes as western Europe experiences an unusually warm September right after its ruinously fiery summer, with temperatures hitting 40C highs in parts of Spain and Portugal last week. Hot coastal waters exacerbate heatwaves on land by adding heat during nights that would otherwise cool down.

Link.

 Copernicus: August 2026 was the Hottest Month on Record

Copernicus: August 2026 was the hottest Month on Record.

Records are made to be broken, I guess. Or, at least tied.

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reports that August 2026 was the hottest month in recorded history, tying with July 2023. August 2026 was 1.65°C above the estimated pre-industrial 1850-1900 average, marking the first month above 1.5°C since November 2025.

The data visualisation above, produced using C3S data, shows surface air temperature anomalies for August 2026 across Europe, Africa, and parts of the Arctic and Asia. 

A few Global superlatives from the monthly report:

  • The global-average surface air temperature in August 2026 was 16.96°C, 0.85°C above the 1991–2020 average, making it the warmest August globally in the ERA5 dataset, surpassing the previous joint record set in 2023 and 2024.
  • August 2026 was also the joint-warmest month ever recorded globally across all calendar months, on par with July 2023.
  • August 2026 was 1.65°C above the estimated pre-industrial 1850-1900 average, marking the first month above 1.5°C since November 2025.
  • The period from June to August 2026 was the joint-warmest on record globally, on par with 2024.

And here in Europe:

  • The average temperature over European land in August 2026 was 20.26°C, 1.10°C above the 1991-2020 average for the month, making it the fourth-warmest August on record.
  • Summer 2026 (June to August) was the third warmest on record for Europe, behind 2024 and 2022.
  • Western Europe experienced its warmest summer on record, surpassing the long-standing 2003 record. The 2026 season was marked by a succession of exceptionally early, persistent and intense heatwaves across the region.

And the world’s seas:

  • The average sea surface temperature (SST) for extra-polar oceans (60°S–60°N) in August 2026 was the highest on record for the month, at 21.07°C, surpassing the previous August record of 20.98°C set in 2023.
  • The average extra-polar SST for August 2026 was also the joint highest on record across all calendar months, on par with March 2024.
  • SSTs remained exceptionally high across much of the tropical Pacific, where El Niño conditions are present and forecast to further strengthen in the coming months, potentially into one of the strongest El Niño events on record.
  • Around Europe, SSTs reached record highs for August along the Atlantic coast and in the western Mediterranean, associated with widespread strong or severe marine heatwave conditions.

In the report press release, Samantha Burgess, Strategic Lead for Climate at ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), said:

“August 2026 was a remarkable month in the global climate record. It was both the warmest August and the warmest month ever recorded, with global temperatures reaching 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels, marking the return of global temperatures above 1.5°C. Combined with record global sea surface temperatures and the warmest summer on record for Western Europe, these observations show how climate change is driving extremes across both the atmosphere and the oceans. The impacts of these conditions are increasingly being felt by communities, economies and ecosystems across the world.”

A few media reports:

Euractiv: Heat deaths in Germany, France, Italy and Spain soar

Euractiv: Heat deaths in Germany, France, Italy and Spain soar

From the report, published on 20 August:

Europe’s four largest countries have recorded more than 25,000 likely heat-related deaths in 2026 so far, according to latest data compiled nationally.

Summer temperatures across Europe have repeatedly surged past 35°C over the last few months, with record‑breaking heatwaves triggering public health alerts and putting care systems under strain. The four most populous EU countries – Germany, France, Spain and Italy – are among the hardest hit, each reporting sharp increases in heat-related deaths.

Taken together, the countries’ figures amount to more than 25,000 heat-related deaths.

The number is likely to rise in August and September.

Link.

Scientific American: Earth’s oceans just hit their hottest temperature ever

Scientific American: Earth’s oceans just hit their hottest temperature ever

The previous high of 21.09 C (69.96 F) occurred in March 2024. From the report:

Average ocean temperatures hit a record 21.10 degrees Celsius (69.98 degrees Fahrenheit) on August 22, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

That’s not as hot as a warm bath, but it is the hottest the world’s oceans have been since C3S started keeping records in 1979.

“As a climate scientist, this is not surprising to me all,” says Zachary Labe, a climate scientist at Climate Central, a climate research nonprofit. “It’s consistent with decades of research showing how our climate is changing as the planet warms. And without reductions in the burning of fossil fuels, this warming will only continue.”

Link.

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