Thursday November 28th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😉
Main Topic: Climate Items To Be Thankful For This Thanksgiving
Dear Diary. As stated yesterday these are indeed dark days with the United States and world continuing to not have the overall will that is necessary to reign in carbon pollution. Still, on this Thanksgiving their are rays of light that we as climate activists can be thankful for during this past year since I listed items for 2018.
First, Greta Thunberg continues to grow as a leader and has traveled to the United States to spread her message during 2019. Climate strikes on each Friday that Greta began continue to grow in size. Youth organizations like the Sunrise Movement continue to gain influence with politicians, who in turn are taking a lot of notice.
Speaking of politicians, I’m thankful that every single Democratic candidate for U.S. President has embraced both the science of climate change and solutions. I’m praying that by next Thanksgiving a Democratic candidate will be elected who will declare a national emergency to right the climate crisis ship in this country. Stay tuned on that one.
I’m thankful that climate scientists Michael Mann, Katherine Hayhoe, and my friend Bob Henson, of the Category 6 Weather Underground blog, continue to have good health and have been great vocal leaders on the climate issue during 2019. I’m also thankful that Dr. Michael Mann is overcoming his legal issues from those wishing to deny science.
I’m thankful for first responders who put their lives on the line and sacrifice much for such climate related tragedies such as from Hurricane Dorian.
I’m thankful in the last year to have been able, health wise, to be able to go to Vice President AL Gore’s Climate Reality convention in my home town of Atlanta, and to help be a leader forming the new Climate Reality Cobb Chapter, which is trying to make my area of north Georgia green and sustainable.
I’m thankful for founders of good companies and CEOs like Dr. Jeff Masters, who is a staunch supporter of science on Weather Underground, which he founded.
I’m thankful for great writers like Bill McKibben who succinctly make great points about the latest climate science and effects, communicating urgency for change.
I’m thankful that so many respected newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times continue to report on climate change, keeping the issue at the forefront of national consciousness.
I’m thankful that my own former place of business, The Weather Channel, is becoming more vocal on climate science and has started to interview political candidates on the climate crisis subject during 2019.
Most of all, personally, I’m thankful to have met Rachel Maddow before her Blowout book went at Atlanta’s Fox Theater in October. She signed my copy, thanking me for my prior climate work. What a blessing to see and read such a great book on the corruption in association with big oil and gas. Everyone needs to read Blowout to spur all on to more action, especially at the ballot box. Yes, somtimes getting angry after reading a well researched book is a very good thing.
Also pictured is my cousin, Marsha Walton, who I am so thankful for her support.
Also on a personal note, I am thankful for my partner, Nick Walker that is on air at The Weather Channel, who helped me finish writing my children’s climate and weather primer, World of Thermo…Thermometer Rising. I’m also thankful to have some great editors helping me to write World of Thermo…Carbonated the second book, which will encapsulate climate change history from 2005-2020.
I’m thankful for those on social media who have supported my climate work and writing on this site like Professor Peter Strachan of Scotland and Fraser MacLeod of Canada. I’m thankful to John Hartwell for his technical support, helping me to build this site.
I’m thankful for organizations like Climate Central , which through Bernadette Woods Placky’s leadership have aided willing on camera meteorologists like my friend Jeff Berardelli to convey climate science to their increasingly receptive audiences.
And most of all I am thankful for you, the reader, who is conscious enough to look at some of the articles I have linked this year and to get out there and fight for our future as a species. We can all be grateful that the world as a whole or majority, at least, during 2019 has come to realize what must be done to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Let’s all work during 2020 to continue winning over support for big time change that we can all be thankful for by Thanksgiving 2020.
Here is more climate and weather news from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article.)
Thankfully, the latest storm should put a damper on the Cave Fire:
Here are more hot notes from southern Africa:
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Guy Walton- “The Climate Guy”