To borrow from my mother's lifelong attitude about Mother's Day: every day should be Earth Day.

Here are the trends in summer length for the mid-latitudes globally, as well as for 10 cities with consistent long-term local observational records. Sydney, Minneapolis and Toronto had the steepest trends. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

One of the locations that jumped out in @climate-ted.bsky.social's analysis of changing summers was Syndey, Australia, where local weather data shows that the length of summer weather season has almost doubled over the past sixty years. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The 'tell' that the old "let's spend money on alleviating poverty not climate change" argument is BS? The people who make that argument oppose international aid and money spent alleviating poverty. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/b...

I'll be giving the keynote at the Sunshine Coast Climate Faire in next Friday night. Take the ferry over to beautiful Gibsons if you want to hear about the latest on climate action, the importance of courage, and how to find your way home if lost at sea. blueact.org/sunshine-coa...

I'm flattered to be appointed to this new council informing guidelines for sustainable investments. Can setting such guidelines help cut emissions? Yes! Do I think about classifying organisms not investments when I see the word taxonomy? Also yes! www.businessfuturepathways.ca/inaugural-le...

The magnitude of these forecasts continues to surprise me. Strong El Nino events are quite uncommon, happening only once every 15 years or so, and often on the heels of a moderate event like the 2023-24 El Nino.

Do you have the sense that summers feel different than when you were younger? That they start quickly, and remain intense until the fall? You’re not wrong. (thread)

You aren't imagining things... summer is starting earlier and lasting longer. Here's @climate-ted.bsky.social describing our new research on how summer is changing around the world. youtu.be/I0SANexZUbg?...

🍁 HEY CANADIANS I will be on your gorgeous west coast next week to 1) be jealous of your political leadership 2) talk about Heated Rivalry 3) speak at UBC. Please come say hi!

Do you feel like summer is getting longer, hotter, worse? Spring and fall are shorter and faster? Science agrees. This is another example of #climatechange. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

New research led by @climate-ted.bsky.social finds that summers are getting longer and starting faster, on land, on the coasts and at sea. The paper: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... Plain language summary: news.ubc.ca/2026/04/summ...

Join us at UBC on Tuesday April 14 for the annual Climate Solutions Summit, where researchers will talk about new cutting-edge work on subjects ranging from footprint of cloud computing to bringing climate justice into teacher education. Register here: climatesolutions.ubc.ca/news-and-eve...

Next Wednesday, @drkatemarvel.bsky.social will be at UBC to talk about about her beautiful book Human Nature. Join us if you are in the Vancouver region, there are still a few tickets available. sustain.ubc.ca/events/ubc-r...

Artemis 2 astronauts see Earth in the rear-view mirror | Space photo of the day for April 3, 2026 "That's us, together, watching as our astronauts make their journey to the moon."

This is a policy decision from the 1990s. Might as well release it on a floppy disk or VHS tape. abcnews.com/Business/wir...

I had a great visit to Univ. of British Columbia a few weeks ago. Thanks to @simondonner.bsky.social for inviting me and hosting the visit. Here is a copy of my first talk, which was a public lecture so less technical than a normal seminar. youtu.be/Vz_cDMwZ1TA?...

" Once you've got your solar panel there's no cost for the sun." "With a stroke," says @kingsmillbond.bsky.social, "this war has dramatically increased the power and the influence of those who want to go down the solar route." Here's why countries are glad they invested in solar, batteries+ EVs ⬇️

This figure from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's last report puts climate change in perspective. We are changing the climate faster than any point in modern human experience, such that the planet is now warmer than at any time in the history of human civilization.

Silently hoping that @doctorow.pluralistic.net will apply the enshitification theory to WorkDay, the omnipresent finance and HR management tool that every user wants to launch into the sun.

I hear you, but don't share the existential dread. People today, especially my generation and that after me, have the opportunity to influence the future of the planet in a way that has never happened before in history. I find that inspiring... it's why I talk so much www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_M...

At the end of an excellent NY Times column about solidarity in Minneapolis is this passage, which speaks to why I dislike calling climate change an environmental issue. It is dynamically more like a global systemic issue than it is other environmental issues. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/o...

The meandering narrowness of atmospheric rivers makes it seem personal, like the atmosphere is going out of its way to target your neighbourhood.

There was a political dust up in a parliamentary committee yesterday about whether I should be asked to testify. Of course, no one involved actually contacted me. I heard about it this morning while making tea. And I told the Canadian press what I thought: www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/environment/...

That is the question. Climate policy is about preparing for the future. This is what myself and colleagues have been trying to warn the Canadian government about for a long time now.

The EU has adopted a climate target of 90% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2040. For context, that target in Canada that would mean dropping emissions to 61 Mt, less than one third of the emissions from the country's oil and gas sector today.

Doomism can be an obstacle to adaptation, not just cutting emissions. Here, a group of us who have worked in small islands states argue that focusing on habitability - what you want to keep and improve, not what you will lose - boosts adaptation efforts. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Pathways Alliance, the oil sands group that blanketed Canada with "we're going to net-zero" ads, now pretends it was formed only to "advance a CO2 emissions strategy and a proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) project" (oilsandsalliance.ca/who-we-are/o...). Here's what web site used to say:

The drop in the price battery storage is incredible, joining onshore wind and solar as now cheaper than coal, on average globally. about.bnef.com/insights/cle...

Speaking of heatwaves, this new paper from UBC colleagues analyses a curious aspect of the deadly 2021 heat dome: the timing. It happened near the June solstice, rather than in mid-summer, and the longer daylength contributed to its severity. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

I appreciated playing a tiny part in this great @picscanada.bsky.social explainer video on how extreme weather affects critical infrastructure, and what we can do. It draws on the experience with heat waves, wildfires, and atmospheric river flooding in B.C. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YZJ...

If the economy is so dependent on oil that it requires a war in the Middle East or some other devastating exogenous event to buoy oil prices and come closer to balancing budgets, maybe we're not making the best decisions.

I think you misspelled Bush and Iraq.

One of the biggest obstacles to climate action is "second order" bias: we tend to mistakenly assume other people aren't interested in the subject. From a CBC Kids show:

Hope is form of climate action. I recorded this message for the CBC Kids show "Hope or Nope": www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7WH...

This is the best movie we have seen in quite some time. Hilarious, gonzo, oddly touching in moments. It hits even harder if you are from Toronto, it's like an accidental love letter to the city. Fellow Canadians, please go support local cinema... www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2K9...

Further confirmation that Canada's far off track from its 2030 target. As I mention here, the models tend to overestimate the impact of climate policies, because they represent an idealized world in which policies are fully implemented and work as intended. www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-...

“I think the climate scientists and activists of my generation have done a great disservice to the next generation because we have scared the crap out of them...” @simondonner.bsky.social stresses the importance of hope when it comes to climate change buff.ly/UHMAeQl

Climate change blames individuals when it is big corporations at fault, say teens. @simondonner.bsky.social was one of the experts at the event. www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/pos... via @cbcnews.ca @ubcgeography.bsky.social @ires.ubc.ca

So glad to see the growing resistance to the unlawful and despicable behaviour of ICE... though melt the ice is a tough rallying cry if you are climate scientist. www.cbc.ca/news/world/r...

Years ago, when a severe storm closed the road to the family cottage, I drove down a distant dirt road I'd never been on, ditched the car, and navigating several miles through a forest and wetland back to the cottage, without a phone, GPS or map. Yet I can't seem to cancel an online subscription.

If you're interested in the implications of the Canada-China deal that cuts tariffs on some Chinese EVs, I recommend this episode of Shift Key heatmap.news/podcast/shif...

Record investment in clean energy last year. Electrified transport, renewable electricity generation and electricity grids accounted for 90% of investment, with transport up 20% despite all the talk in North America of things slowing down. From: about.bnef.com/insights/fin...

Happy International Day of Clean Energy to all who are observant. www.un.org/en/observanc...

Yet more reason to trust projections that global oil demand will soon level off and decline www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Not all waves are created equal. Analysis of #Kiribati’s Tarawa lagoon shorelines show future flooding risk will not be uniform across the atoll based on wave direction line up. oceans.ubc.ca/2026/01/21/n... @simondonner.bsky.social #JuliaMayer @ubcgeography.bsky.social @ires.ubc.ca

How would the new deal to cut tariffs on up to 49,000 Chinese EVs affect uptake? By my math, in the maximum case, battery EVs would move from 5.5% of sales to 8.1% of sales. This is potentially a *small* start of a much-needed overhaul of EV strategy in Canada. What comes next matters the most.

Because the ocean absorbs >90% of the heat trapped in the climate system due to human enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the best and most steady measure of global warming is the change in ocean heat content. It continues to break records every year: