- Inside Climate News is excited that “The Philippines has designated more than 200 square miles of its coastal waters as a national protected area to safeguard some of the world’s most climate resilient coral reefs.” Um Philippine dudes, if you’re worried about climate and coral, wouldn’t it make sense to safeguard the least resilient? Not the ones that actually like warmth, that flourish in the tropics not temperate or polar zones and evolved in a warmer world, because they don’t need help in the face of warmth. Oh wait. That’s pretty much all corals, isn’t it? After all, Newfoundland isn’t a coral paradise.
- The whales are back. “World Animal Protection applauds the federal government’s leadership in denying the export permits for Marineland’s belugas to a Chinese facility. It reflects the compassion and accountability that Canadians expect from their leaders and demonstrates that federal action can make a meaningful difference in the lives of animals.” Until offshore wind power is the issue.
- We note, finally, actual progress on a real problem. The New York Times celebrates, and we do too, the remarkable news that “Early Sunday morning, spectators jostled for a glimpse of the Chicago River to witness something that hadn’t happened there in nearly a century. People were swimming in it.” And not because they were tired of life. Rather, “The last time that Chicago sanctioned a group swim in the river was 1927, a tradition thwarted by the loads of industrial and human waste that were routinely dumped in the water.” So yes, pollution is bad and it matters and yes we can do remarkable things about it. Provided we’re not hallucinating that plant food is the equivalent of industrial waste and excrement, as so many are, and diverting so much time, money and effort to stopping the greening of the planet instead of the browning of the water.
- A Canadian alternative outlet The Line, which we quite admire apart from its gratuitous fondness for gratuitous foul language, offers a conversation with a leading science writer “about how the science many of us learned in high school is being reconsidered – from the Big Bang to the origins of life – and how even the most fundamental ideas are far less settled than they once seemed.” So about that settled climate science…
- Canada’s invaluable Blacklock’s Reporter reports The Department of Industry billed taxpayers nearly a third of a million to host a two-day conference of green technology companies seeking federal subsidies” because “‘Now is the time for ambitious climate action,’ then-Minister François-Philippe Champagne said at the time.” It’s noteworthy partly because the same Champagne is now the Finance Minister charged with producing an “austerity and investment at the same time” budget and we predict little of either. Especially as Industry Minister he blithered “Innovative companies are driving economic growth and creating well-paying jobs across Canada.” But if they were, they wouldn’t need subsidies, now would they? Oh, Blacklocks adds, “The 48-hour conference dubbed a “leadership summit” at Ottawa’s Westin Hotel in 2022 was sponsored by Sustainable Development Technology Canada, a now-disgraced federal agency disbanded in 2024 over numerous conflicts of interest.” Your tax dollars at play, folks.
- Slower, lower, weaker – apart: Evidently the president of World Athletics says we have to hold marathons in the fall or something because “The recent World Athletics Championships in Tokyo were significantly impacted by extreme heat and high humidity, with temperatures exceeding 30C and feeling closer to 40C.” Riiight. Exceeding 30C. The very iron girders in buildings melt, right? Well, no. It’s actually 86F. As for it “feeling closer to 40C” what do those words even mean? Other than we are all going to die, that is.
- An email from Inside Climate News offering a panel discussion to “break down the facts and fiction in climate discourse today” because in addition to loony conspiracy theories “some climate change disinformation is harder to spot – it’s subtle, sophisticated and circulated by trusted sources.” And yes, “They start with a report recently issued by the U.S. Department of Energy – a document commissioned to help set the stage for getting rid of federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Watch as Marianne and Bob explain what mainstream climate scientists think of this report, what climate change disinformation has in common with Big Tobacco, whether climate skepticism is a uniquely American phenomenon, and much more.” Speaking of conspiracy theories.
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08 Oct 2025 | News Roundup
Lived in Tokyo in the 70’s, mid 80s and humid pretty much defined the summer climate there back then. It’s roughly the same latitude as the southern US so not sure why anyone would expect anything else either.