Europe endured a succession of scorching heat waves this summer, spiking electricity demand across the grid. So how did the grid hold up? Well, thanks to solar production and battery storage!

Nuclear, coal, and gas-fired plants are all very vulnerable to heat and drought because they require cooling water. Lack of adequate cooling forced shutdowns like those at the Beznau nuclear plant in Switzerland. But solar over-performed in these same conditions, closing the gap and providing 25 percent of power generation across the EU in June and July. Battery systems stored that energy and delivered it to the grid after sundown, when demand was still high. “Battery storage is one of the clearest ways to make Europe’s power system more resilient in hotter summers,” said Dr. Chris Rosslowe, a senior energy analyst at Ember.

No single kind of renewable energy can carry a grid through a summer like this one. They all perform differently under different conditions, which is why we need a mix of sources and storage. And increasingly, we have them.

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A few weeks ago I wrote about how the number of heat stress days on this planet is growing. Now, another new study has found that nearly half the children under ten on this planet are now living through at least twenty days a year of dangerous heat attributable to climate change. The countries with the youngest populations are in south Asia, southeast Asia, and west Africa, where humid heat is already at its worst.

Why does this matter? Children’s bodies heat up faster than ours, they sweat less efficiently, and they depend on adults for many of their needs. “Poverty, inadequate housing, limited access to cooling, and overstretched healthcare systems leave many children with few ways to protect themselves from the heat,” said Rosa Pietroiusti, the study’s lead author.

As I’ve written before, when people across the world are asked why they care about climate change, the number one answer is love for the next generation. This new study offers even more reason to care, and act.

With more children facing dangerous heat, we need to do things differently on the fields and courts where kids play sports.

My friend and Talking Climate Collaborative founding teammate Laura Schifter helped launch Play It Cool after seeing heat illness affect young athletes firsthand—including her own children and players she coached. She realized that, despite all the safety training coaches receive, many parents and coaches still don’t know how to recognize or respond to heat illness.

Play It Cool is trying to change that with three simple actions:

• Speak Up: Teach kids to tell an adult if they feel sick, notice symptoms in a teammate, or think the heat is becoming unsafe.

• Sit Out: Taking a break is a sign of strength.

• Cool Down: Get somewhere cooler, remove extra equipment, and start cooling down immediately if someone shows signs of heat illness.

Laura’s hope is that “Speak Up, Sit Out, Cool Down” becomes as familiar to this generation as “Stop, Drop, and Roll” is to ours. So this week, memorize those three steps and share them with a parent, coach, teacher, or young athlete in your life.

For more, check out the Play It Cool playlist on YouTube.

What happens when a climate scientist reads the comments? I take on some of the internet’s favorite myths about extreme heat.

Watch the preview or upgrade your subscription here on Substack to unlock the full video.

So I did what any climate scientist with a Facebook page and a healthy block button would do: read the comments.

In this preview of Cold Facts, Hot Takes, I take on two favorites: “It’s just summer” and “It’s been hotter before.”

Spoiler: summer has always been hot. What’s changing is that heat waves are becoming longer, stronger, and more dangerous.

Become a paid subscriber to watch the full episode, where I tackle even more myths about extreme heat, climate change, weather, and air conditioning.

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In this episode of Cold Facts, Hot Takes, I’m taking on some of the comments I received after posting about extreme heat forcing the cancellation of major outdoor events. “It’s just summer.” “It’…

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Researchers at Queen Mary University of London found that both the size and health of London children’s lungs improved following the introduction of the ULEZ in the city: proof that climate action is also a health solution.

Read on for this week’s good news, very bad news, and what you can do.

This week’s good news came to me through a particularly reliable source: my dad! He’s a science educator who served as the science coordinator for Canada’s biggest school board in Toronto (TDSB) for many years. There, in addition to championing science education, he also invested in climate education including co-authoring the Grade 10 climate unit with me.

There’s been a lot more action since he retired, and he recently got an update from a former colleague, TDSB technology consultant Geoff Day, about the district’s rapidly expanding Solar Schools program. Since it began investing in rooftop solar in 2010, TDSB has installed solar on 358 buildings, with nearly 148,000 panels and about 38 megawatts of capacity across the district.

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It turns out that Kipling Collegiate Institute—my old high school—is one of them. Last year alone, its rooftop panels generated 243,946 kWh of clean electricity. Altogether, the TDSB’s solar arrays offset about 8,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year—and they’re making this climate action visible, too. Students at participating schools can look up how much energy their own school generates, calculate its carbon impact, and even customize a “We Are a Solar School” poster to share with their community.

Sometimes climate action looks like a shiny new technology. And sometimes, you discover it’s been quietly generating clean energy on the roof of your old high school all along.

We often talk about the clean-energy transition as something we need to build. But stories like this are a nice reminder that, in many communities, it’s already underway.

A horrific flash flood in the Himalayas has left more than 1,000 dead and thousands more missing in Nepal and China – and it appears to have begun with collapsing ice. A huge chunk of glacier on the north face of Langtang Lirung sheared off and slid down the mountain, triggering a gigantic landslide of rock and ice that ultimately registered as a 5.2 magnitude earthquake when it reached the valley floor.

“When a glacier of that scale collapses, it generates a lot of water, and then there’s a cascading sequence of events… where the water and the sediment combine and bulks up and creates the flood,” explained Andrew Mackintosh, a glaciologist at Monash University.

The resulting flood wave traveled down a nearby river valley, washing away a border crossing between Nepal and China, wiping out bridges, sweeping away homes and people, and caking the landscape with mud.

We know that climate change made this event more likely. Himalayan glaciers and, indeed, all over the world — are rapidly retreating. As Dr. Ashim Sattar DRR DRM , an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar who studies Himalayan glaciers, said: “there’s a very straight link between climate change and these types of disasters.” And once again, those who contribute least to the climate crisis -- per person carbon emissions in Nepal are less than 20 times those of a typical North American -- are most affected.

If you would like to help, please donate to the Nepali government’s Disaster Relief Fund.

The news from the Nepal flood is horrifying and tragic, with many families still desperately searching for their loved ones. It’s hard to imagine a worse nightmare. For me, news like this is when it’s most tempting to give up. But giving in to despair won’t help the people suffering today—and it only makes it harder to prevent more warming and more tragedy in the future.

Looking for signs of progress—like I do every week in this newsletter—isn’t about pretending everything is okay. It’s about reminding ourselves that this story is still being written, and that there are people everywhere working to change its course.

This week gave me a small example of that. I only just learned about the solar progress at my old school, proof that this kind of work is often happening quietly, without much notice. There’s probably more climate action happening around you than you realize too. So here’s your challenge this week: go climate solution sleuthing where you live.

Start by looking around your workplace, neighborhood, or community. Do you see solar panels on public buildings, electric buses, or new bike lanes? Or maybe you notice heat pumps, tree-planting projects, better stormwater systems. Then check the website of the place where you live to see what climate or clean-energy work is already underway.

When you find something, talk about it. Tell a neighbor, a coworker, a friend, or post it online. Seeing what other communities and organizations are already doing can create a little positive peer pressure: if they can do it, why can’t we?

It’s easy to find the terrible climate news. But there are so many solutions underway too; sometimes we just have to look for them. And the more visible they become, the more momentum they build—more funding, more political will, more neighbors asking “why not here?”

What do exploding watermelons, gardening myths, and a plant on your windowsill have in common? I caught up with plant scientist and former Talking Climate guest editor —aka The Plant Prof—to talk climate change, our changing food system, reconnecting with nature, and why small actions matter. Watch here.

Become a paid subscriber to unlock the full video and help keep this work going. Your support helps me and my small team continue sharing even more science, stories, and solutions.

In this episode of What’s the Latest?, I catch up with plant scientist and former Talking Climate guest editor —better known online as The Plant Prof—to talk about the surprising ways climate change is…

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Two years ago, I wrote about how Xcel Energy was building a 710-megawatt solar farm to replace Minnesota’s largest-emitting coal power plant, re-using the same infrastructure that the coal plant used to connect to the grid.

Well, thanks to a tip from “Bad Astronomer” Philip Plait, I’m happy to report that this solar farm, which boasts 1.7 million panels, is now up and running! A proposed fourth phase of the project could increase the generating capacity to 910 megawatts, enough electricity to power around 190,000 homes.

I’ve warned before about gas stoves and the health risks they pose (even when they’re not in use!). If you have asthma or you know someone who does, the first thing to check is whether they have a gas stove... because replacing it with an electric option could make a huge difference for their health.

A new study from Ohio that found when people with poorly controlled asthma swapped out their gas stoves for electric ones, hospital admissions and missed work or school days dropped by 70 percent. “Improvements were about twice as much as you typically see with medical treatment of asthma,” said the project’s leader, Professor Ash Sehgal of Case Western Reserve University.

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This isn’t all good news, though. The study was supposed to run for three years and pay to replace gas stoves with electric induction ones in 1,200 homes. But the US government terminated the grant in May 2025, five months after the study began, and rolled back Biden-era rebates for those hoping to switch out their appliances for greener options.

As economist Gernot Wagner mentioned when he guest-edited Talking Climate, you can buy an induction cooktop for under $60 at IKEA, so this isn’t a deal-breaker. But full stove + oven induction units cost at least ten times more than that, which is why rebates matter!

The number of heat stress days people are experiencing is climbing rapidly and a new study has factored in humidity, wind, and solar radiation alongside temperature to measure heat the way people experience it.

Compared with the 1970s, an additional one billion people now experience at least one day of extreme heat stress each year (defined by the study as a “feels-like” temperature of at least 46°C, or 114.8°F). “Extreme ‘feels-like’ temperatures have become more frequent on every continent, and the spatial footprint of hazardous heat has expanded, exposing previously unaffected regions,” the study found.

Our bodies need nighttime to recover from this heat, but the study found that nights are actually warming faster (0.32°C per decade) than days (0.27°C). When it stays hot at night after a dangerous day, our bodies get no relief.

And there’s more bad news: the dataset the scientists used in this study doesn’t capture microclimates, including the effects of urban heat islands, which means the study’s estimates likely underestimate the risks that city dwellers face.

Talking Climate reader Uli Nagel wrote to me this month with big number: 300,000. That’s how many free children’s books her program has now sent to elementary students across the United States.

Uli is the co-founder and director of the Cooler Communities Climate Education Program. In 2023, they launched Energy Detectives to get books and lesson plans into elementary classrooms at no cost to teachers. In the coal state of West Virginia, close to one in five elementary students has now received one.

The series, written by Madelyn Rosenberg and illustrated by Paul Meisel, teaches kids where their energy comes from, how to waste less of it, and what those panels on the neighbor’s roof are actually doing. These books give kids a story that helps them understand our energy future, and their own power to shape it.

Uli and everyone else behind the program did not wait for permission or a policy change or the perfect moment — they just started, and kept going, and that’s exactly the kind of climate work that gives me hope.

Thank you for this, Uli, and keep up the good work!

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If you’re a regular Talking Climate reader, you know I often talk about how doomerism is not an effective strategy to catalyze action. Although negative news may get more clicks, the social science is clear: focusing exclusively on negative news makes us think there’s nothing we can do. We check out, or even give up.

This is why I always sandwich the “not so good” news between the good news and what you can do, in this newsletter. But a new study shows there is more we can do!

Researchers Tyler Shores, Rachel O’Boyle, and Sander van der Linden from the University of Cambridge showed people a short “prebunking” video before they scrolled through negative climate headlines. Those who watched it became better at spotting climate doom—news that either implies or outright claims there’s nothing we can do about climate change—and were more likely to flag it, dislike it, and share it less.

The takeaway is encouraging: people can learn to recognize messages that falsely suggest nothing can be done, without becoming more skeptical of accurate climate news (which is, honestly, quite bad enough). At a moment when hopelessness can spread as quickly as misinformation, this new study offers a powerful way to keep people informed, engaged, and ready to act.

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As the summer of extremes continues (record-breaking wildfires in Belgium and Greece, this week), I often think about the fact that nearly 40% of the area burned by wildfires across western North America between 1986 and 2021 can be traced to just 88 companies’ emissions. Another attribution study found that emissions from major fossil fuel companies contributed to “about half of the increase in intensity of heatwaves since preindustrial times, and that this contribution is rising.”

So as growing heat and wildfire damage our health and our livelihoods and cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage every year, what are those companies doing? Burning more fossil fuels, of course! And making an absolute ton of money doing so.

A new study from Oxfam projects that BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies will earn a combined $45 billion in the second quarter of 2026—nearly twice the previous quarter. And they aren’t ramping back, either. They collectively plan to increase production by 14% by 2030.

There is a staggeringly obvious solution to this massive inequity, where the richest companies make more money while the communities least responsible bear the brunt of the impacts (apart from the most obvious, of course: transitioning away from fossil fuels entirely). Why not tax these record profits and use the money to help communities prepare for extreme heat and recover from climate disasters and transition to clean energy so they don’t need to use fossil fuels?

It is only fair and just that the companies fueling the crisis should help pay for the damage they are creating—not the families suffering its worst effects. But making polluters pay isn’t easy. It will take sustained public pressure. Thankfully, the next section shows where to start.

Use your voice. Talk about the unfairness at the heart of this story: a handful of companies earning billions, while ordinary families pay for those profits through higher bills, damaged homes, lost work, and worsening health. Most people have never heard that connection made out loud, and that silence is exactly what lets it continue.

You don’t have to be a scientist or a policy expert to say something. You just have to be willing to say that this isn’t right—to your friends, your family, your elected officials, anyone who’ll listen. That’s how a private frustration becomes public pressure. As Jim’s newsletter showed last week, public pressure really can make a difference.

Governments have the power to shift the cost back onto polluters. As citizens, it’s our responsibility to make it politically impossible for them to ignore. Show them that their constituents care – not only by voting, but also by calling, writing, and emailing them. I even partnered with artist Lauren James to make free mail-able coloring book pages that offer a creative way to get kids involved.

We can’t do this alone—but I’m convinced we can do it together, and using our voice is an action every one of us can take.

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I hear some version of that all the time. And when I ask what those conversations actually sounded like, I often find the same pattern: they focused almost entirely on how bad climate change is.

That makes intuitive sense. We see worsenin…

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Earlier this year, a non-profit education group invited me to join a small delegation of faith leaders traveling to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I was not able to participate, so I asked Jim if he might attend instead. He said an immediate YES — to five days camping above the Arctic Circle, far from roads or electricity. There, the group was able to see the midnight sun circle the horizon without setting, drink from a stream fed by melting snow, observe the tundra’s miniature world of flowers and lichens, and even watch a grizzly bear root around on a hillside.

In this week’s newsletter, I’ve asked Jim to share some of what he witnessed on this extraordinary trip, what this unique place teaches us about our shared future, and how we can stand alongside the many already working to protect it. And for more, check out his Substack, where he wrote extensively about his trip to ANWR.

Take it away, Jim!

In June, nearly 690,000 acres of the U.S. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain were offered for oil and gas leasing. But only 5 of the 58 available tracts received bids. And just two bidders participated, neither of them a major oil company, and the winning bids totaled just $3.7 million.

That is encouraging because the sale was supposed to demonstrate strong commercial demand for drilling in the Refuge. Instead, it showed that major companies recognize the enormous financial, logistical, and reputational risks of industrializing one of America’s wildest places.

This is not a complete victory. Five leases covering roughly 70,000 acres were sold, and even preliminary exploration could damage fragile tundra and disrupt wildlife. But the lack of serious industry interest tells us something important: decades of public advocacy have made a difference. Companies know that people are watching, and that drilling in the Arctic Refuge carries a cost well beyond the price of equipment and infrastructure.

The Refuge is home to polar bears, migratory birds, and the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd. Protecting it is not an abstract environmental cause. It means protecting a place loved by generations of people, especially the Gwich’in communities whose lives and culture remain closely connected to the caribou.

The sale’s poor response is evidence that public outcry can change what companies consider possible.

From a mountain above our campsite, I could see a narrow white line on the northern horizon: the frozen Arctic Ocean, about twenty miles away. It looked immense and permanent.

It isn’t.

@NOAA’s latest Arctic Report Card found that Arctic temperatures from October 2024 through September 2025 were the highest recorded since at least 1900. The maximum winter sea-ice coverage was the lowest in the 47-year satellite record. Compared with 2005, the Arctic’s end-of-summer sea ice was 28 percent smaller, while nearly all of its thickest, oldest ice has disappeared since the 1980s.

These are not just numbers about a distant sheet of ice. Sea ice is habitat. It helps protect Arctic coastlines and shapes the food webs on which animals and human communities depend. Snow and ice also reflect sunlight; when they disappear, darker land and water absorb more heat, accelerating the changes already underway.

The Arctic is warning us that later really can be too late. Carbon pollution from burning coal, oil, and gas is changing a place that has sustained wildlife and Indigenous communities for generations.

What happens in the Arctic will not remain in the Arctic (👋 KH here - for more, check out this Global Weirding episode about how changes in the Arctic affect us globally). But even if it did, that should be reason enough to protect it. A place does not have to be in our backyard to be part of the world we love and hope to pass along.

Listen to the stories of those on the front lines, and stand with them.

On our trip, we got to meet and talk with several representatives of the Gwich’in people, who for thousands of years have depended on the Porcupine caribou herd for food, culture, community, and spiritual life. They call the herd’s calving grounds on the coastal plain Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit—“The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.” When that land and the caribou are threatened, the Gwich’in way of life is threatened too.

Here are three actions you can take this week in support:

• Watch and listen. Begin with the two-minute film The Gwich’in and Vadzaih: Protecting Our Way of Life, in which Gwich’in people explain in their own voices why the caribou and their habitat matter.

• Stay informed. Sign up for updates from the Gwich’in Steering Committee. They share news about threats to the Refuge and opportunities for public action. You can also donate to Gwich’in-led advocacy.

• If you live in the U.S., make your voice heard. Contact your senators and representative and tell them you want the Arctic Refuge protected from oil and gas development. You’re in the majority – according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 68 percent of Americans support this (and you can find the exact numbers for your state and congressional district here!)

Care begins by paying attention. It becomes solidarity when we act alongside the people already leading the work.

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Thank you, Jim, for sharing your experience with us! If you’d like to learn more about Jim’s work, he hosts BioLogos’s podcast, Language of God, and is the author of several books, including The Sacred Chain: How Understanding Evolution Leads to Deeper Faith.

If you are a Christian, or you know someone who is, I also recommend checking out the BioLogos Conversations for Creation page for steps and resources for having fact-based, values-led conversations about creation (and about other scientific issues, such as vaccines and evolution).

You can also follow BioLogos on Instagram, Facebook, and now TikTok!

Listen to this edition here

I’m very grateful to Sydney Laws for producing the podcast over the past year, to Bradley Myer for generously creating its original music, and to the amazing voice actor Anne Cloud from Voice Over for the Planet, who has been donating her time to this effort since spring 2025. Their work brought the podcast to life and gave us the foundation to keep growing.

I am now excited to welcome Anne’s colleague, producer John Crowley of Loudmouth Studio, who is also generously offering his time to help us develop the podcast’s next chapter. John has created new music and a new format that is now live.

Listen on your favorite podcasting platform (it’s on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and more) and let me know what you think! And while you’re there, don’t forget to subscribe so you’ll get the next episode automatically.

There’s so much unused space that could be repurposed to generate clean electricity – parking lots, highway shoulders, rooftops, even balconies. And now, a Swiss startup has found one more: the empty strip of ground between railroad tracks.

In 2025, the company Sun-Ways laid 48 solar panels across a 100-meter stretch of active track in the village of Buttes, in the canton of Neuchâtel. In one year, the panels on the world’s first “solar railway” generated 16,000 kWh of electricity.

The trial was originally planned for three years, but the results were so positive after one that the company decided to make the installation permanent. Scale that up, and the numbers get interesting: if solar panels were placed on all of Switzerland’s 5,317 kilometres of track, they could generate 2 percent of Swiss yearly energy use.

Thinking globally, there are more than 1 million kilometres of railroad track, and Sun-Ways estimates that half of that track could be suitable for railway solar. The company now plans to expand this effort with projects in Italy and South Korea, and is in negotiations with Dutch, Chinese, Indian, and Singaporean partners to try the same approach in those countries.

This is exactly the kind of solution I love sharing in this newsletter: infrastructure we’ve already built, performing a new “second job” we never thought to ask it to do before.

The summer of wildfire continues, with more than 300,000 people forced from their homes as massive wildfires spread across France and Spain last week.

A wet winter followed by a hot, dry summer created “weather whiplash” that helped fuel the fires. Near Bordeaux, one fire burned an area four times the size of Paris and destroyed at least 240 homes. The heat there has been so extraordinary that 2026 alone has already brought more days above 40°C than the entire 105-year period from 1920 through 2025.

My colleague Stefan Rahmstorf from the PIK - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany is an expert on how climate change affects ocean circulation; he was there at the time, and shared this apocalyptic picture (also pictured above) and this timelapse video he took on his phone of the Gironde fire. Stefan and I, and many others, have studied climate risks like these for decades: but it’s one thing to see it on your computer screen, and something completely different and so much more horrifying to see in real life.

As I explained a couple of weeks ago, climate change doesn’t start fires—but it creates hotter, drier conditions that help fires spread faster and burn more intensely. The damage also reaches far beyond the flames, through smoke, displacement, lost homes and disrupted livelihoods, costing billions of dollars every year and with devastating impacts on human lives and livelihoods.

What if the inspiration you need to act on climate is already living and working in your own community?

Meet Erin O’Kelley Muck, a communications specialist, former climate organization leader, and the creator of the Climate Joy Project—a local initiative celebrating everyday people who are helping build a better future in Ashland, Oregon.

Erin is inspiring in her own right, but her project is the inspiration that keeps on giving. Each interview introduces someone new who is putting climate solutions into practice, whether through clean energy, local food, transportation, community organizing, or simply finding a meaningful way to contribute.

She’s shared stories from people ages 18 to 80 years old who come from all walks of life. She said, “We are all unified by our love of this town, our community, this beautiful planet, and hope for the future.”

Together, these stories are a powerful reminder that climate action does not have to look the same for everyone. Inspiration can be found in every person Erin interviews—and each person’s example can help someone else see where they fit into the bigger picture.

Check it out here, and share one of the stories today!

Did you enjoy last week’s guest edition with pro soccer players and EcoAthletes Champions Imani and Jasmyne? Then you’ll love this conversation I had with Lew Blaustein, founder of Ecoathletes and past Talking Climate guest editor!

Enjoy the preview above and subscribe to my Substack or Patreon for the full interview.

Lew shares encouraging news: even as many organizations have grown quieter about climate change, EcoAth…

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Two summers ago, Lew Blaustein, the founder of EcoAthletes, guest-edited a Talking Climate edition on green sports. Lew built EcoAthletes around a simple idea: athletes are among the most trusted voices we have, and the climate fight needs them on the field.

This week, I’m passing the mic to two people who are living out that mission: former professional soccer (football) player Imani Dorsey Kunzweiler and current pro Jasmyne Spencer, both EcoAthletes Champions.

Imani spent eight seasons as a forward and defender in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) after graduating from Duke University in 2018 with a degree in environmental science. She was named the 2018 NWSL Rookie of the Year and helped lead Gotham FC to the 2023 NWSL Championship. Imani was instrumental in negotiating the first collective bargaining agreement for the NWSL, and is as a founding board member of the Black Women's Player Collective where she serves as the current Executive Director. After retiring from professional soccer, she returned to her alma mater last December as Duke Athletics' Climate and Sustainability Coordinator, where she's weaving the university's Climate Commitment into every part of the athletic program.

Jasmyne has played professional soccer since the NWSL's founding season in 2013, currently playing for Canada's new Northern Super League, where she helped Vancouver Rise FC capture the league's first-ever championship last year. Her impact also extends well beyond the pitch: she founded her own sustainable apparel company, sits on the executive board of the Black Women's Player Collective, and was one of EcoAthletes' original Champions. She is also the co-founder of The Green Horizons Collective, a nonprofit that aims to teach kids about environmental stewardship.

Together, Imani and Jasmyne represent EcoAthletes at its best: professional athletes who've turned their platforms toward building a more sustainable future for sport and for all of us. Take it away, Imani and Jasmyne!

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IMANI:

My time as a professional athlete left me constantly evaluating the impact I was having, not just on the field, but on my teammates, my community, and the sport itself. The good news is, I’m not alone.

Athletes around the world are increasingly standing up and speaking out on climate change, and people are listening. The work of inspiring Duke student-athletes through the student-led Duke Sustainable Athletics Group eventually led me back to my alma mater, where I now work in sustainability for Duke Athletics. In alignment with the university’s Climate Commitment, we’re embedding sustainability across our athletics department through operations, fan engagement, and student-athlete leadership and development.

Last year, we launched the Athletics Climate Team, a cross-functional group of coaches, staff, and student-athletes working together to advance sustainability initiatives across Duke Athletics. Every day, I see the opportunity sports have not only to inspire people, but also to help build a more sustainable future.

JASMYNE:

Organizations at the intersection of sport and sustainability are teaming up to strategize, develop and implement solutions to mitigate the impact of the climate crisis on the future of sports. This past weekend Football For Future, a non-profit organization with a mission to drive global climate action through football culture, published The Playable Future Blueprint in collaboration with Columbia University, CO2 Foundation, and Jupiter Intelligence.

This first-of-its-kind report outlines an operational framework for climate-proofing community football infrastructure. Its goal is to give football’s governing bodies a repeatable, end-to-end model for building climate-risk safeguards into every stage of grassroots football development. With the release of this report, the football community – including fans, athletes, leagues, and governing bodies alike – will now have a game plan for building climate-resilient infrastructure to protect the future of the world’s number one sport! That is certainly something to celebrate!

IMANI:

Despite the growing number of athletes speaking up, and sustainability commitments from universities, teams, and leagues, climate change is still too often viewed as separate from sports. The reality is that it’s already affecting how we train, compete, and recover.

I have felt the impacts myself. In 2021, I suffered heat exhaustion during a match played in extreme temperatures in the Seattle area. I had taken all precautions athletes are taught to take — hydrating, replenishing electrolytes, and using every cooling opportunity available — yet I still found myself dangerously overheated. It wasn’t until I nearly collapsed after the game that my trainers and I realized something was seriously wrong. That experience challenged a lesson many athletes are taught early on: push through discomfort.

As extreme heat, poor air quality, and severe weather become more common due to a changing climate, more athletes will face these challenges.

Sports have long been a platform for leadership and social change. Athletes don’t need to be climate experts to contribute to the conversation. Our experiences can help people connect climate change to something deeply personal: their health, their communities, and the future of the sports they love.

JASMYNE:

Climate change is no longer an issue to worry about in the future. It is here and it is disrupting life now, and it’s impacting the things we love most: our ability to play and engage with sports. The climate crisis is supercharging extreme weather, making it an increasingly disruptive force in the games we watch and play. In the past two months alone, several major sporting events have been bedeviled by extreme weather.

The Ironman 70.3 triathlon race in Nice, France, was cancelled due to a heatwave. Weeks later, Gotham FC’s record-setting game at Citi Field was overshadowed by questions and concerns of player and fan health and safety after the game proceeded despite the unhealthy air quality due to the spread of smoke from Canadian wildfires. And the next day, Target USA Cup, which draws thousands of youth soccer players from dozens of countries each summer, was suspended in Minnesota after the same wave of wildfire smoke pushed air quality to hazardous levels.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup was the hottest World Cup since the competition began in 1930. A Guardian analysis found that close to 20 percent of matches were played under heat and humidity conditions that FIFPRO, the players’ union, has flagged as dangerous enough to warrant delaying or postponing play. Some 20 games were played at wet bulb globe temperatures that hit or exceeded 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit).

Time is of the essence to start investing in climate-resilient strategies to preserve the future of sport.

IMANI & JASMYNE:

You don’t need to be a climate scientist, or a professional athlete, to make a difference. One of Katharine’s central messages is that the most powerful thing any of us can do is to use our voice.

For athletes, that might mean sharing your own experiences with extreme heat, poor air quality, or the places in nature that matter most to you. For fans, it might mean supporting teams and organizations embracing sustainability, showing up for green sporting events, or simply starting conversations about how climate affects your daily life.

Across the sports world, sustainability efforts are gaining momentum, from professional leagues and venues to college campuses and local communities. The more we engage with and support these efforts, the faster they can grow.

Sports teach us that meaningful progress doesn’t happen because of one star player. It happens when everyone understands their role and works toward a common goal.

Climate action is no different. The solutions exist. The momentum is growing. Now the challenge, and the opportunity, is scaling that progress together.

As athletes, fans, parents, coaches, and community members, we all have a role to play in building a future where both people and the planet can thrive.

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Talking Climate has been narrated by voice actor Anne Cloud from Voice Over for the Planet since spring 2025. Today, I am proud to introduce producer John Crowley from Loudmouth Studio to the team. Don’t forget to rate and subscribe!

Who wouldn’t want three hours of free electricity a day? Now, many residents of the Australian states of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia have the opportunity to receive this under a government-backed program called Solar Sharer. (And, starting in October, residents of Victoria will be able to access a similar program called Midday Power Saver).

You don’t even need solar panels on your own roof to benefit! The free window runs from 11am to 2pm (noon to 3pm in South Australia) and will be capped at 24 kWh a day. (Sustainability nonprofit Renew estimates most households consume between 10 and 20 kWh a day.) You’ll need a smart meter to sign up, which most energy retailers will install for free if you don’t already have one.

The catch is that this plan will not automatically be the cheapest one overall, since retailers may charge more outside the free window to balance it out. Consumer advocates say the real savings come from actively shifting usage into that midday window—running the dishwasher, doing laundry, or charging an EV or batteries—rather than just signing up and hoping for the best.

“People who are able to move electricity use into the zero-cost power period will benefit directly, and the more people take up the offer and move their use, the greater the system benefits that lower costs for all electricity users will be,” said Australia’s Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

There are nearly 900 wildfires burning across Canada right now, and our air in southern Ontario was choked with smoke the last week...which then migrated southwards. Last Wednesday, Toronto’s air quality was ranked the worst among major cities in the world, and shortly afterwards, smoke from these fires swept across the Great Lakes region, Upper Midwest, and eastern United States. If you haven’t seen Copernicus ECMWF‘s stunning animation of wildfire smoke yet, you can find it here.

These fires are devastating, and they’re getting even worse as extreme heat dries out the trees and vegetation. One fire near Armstrong, Ontario surrounded a locomotive cab, but the crew escaped safely. About two dozen members of the nearby Namaygoosisagagun First Nation community escaped in boats just before their entire town burned to the ground. Three other First Nation communities in northern Ontario were also ordered to evacuate. Spain has just experienced its worst wildfire of the year, following June’s record-breaking heatwave.

Scientific studies—including some of my own research—have long warned that continued fossil fuel emissions will make future wildfire seasons increasingly severe: and these emissions are the number one factor driving global warming. Nearly 40% of the area burned across western U.S. and Canada has been attributed to emissions from just 88 fossil fuel companies. Yet a number of U.S. politicians including the president blamed Canada for the smoke: this, despite the fact that two of the top three companies are U.S.-based, and nationally U.S. cumulative carbon emissions are 12 times greater than Canadian emissions.

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Canada isn’t blameless either, though. Last month, Canada’s federal government moved forward on a planned pipeline that will carry one million barrels of oil a day from Alberta’s tar sands to the Pacific coast for export to Asia. A modelling analysis by an Alberta-based bank and energy research firm claims this pipeline could boost GDP by up to $31 billion per year over the next decade. Yet a new study by the Canadian Climate Institute / Institut climatique du Canada finds that wildfire smoke has already been costing Canadians an average of $23 billion per year in health costs alone over the last decade -- and that’s before counting insured losses or economic and trade impacts. That number is only going to rise. The math just doesn’t add up.

“Continuing to expand fossil fuel production when Canadians are already living with climate chaos is simply dangerous,” said Caroline Brouillette of Climate Action Network Canada. She urged the Canadian government to instead spend money on developing clean-energy projects that support workers and position the country for a world moving fast toward renewable energy rather than on another divisive, expensive pipeline.

This is why our voices and our votes matter. These choices are made by people we elect, who respond to pressure from every direction, including from us.

Wildfire smoke is one of the most dangerous types of air pollution there is. Thanks to the large particles it contains, it’s been shown to increase the risks of heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, and much more.

What can we do to keep ourselves and our families safe from wildfire smoke? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself this week. Here’s the advice I am following:

• Stay inside as much as possible.

• Keep the doors and windows closed (yes, even if you don’t have AC) and seal any gaps that air can come in through.

• Don’t do any intensive work or exercise outdoors if you can help it.

• If you do need to go outside, wear a mask that filters particulates, ideally an N95.

• Indoors, filter your air.

Air purifiers don’t have to be costly - as scientists at the University of Minnesota have shown, this handy DIY version performs as well as expensive units. You can also make sure you have a high-quality HEPA filter on your HVAC system or an air purifier, especially one that uses activated carbon to remove larger particles from wildfire smoke.

To ensure you’re prepared, monitor local air quality and keep track of fires that are close to you. You can check local air quality here for Canada, the US, the EU and Australia, and this map shows wildfire smoke forecasts across North America.

And finally, understand how much risk smoke poses to you personally and to those you care about. High-risk groups include children, older adults, pregnant women, and people with chronic health conditions such as respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes. If this list includes anyone you know, check in with them this week and make sure they’re prepared too.

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People often assume that talking about climate change is controversial. But research keeps finding the opposite: most people support climate action—they just don’t realize most other people do too.

A landmark study in 2024 found that across 125 countries, people consistently under-estimated how much their fellow citizens cared. Why? Because hardly anyone is talking about it. And if you don’t talk about it, how would anyone know that you cared? Your friends, family, neighbours and colleagues are not mind readers!

That’s why it’s such great news that Japan’s news media is helping close that gap.

Inspired by Covering Climate Now’s 89 Percent Project, which in turn was inspired by the 2024 study above, news organizations across Japan are working together to remind people that 89% of Japanese people support stronger climate action. Through TV announcements and daily social media posts, the campaign is running through the end of the year, encouraging more people to start talking about climate change.

Japan is the world’s fourth-largest economy and fifth-largest emitter, and it’s already feeling the heat—2025 marked the hottest summer in the country’s recorded history, and climate change has measurably impacted everything from matcha to rice harvests, as I’ve talked about before. Yet like many world leaders, Japan’s government has been slow to act boldly on climate.

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This invisible-majority problem doesn’t just keep individuals quiet— a recent study found that it misleads leaders, too. When people stay silent, politicians assume that silence means indifference, and act accordingly. Japan’s news media is helping millions of people realize they’re not having that conversation alone. As you can guess from the title of my TedTalk, this is a huge step forward!

I’ve talked a lot the last few weeks about how climate change is making heat waves more frequent and more intense, and how that’s affecting people’s health. But it’s also revealing that infrastructure built for yesterday’s climate can’t handle today’s heat.

A heatwave that scorched much of the eastern United States over the Fourth of July weekend caused a stretch of the I-97 highway in Maryland to buckle. Blistering temperatures in Germany in late June led the concrete on part of the Autobahn near Berlin to actually burst. In Leipzig, the asphalt around tram tracks melted, forcing the tram to be closed.

As heat records keep falling, roads, railways, power plants, and electric grids are being pushed past the limits they were intended for. “In many ways, we’ve designed our infrastructures over decades, if not centuries, for temperatures that have been relatively milder,” engineering professor Mikhail Chester said last year. Roads and bridges were built to withstand a certain level of heat, and many are now experiencing temperatures beyond what engineers planned for.

The question isn’t whether we’ll pay for climate change—it’s whether we’ll pay before infrastructure fails or after. We must rebuild for the extremes we’re already living through. That’s why I spent ten years myself contributing as a researcher to the Infrastructure Climate Network and working with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

But there is good news! London is already beginning that work. Its new Heat Ready London plan offers a citywide blueprint, from retrofitting vulnerable buildings to expanding shade and preparing essential services for hotter conditions. That’s how we build cities ready for the climate ahead.

Want to learn more? This report from the UN Economic Commission for Europe explains more about the major risks transportation systems face in a warming world.

I’ve previously shared tips for staying safe outdoors during extreme heat—but recent heatwaves are a reminder that staying safe increasingly means thinking about whether our homes are ready for the climate of the future, not the climate of the past.

ClimateCheck has a comprehensive guide to making your home more resilient at all levels. Upgrades like adding insulation in your attic, under your floors, and behind your drywall can make a big difference. You can even encapsulate your crawl space (if you have one) or paint the exterior of your home with elastomeric paint, as increased heat and humidity can lead to more mold and mildew.

Improving your attic’s ventilation is another effective option, allowing excess heat to escape rather than build up inside your home. In some cases, installing a whole-house attic fan can further improve airflow and reduce the need for air conditioning. Some homeowners’ warranties will cover an HVAC system assessment and repair (holes can develop with regular wear and tear and are usually easy to patch).

And yes — do consider installing air conditioning if indoor temperatures get too high, or if wildfire smoke (like what’s affecting much of Ontario today) makes it unsafe to keep windows open. I understand air conditioning uses a lot of energy, but where I live in Texas, our electricity plan is 100% wind power, so it doesn’t have to come at a climate cost. And honestly, we couldn’t make it through the summer without it.

For generations, most people built homes to keep their families warm. Increasingly, we’ll need homes that can also keep us cool. If you have family and friends at risk, have this conversation with them today!

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In this episode of Cold Facts, Hot Takes, I’m responding to comments on my recent conversation with Dr. Andrea Hinwood, Chief Scientist for the United Nations Environment Programme. The replies range from familiar claims that climate change is a ho…

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For decades, the world’s coastal mangrove forests were disappearing, cleared to make way for fish farms, rice fields, and development.

Why do we care? Mangroves sequester carbon, buffer coastlines from storm surge (which is getting worse thanks to climate change), provide critical nursery habitat for fish, and filter pollutants from coastal waters.

Now, a new study found that since 2010, mangrove regrowth around the world has been outpacing losses. Forty years of satellite data from NASA’s Landsat program shows that the gains are driven by mangroves both expanding into new habitats and regenerating in places where they once grew. After decades of decline, the recovery has accelerated so sharply that earlier losses have nearly been erased.

Scientists call it a genuine global rebound, propelled by a combination of careful conservation work ( The Nature Conservancy Science does a lot of this!) and natural regrowth.

“What we’re seeing now is a real shift. Mangroves are now showing a net increase globally, and the rate of degradation is slowing,” said Dan Friess, a professor at Tulane University and director of The Mangrove Lab. “While some mangroves are still being lost, this could make them a rare conservation success story and an important source of optimism for climate action.”

This study is more proof that when we protect nature, it can recover.

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I often mention the costs of climate change to the global economy. But a new study makes the case that biodiversity loss, too, carries its own enormous price tag — one that financial markets have yet to reckon with.

The research conducted by a team of UK economists found that the partial collapse of the “ecosystem services” of tropical timber, wild pollination, and marine fisheries could dramatically increase the cost of borrowing for 23 nations representing 5.5 billion people. In this scenario, India’s annual debt servicing costs could rise by $49 billion and China’s by $70 billion. Across all countries studied, additional interest payments could reach $162 billion every year. Angola, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Madagascar could see GDP losses exceeding 15% by 2030.

And yet today’s credit rating models don’t account for any of this. The risk is already there but markets just haven’t priced it in yet. That means $83 trillion in financial assets may be mis-priced.

The study’s lead author, Professor Matthew Agarwala of the University of Sussex, didn’t mince words about what’s at stake:

“It’s not just financiers who will lose out. As nature loss reduces economic performance, it will become harder for countries to service their debt, straining government budgets and forcing them to raise taxes, cut spending, or push inflation even higher,” he said. “The consequences could be grim. Governments face a stark choice—pay now, by investing in nature recovery, or pay later through higher borrowing costs.”

When nature stops functioning, economies stop functioning. The two are inextricably intertwined.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re already well into a hot summer. Last week I talked about the heatwave in the EU and southern UK. This week, it was eastern North America’s turn. How unusual are the temperatures we’re experiencing during these heatwaves?

Reuters just launched Climate Monitor, an interactive globe showing how much hotter (or colder) today’s temperature is compared to what was typical on that date between 1961 and 1990. I spent a few minutes on the site this weekend. Where I live in Dallas: 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 2.6C) above normal this past week. Toronto, Ontario, my hometown: 19.6F or 11C degrees above normal. 11C above normal is incredible to me, and in case you didn’t know, Toronto’s one of the World Cup cities with an outdoor stadium! That stopped me in my tracks.

Last week, Philadelphia cancelled their 250 year celebration parade as the heat index soared to 118F on July 3, and in DC, temperatures 22F above normal led to the daytime closing of the Great American Fair on the Mall and the cancellation of the July 4th parade.

This week, take just a minute and look up your city. Look up where your parents live, where your kids go to camp, or somewhere currently experiencing a heat emergency. And don’t stop there. Talk about it! Share what you find out — not as a lecture, but as a conversation starter: “Did you know it’s 6 degrees warmer than normal here right now? I just found this tool that shows you in real time.”

Abstract statistics about global average temperatures are easy to dismiss. But when someone sees that their hometown is running 8 degrees hotter than usual, or that the town where their grandchildren live is having its warmest July on record, it hits differently. Climate change stops being a headline and feels personal.

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This week, it’s North America’s turn. A record-breaking heat dome is already sweeping across the eastern half of the continent - just in time for the July 1st and July 4th holiday weekends in Canada and the U.S., and with many World Cup host cities right in its path. Heat index values as high as 115F (over 46C) are forecast for locations as far north as New York State.

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Next month, Talking Climate’s guest editors will bring this even closer to home: Imani Dorsey Kunzweiler and Jasmyne Spencer , ex-pro U.S. soccer players and EcoAthletes Champions, will share what climate change looks like from the pitch.

As always, though, let’s start with the good news.

People inside the football world are speaking up about climate change: and they’re not just asking for recycling bins at stadiums.

Fossil Free Football is pushing the sport to reckon with the climate consequences of fossil fuel sponsorships and the growing risks climate change poses to the game itself. I was so honoured when founder Frank Huisingh told me he started the organization after reading my book, Saving Us, that emphasizes the importance of using our voices to catalyze change.

And Frank isn’t alone. Football For Future connects the sport with climate action, working with players and public figures to raise awareness and use their platforms for change. And Football for Climate Justice equips clubs across Europe to turn climate action into something tangible for fans and communities. Their tool-kits come in six languages and cover everything from cutting stadium emissions to supporting local energy projects and green jobs. They say: “We believe football can do more than raise spirits — it can raise standards of living too.”

Sport cuts across political and cultural lines. When voices inside football speak honestly about climate risk, studies show that fans are receptive.

Across the UK, Europe, and eastern North America, we are currently witnessing what climate change looks like in real time, and the human cost is already devastating. Early estimates by climate scientist Christopher Callahan suggest that over 20,000 people have died in the EU heatwave, including more than 55 who drowned in France last week, taking to rivers and lakes to escape the heat. And one of those was a professional football player himself: a reminder that extreme heat isn’t just a backdrop to the World Cup. It’s already claiming lives.

At this year’s World Cup, FIFA introduced hydration breaks: but players, coaches, and researchers say the protections don’t go far enough. And in a move that drew sharp criticism, FIFA banned fans from bringing reusable water bottles into stadiums, even as organizers promised (but have not consistently delivered) misting stations and hydration points. As physician Lisa Patel, MD, MESc shares in her viral video, the stadium her family was in quickly ran out of water for fans - and that was before the heat wave hit this week.

Climate scientists at World Weather Attribution found that daytime temperatures in 2026 are already 2°C (3.6°F) hotter than during the deadly 2003 European heatwave, with nighttime temperatures 1.3°C (2.3°F) higher. Climate scientists Ed Hawkins —who created the warming stripes I wrote about last week—and Hayley Fowler FRS showed that temperatures like this week’s would have been virtually impossible during the UK’s previous record-setting heatwave of 1976.

We know the 2003 heatwave killed more than 70,000 people across Europe. This one is already hotter, and there is no question that burning fossil fuels made this worse.

First, take the risk seriously. Extreme heat kills nearly half a million people globally every year. Even if you’ve lived in the same place your whole life, the heat you’re experiencing now may not be the heat your body—or your city—was built for.

If you can, avoid spending time outside during peak heat. Drink water before you feel thirsty, take breaks in shade or indoors, and know the warning signs of heat illness: dizziness, nausea, confusion, a pounding headache. If you or someone near you feels them, stop and cool down immediately.

Young children, older adults, pregnant people, and those with chronic medical conditions are at greatest risk. Check on anyone you know who might be vulnerable, and make sure they have a cool place to be. For more, read this past edition of Talking Climate on how to stay safe in extreme heat.

And then: talk about it.

A new study just found that when people learn an extreme weather event was made worse by climate change, they’re significantly more likely to support climate action.

So when someone asks why this summer has been so brutal, you don’t have to be a climate scientist to answer. You can tell them: this is what burning fossil fuels does to our weather. It makes heat more extreme. And it’s going to keep doing so until we act.

That conversation is one of the most important things you can do.

TALK ABOUT IT!

Coal built the Industrial Revolution - now wind and solar are beating it.

The UK, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, turned off its last coal-fired power plant in 2024 and now gets nearly half its power from sun and wind. China, long seen as the poster child for coal, now installs more wind and solar power annually than the rest of the world combined, and is hitting its renewable energy targets well ahead of schedule.

Now, the U.S. is getting in on the solar race. There’s already more solar than coal on the Texas grid, and for the first time on record last month, solar generated more electricity than coal across the whole U.S.—12.8% versus 12.2%. This is a huge flip from just five years ago, when coal-generated power outweighed solar by a factor of three.

The forces driving this transition aren’t political. In fact, the U.S. government has been actively trying to hold back renewables: that’s what makes this trend so remarkable. It’s happening despite active federal policy opposition, including the government paying multiple U.S. and French companies to give up their offshore wind leases - to the tune of over 2.5 billion dollars as of this month.

Solar is now the cheapest source of electricity in history, and the market knows it. In 2025, a new solar project was installed every 59 seconds in the U.S. alone. At this point, trying to hold back the clean energy revolution seems as futile as doubling down on horses and buggies when cars are not only available, but cheaper.

(NOTE: When you share this information widely, you’re guaranteed to get someone who says, “but what happens at night when the sun doesn’t shine?” Send them last week’s edition on battery storage and this one about Finland’s giant sand battery!)

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A “super” El Niño is brewing this year. What is it, and why does it matter?

El Niño is named for the Christ child, as it’s characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures off the coast of Peru that often first emerge around Christmas time. By spring, a long tongue of warm sea surface temperature stretches all the way across the Pacific to Australia - as you can see here.

The threshold for an El Niño is when ocean temperatures in this region hit 0.5C warmer than average … but this year, they’re already at 1C and climbing fast. On June 11, NOAA confirmed that El Niño conditions have developed, putting the overall chance of it reaching ”very strong” or super intensity at 63 percent. The peak is expected at the end of this calendar year.

El Niño matters because impacts temperature and rainfall patterns around the world. This in turn exacerbates climate extremes: heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods, and more. Past El Niño events have been associated with massive wildfires in Australia, floods in East Africa, record-breaking coral bleaching events across the Pacific, and hefty price spikes in food around the world, as so many agricultural regions are hit with abnormal climate conditions at the same time.

The impacts don’t stop there, though. Economic losses -- which can impact everything from marine fisheries to global supply chains -- have in turn have been shown to increase risk of civil conflict, with one study estimating that even a regular El Niño doubles the probability of new civil conflicts arising throughout the tropics.

A “super” El Niño has only happened three times since 1980: in 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16. The 1982 El Niño was dubbed “perhaps the worst in recorded history,” causing up to 2,000 deaths and triggering droughts and wildfires in Africa, Australia and Indonesia while dumping record rainfall on Peru. A 2023 study put the global economic toll from that El Niño event at $4.1 trillion.

Will this one be worse? Almost certainly. That’s because it’s is occurring over a background of a rapidly changing climate–which makes everything that much worse. It’s like getting food poisoning when you were already running a fever from COVID. “The current forecasts imply this could be the costliest El Niño on record,” says Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth geography professor. UN Secretary-General António Guterres minced no words, warning that “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed.”

For a deeper dive, I recommend climate scientist Daniel Swain’s blog post and recent livestream Q&A.

This past Saturday June 20 was #ShowYourStripes day. What stripes, you ask? Your warming stripes, of course!

Created by climate scientist Ed Hawkins from the University of Reading, the warming stripes show how a place’s temperature has changed over time. Each stripe represents a year. A cooler-than-average year is blue; an average year is white; a warmer-than-average year is pink; and you can guess what red means.

Last year, the Warming Stripes were on display at MOMA as part of the exhibition “Pirouette: Turning Points in Design” alongside the first Mac computer, and Shigetaka Kurita’s original Emoji designs. (Ed even appeared on a MOMA podcast talking about creating the visualization.) This year, the UK’s National Trust projected them onto St Michael’s Tower on Glastonbury Tor, with the message “Start a conversation about our warming world”!

Want to find the warming stripes for the place where you live? Visit Ed’s website Show Your Stripes to see how any place in the world has warmed. Then, once you’ve found your stripes, share them on social media… or you can even wear them! I have a dress and a woolly scarf and a cotton scarf in the warming stripes, and you can get them in everything from flip flops to bathing suits and there is even an Australian organization named Common Grace that has a “knit for climate change” program.

However you choose to show your stripes, use them to start a conversation today: about how the world has changed since we were born, and how our future is in our hands.

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Nathan from Oregon, another self-identified balcony solar enthusiast, wrote in with a caution. An electrician and electrical code expert, he emphasized there are still important safety concerns. While new safety standards are in development, plug-in solar cannot be safely connected to electrical systems built to current U.S. standards until certified bi-directional protective devices become available.

Meanwhile, there is encouraging news from the UK, where regulators have just this week concluded that plug-in solar systems can be used safely there. Balcony solar panels are expected to go on sale in the UK within months, with systems ranging from a few hundred to a couple of thousand pounds.

It’s encouraging to see serious thought and progress on how to not only decarbonise our energy systems but make them more affordable and equitable, as well.

The world hit a major milestone in 2025: 112 gigawatts of new grid battery storage installed across the planet. This represents almost 50 percent growth from 2024, and a tenfold increase from 2021. Half of that capacity was installed in China, and 16 percent in the United States. This year, the world is projected to install even more, 158 gigawatts.

How does grid battery storage work? When the sun is blazing or the wind is blowing, and solar panels or wind turbines are producing more power than we can use, storage banks that electricity instead of wasting it. Then, when we need it most—on a hot evening when everyone gets home and cranks up the AC—it’s right there, ready to go.

Batteries make the grid more reliable and help push energy costs lower. They also replace gas-powered “peaking” plants that would otherwise be flipped on to generate electricity when it’s needed most.

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On a per capita basis, though, there’s one country far out in the lead – and it’s not China nor the U.S. It’s Australia! There, “more big battery power has been injected into the grid on a per-capita basis over the past two years than in any other country on the planet,” the Financial Review reports. And individuals are buying in, too. Already, one in every 25 homes in Australia has their own residential storage battery.

Not only that -- starting July 1, New South Wales and Queensland homes with smart meters will get three hours of free power each afternoon. As this Conversation article explains, it’s a bid to shift electricity demand to when it’s most available, and households that are more electrified (with heat pumps, induction stoves, plug-in cars, and other electrical rather than gas-powered appliances) will benefit most.

Times of India journalist and Talking Climate reader Achintyarup Ray wrote in to share his story about the disappearance of several islands in the Hooghly estuary in West Bengal. This is a long, narrow eastern Indian state that borders Bangladesh.

Ray’s story details how the government’s river training project increased erosion of two inhabited islands in Hooghly estuary. Yet a wall that would have protected these three islands from rising seas was proposed in 1981 but never built. Two of the three islands—Lohachara and Bedford—have already become uninhabitable due to a combination of erosion and rising sea levels, and a third island, Ghoramara, has lost 50 percent of its land mass to date and continues to lose 36 metres of shoreline a year.

“The people of Lohachara were among the world’s first climate refugees,“ Ray wrote to me. “The documents establish that this was not purely a natural process — it was shaped by institutional decisions made over decades, followed by institutional denial... Here is a case where something could have been done — the engineers knew, the scientists warned, a wall was designed — and the decision was made not to act.”

Rising sea levels are not the only climate risk India faces. The country is exceptionally vulnerable to dangerous heat exposure. “We estimate that a single day of extreme heat causes approximately 3,400 excess deaths nationally; a five-day heatwave causes nearly 30,000,” the authors of a new study found. They also estimated district-level excess heat deaths, concluding that “Uttar Pradesh alone accounts for approximately 8,100 excess deaths during a five-day heatwave, and districts such as Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Surat each exceed 250 excess deaths in a single event.”

These findings highlight critical gaps in how societies protect people from climate impacts, and how – once again – they tend to fall disproportionately on those who have done the least to cause the problem in the first place.

Last week, guest editor Jon Foley from Project Drawdown talked about the importance of making smarter investments to build a more sustainable future. While most of us aren’t deciding where billions of dollars get invested, we do make decisions every day about where our own money goes.

If you’re curious where to start, take a look at what you already own. Many people have no idea whether their retirement accounts, mutual funds, or ETFs are invested in fossil fuel companies, clean energy technologies, or something in between.

Thankfully, there are free tools that can help. Fossil Free Funds US and Fossil Free Funds in Canada both give funds a “fossil fuel grade” of A through F. In the UK, Ethical Consumer has ranked over 100 funds based on their sustainability, and Australia’s Market Forces offers a similar analysis. Then, once you have an idea of what grade your portfolio gets, you can take action. Invest Your Values has put together a handy guide as to what form that action can take, depending on who is in control of how your retirement portfolio is invested.

We invest for retirement because we hope for a secure future for ourselves and our families. There’s something powerful about knowing those same investments may also help build a healthier future for us all, don’t you think?

In this episode of Cold Facts, Hot Takes, I'm responding to some of the internet's favorite claims about so-called "green scams," from accusations that climate scientists are…

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