

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.


Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

Map showing the anomalies in temperature during the 5-day period of 25-29 June 2019. (Credit: ECMWF, Copernicus Climate Change Service)
In response to news on Tuesday that a European Union satellite agency declared last month the hottest June ever recorded, 2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said, "Maybe, just maybe, it's time to start treating this like a crisis and not a hoax."
With campaigners across the world demanding leaders respond to the crisis of the rapidly heating planet as the "climate emergency" it is, Sanders was responding to a tweet by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben noting new data released by the UN-supported Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) that showed global temperatures last month were the highest ever recorded for June since records began in the late 19th century.
As the story by the Independent newspaper on the temperature data was poorly worded or incorrectly reported, McKibben later returned to Twitter to clarify the report's findings, but he made it clear the reality should still be met with serious alarm:
According to C3S, average temperatures across Europe "were more than 2degC above normal" and the "global-average temperature for June 2019 was also the highest on record for the month."
Globally, the temperature average, the group noted, was about 0.1degC higher than that of the previous warmest June, in 2016, following a strong El Nino event.
While a widespread heatwave in the last weeks of the month pushed up the average for Europe, Jean-Noel Thepaut, who heads C3S, said that even as the heatwave itself cannot be directly attributed to the global climate crisis, it fits very much in line with what the scientific community has warned.
"Although local temperatures may have been lower or higher than those forecast, our data show that the temperatures over the southwestern region of Europe during the last week of June were unusually high," Thepaut. "Although this was exceptional, we are likely to see more of these events in the future due to climate change."
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
In response to news on Tuesday that a European Union satellite agency declared last month the hottest June ever recorded, 2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said, "Maybe, just maybe, it's time to start treating this like a crisis and not a hoax."
With campaigners across the world demanding leaders respond to the crisis of the rapidly heating planet as the "climate emergency" it is, Sanders was responding to a tweet by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben noting new data released by the UN-supported Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) that showed global temperatures last month were the highest ever recorded for June since records began in the late 19th century.
As the story by the Independent newspaper on the temperature data was poorly worded or incorrectly reported, McKibben later returned to Twitter to clarify the report's findings, but he made it clear the reality should still be met with serious alarm:
According to C3S, average temperatures across Europe "were more than 2degC above normal" and the "global-average temperature for June 2019 was also the highest on record for the month."
Globally, the temperature average, the group noted, was about 0.1degC higher than that of the previous warmest June, in 2016, following a strong El Nino event.
While a widespread heatwave in the last weeks of the month pushed up the average for Europe, Jean-Noel Thepaut, who heads C3S, said that even as the heatwave itself cannot be directly attributed to the global climate crisis, it fits very much in line with what the scientific community has warned.
"Although local temperatures may have been lower or higher than those forecast, our data show that the temperatures over the southwestern region of Europe during the last week of June were unusually high," Thepaut. "Although this was exceptional, we are likely to see more of these events in the future due to climate change."
In response to news on Tuesday that a European Union satellite agency declared last month the hottest June ever recorded, 2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders said, "Maybe, just maybe, it's time to start treating this like a crisis and not a hoax."
With campaigners across the world demanding leaders respond to the crisis of the rapidly heating planet as the "climate emergency" it is, Sanders was responding to a tweet by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben noting new data released by the UN-supported Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) that showed global temperatures last month were the highest ever recorded for June since records began in the late 19th century.
As the story by the Independent newspaper on the temperature data was poorly worded or incorrectly reported, McKibben later returned to Twitter to clarify the report's findings, but he made it clear the reality should still be met with serious alarm:
According to C3S, average temperatures across Europe "were more than 2degC above normal" and the "global-average temperature for June 2019 was also the highest on record for the month."
Globally, the temperature average, the group noted, was about 0.1degC higher than that of the previous warmest June, in 2016, following a strong El Nino event.
While a widespread heatwave in the last weeks of the month pushed up the average for Europe, Jean-Noel Thepaut, who heads C3S, said that even as the heatwave itself cannot be directly attributed to the global climate crisis, it fits very much in line with what the scientific community has warned.
"Although local temperatures may have been lower or higher than those forecast, our data show that the temperatures over the southwestern region of Europe during the last week of June were unusually high," Thepaut. "Although this was exceptional, we are likely to see more of these events in the future due to climate change."