2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #21

Posted on 25 May 2025 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 18, 2025 thru Sat, May 24, 2025.

Plugging the Weather & Climate Livestream planned to start on May 28

Skeptical Science can’t and shouldn’t tell anybody how to behave; our role is to help people make better decisions by being better informed. With that in mind, we’re again highlighting the Weather And Climate Livestream initiative started by early career scientists. We hope that as many people as possible are educated how US climate and weather reporting and research make us all safer! Here is information from the event’s website:

SAVE AMERICA’S FORECASTS

Whether it’s tomorrow’s temperatures or the sea level in fifty years, Americans need to plan for our futures. For generations, the US government has invested in the science that helps us do so, building one of the greatest meteorology and climate science communities in the world.

In recent months, this community have been thwarted in our mission of serving the public due to substantial cuts and firings. These actions have already hurt our forecasts, endangering Americans as hurricane season approaches. Legally required assessments of the climate are being stopped, and far more drastic cuts are being proposed.

But it’s not too late to stop these cuts. Already, public pressure has helped to reopen shuttered weather data centers. To help keep this pressure building, meteorologists and climate scientists from across America want to fulfill our mission by sharing our science with you – so we’re coming to your screens, speaking and answering your questions, for over 100 hours, in this science-filled, non-partisan event:

The Weather & Climate Livestream

From Wednesday, May 28th to Sunday, June 1st, join meteorologists and climate scientists from across the US as we share our work, and show you what makes it so vital. We will clarify the impact of the cuts on this research, and answer your questions about weather and climate research in the US. Information on how to watch is coming soon. If you are a scientist who wants to participate, please visit this speakers page to learn more.

Please check out the event’s homepage to learn more and get the latest information!

This week’s roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if you spot any clear misses and/or have suggestions for additional categories, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!

Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Policy and Politics (6 articles)

• Trump`s USDA tried to erase climate data. This lawsuit forced it back online. The agency quietly removed web pages on rural energy, climate-smart agriculture, and federal loans — until farmers sued. Grist, Frida Garza, May 15, 2025.
• Vandalism, with a plan It’s hard not to spot a pattern in how the US government’s climate research capacity is being degraded. The Crucial Years, Bill McKibben, May 17, 2025.
• With its climate progress under assault, California takes up a multipronged defense President Trump has made specific threats to California’s environmental efforts, including its vehicle emission standards and cap-and-trade program. Climate , Hayley Smith, May 18, 2025.
• Climate targets are only as good as the action behind them. We need to aim higher | Amanda McKenzie How fast we cut climate pollution will define how safe or scary the world becomes as our children grow up The Guardian, Amanda McKenzie, May 19, 2025.
• Godfather of climate science decries Trump plan to shut Nasa lab above Seinfeld diner: `It`s crazy` Over breakfast at Tom’s Restaurant, right below the historic Giss lab, James Hansen calls Doge’s decision a ‘big mistake’ The Guardian, Oliver Milman, May 21, 2025.
• Weather experts worry about a dangerous mix of more tornadoes and fewer meteorologists US weather forecasting is degraded even as climate change makes our “luck” worse. PBS News Hour, Seth Borenstein, May 22, 2025.

Climate Change Impacts (6 articles)

• Earth is heading for a second year above 1.5°C climate goal After record temperatures in 2024, climate scientists had expected this year to be cooler, but instead the planet seems to be heading for a second year above the 1.5°C climate goal. New Scientist, Madeleine Cuff, May 14, 2025.
• How climate change contributed to the Los Angeles fires Drier vegetation and soil make it easier for wildfires to spread and become more destructive. Yale Climate Connections, YCC Team, May 19, 2025.
• Climate change emerges as third major threat to global wildlife, scientists warn New research published in BioScience reveals that climate change is rapidly emerging as a third major threat to Earth’s wild animals, joining habitat alteration and overexploitation in what scientists call a shift from “twin to triple threats. Phys.org, Sadie Harley, May 20, 2025.
• Climate change poses severe threat to bowhead whale habitat New research examining 11,700 years of bowhead whale persistence throughout the Arctic projects that sea ice loss due to climate change will cause their habitat to severely contract by up to 75%. Phys.org, Johnny von Einem, May 22, 2025.
• `Unprecedented` marine heatwave hits waters around Devon, Cornwall and Ireland Scientists warn of profound impacts as sea temperatures rise by up to 4C above average for springtime The Guardian, Sandra Laville, May 22, 2025.
• Top winemaker `may have to leave its Spanish vineyards due to climate crisis` How a Spanish vintner is living the long now of climate change, thinking ahead. Grist, Sarah Butler, May 24, 2025

Climate Education and Communication (5 articles)

• The Weather & Climate Livestream starting on May 28 Event website, Various, May 16, 2025.
• Climate scientists are trusted globally, just not as much as other scientists-here’s why The Conversation, Omid Ghasemi and Ben Newell, May 19, 2025.
• The psychology of climate traps and how to avoid them Conundrum: urgent survival decisions lead to poor outcomes in long-term climate vulnerability. The Conversation , Lucrezia Nava, May 21, 2025.
• Learning what’s at stake with the Weather & Climate Livestream Weather and climate scientists stage an online event to help us understand how our safety is at risk from reckless cuts to weather and climate services. Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom, May 23, 2025.
• Climate expert: We`re talking about global warming `in the wrong way` Even if we were not messing up the climate, we’d be smart to modernize our way of living beyond dragging things out of the ground and setting them on fire. The Standard News, Emily Beament, May 23, 2025.