Andrew Dessler Journalist Profile

Articles

Los Angeles burns: What you need to know

Jan 13, 2025 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

The policy debate over climate change never stops, so when Los Angeles caught fire a few days ago, the finger pointing over who or what to blame quickly followed. I thought it would be helpful to write a quick post telling you what the science tells us about the connection of these fires to climate change.
Seeking Clarity on the Methane Surge, Sources (Not Where You'd Think) and Solutions

Dec 4, 2024 | revkin.substack.com | Andrew Dessler |Julio Friedmann

I hope you’ll join my Sustain What webcast Friday, December 6 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time to make sense of the spike, pause and new surge in emissions of methane, the second most important climate-heating greenhouse gas. You’ll glean fresh insights on solutions, as well, and there’ll be some surprises. Paste this post url on your calendar. The viewing info is below. In recent years, I and other journalists have mainly paid attention to emissions of methane from natural gas, oil and coal extraction.
Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

Dec 2, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

One of the most important concepts in climate science is the idea of committed warming — how much future warming is coming from carbon dioxide that we’ve already emitted. Understanding the extent of committed warming is vital because it informs our current climate situation. If there is a significant amount of committed warming already “locked in,” then we have much less ability to avoid the levels of warming that policymakers judge as dangerous.
Your vote will help determine the future of the planet

Nov 4, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

Six years ago, right before the 2018 mid-terms, I tweeted this out:This plot is somewhat out of date, but the essential message remains: your vote will help decide the planet’s temperature in 2100. to significantly reduce fossil fuel use and follow the path shown in the top row. However, if we elect leaders aligned with fossil-fuel interests and are unlucky with climate factors like high sensitivity and strong carbon feedbacks, we could end up with temperatures closer to those in the bottom row.
Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning

Oct 14, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

This is part two of my series on air conditioning. Part one can be found here. Let’s look at Houston’s summertime temperatures:Wow, Houston has warmed a lot in the summer. In the 1970s, summers were about 3C (5F) cooler than they are today, enough to turn a 97F day into a 102F day, which is a huge difference. I grew up in Houston in the 1970s and I can personally confirm that summertime Houston was always hot, but you were not a prisoner of air conditioning like you are now.
You will not escape the climate crisis

Sep 30, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

On Bluesky, it was pointed out that Asheville, NC was recently listed as a place to go to avoid the climate crisis. Mother Nature sent a “letter to the editor” indicating that she didn’t agree:While climate change does not cause hurricanes, we are certain it makes them more destructive. Humans have increased sea level, leading to more destructive storm surge, and a warmer atmosphere produces more rain. Many people don’t understand how this will affect them.
The doom spiral

Sep 12, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

In his last post, Zeke discussed incredible warmth of 2023 and 2024 and its implications for future warming. A few readers looked at it and freaked out:This is terrifyingand This update really put me in a spiral. I want to have hope, but when people like Leon Simons surround your articles with scary language, itās hard not to become a Doomer. Not sure, what I am going for with this comment, just a soul reaching out.
Are climate models overestimating warming?

Aug 12, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

In the world of climate communications, no claim seems to come up more frequently than “The climate models are wrong!” We recently wrote a post responding to claims that the models are running cold and future warming will be larger than models predict. Today, it’s the claim that the models are hot and future warming will be much less than they predict.
The hottest days in 125,000 years

Jul 29, 2024 | theclimatebrink.com | Andrew Dessler

Last week we set a record: we experienced the hottest day in the observational record. That record stood for 24 hours, when the next day took the record. In fact, these may have been the hottest days in the last 120,000 years. To understand this latter claim, let’s work backwards. We know that the record breaking days last week are the hottest in the observational record, which goes back about 150 years. Now, let’s look at the last 10,000 years.
Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?

Jul 17, 2024 | open.substack.com | Andrew Dessler

The Texas grid, run by ERCOT, has had a rough few years. In 2021, winter storm Uri blacked out much of the state for several days. About a week ago, Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to millions of Houstonians, and a week later, hundreds of thousands of Houstonians still hadn’t had their power restored.