| | | | | Welcome! Today, skunk cabbage and 90-year-old tortoise dads. But first, tipping points. | |  | | This week we learned from the latest U.N. climate report we're likely to burn through the planet's remaining "carbon budget" by 2030. Sounds hopeless. But it's not. Climate change is not a choice between apocalypse or paradise. Every fraction of a degree matters. Every fraction is worth fighting for. | | Even as the best-case scenario slips through our fingers, the worst-case scenarios are off the table because of the decline of coal, the rise of renewables, the spread of electric vehicles. "The choices we make now and in the next few years will reverberate around the world for hundreds, even thousands, of years," IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee told reporters Monday. | | I'd venture to say our attitudes will decide our choices. At the end of last year, the share of the U.S. population "alarmed" about climate change stood at 26 percent, according to Yale's Program on Climate Change Communication, compared to 12 percent in 2012. Doesn't sound like a lot. But as I said in my first column, "human culture and global warming are not linear systems. They are driven by exponential curves, social contagions and threshold effects." | | What's interesting about 26 percent? It's the possible tipping point for large-scale social change. University of Pennsylvania researchers found that, when placing about 200 people in randomized groups, a minority committed to changing views could abruptly shift the majority's opinion when they reached 25 percent of the population. "In one trial," reports the university, "a single person accounted for the difference between success and failure." One more reason to act. | |  | | Each generation is being born into an ever-warmer world. The graphic from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change below uses climate stripes to show how different generations will experience global warming in the 21st century. | | | A 70-year-old today has experienced 0.85 degrees of warming in their lifetime, writes The Washington Post's Kasha Patel, but someone born in 2020 will experience about three times higher decadal warming rates by the time they are 70. | | | Cherry trees are bursting in Washington. Peak bloom is probable by Friday. | | | People gather to view blooming cherry blossoms and the rising sun along the Tidal Basin on Tuesday March 21, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post) | | President Biden designated Castner Range, which spans 6,672 acres in El Paso and was used as military training and testing site during World War II, as a national monument. The area is home to flora and fauna including the Texas horned lizard and the endangered Sneed's pincushion cactus. | | | My friends, you love your lentils. This week's column got much love and many of you asked for recipes. So I'll leave you with a few. Because lentils are versatile enough to be a meat substitute or a complement, these culinary superheroes (and legumes in general) can elevate any meal. And if your stomach has trouble with them, sprouting or soaking breaks down big sugar molecules that can lead to gas — and makes them even more nutritious. | |  | | From elsewhere: Food Rescue US is salvaging Wagyu beef sliders from Formula 1 races and filet mignon from the Fontainebleau, a growing effort to redirect food from the landfill, reports Nicolás Rivero at the Miami Herald. Mr. Pickles, a radiated tortoise at the Houston Zoo, just became a first-time dad of 3 at the age of 90, reports NPR. Welcome to Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño. | |  | | Behold one of the most miraculous plants in nature: Symplocarpus foetidus, or skunk cabbage. Sometimes called the first flower of spring, it heats itself to about 15 degrees Celsius (59 Fahrenheit) through a chemical process, pushing through snow. | | | It blooms in marshy woods and, as the name implies, emits a smell only insects could love. Thank you to reader W. McGowan for the image. | | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Climate Coach in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. | | See you next Tuesday, Michael Coren, Climate Coach | | Did you know I read all your emails? Be part of the Climate Coach community. Write with thoughts and questions to climatecoach@washpost.com. | | | | | | | | | |
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