Night and Day

I read an article yesterday about the impact of global warming of night-time temperatures. They are significant. The article also talked about night temperatures generally warming faster than daytime temperatures. That made me wonder … where and how is this happening in the U.S. — especially in recent decades?

Fortunately, both high and low temperatures are reported for all 344 climate divisions in the lower 48 states of the U.S. I decided to look just at the data since 1985, in order to focus on what’s been happening recently (a bit more than the last three decades). The process is actually pretty simple: for each climate division, I fit a straight line to the post-1985 diurnal temperature range, that being the high temperature minus the low temperature.

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Kids’ Climate March

Earther has an excellent article on the upcoming climate march on Washington D.C., organized by teenagers.

The article also profiles one of the founders and leaders, Jamie Margolin. It states:

“With renewable energy, we could create an amazing world,” Jamie Margolin, a 16-year old sophomore from Seattle, told Earther. “We could create this beautiful world, but we’re letting the world burn.”

Margolin is a plaintiff in a lawsuit suing the Washington state government for not doing enough about climate change (one of a handful of similar suits across the U.S.) and the founder of the Zero Hour, a new youth-driven movement for climate action starting with the July march. She said in her work advocating for climate solutions, policymakers and other adults she’s met with have told her they feel her plight but don’t feel compelled to act. Rather than take no for an answer, Margolin and her crew are forcing the issue.

“I decided it was unfair that I can’t vote, I don’t get to choose who is in power, I’m too young to be in power, but I get to pay the price for the decisions that politicians make today,” Margolin said. “It’s not fair that I’m being left with this world that is falling apart.”

You can help. Please publicize this. On twitter, facebook, instagram, blogs, everywhere online — and offline too. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper. Talk to your friends about it.

You can also visit their website and find other ways to help. You can make an immense difference.

After all, it’s their generation. It should be their choice.