A “new normal” when it comes to climate? No.

Hello and welcome to the AP Climate Watch newsletter. I am Ingrid Lobet, climate accountability editor at The Associated Press. Today I’m going to talk about a term that frequently gets used during discussion of climate change—and why we shouldn’t use it.

During bouts of extreme weather, there’s a term that crops up in conversations at the office, at home and in the media: “the new normal.”

But there is no new normal, so we shouldn’t use that term.

For a new normal to exist when it comes to now-warmer winters or strong hurricanes or flooding or drought, we would need to have arrived at a degree of stability, or stasis. But we are in no such time of stasis. Earth has not reached any new equilibrium. It hasn’t stabilized at something people can get used to.

On the contrary, climate change is only getting started, and it is on course to get worse each year, overall, for a reason that is simple but not widely understood.

Every day, the sun rises. Some of its rays ricochet off the tops of clouds, back to space. Some pass through, hit the ground and bounce back to space. Some get intercepted by the air itself, the blanket of gases surrounding the Earth. And some hit the ground and are absorbed there. Earth then radiates out that energy as heat.  

Every day, more of that sun energy that would have just passed through and bounced back to space instead gets held close to the Earth, melting glaciers, evaporating rivers and disrupting weather patterns. Every day, on average, there are more gases from burning coal and oil and natural gas, from livestock agriculture and landfills, and leaking natural gas pipelines, concentrating in the atmosphere and strengthening the dynamic.

It means the Earth can’t shed its heat in its normal way. It had more and more of this energy to contend with. It is not finding a normal. Little will be normal. Instead, things will keep being unprecedented — the very opposite of normal. 

Dramatic change could come suddenly; there is no guarantee things will worsen in a straight line.

As many have said before, we are conducting an experiment on ourselves and on other life on the planet in real time. By digging up all this ancient oil and gas and coal that nature kept buried, and burning it or leaking it, adding that to the atmosphere, we change our relationship with the star that makes everything possible, the sun.

The tools to do things differently are very much at hand. The Associated Press is reporting extensively on these remedies.

But we will not be hitting any new normal until we use them.

So let’s not talk about the new normal anymore.

Here’s what else you need to know

⚠️ As Congo seeks to expand drilling, some communities worry pollution will worsen

💦 A shocking amount of water is leaking out of water mains and smaller water pipes in towns across the United States – 50, 60, 70, even 85%.

☀️ Phoenix has a shade plan. Tel Aviv does, and so does Abu Dhabi. Now a plan for lifesaving shade in the heat is coming to rural Latino unincorporated areas of hot, inland Southern California.

One big number

30

The number of new oil and gas lease areas the Democratic Republic of Congo is trying to sell to energy companies for new production.

Thank you for reading this newsletter. We’ll be back next week. For questions, suggestions or ideas please email ClimateEnvironmentEditors@ap.org

This newsletter was written by Ingrid Lobet, climate accountability editor, and produced by climate engagement manager Natalia Gutiérrez.

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