Writing - James Dyke

I am an award-wining writer, covering environment and science for general audiences since 2013. I currently write a regular environment column for the UK newspaper i. I am a contributor to the Independent, the Guardian, and the Ecologist. I have written over 50 sustainability and environmental science articles for The Conversation generating 3.3million unique views. I have also written for Quartz, World Politics Review, The Globe Post, and probably others that I’ve forgotten! The excellent journalism site Muck Rack does a very good job of keeping a record of all my articles.

My first book Fire Storm and Flood: The violence of climate change was published in 2021 by Bloomsbury imprint Head of Zeus.

In 2020 I was nominated for the Maddox Prize. In 2022 I won a Covering Climate Now journalism award for Best Commentary.

Below are some highlights.

Available in The Conversation here. For this article, I along with co-authors Wolfgang Knorr and Robert Watson won Best Commentary category in the 2022 Covering Climate Journalism Awards. Climate activist Greta Thunberg said the article was “one of the most important and informative texts I have ever read on the climate and ecological crises”.

Available in The Guardian here. I wrote this in response to the latest set of temperature records being broken. Part climate science, part frustration around a real sense of urgency. Heatwaves and other climate impacts risk becoming normalised.

Available in The Independent here. This long read explores some of the drivers of our destructive civilisation. It discusses the technosphere concept and in places is quite depressing! However, I do think I offer one route where we may be able to make progress.

Available in Byline Times here. This article took a long time to write. I’m still not happy with it, but the central argument needs to be made. Warming beyond 1.5°C does not mean game over for action on the climate. It does mean more people will suffer and die. We have to deal with that brutal reality and end wishful thinking about technological salvation.

Below is a patchy list of work. One day I will find some time to properly archive everything online, in the meantime an accurate catalogue of my writing articles (and where they have been republished) curated by Muckrack is available here.

Geoengineering Without Decarbonization Won’t Solve the Climate Crisis World Politics Review – In April, a vast mass of hot air settled over the western Mediterranean, producing a record-breaking heatwave in Algeria, Morocco and Spain. In some places, thermometers reached over 20 degrees C higher than would be expected for this time of year. The weather was so extreme that scientists were able to quickly conclude it would have been impossible without human-caused climate change.

Australia’s biggest challenge is now preparing for climate catastrophe, while trying to stop even more warming The i paper – Australia has a new Prime Minister. Out goes the Liberal Party’s Scott Morrison, in comes Labor’s Anthony Albanese. This ends nine years of Liberal Party control which, since Morrison’s leadership, has been increasingly more populist and right-wing. Morrison was keen to stoke the so-called “culture wars” by focusing on issues such as immigration and transgender rights. Albanese refused to take the bait and instead campaigned on competency.

Climate breakdown: Even if we miss the 1.5°C target we must still fight to prevent every single increm ent of warming The Conversation – Is it game over for our attempts to avert dangerous climate change? For millions of people in India and Pakistan the answer is clearly yes as they continue to suffer from a record-breaking spring heatwave that is testing the limits of human survivability. As global emissions continue, such extreme weather will become more likely. Back in 2015, the international community agreed that warming beyond 1.5°C would cause devastation on an intolerable scale.

The most maddening thing about our climate change situation is that we aren’t doomed The i Paper – You may have missed it, but the latest major climate change report was released on Monday. In a week in which we have been stunned by the horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it would be easy to put the climate crisis on the back burner. There always seems to be a bigger story. But is there anything more important than the planet-wide destruction and death that climate change could wreak over the course of this century?

The IPPC climate change report shows LED lightbulbs and electric cars are not enough to solve the crisis The i Paper – It’s been seven years in the making, has involved thousands of scientists around the world, and covers topics that I spend most of my day thinking about. But when the IPCC Climate Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report landed on Monday I still felt a sense of shock. Our burning of coal, oil, and gas has heated the planet by over 1C since pre-industrial periods. 2C of warming was previously thought as the boundary between safe and dangerous climate change.

Consumers paid for Cameron cutting ‘green crap’ to lower energy bills, yet some Tories haven’t learned The i Paper – If a week is a long time in politics, then 100 months ago must be distant history. But it’s always worth thinking back to past political events to try to understand today’s headlines. And so as people across the country face soaring energy bills, I found myself remembering an infamous front page of The Sun back in 2013 with a statement attributed to then Prime Minister David Cameron. “Get rid of the green crap”.

The Antarctic ice is giving way, and so is our last chance to avoid a climate change catastrophe The i Paper – I’m sure you’ve seen the film scene. A character runs out onto a frozen lake only to suddenly stop when they hear a loud cracking noise. Looking down they see an increasing number of jagged lines opening up in the ice beneath them. Turning around they realise that they have gone too far to simply turn back. They are trapped. These were my thoughts when I read about new research from Antarctica.

COP26’s final agreement is a failure and a betrayal of those most vulnerable to climate change The i Paper – Is this what the end of the world looks like? Not in a blinding flash of nuclear self-annihilation, but death from a thousand paper cuts. Reams of opaque text have poured forth from Glasgow over the past fortnight. After an intense 72 hours of negotiation, an agreement was finally reached on Saturday afternoon. Through tears, conference president Alok Sharma hailed the Glasgow Climate Pact as a major milestone in humanity’s efforts to avoid climate catastrophe.

Cop26 won’t make the climate changes we need, but ground-up initiatives like the Global Assembly could The i Paper – It’s crunch time. Within the next fortnight, humanity will discover if it will pull back from the brink and avert climate chaos. This is how vital the international climate meeting in Glasgow – COP26 – is. The gathering of world leaders is being trailed as our last best chance to limit warming to no more than 1.5°C. This is a compelling narrative. It certainly injects a sense of urgency into what is a bewilderingly complex and lumbering political process. It is also almost entirely false.

The fuel and energy crises have laid bare our dependence on fossil fuels The i Paper – “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. You’ve probably heard the song by Joni Mitchell. That line is taken from the start of the chorus of Big Yellow Taxi, which was an international hit back in the 1970s. The lyric “We paved paradise and put up a parking lot” is probably much better known, but I think it’s the lament for what we have lost that would be resonating with many UK motorists this week.

Extinction Rebellion protesters are motivated by love as well as fear – we could all learn from them The i Paper – What would you do for love? Being caught in the full beam of romantic love can compel you to do the strangest things, but the love we have for our family and friends can be just as strong. Are there any limits to how far you would go to protect your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews? These are the sorts of questions we should be asking this week in response to the ongoing Extinction Rebellion protests in London. What does love have to do with blocking roads in central London?

IPCC report: The only way to prevent a climate change disaster is to stop using fossil fuels immediately The i Paper – There have been shorter obituaries. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, released today, is 3,949 pages long. Compiled by 234 scientists from 66 countries over six years, its extraordinarily detailed insights mark the end of fossil-fuelled business as usual. That will come in one of two ways.

Researching billions of years of climate change showed me the severity of our current crisis The i Paper – Is this what climate breakdown looks like? Flames towering tens of metres into the air over Turkish villages. Commuters neck-deep in floodwater in Chinese subways. Canadian towns subjected to blowtorch heatwaves. I’ve watched the events of 2021 both as a concerned bystander and with professional interest.

‘Moon wobble’ will cause flooding in the 2030s The i Paper – What is moon “wobble”? Recent research conducted by Nasa has discovered how changes in the moon’s orbit could produce devastating floods in the future. The moon exerts a profound influence on the Earth’s tides. This effect waxes and wanes over time due to peculiarities in its orbit. For example, the Moon moves around on its axis, rather like a wobbling spinning top. These and other factors mean that every 18.6 years the Moon has an increasing effect on the Earth’s tides.

The heat dome proves climate change is not a distant threat The i Paper – We are running out of superlatives to describe what climate change is doing to the weather. Temperature records have been broken, smashed and then obliterated. Droughts have been prolonged, extreme and then brutal. Storms have gone from damaging to unprecedented to apocalyptic. Eventually we are left with the language of destruction and death, as only this can adequately communicate the consequences of our actions.

If we’re serious about slashing carbon emissions, changing our cars and gas boilers is just the start The i paper — The opening shots in the next stage in the battle to avoid dangerous climate change were fired last month.

New climate commitments are a smokescreen – governments are still addicted to burning fossil fuels. inews.co.uk — Is this what success feels like? After decades of failures and frustrations, suddenly we see action on the climate crisis.

The policing bill will criminalise some environmental activists, but they won’t stop us protesting. inews.co.uk — Protester and activist. What do these words entail? Much will depend on where you live. In some countries being a protester risks summary execution.

Mars landing: I am fascinated by space, but there is a bigger mission facing us here on Earth. inews.co.uk — It was like a scene from a Hollywood science fiction blockbuster. A spacecraft hurtles towards a Red Planet at over 5km a second. Once within its thin atmosphere, a red and white parachute deploys.

Joe Biden has shown that we can turn the tide on the climate crisis in 2021 – Boris Johnson, take note The i paper – January is a month of resolutions and earnest promises. Running shoes have been dusted off, less chocolate and wine have been consumed. When it comes to action on the environment, some very important resolutions could be made in 2021. In November, the UK will host COP26, a pivotal United Nations meeting on climate change. Heads of state from around the world will pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a greater scale…

Note to a stranger: To the man who wrote me a letter after I called him an ambulance inews.co.uk — A letter. A real letter – handwritten ink on paper. It began with “Thank you”. The exact wording of the remaining two pages I can no longer remember, it was 30 years ago now and the letter has long been lost. But its message has stayed with me because it was something I needed to hear at the time. I was in my second year of study at university. After the blur of the first year, doubts were settling in…

A meat-free Christmas can be just as enjoyable as one that is crammed full with turkey inews.co.uk – My first attempt was not an unqualified success. The packet had promised so much. Just mix in water, vegetable oil and then bake. After three-quarters of an hour, a sumptuous nut roast would emerge, the perfect centrepiece for a vegetarian Christmas dinner…

Donald Trump or Joe Biden? What the result of the 2020 US election would mean for the environment inews.co.uk — Donald Trump’s presidency may soon be finally over. Democrat nominee Joe Biden continues to enjoy double-digit leads in national polling and healthy advantages in the battleground states. Some forecasts are putting his chances of victory at 89 per cent or greater. But my memories of four years ago will not let me believe Trump is defeated until I see him on board Marine One and fly off into the sunset…

Putting giant blankets on the Alps or firing sulphur skywards are the latest form of climate change denial inews.co.uk — Never underestimate the power of denial. How else are we to explain the absurdities of so many of our responses to the looming climate and ecological collapse? A classic example hove into view this week when it emerged that global warming was melting permafrost in Alaska, which would make it harder for trucks to transport the oil and gas extracted in the area…

There are animals under threat in our gardens– let’s celebrate them as well as exotic creatures inews.co.uk —You can’t miss what you never had. That’s why many of us don’t mourn the loss of the natural world. Most of the 7.6 billion people on Earth now live in towns and cities. Our day to day experiences are of Tarmac, concrete and glass. Totems of the living planet are allowed in gardens and parks.

Clean Air Day is crucial because by driving our cars we are slowly poisoning our children inews.co.uk — Amongst the continually grim news about Covid- 19, a glimmer of hope was raised about another vital public health issue recently. London used to regularly make headlines because of the harmful air its residents were being forced to breathe.

Global energy consumption could be lowered to 1960s levels and provide good living standards inews.co.uk — How much is enough? When it comes to us humans, more than our home planet. Each year we consume an amount of natural resources as if we lived on 1.6 Earths. We clear cut rain forests that have stood for millions of years while burning fossil fuels that took even longer to form.

Coronavirus: Donald Trump’s desire to lift social distancing measures shows he values dollars more than people. i news, 25th March 2020.

Coronavirus: The lacklustre UK measures are a repeat of our failures on climate change. i news, 18th March 2020.

Budget 2020: From the fuel duty freeze to roads investment, Rishi Sunak prioritised the economy over climate change. i news, 11th March 2020.

A global epidemic is killing millions every year – but it’s not a virus, it’s air pollution. i news, 4th March 2020.

Putting Mike Pence in charge of the US coronavirus response is some kind of sick joke. Independent, 27th February 2020.

Banning wood stoves might upset many- but our climate and health deserve better. i news 26th February 2020.

The only way to protect ourselves from storms and flooding is to keep fossil fuels in the ground. i news 21st February 2020.

A professor has said only human extinction will save the planet- but I have hope. i news 12th February 2020.

The COP26 climate conference could not come at a worse time for the UK, but we can’t afford for it to go wrong. i news 5th February 2020.

Thanks to pushback in places like York, Brighton and Birmingham, we may have hit ‘peak car’. i news 29th January 2020.

If regional airports and airlines are struggling, the government should allow them to close. i news, 23rd January 2020.

No wonder David Attenborough is angry. Climate science has been telling us the same story for decades. Independent, 16th January 2020.