It is now almost 3 years since we lost our dear brother, John Houghton. We have just learned of a tribute by his and our good friend Bob White that was published in The Royal Society several months ago.

The picture above is from the article – I daresay none of us have seen him this young. Following is a brief excerpt:

John Houghton made seminal contributions to understanding the temperature and structure of the stratosphere. After gaining the highest first in physics at Oxford, his DPhil involved building a radiometer that was flown in a post-war Mosquito. It started a long interest in developing instrumentation. He completed his National Service doing research into atmospheric composition at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, then returned to 21 years in Oxford. He led a team that, with others, built a series of instruments launched on Nimbus satellites during 1970 to 1978 to measure infrared radiation from the stratosphere. At age 48 he left academia to head up the Appleton Research Laboratories, tasked to move them to the Rutherford Laboratory and realign their work from upper atmospheric radio research to space support. Four years later he was appointed director general of the Meteorological Office. In his eight-year term, he moved it from dependence on the Ministry of Defence to becoming an independent agency, developed its commercial arm and strengthened its research. He also founded the Hadley Centre to work on climate-related issues. His most significant global contribution was helping to set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), then chairing its working group on scientific assessments through their first three reports during 1990 to 2001. After retirement he devoted his time to raising awareness of climate change through many lectures and articles, and co-founded the John Ray Initiative to address the challenges of sustainable development and environmental stewardship. Appropriately, the Sixth IPCC WG1 Assessment Report in August 2021 was dedicated posthumously to him.

…In 2007 the IPCC was announced as the joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Al Gore Jr. The citation stated it was ‘for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change’. John, along with a group of others from the IPCC, were delighted to attend the ceremony. It remained one of the highlights of his career, along with receiving the Japan Prize in the previous year. In August 2021, the sixth assessment report was released with a posthumous dedication to Sir John Houghton, a mark of the respect in which the scientific community held him.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report two days ago. For those of us who follow this topic closely there was not a lot new. But the message is getting louder and the underlying theme of all of the IPCC reports is clear: time is running out, and many of the effects of climate change are already here – as many readers of The Pollinator know firsthand.

Among the 270 scientists from 67 countries is Dr. Rodel Lasco, a good friend of LWCCN. We reached out to him for his thoughts:

The IPCC is the world’s leading scientific body on climate change. After almost eight years, the IPCC will release its latest findings on the impacts of global warming and how we can adapt to them. Let’s listen!

The latest report of the IPCC tells us the likely impacts of a changing climate around the world. Our task is to look at the report and find out how its findings apply to our country. As Christians, the report will guide us on how to care for creation more effectively.

The report is not short – it comes in at almost 4,000 pages. If you really want to, you can access the whole thing here, but you might be better off starting with the much shorter and relatively accessible Summary for Policy Makers.

For those who want a quick overview, here is what the New York Times has to say:

The report released Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the United Nations, is the most detailed look yet at the threats posed by global warming. It concludes that nations aren’t doing nearly enough to protect cities, farms and coastlines from the hazards that climate change has already unleashed, such as record droughts and rising seas, let alone from the even greater disasters in store as the planet keeps heating up.

…the report is “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” said António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.”

We lost a hero this week. Sir John Houghton, 88 years old, passed away in a Care facility near his home in Wales UK on 15 April. Known to the world as the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s scientific assessment group and lead editor of the first three highly influential IPCC reports, he was a strong evangelical Christian, a passionate advocate for bringing faith and science into the same room, and he was a brother and friend to many of us who are working to bring his work to the attention of the church community.

We will have more say about Sir John in our June Pollinator, but for the time being, here is a list of some of the main tributes to his life and character:

John T. Houghton Wikipedia

Obituaries

John Ray Initiative (Sir John was one of the founders)

Hannah Malcolm, Sir John’s granddaughter, wrote a moving tribute on Twitter. An easy to read version for non-Twitter users is HERE

Church Times

Francisco Martín León writes in tiempo.com: Muere Sir John Houghton, climatólogo y editor fundador del IPCC (in Spanish)

The Weather Channel

Rev Dr Jim Ball: Sir John- a View from the States

Powys County Times

BBC News (17:51 16 Apr)– mostly quotes Hannah Malcolm’s tweets (see above)

Jesus College, Oxford