Californians have had weekend after weekend of cool, stormy weather and the Sierra Nevada has been blessed with a healthy snowpack. But the reality is that even the last few months have been more than 2 degrees hotter than average. The planet is experiencing a horrifying streak of record-breaking heat, with March marking the 10th month in a row that the average global temperature has been the highest ever recorded. It would be shocking if it wasn't so predictable. Despite everything we know about the effects of burning fossil fuels, humanity is still going in the wrong direction with self-destructive abandon. Last year greenhouse gas pollution climbed to a new high, a 1.1% increase over the prior year. If 10 months of record heat isn't enough to jolt world leaders into crisis mode, it's hard to say what will. It should be a flashing, red warning light that we are entering dangerous new territory and need to change course. We have the renewable energy technology, but it's being adopted at a pace that's too slow to protect people, animals and plants from unacceptable levels of suffering. The concept of a higher average global temperature doesn't paint a true picture of the effects that severe heat waves, drought, storms, wildfires and other climate-fueled disasters are having on the ground. Some communities are doing significantly worse than average. And examples aren't hard to find. Phoenix last year recorded 31 consecutive days of temperatures of 110 degrees. Maricopa County officials have confirmed more than 600 heat-related deaths in 2023, shattering the previous year's record. The Texas Panhandle this year experienced its largest wildfire in state history, which burned more than 1 million acres and killed thousands of cattle. In the Horn of Africa, communities experiencing a hunger crisis after three years of drought were pummeled with torrential rains and flooding last year that killed hundreds of people across... |