It is now a Monthly Event
Every month this summer has broken a heat record. June was the hottest June in history. July was the hottest July in history. August was not only the hottest August ever, it was the hottest month ever recorded. The average global temperature was 1.25 degrees Celsius warmer than the 20th century average. This means that the summer of 2023 was the warmest summer ever in the Northern Hemisphere and also the warmest winter in the Southern Hemisphere.
Last week, the results from September came in, and they were alarming. It was the warmest September in history, eclipsing 2020 by a full .5 degree Celsius. September felt more like an abnormally hot July with an average global air temperature of 16.38 degrees Celsius (61.45 Fahrenheit), making the month 0.93 degrees Celsius hotter than the 1991 to 2020 average, and 1.75 degrees Celsius hotter than the September average for the pre-industrial era, before the world started burning large amounts of fossil fuels.
Remember that faux agreement from COP 20 in December 2015 when close to 200 nations signed a commitment to keep the total amount of warming to 1.5 Celsius or less. Well that lasted for eight years. There was no intention actually to do the work necessary to make that happen. So it didn’t. Once again I must quote the courageous climate activist, Greta Thunberg, who said “blah, blah, blah.”
The discussion has moved from whether climate change is real or not, to what to do about it… now that it is happening. All the post-climate catastrophe dystopian Hollywood films had some TV reporter talking about record heat, record droughts, record floods, and rising death tolls due to extreme heat.
Well, that is now our reality.
Where have all the climate change deniers gone? Are they watching the news? Are they admitting they were wrong? Do they care? They should as it has been the well-funded deniers who have held global civilization hostage for decades, delaying critical and timely work to face what could well be the end of civilization.
Think about this. The last four months have been the hottest months ever in recorded history. Each month broke new records. This is the summer when global warming became the top news story of the year. We are in it. We are inside because of it. We are dying because of it. What is humanity doing? Clearly not enough.
Humanity needs to understand that:
- We created the problem. We can create a solution. There is no planet to save. We need to save ourselves from ourselves.
- Until we have zero annual GHG emissions for several years in a row the warming will continue.
- Even if GHG emissions stopped tonight at midnight, the planet would warm for the next 30 years due to what we have already put up into the atmosphere.
- We all need to act as crew members of This Spaceship Earth. Do one thing to lower your CO2 emissions, today.
In 2023, we are living through the hottest year ever recorded. We caused this. No other species had anything to do with it. We have seen the enemy… and he is us.
Will October 2023 become the hottest October in recorded history? Probably. Will November 2023 be the hottest November on record? Probably. The path ahead is one of unprecedented heat. Act as crew!
