“Not now, El Niño,” pleads the astrophysicist-turned climate scientist, Kate Marvel. On top of the fossil fuel crisis and conflicts derailing the world, it appears that Mother Nature is about to provide the umpteenth lesson that we mess with the grand cycles of the Earth to our peril.
German scientists are warning that global warming is accelerating, that the planet could heat by as much as 3 C over pre-industrial levels by 2050 — just 24 years from now — and that we could exceed 5 C of warming by the century’s end.
This should be top headline news. It should alarm us all. It should spur politicians to urgent action.
There’s a single figure that encapsulates our climate predicament: the amount of carbon dioxide in the sky. It is surging into treacherous new territory and the size of the surge is even more disturbing: it soared by a record amount in 2024.
