Just a few days ago we published a short article describing the intense heatwaves gripping parts of the world. The information we shared was already terrifying, and a sign that capitalism has already pushed our planet far beyond some so-called tipping point.
But between July 4 and July 6, it got even worse. For three days in a row, the average global temperature broke previous records for the three hottest days ever. By the time you read this, more records might be broken.
Monday’s average global temperature was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 17 degrees Celsius. The next two days then immediately broke that new record, with the average global temperature on Wednesday going up to 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit, or 17.2 degrees Celsius.
One scientist said, “It’s so far out of line with what’s been observed that it’s hard to wrap your head around. It doesn’t seem real.”
Another said, “depending on how large this event gets, [there] obviously could be a really catastrophic pile-on to the year-on-year warming.”
And another said, “This is all happening in a world where we’ve been increasing greenhouse gases for the past 150 years, and that really loads the dice and makes it much more likely that we’re going to get pushed into record-breaking territory.”
The worst part about this brutal global heating is that we’ve known it’s coming for years. Another scientist reminded an interviewer that this heating is “well within the realm of what scientists had projected would happen” if humans continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere. Yet, we’ve done little to stop it.
This is because the people who run the world’s economy and political system profit from the status quo – the production and use of fossil fuels. They won’t stop. They can’t stop.
Unless we stop them. And every day we wait means a worsening climate catastrophe.
