The 1st half of 2018 was the 3rd hottest half-year on record. You will have fresh memories of the rest of the 4 hottest.

Data released this week by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University show that Earth’s average temperature between January and June of this year was the 3rd hottest half-year on record.

2018 Jan-Jun

The other 3 hottest half-years on record since 1880, when people started keeping accurate records? You’ll remember them: 2015, 2016, and 2017.

“When a record is broken once, it’s a fluke. When it happens again, it’s a coincidence. When it happens three times, it’s a trend, but when it happens every single year, it’s a movement.”
Sarah Green, environmental chemist, Michigan Technological University, reacting to the new data

This is the most recent part of a long-term warming trend, well documented since the late 1800’s and linked directly to carbon dioxide emissions mainly from fossil fuel combustion.

As the November elections draw closer, all of us Americans need to pay attention to the long game. We are continually barraged with hyper-partisan messaging about various issues; they may not be the basic questions we should prioritize highest. As examples, ask yourselves these questions:

The point? All these issues are important. But they are only important if we are also working on the long game, that is, finding and executing a solution to climate change.

If we’re not working on the long game, the rest of those issues could, frankly, be relatively short-term problems.

My next post will be a scientific one, about how we really could lose it all. What that might look like, according to some scientific modeling. Or, if we’re alert and careful, how we might avoid it. Watch this space.

#rescuethatfrog

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