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"Next Year's News This Week" OUT OF TIME: El Niño, Climate Change, and Plan A By Evan Anderson ______ Why Read: We have entered a period in which we are beginning to face the climate crisis head-on. From fires to floods, famines, and formidable, deadly heatwaves, this year and next promise to bring home the reality of our fossil-based systems. El Niño conditions only exacerbate the disruption. But there is hope. Read on to learn more about what to expect and where, and one immediate solution. - era ______ We are on the highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator. - Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, COP 27 (11/11/22) For its an ill Bird will befoule her own Nest. - George Alsop, A Character in the Province of Maryland (1666) We are in a state of full-blown global crisis. This is readily apparent across the news cycle. At the time of this writing, Western Europe continues to experience an unprecedented early summer heatwave that has overwhelmed mortuaries. The total death toll has yet to roll in, but so far, 1,000 excess deaths were recorded in Paris alone in three days last week. The total across the entire region when all is said and done will likely be in the tens of thousands, at minimum. A heat dome is just settling in in the Central and Eastern United States, promising temperatures of over 100 degrees in some areas for multiple days. Northern India is sweltering under another heatwave that will see temperatures of 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital, with a delayed monsoon season that could disrupt agriculture. Meanwhile, without much explanation, global powers appear to have abandoned attempts to address the problem. The World Bank recently ditched its 45% climate-related finance target under pressure from the Trump administration, and the US (the world's largest contributor to climate change by far) has now abandoned most of its federal programs and funding related to addressing climate change, while withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. So, too, have other countries dropped all pretense of doing something: November's COP30 in Belem, Brazil, led to no concrete commitments at all. Hamstrung by lodging price-gouging that reduced participation, and obstructed by oil-producing nations demanding a focus that did not involve fossil fuels, the event was a dud. New Zealand's new government is no longer pursuing a net-zero strategy. This shows a remarkable lack of foresight, as the unlivable planet we are rapidly creating benefits no country, company, or citizen - anywhere. And we're running out of time.
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