2014 Is Likely to Be the Earth's Hottest Year Ever. Why It Doesn't Matter
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The United Nations World Meteorological Organization is out today with a report that’s sure to get people on the left and right all riled up: According to the UN, the Earth’s average temperature over land and sea in 2014 will be among the hottest—and likely the hottest—of any year since record-keeping began in 1880.
How hot? 58.23-degrees Fahrenheit, up 0.14 degrees from 2013, the UN says.
Some climate change activists, many of whom are now gathered in Lima, Peru, for annual UN climate talks, will seize on this told-you-so number as proof that global temperatures are rising. Climate change deniers will dismiss it as an outlier that proves nothing.