, Columnist
How Hot Does It Need to Get to Spur Climate Action?
This year was the warmest on record, yet humanity shows little wherewithal to reverse course.
Get ready for more.
Photographer: Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images
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This has been the hottest year in recorded human history. Its unprecedented temperatures stoked devastating wildfires, floods, cyclones, droughts and heat waves that cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage. At the rate we’re going, it will also be one of the coolest, calmest years any of us will ever experience again.
Just how much hotter and more destructive the atmosphere will become depends on the choices humanity makes, starting today. At the moment, we’re still making too many bad ones.