Off by one and a half degrees
To be sure, the goal of climate scientists, to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the average of the preindustrial era (1850-1900), was an arbitrary goal. If you doubt that then remember that it could have just as easily been 1.4 degrees, or even 2.718 degrees. It’s just a number. Even so, it was a goal, a promise we made to ourselves, and it’s looking more and more as if 2024 could very well be the year we break that promise.
Last week, Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reported that the earth’s average temperature reached 14.98 degrees Celsius last year, which is 1.48 degrees above that of the average of the second half of the 19th century. So this year is probably going to be the year we fail.
Last year provided some further ominous warnings. It turns out that we exceeded the 1.5 degree limit for more than half of the year, and the planet cooled enough for the second half to prevent — barely — that average from exceeding the fabled 1.5 degrees. Not only that, but we got a foretaste of an overall average of more than a 2 degree increase across two days in November, 2023, recalling that we might exceed the even more consequential promise of the Paris accord of capping global temperature increases at 2 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era.
In the tradition of the grimmest kind of gallows humour, let that be a warning to Republicans. If securing the border is truly their goal, they might want to take a second look at climate change in general and their fossil fuel bedfellows in particular. Nothing will create and mobilise refugees quite like climate change, and if they still think Trump’s plan to build a better wall was a good idea they can think again. Or, in the words of general George Patton, “Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man.” Any wall will be overcome by any resourceful people fleeing natural disasters.
Just kidding, of course. Republicans don’t really want to secure the border. Truthfully, this climate change disaster news is all a gift from the gods for Republicans. Now they can whine even more and cosplay the victim even further by conveniently declaiming the “crisis at the border” while simultaneously finding a way to blame Democrats. That’s their peculiar fiddle music set to the tune of a burning Rome that they themselves helped to set alight, and underscores further just how loathsome and useless they have become.
But there’s good news in the midst of all this bad. Joe Biden has done more to fight climate change than any other president in American history. Keeping him in office is certainly an important goal for that reason — and a thousand others. The defeat of Trump and the Republicans in 2024 will be a big critical step to overcoming the climate change crisis.
But it’s not the only step. We must continue to raise our voices, we must continue to recognise that climate change is our most vital topic. Yes, we also strive to rescue democracy from the clutches of MAGA lies and hypocrisy, but even that is of no importance if through our neglect we achieve a dead planet and an extinct human race. So keep fighting the good fight. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.