Politicians often speak of climate change as a problem for future generations to solve, but many scientists say the time to act is now and that the climate has already changed — it's not a far-off scenario. Never before has the devastation of global heating been more clear than in 2023, which is the hottest year in recorded human history.
But if this trend continues, 2023 may be one of the coolest years in recent memory. In other words, things are poised to get a whole lot worse unless we change our relationship with fossil fuels. In the meantime, we can expect the pile of broken records to climb even higher. Here are some of the main ways 2023 became a defining year in our anthropogenic spiral to the bottom, but with our constantly shifting baselines, it's not likely to be an anomaly.
