Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
I doubt that the Earth will be habitable or that humans can survive that increase – these 2 issues are essentially the same phrased in different ways. I suggest that 2300 should instead be regarded as the best estimate we have of our end date. It’s unfortunately a very rough and unreliable estimate and it might be better to rely on 30 or 40 years earlier.
12.45p.m. Researching this further, probably for a later article. There are projections for 2.6 to 3C rise by 2100.
10.50 p.m.GMT Apologies, did this post shock or startle some of you? Doesn’t it stand to reason? Global temperatures continue to rise due to the rich and powerful unopposed by any governments continuing use of fossil fuels, the climate is damaged and it will continue unless meaningful action is taken. I don’t intend to mislead you, my job is to inform my audience.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
The Trump administration took a major step in its efforts to unravel America’s climate policies on Feb. 12, 2026, when it moved to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding – a formal determination that six greenhouse gases that drive climate change, including carbon dioxide and methane from burning fossil fuels, endanger public health and welfare.
But the administration’s arguments in dismissing the health risks of climate change are not only factually wrong, they’re deeply dangerous to Americans’ health and safety.
As physicians, epidemiologists and environmental healthscientists, we’ve seen growing evidence of the connections between climate change and harm to people’s health. Here’s a look at the health risks everyone face from climate change.
Greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources accumulate in the atmosphere, trapping heat and holding it close to Earth’s surface like a blanket. Too much of it causes global temperatures to rise, leaving more people exposed to dangerous heat more often.
Most people who get minor heat illnesses will recover, but more extreme exposure, especially without enough hydration and a way to cool off, can be fatal. People who work outside, are elderly or have underlying illnesses such as heart, lung or kidney diseases are often at the greatest risk.
Heat deaths have been rising globally, up 23% from the 1990s to the 2010s, when the average year saw more than half a million heat-related deaths. Here in the U.S., the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome killed hundreds of people.
Climate scientists predict that with advancing climate change, many areas of the world, including U.S. cities such as Miami, Houston, Phoenix and Las Vegas, will confront many more days each year hot enough to threaten human survival.
Increased flooding carries health risks, including drownings, injuries and water contamination from human pathogens and toxic chemicals. People cleaning out flooded homes also face risks from mold exposure, injuries and mental distress.
Flooding from hurricanes and other extreme storms can put people at risk of injuries during the cleanup while also triggering dangerous mold growth on wet wallboard, carpets and fabric. This home flooded up to its second flood during Hurricane Irma in 2017. Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Climate change also worsens droughts, disrupting food supplies and causing respiratory illness from dust. Rising temperatures and aridity dry out forests and grasslands, making them a setup for wildfires.
Air pollution
Wildfires, along with other climate effects, are worsening air quality around the country.
Because they are cold-blooded organisms, insects are directly influenced by temperature. So with rising temperatures, mosquito biting rates rise as well. Warming also accelerates the development of disease agents that mosquitoes transmit.
As global temperatures rise, regions are becoming more suitable for mosquitoes to transmit dengue virus. The map shows a suitability scale, with red areas already suitable for dengue transmissions and yellow areas becoming more suitable. Taishi Nakase, et al., 2022, CC BY
New York and many other cities now open cooling centers during heat waves to help residents, particularly older adults who might not have air conditioning at home, stay safe during the hottest parts of the day. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
Young children, older adults, pregnant women and people with preexisting medical conditions are among the highest-risk groups. Lower-income people also face greater risk because of higher rates of chronic disease, higher exposures to climate hazards and fewer resources for protection, medical care and recovery from disasters.
The evidence is clear: Climate change endangers human health. But there’s a flip side to the story.
When governments work to reduce the causes of climate change, they help tackle some of the world’s biggest health challenges. Cleaner vehicles and cleaner electricity mean cleaner air – and less heart and lung disease. More walking and cycling on safe sidewalks and bike paths mean more physical activity and lower chronic disease risks. The list goes on. By confronting climate change, we promote good health.
To really make America healthy, in our view, the nation should acknowledge the facts behind the endangerment finding and double down on our transition from fossil fuels to a healthy, clean energy future.
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark RichardsNeo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Large parts of the UK are experiencing relentless rainfall, with some places seeing rain for 41 consecutive days and counting. In Reading, in the south east of England, our university’s official rain gauge has recorded precipitation on 31 consecutive days – unprecedented in records stretching all the way back to 1908.
The pattern has not just made 2026 a bit dreary. It also reveals one way in which climate change is making the already naturally variable (some would say gloriously variable) British weather increasingly extreme.
In those 31 days, Reading has received 141mm of rain, compared to the 30-year average over that period of just 58mm – well over twice what we would expect at the time of year.
Higher than average rainfall totals are expected, well, half of the time. This is just how mean averages work. But it’s the nature of this current weather pattern that is so unusual, and is in keeping with the type of wetter winter situation for UK weather that climate scientists have been warning us to expect – even if we are still only just learning why exactly this is happening on a regional level.
Over the full breadth of a British year, the bigger picture is even more revealing. Last year, the UK was grappling with one of the hottest and driest summers on record. A succession of hot spells, combined with long periods that saw less than average rainfall, meant water supplies dwindled and widespread hosepipe bans were put in place.
As a whole, 2025 from spring onwards was exceptionally dry. Fast forward to the new year, and we’re facing the opposite – weeks of rainfall and flooding. These extremes are what we expect to see in this part of the world, as heat builds up in the global atmosphere and oceans. For British people, this is what climate change right now feels like.
More rain, more intense rain
What is causing this link between a warmer planet and wetter British winters? One fundamental link is in basic physics of the atmosphere as temperatures rise. Warmer air can hold more moisture – about 7% more for every one degree celsius of warming. This means that when it rains, on average it rains harder. Bigger, heavier downpours become more common.
Climate change is also disrupting the patterns of currents and cycles within the atmosphere and oceans that bring the UK much of its weather. As an island archipelago on the edge of three competing climate masses – the wet, mild Atlantic, the cold, dry Arctic, and the wildly variable temperatures of the Eurasian landmass – it is used to variability.
But one constant feature plays an oversized role in the type of weather we get: the jet stream – a ribbon of fast-flowing air high in the atmosphere. The position of the jet stream makes a big difference. Sometimes it flows to the north of Scotland, sometimes it is hundreds of miles further south towards Spain. This location matters, because the jet stream helps to blow whole weather systems – think of a big “bubble” of air carrying its own weather with it – from the Atlantic towards the UK.
Currently, the jet stream is positioned further south than typical for the time of year, steering consecutive wet and often windy weather systems directly towards the UK. At the same time, a high pressure system is sitting over parts of northern Europe, blocking the wet weather from moving further east.
The impact of climate change on the jet stream is complex, because this river of air circling the north pole from west to east is influenced by a lot of different factors. One thing we do know: the Arctic, at surface level, is warming faster than other parts of the planet. This means that the temperature difference between the poles and the equator, for air at lower levels at least, is not as big as it used to be. This may be influencing the jet stream to weaken and meander.
With less energy to push them along, these weather patterns can get stuck in one location, meaning that the systems of low air pressure associated with rainfall and storms can slow down or get stuck. When a system bringing rain parks itself over the UK for days on end, only to be followed by another system, and another, the result is relentless rainfall.
To complicate things further, high up in the atmosphere where the jet stream blows, climate change is actually making the temperature difference between equator and poles increase. This may be strengthening the speed and turbulence within the jet stream itself, and just adds to a complex picture of varying influence on UK rainfall.
The challenge of managing extremes
These rapid swings between drought and deluge pose serious practical challenges for everyone in the UK. Water companies must plan for both droughts and floods, even within the same year. Farmers face uncertain growing conditions, with crops rotting in the wet soil one month, and drying out in droughts a few months later. Infrastructure designed for the climate of the past may not cope with the extremes of the future.
Understanding these changes isn’t just an academic exercise. It’s essential for helping communities, businesses and governments prepare for what’s coming. As Britain experiences these climate extremes at first-hand, it is crucial to build resilience into plans for hotter and drier summers, and warmer wetter winters.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
It should be accepted that the climate criminals have destroyed the World’s – collectively our World’s – climate for profit despite being fully aware of the consequences of their actions. This has caused extreme weather events worldwide, far more extreme hurricanes, wildfires and floods while here in the UK we’ve suffered far worse flooding and almost constant raining. We are now starting to see and feel the first consequences of the climate criminals’ actions.
The climate criminals knew this, Donald Trump knows or should be treated as knowing it despite denying it. I would be so angry if I was young or even a little younger. Capitalists have destroyed younger peoples’ lives, nature and the environment for ever for short-term profit.
Their punishment doesn’t need to follow logic e.g. punish their descendents, why not? I’m thinking along the lines of dispossessing them – since they love money so much – and prevent them from all sources of income.
ed: It’s not acceptable to punish their descendents unfortunately, would breach their human rights. Can create the concept of ‘dirty money’ the proceeds from and polluted by climate destruction that should be seized from individuals. later ed: It follows that if an individual’s income has been sourced from climate destruction for some time, then it should all be seized. later later edit: This is not new of course. It is established that people should not benefit from crimes or the proceeds of crimes. What’s needed is to formally recognise climate destruction as a crime. I would expect that to no doubt happen in coming years. A different approach would be to accept the obvious consequences of climate destruction i.e. that those crimes are committed through the action of climate destruction.
I need to give this some thought and it may not be too soon …
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Volunteers and firefighters work to extinguish a forest fire burning in the Patagonian region of Chubut province, Argentina, on February 1, 2026. (Photo by Gonzalo Keogan/AFP via Getty Images)
“Existing climate mitigation approaches, including scaling up renewable energy and protecting carbon-storing ecosystems, are critical to limit the increase in global temperatures,” said the lead author.
In the lead-up to the Trump administration effectively destroying the US Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to combat the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, an international team of scientists warned Wednesday that “Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia.”
Various institutions, including in the United States, have confirmed that 2025 was among the hottest years on record, and January continued that trend. Meanwhile, governments and polluting industries have repeatedly refused to impose policies that adequately heed experts’ calls for action.
“In an effort to mitigate dangerous levels of warming, the Paris Agreement formalized the aim of limiting warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, yet global temperatures have recently breached this limit for 12 consecutive months, coinciding with record-breaking heat, wildfires, floods, and other extremes,” the scientists noted Wednesday in the journal One Earth.
They wrote that “crossing critical temperature thresholds may trigger self-reinforcing feedbacks and tipping dynamics that amplify warming and destabilize distant Earth system components. Uncertain tipping thresholds make precaution essential, as crossing them could commit the planet to a hothouse trajectory with long-lasting and potentially irreversible consequences.”
A “hothouse trajectory,” they wrote, is “a pathway in which self-reinforcing feedbacks push the climate system past a point of no return, committing the planet to substantially higher long-term temperatures, even if emissions are later reduced.”
“Sixteen major tipping elements have been identified, 10 of which could add to global temperature if triggered,” the experts detailed. “Tipping may already be underway or could occur soon for the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, boreal permafrost, mountain glaciers, and parts of the Amazon rainforest.”
As an example, they pointed to ice melt in the Arctic, explaining that the resulting water “could perturb the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is already showing signs of weakening. A weakened AMOC could alter global atmospheric circulation, shifting tropical rain belts and drying parts of the Amazon. This cascade of events could trigger large-scale Amazon forest dieback, with major consequences for the region’s carbon storage and biodiversity.”
Concerned about the Point of No Return? Today we published a paper on the risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory. You can read it here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1mbW49C~Iu…
Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University (OSU), said in a Wednesday statement that “after a million years of oscillating between ice ages separated by warmer periods, the Earth’s climate stabilized more than 11,000 years ago, enabling agriculture and complex societies.”
“We’re now moving away from that stability and could be entering a period of unprecedented climate change,” he stressed. “Existing climate mitigation approaches, including scaling up renewable energy and protecting carbon-storing ecosystems, are critical to limit the increase in global temperatures.”
Study co-author Christopher Wolf, a former OSU postdoctoral researcher who is now a scientist with Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates (TERA), noted that already, “climate model simulations suggest the recent 12-month breach indicates the long-term average temperature increase is at or near 1.5°C.”
“It’s likely that global temperatures are as warm as, or warmer than, at any point in the last 125,000 years and that climate change is advancing faster than many scientists predicted,” he said.
“Policymakers and the public remain largely unaware of the risks posed by what would effectively be a point-of-no-return transition,” Wolf added. “And while averting the hothouse trajectory won’t be easy, it’s much more achievable than trying to backtrack once we’re on it.”
🆕 Several Earth system components may be closer to destabilisation than previously thought. Crossing key temperature thresholds could trigger feedback loops, pushing the planet toward a “Hothouse Earth” trajectory. Study by @oregonstate.edu, @iiasa.ac.at & PIK: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti…
The team’s warnings came in the wake of Big Oil-backed President Donald Trumpclaiming in a United Nations speech last year that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” and ditching dozens of relevant organizations and treaties, including the Paris Agreement.
On Thursday, the Trump administration continued its war on the climate, revoking the “endangerment finding” that allowed the EPA to pass regulations fighting the global emergency—which was forcefully condemned by scientists and activists.
“In case there was any remaining doubt, the truth is very clear: Trump cares nothing for the health and well-being of our communities or our climate,” said Erin Doran, senior staff attorney at the advocacy group Food & Water Watch. “He is concerned only with making more money for the billionaire fossil fuel polluters that help to fund his dangerous political agenda.”
“The notion that the EPA shouldn’t regulate climate emissions is inconsistent with the law, the science, and the realities of the climate crisis,” Doran added. “EPA is charged with protecting human health and the environment, yet this rule does neither, benefiting only the fossil fuel industry at our expense. It’s absurd, and we’ll be fighting back.”
Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. [This was the first appearance of the Orcas.]
