Nicely put …
As the analogy goes, a frog thrown into hot water will save itself. The slow-boiled one doesn’t notice until the temperature reaches lethal levels. 2023 will be the hottest year on record. That record was previously set seven years ago, in 2016. As King Charles said at Cop28, we are becoming immune to what the records are telling us.
The impacts of the heat are mounting. Warmer seas and a warmer atmosphere contributed to events that brought death and destruction at an alarming rate. In Libya, more than 10,000 people died when a flood swept a city into the sea. Fires burned through Greek islands and Canadian forests. Tropical Cyclone Freddy battered communities in east Africa already pummelled by poverty. Drought and heat made some regions uninhabitable.
The good news is, the answers already exist. In the past year, the UK produced more green energy than ever before. AI forecasts began doing work a million human forecasters couldn’t manage, analysing weather and climate data at an unprecedented rate. The Nasa Swot satellite started measuring where all the water is on Earth, helping to prevent future disasters.
Humans think they are smarter than frogs, but we’ll only save ourselves if we realise that we are the frogs, the source of the heat, and the experimenting psychopaths. Hannah Cloke
Hannah Cloke OBE is a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading
New Year, New Questions You Won’t Solve!
I get smaller every time I take a bath.
What am I?
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What it feels like speaking with a MAGA American:
Me: “Your total is $44.19. Cash or card?”
The customer hands me a credit card but the chip inside it has been hole-punched out.
Me: “Uh, I don’t think this will work.”
Customer: “Why not? It hasn’t expired and I have money in my account.”
Me: “Sir… the chip is gone.”
Customer: “I didn’t want the chip.”
Me: “The card won’t work without it.”
Customer: “It just means I can’t enter my PIN, but you can still swipe it.”
Me: “I don’t think it will work, sir.”
Customer: “Just swipe it.”
I swipe it to prove a point.
Me: “It’s not working, sir.”
Customer: “Then you’re doing it wrong. Swipe it again!”
I do so again with the same result.
Customer: “Maybe you should swipe it so that the magnetic strip isn’t the thing being swiped?”
Me: *Swiping it as suggested.* “Sure, why not? About as much chance of it going through without the magnetic strip as there is without the chip – oh look, it didn’t work.”
Customer: “Your machine must be broken!”