In news that will surprise absolutely no one who has ever stepped outside without melting into the pavement, scientists have officially concluded that Earth is currently experiencing its hottest period in roughly 125,000 years, which is quite the impressive streak if you discount the minor detail that it may be cooking civilization in the process.
The confirmation came courtesy of an international panel of researchers and climate scientists who, after painstakingly reviewing temperature records, ice core data, and tree rings that have seen better centuries, found that the planet’s recent temperature highs have edged out anything since the last interglacial period, back when woolly mammoths still roamed the land and no one argued about climate change on the internet.
This revelation, shocking only to the most determinedly uninformed, comes after a particularly sweltering year in which global temperatures did their best impression of a tandoor oven, with 2023 snatching the title of hottest year ever recorded like a climate overachiever that really could have dialed it back a bit.
According to the scientists, this is not just about sweaty commutes and ice cream that evaporates before it hits your tongue. Rising temperatures have set off a carousel of worrisome consequences, including more intense wildfires, deadlier heatwaves, and oceans that are rapidly becoming a sad, simmering soup of bleaching coral and confused fish.
Of course, some will still insist this is just part of Earth’s “natural cycle,” as if the planet were simply having a midlife crisis rather than reacting to centuries of greenhouse gas emissions like a kettle left whistling on full blast for far too long.
In response, scientists and policy advocates continue to call for urgent climate action, which is a noble sentiment often met with the same urgency one might reserve for a subscription renewal notice.
Still, the data is clear, the glaciers are melting, and the future is sizzling.
It turns out fossil fuels are very good at heating things up—like climates, tempers, and scientific consensus.