Are you Nero?

This past Sunday, 21 July, 2024, was the hottest day ever recorded.

It is doubtful it will hold the record long. Last month was the hottest June on record globally and the 13th month in a row that broke records for high temperatures.

For those of you who believe this is just Mother Earth doing her thing, the last time Earth was this hot was approximately 120,000 years ago (the Eemian period).  But the real marker we are targeting is the PETM period, which was about 55 million years ago.  That was when temperatures were about 10 degrees C (15 degrees F) higher than today, there was no polar ice and oceans were about 230 feet (70 meters) higher.  Due to our impact on the environment over the past hundred years, we are heading there millions of years early.

“We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.

“We’re going to have to have massive readjustments in the way in which we live our lives” as heat intensifies, said Bharat Venkat, the director of the UCLA Heat Lab, which studies the effects of rising temperatures.

So…..now that you have been put on notice, what will you and your business do about it?  Will you boldly say something like, “We should all do more!” then forget all about it and get back to your (very warm) day?  

Are you Nero?