Extreme weather events are the planet warning us that time is very short
While still in the middle of the Covid pandemic, the world faces the still greater threat of climate change. For years, scientists have been warning of this with increasing urgency. Yet a rise of one or two degrees centigrade did not sound so important.

Politicians were also naturally reluctant to commit to large expenditures and possible tax increases to prepare against seemingly distant threats. Some world leaders and their followers played down or denied both climate change and the pandemic. Yet the evidence is now overwhelming.

The most immediately dramatic evidence has been extreme weather events across the globe -- fires, floods, and record temperatures.