“It’s just El Niño.” That argument misses the point. El Niño is a natural fluctuation riding on top of a rapidly warming climate. August 2026 just tied the hottest month ever recorded at +1.65°C above pre-industrial levels. Natural variability explains the wiggles. It doesn't explain the rising trend. That's physics. 🌍🔥

🌍 An alternative timeline for Earth… Imagine we had listened to the scientists in the early 1970s. 1970's We recognise the risks of rising CO₂ and make cutting emissions a global priority. Governments massively invest in energy efficiency, public transport, nuclear, wind and solar. Fossil-fuel subsidies begin disappearing. 1980s Clean energy becomes mainstream. Cities are redesigned around public transport, cycling and walking. Buildings become dramatically more efficient. Oil dependence begins falling rather than rising. 1990s Renewables become cheaper through decades of investment and deployment. Electric vehicles begin entering the mainstream much earlier. Forest protection and ecosystem restoration become major global priorities. 2000s Instead of spending trillions responding to increasingly severe climate impacts, much of that money is invested in resilient infrastructure, clean technology, healthcare and education. 2010s Global emissions are already falling rapidly. Coal is largely obsolete in many countries. Air pollution has dramatically declined. Millions fewer people are exposed to dirty air. 2020s We still have a changing climate — but a far less dangerous one. Less warming. Less extreme heat. Less sea-level rise. Less glacier and ice-sheet loss. Less ocean acidification. Less pressure on food and water supplies. And the benefits wouldn't just be environmental. Cleaner air means healthier people. Better public transport means less congestion. Efficient homes mean lower energy bills. Renewable energy means greater energy security. New industries create millions of jobs. Cleaner cities become quieter, greener and more pleasant places to live. We wouldn't have created a perfect world. But we could have created a different one. The tragedy isn't that humanity didn't know anything about climate change. By the 1970s, scientists were already warning that increasing CO₂ would warm the planet. The tragedy is that we had decades in which we could have acted gradually, cheaply and intelligently. Instead, we delayed. Climate action isn't about saving the planet from some distant future. It's about choosing which future we want to live in. And importantly: It's not too late to choose the better one. 🌱 #ClimateChange #ClimateAction #RenewableEnergy #CleanEnergy #ClimateScience