“The hottest year on record”.
This is becoming a joke, right?
Practically every year is the hottest on record now. It’s kind of lost significance, when it’s generally a good bet next year will be hotter.
- 2010
- 2014
- 2015 / 2022
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018 / 2021
- 2019
- 2020
- 2023
- 2024 (so far)
- 2025 (probably)
Edited for clarity.
Citation
Everything I come across says that 2023 was the hottest year on record so far, but I don’t know the source of this info and I’ve never seen the list you provided.
Yeah the person above you had a slightly old list. 2023 smashed all previous records and was number one. Well until 2024 it was number one I guess.
https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far
I edited the list trying to make it more clear.
The point is, most years since 2014 have been “The hottest year on record.” It’s kind of lost significance as as an outlier, when it’s generally a good bet next year will be hotter.
@Steve It does sound geeky, but yes, it is technically correct to say about a year that is the hottest year on record.
And the fact you pointed that every single year becomes the hottest year on record makes it even more dangerous and shows that we need to take proper measures.
It makes sense to say “the hottest year on record” if “practically every year is the hottest on record now” and you’re talking about the most recent year.
Does it make more or less sense than “Another year of record breaking heat”?
“Hottest year on record” is like a child stopping on each step of a staircase saying, “I’ve never been this high!” It’s correct, but doesn’t mean much in context, and gets old real quick.
“If I take one more step, this’ll be the farthest from home I’ve ever been.”
Though unlike the hypothetical child or Samwise Gamgee, what we’re doing is going to create suffering for very large numbers of people. It’s probably also a reliable source of clicks for online media organizations.
Constant headlines about “the hottest ever” are getting stale. Takes the meaning out hearing it over and over and over.
Sounds like mom, “it’s the hottest/coldest day of the summer/winter!” Yeah mom, it’s the hottest or coldest day many, many times a year.
I’m also tired of, “smashed records!”, when it was 1 or 2 degrees over the record.
Don’t know how else to report it, but people are letting these headlines go in one ear and out the other. There’s no real impact to the reader.
I think they are quite content to do absolutely nothing about our most pressing social and environmental issues. I struggle to remember the last time I heard an actual attempt at a solving a real problem. Mostly, I hear rhetoric and personal takes.
Of course it doesn’t. The GOP plan regarding the climate is “Ignore it and the problem that doesn’t exist in the first place will go away.” This plan is deeply unpopular with anyone who sees climate change as a problem, and for those who don’t simply not mentioning it at all is in keeping with their values anyway. “Ignore it.”
It’s worse than that.
The GOP plan on climate is “We’ll capitalism out way out of it.”
Record high temperatures? Sell AC units and increase prices on electricity.
Water getting more scarce? Buy inefficient desalinators that run on diesel.
Property values declining due to increasing ocean levels? Ban ocean levels.
Here’s a taste of the GOP view:
I used to be a government employee in the state of Florida (when Rick Scott was governor) as an environmental educator. One day, we received a memo that for all government employees the phrases “climate change”, “global warming”, and “sustainability” were now banned from our official duties. How was I supposed to teach about the environment in Florida without using those? I was still allowed to say “unusual weather event”.
I left this role, and Florida, and heard that this policy had been repealed.
Wouldn’t you know it, I heard from some of my colleagues still there that DeSantis just went ahead and did the same thing, while also making sure the new law impacts the energy grid.
So not only is their plan to ignore it - but they want to force no one else to talk about it either, or make any improvements on their own of their own volition.
Of course they don’t.
The second they do, their base might start realizing that they’re fucked, that their children might die young due to the effects of climate change, and that its all caused by the very people they voted for.
Tar and feathers would be the least of their worries, they would be shredded toes first.
So better not mention it, with the added benefit that you can keep pushing laws that get you even more monies
Considering they had no platform at all in 2020, that’s not particularly surprising.