Heat: Compassion or Indifference to a Rapidly Warming Planet?

In 2024, the average world temperature rose 1.5 degrees Centigrade (C). It was the hottest year on record and among the ten warmest in the last decade (1). The pace of warming has doubled since 2010. With business as usual, we will reach a 2°C increase by 2030 and 3°C by 2050 (2).

Heat exhaustion is one of the impacts. “At 107 degrees, an otherwise healthy person dies (3).” Heat domes have held temperatures at 110 to 120 degrees for weeks over entire states in the South. We can adapt with air conditioning and backup electricity, but most of the world’s people can’t afford air conditioning, so the poorest among us will pay the price of warming.

Humanity has already experienced heat exhaustion deaths. “In 2003, 70,000 people in Europe died as a result of a heat event from June to August. In 2010, 56,000 excess deaths occurred during a 44-day heatwave in the Russian Federation (4).”

• “At today’s 1.5°C annual temperature rise, around 30,000 Americans will die of heat exhaustion each year, with nearly 500,000 deaths worldwide.
• “At a 2°C increase beginning in 2030, about 2.3 billion people will be exposed to deadly combinations of heat and humidity annually.
• “At a 3°C rise starting in 2050, without population growth, 3.2 billion people will be exposed to deadly heat and humidity annually. Around 96,000 in Europe would die annually from heat (5).”

This information was published in 2023, when scientists assumed that the Earth would warm by 2-3 degrees, much later than 2030 or 2050.

In 2025, new research by James Hansen and his colleagues challenged the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) timetable by demonstrating more accurate methods of calculating the pace of warming. Further, the Hansen team demonstrated that the 2024 temperature of 1.55 degrees was not an aberration but the result of the accelerating pace of climate change (2).

Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry’s disinformation campaigns protect their profits by urging the denial of global warming. We must wonder about those who fund and create recipes of deception that are so palatable. As they knowingly despoil our planet and betray their own children, how can they abandon common decency and ethics for profit? How can they live with the monstrous thing they’re doing?

We currently have technologies on the shelf that can help limit global warming. A lot depends on our ability to care and to demand action.

Notes

1. Delger Erdenesanaa, “Earth’s 10 Hottest Years on Record Are the Last 10,” New York Times, March 18, 2025.
2. Bob Berwyn, “New Research Led by James Hansen Documents Global Warming Acceleration,” Inside Climate News, February 4, 2025.
3. Jeff Goodell, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, July 2024.
4. “Heat and Health,” World Health Organization, May 28, 2024.
5. “Comparing Climate Impacts at 1.5 C, 2 C, 3C and 4C,” Agenda, Climate Diplomacy, News, UN Climate Summit, April 25, 2023.