The Planet's Got a Fever, and It's Not Feeling Fine

Right, then. Let’s have a chat about global warming. Or, as I like to call it, "the weather, but on steroids." According to the United Nations—and these are not people who make a habit of wild exaggeration—humanity has spent the last 200 years gleefully pushing the planet’s thermostat into the red zone. Think of it like setting your house on fire while you’re in it, only to turn around and wonder why it’s suddenly so hot and smoky. This isn’t your garden-variety climate fluctuation; this is full-throttle, human-made, carbon-pumped, planet-scorching madness.

I know what you're thinking: "But what about the Sun? Surely the big burning ball in the sky must have something to do with it." And yes, you're right. The Sun does indeed have a bit of a say in how warm or cold things get down here. And volcanoes too—those great, smoking, lava-spewing beasts that look like something out of a Michael Bay film. They’ve all done their part over the eons to mess with the thermostat. But here's the thing—while they’ve been on the stage for billions of years, the lead role in our current climate drama has been rudely grabbed by something far less glamorous: us.

Allow me to introduce you to Jorge Luis García Franco, an academic from the National School of Earth Sciences at UNAM, and he’ll be playing the voice of reason in this story. For years, there was a lively debate over what was driving this climate change business. Some said, "The Sun!" Others yelled, "Volcanoes!" It was all very exciting. But Franco and his fellow boffins have reached a far less thrilling but far more terrifying conclusion: It’s the carbon, stupid. And not just the carbon—there’s methane, nitrous oxide, and a cocktail of other gases we’ve been merrily pumping into the air, as if we’re trying to see just how bad things can get.

You want an example? How about cars? There are millions of them, guzzling petrol like it’s going out of fashion, all while spewing CO₂ into the atmosphere. You may think you’re helping by taking the Metro instead, but guess what? That too, runs on electricity, which is usually made by burning fossil fuels. It’s like trying to put out a fire with a hose that’s filled with petrol.

And while we’re on the subject of inequality, no, global warming doesn’t cause inequality—it just makes it much, much worse. Take Mexico City, for instance. This year, it experienced one of the hottest heat waves in recorded history. And if you happened to be one of the lucky few with air conditioning, well done, you’ve survived to sweat another day. But for everyone else? Well, they just had to sit there and stew in their own sweat. In this brutal new climate reality, the rich get cooler while the poor get toastier.

García Franco has a dire warning for the future, too. He says Mexico City, along with other parts of the country, smashed its temperature records this year, soaring past 34 degrees Celsius, a full degree higher than before. “We are crossing temperatures that we have not experienced,” he says, and it sounds less like a weather report and more like a sentence from a dystopian novel. If you thought things were hot now, buckle up because it’s only going to get hotter.

It’s not just the heat, though. No, no. That would be too easy. We’re also seeing rainfall like never before. It’s as if the skies have lost their marbles. There are torrential downpours in places that were once as dry as a bone. And, García Franco points out, it’s this uncertainty—the not knowing where and when the skies will decide to open up—that’s so alarming. Picture this: One day, you’re in a drought-stricken region, and the next, you’re swimming to work because a hurricane decided to swing by for a visit. This is the kind of madness we’re looking at.

And what’s truly terrifying is when these disasters start to overlap. You think a hurricane’s bad? Try dealing with one in a region that’s already been ravaged by drought. It’s like being punched in the face and then kicked in the stomach, just for good measure.

So, what can we do? Well, we’ve been told time and time again that we need to cut emissions. Drive less, fly less, eat less meat, switch to renewable energy, hug a tree—whatever floats your boat. But let’s be honest, we’ve been hearing this for years, and it’s hard not to feel like we’re trying to put a sticking plaster on a wound that’s the size of the Grand Canyon. The truth is, we’re in trouble. Big trouble. And unless we pull our heads out of the sand and start making some serious changes, we’re going to find ourselves living in a world that’s less “idyllic blue planet” and more “post-apocalyptic wasteland.”

But hey, look on the bright side—at least when the temperatures soar past 50 degrees Celsius and the seas start swallowing our cities, we’ll all have something to talk about at dinner parties. "Remember when it used to snow?" someone will say, wistfully. "Ah, those were the days."

Mexico's Climate Promises Bold on Paper, Weak in Action

Let’s get one thing straight: when it comes to climate change, Mexico is like the bloke at the pub who talks a big game but never quite delivers. Every year, the country struts into these grand United Nations climate summits, all chest puffed out, promising to save the world. "Oh, we’ll reduce our emissions!" they declare. "We’ll sign all the treaties, and yes, we’ll be the greenest of them all!" On paper, Mexico is the knight in shining eco-friendly armor. But when it comes to actually rolling up its sleeves and doing the dirty work back home? Well, let’s just say it falls a bit short.

Before you go thinking I’m picking on poor Mexico, let’s hear from Jorge Luis García Franco, a specialist in all things climate. He’s the one pointing this out. According to him, the climate action Mexico has taken in the last 20 to 25 years has been, shall we say, a bit lackluster. Sure, the country shows up to the annual summits of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?) and promises the moon and the stars. But when it comes to turning those lofty pledges into real, tangible, on-the-ground policies, it’s like watching someone trying to push-start a Ferrari.

Take the whole 1.5-degree thing, for example. The world’s boffins—the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to be specific—have been saying for years that we mustn’t let global temperatures rise more than 1.5 degrees above what they were in 1850. "Don’t cross this line," they warned. Well, guess what? In 2023 and 2024, we gleefully skipped right past that line like a child hopping over a puddle. That’s right, we’ve now surpassed the 1.5-degree mark, and García Franco is waving the red flag. He’s basically saying, "That’s it, lads. We’re in trouble."

And here’s where things get properly alarming: between 2030 and 2060, we’ll likely sail past the 2-degree mark. Now, that might not sound like much, but trust me, it’s about as welcome as finding a tarantula in your bath. Once we hit 2 degrees, things start to go seriously pear-shaped. The trouble is, no one knows exactly what’s going to happen after that. Will it be a uniform rise across the globe? Will certain areas fry while others freeze? We haven’t got a clue, and that’s the terrifying part—this climate crisis is like a runaway train with a busted GPS. We don’t know where we’re headed, and we’ve got no idea how bad it’s going to get.

But before we all throw our hands up in despair and retreat into our bunkers, let’s have a moment of clarity. García Franco is quick to remind us that, while things aren’t exactly looking rosy, we’re not yet in full-blown apocalypse mode. Sure, we’ve got countries like Germany and Norway getting their act together, decarbonizing their industries and emitting less pollution into the atmosphere. Good for them. But as a planet, we’re still dragging our feet like a teenager being asked to clean their room. We’re not acting fast enough, and we’re certainly not doing enough to reverse this looming disaster.

The specialist is clear about one thing: if we want to stop this climate juggernaut from flattening everything in its path, we need to act now. And by now, I mean yesterday. Forget about waiting for tomorrow or hoping that someone else will fix it. The best time to start slashing emissions and cutting pollution is today. And no, this isn’t some feel-good slogan. It’s the harsh reality. García Franco’s point is simple: yes, things are bad, but they can and will get worse if we keep dithering about.

And that’s the crux of it, really. We can’t afford to sit around, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for someone to invent a magical carbon-sucking machine that’ll make all our problems disappear. If we don’t get serious about cutting emissions and transitioning to renewable energy, we’ll be stuck in a climate nightmare that makes the heatwaves of 2023 look like a gentle stroll in the park.

And speaking of awareness, let’s not forget that the International Day against Climate Change is commemorated to remind us of all this. It’s not just some feel-good holiday to make us feel better about our recycling habits. It’s a wake-up call. A reminder that we need to get off our backsides and actually do something before the planet turns into a giant, uninhabitable sauna. The risks aren’t just theoretical anymore—they’re here, knocking on our doors, setting wildfires, whipping up hurricanes, and flooding our cities.

So what’s the takeaway? Well, we can still turn this around. We can still avoid the worst-case scenarios that García Franco and his colleagues are warning about. But we have to act—and act fast. And when I say "we," I mean all of us. Mexico, the UK, the US, China, the lot. We’ve got to stop faffing about with half-measures and start throwing everything we’ve got at this problem. Because if we don’t, the future isn’t just going to be hot—it’s going to be downright unlivable.

Now, where’s that solar-powered beer cooler I’ve been meaning to buy?