26 | EXPLORE WINTER 2023 July 2021 was the world’s hottest month in 143 years of recordkeeping. July 2022 was the sixth hottest month. For 2022, the global surface temperature has been the sixth highest on record, making us 99% likely to rank among the 10 warmest years ever recorded. These records are not anomalies; they are evidence of an alarming trend. The world has experienced a greater rate and magnitude of warming in the past 150 years compared to the prior 24,000 years. The data is unequivocal. Some may reply that the world has been hot in the past, and they are correct, but that world was better suited for dinosaurs, not humans. At times, millions of years ago, the global average temperate reached as high as 80°F. Compare that with the past 10,000 years, when the world’s average temperature has remained very stable at just under 60°F. We humans took advantage of this stable, predictable world and developed agriculture and built societies. The resources for this human advancement were harvested from a reliable ecosystem. Increasing the global average temperature just a few degrees would throw off weather patterns, disrupt food production, impact the survival of plants and animals, and fundamentally change ecosystems. In other words, the very things we have always relied on will become less reliable. Supporting ourselves will become more difficult, expensive, and potentially even impossible. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless in the face of the seemingly endless bad news. As a parent, I look at my children and wonder about the world they will inherit. As a scientist, I worry for With Right Scientific Guidance, We Can All Help Fight Climate Change Recently named Chief Science Officer at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Dr. Gavin Svenson oversees a research and conservation staff, a collection comprising millions of objects spanning diverse fields of science, and 12,000 acres of protected and stewarded natural areas across northern Ohio. An entomologist with expertise in the biological diversity and evolutionary history of praying mantises, Dr. Svenson is building interdisciplinary teams at the Museum that will contribute to its transformation project and continued scientific leadership. The following op-ed by Dr. Svenson appeared in The Plain Dealer on September 16, 2022. everyone in our city—and the world—when I think about the consequences of climate change already impacting life. The most important thing I can stress is not to let this depress you. Let it motivate you. These problems are real, but solvable, and we can all play a vital role in those solutions. This spring, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations released a report detailing the strategies necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—a major factor in climate change. It underscores the need to implement these strategies immediately to maintain our world as we know it. To accomplish this, we need our communities to get involved. Something that gives me hope are the results of a nationwide survey the Cleveland Museum of Natural History commissioned, demonstrating that 88% of
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