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It’s been more than 15 years since Al Gore released his award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, highlighting the various and increasingly detrimental impacts of man-made climate change on the environment. And while the film was certainly successful in terms of sparking widespread public discourse around the topic, many would argue that the urgency with which governments, regulatory institutions, and corporations around the world have acted to mitigate the situation has left a lot to be desired.

To be fair, global efforts to push back against climate change haven’t been entirely absent since Gore’s rallying cry, but they have been frequently hindered by recurring patterns of intense politicization, made possible at least in part by our ability to disassociate the scientific consensus of a warming planet from our immediate, everyday experiences. However, for the millions of people across the globe currently feeling the impacts of record-breaking high temperatures, destructive levels of precipitation, and unrelenting wildfires, the harsh reality of climate change is becoming rapidly (and uncomfortably) apparent.

For example, throughout the month of July, citizens in various regions across the U.S. found themselves enduring one historically hot day after another. This includes residents of Phoenix, Arizona, which reached a record-high temperature of 118 degrees last week, after holding temperatures above 110 for more than 26 days, the longest consecutive streak of such levels in recorded history. Meanwhile, similar heat records have also been set elsewhere across the U.S., including Florida, Utah, Montana, Nevada, Louisiana, and Texas.

Even U.S. regions with relatively cooler summer climates have not been immune to extreme weather events in recent months. For those in New York and across the Tri-State region, this has meant a series of sudden and severe wind and rain storms leading to dangerous floods, power outages, and no shortage of significant damage to homes and vehicles. This comes mere weeks after historic flooding occurred in the nearby state of Vermont, the intensity of which prompted the Biden Administration to declare an official state of emergency, and resulted in more than 100 water rescues being carried out across some of the hardest-hit areas. On top of this, there were the residual effects of the Canadian wildfires in recent months that led to people hundreds of miles away in the U.S. being advised to stay indoors.

However, the U.S. is far from alone in experiencing an influx of elevated temperatures and extreme weather events. In fact, the current situation is equally, if not even more concerning across Southern Europe and parts of North Africa.

In Sardinia, Italy, for example, temperatures recently rose to a likely record of 118 degrees, as the result of a broader series of European heatwaves that the New York Times notes “are increasing in frequency and intensity at a faster rate than practically anywhere else on the planet.” Additionally, current conditions have helped facilitate an increase in environmentally devastating and life-threatening wildfires in countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, leading to a number of large-scale evacuations and multiple civilian casualties.

Although it’s critical to note that the individual causes of heatwaves and extreme weather are incredibly dynamic and complex, there is growing evidence to support the idea of a direct correlation between current conditions and the warming planet. More specifically, a new study released by the World Weather Attribution Network maintains that the recent heatwaves plaguing the globe would be “virtually impossible” in the absence of man-made climate change.

Importantly, this is just the latest research to suggest such a correlation, and builds upon similar findings that have been compiled over the years by top client scientists from around the world. For example, the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently stated that “it is virtually certain” that periods of extreme heat “have become more frequent and intense across most land regions since the 1950’s,” and the panel has previously stated that such events are only expected to increase into the future.

Fortunately, the very scientific institutions sounding the alarm on climate change are also the ones reminding us that all hope is not lost. On the contrary, the IPCC maintains that we still have the opportunity to dramatically ease the impacts of climate change through the elimination of harmful carbon emissions, as well as an accelerated effort toward the large-scale implementation of renewable energy sources.

Overall, while it’s true that we can’t go back in time and respond more swiftly and seriously to the warnings of An Inconvenient Truth, what we can do is act right now to implement the necessary changes, whether as individuals, corporations, or entire nations. Though the planet may go through periods of warming and cooling it is not conceivable to assume that all of the industrial, commercial, and human activity by billions of inhabitants do not contribute to the overall climate change. If we truly do hope to reverse course and ensure a healthy and inhabitable planet for generations to come, we have to begin treating this issue with the kind of dedicated attention and sense of urgency that it has always deserved.

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