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By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton Co-Founder & President
Recent local events have conspired to keep us talking about data centers -- which remain a pressing issue for our community. But from a slightly broader perspective today, I'm must raise a different hot topic today: Our world is on fire.
Connecting the dots from climate change to raging wildfires, endless waves of deadly extreme heat, violent tornado outbreaks, and devastating flash floods feels like stating the obvious. But if it was obvious, we wouldn't be in the hellscape we find ourselves in now. August is still days away, but this brutal year has already made our deepening climate crisis impossible to ignore. Unprecedented May heat baked Europe before summer even arrived and was soon surpassed by an even more oppressive, extended heat dome in late June that's estimated to have killed ~14,000 people. In mid-July, a similar weather system scorched the American West and Central Plains, with highs of 115° F in parts of Montana. This week, as I write, an intense heat dome is parked over the central US, producing heat indices well over 100°F from northern Minnesota down the Mississippi Gulf Coast and westward all the way to California and Nevada. Highs in the Southwest are expected to reach 120°F this week. Meanwhile, the year's fourth extreme heat event is building in Europe. A World on Fire The combined effects of prolonged extreme heat and drought have made kindling of much Europe, the Western US, and Canada -- breeding conditions for the massive wildfires burn now out of control. As one forestry expert in Spain told a Bloomberg reporter: "These are fires that burn with the intensity of several atomic bombs and, as such, putting them out is extremely complex." It’s a familiar pattern even to residents of South Georgia and North Florida who endured evacuations and property losses when wildfires scorched tens of thousands of acres this spring, also brought on by heatwaves and exceptional drought. Fingerprints of climate change are all over the European wildfires, and also blazes burning across North America. When smoke from Canadian fires filled US skies, President Trump sought to blame Canadian officials and even threatened to implement punitive tariffs. Which led climate scientist Zeke Hausfather to write a post for Carbon Brief proving the climate change connection and refuting arguments the blazes are primarily a result of forest mismanagement. "The surge in Canadian burning tracks temperature with striking consistency, and hotter, drier fire seasons burn far more forest (+80% per 1C)," he wrote. "The biggest fire years are almost universally hotter and drier, over 90% of the record 2023 burn was remote lightning fire, and the attribution studies tie these extremes to a warmer atmosphere without needing to invoke forest management at all." Watch this senior expert with the European Forest Institute show frustration when asked if fires raging now in France and Spain are "unprecedented"? (Short answer: Not anymore.) For him -- and more than 99% of all climate scientists -- the links between human-caused climate change and extreme weather such as wildfires are undeniable.
But extreme heat and wildfires are not the only glaring evidence of our deepening climate crisis. Extreme tornado outbreaks like the one that carved a 12-mile-long, one-mile-wide path of destruction through Wisconsin on Monday afternoon and the torrential rain causing heavy flash flooding in the Northeast on Tuesday are also examples of extreme weather made more likely and intense by climate change. As short video from Climate Central explains how Attribution Science is giving scientists and meteorologists deeper insights into how climate change affects extreme weather.
It'll Get Worse Before It Gets Better
For now, the situation will only get worse. On land, Earth just had its second warmest June ever. But unprecedented heat is building in our oceans, where ~90% of global warming since the industrial revolution has been absorbed. With seas hotter than they’ve ever been, an historic El Nino is welling up in the Pacific – one expected to shatter all records, as waters heat by as much as +7.5° F over normal. When that heat and moisture escape over land, we’ll face catastrophic natural (really, unnatural) disasters around the globe well into spring.
The images below are from Berkley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather in his July 26 Carbon Brief post "State of the climate: Rapidly developing El Nino raises chance of record-warm 2026." Hausfather has a reputation for being cautious with his modeling runs and predictions, so his expectations for record-shattering heat are noteworthy.
An observer of all things climate and energy-related, YouTube researcher and presenter Dave Borlace is also known for his "wait and see" reactions to "breaking news" in his field. But, as Borlace shares in this recent episode of his Just Have a Think series, he, too, believes there there are historic developments afoot.
Don't Abandon All Hope Just Yet!
My sincere apologies for the long litany of alarming headlines. But this is an exceptional moment -- with all we cherish at stake. I'm not trying to tip you into inconsolable despair, nor do I seek to push you into defensive indifference. What I want is to make three things crystal clear:
It’s late, because human-caused climate change is pushing Earth past critical thresholds. The United Nations says one million species face extinction due to habitat loss from climate change and overdevelopment. A 2025 report from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries warned the world economy could lose 50% of gross domestic product (GDP) from 2070 to 2090 from climate shocks. Neither our bodies nor our societies were made for this. Despite the worsening crisis, it’s not too late With over 99% consensus, scientists say human activity – primarily burning oil, gas, and coal – is causing the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases overheating the planet and destabilizing our weather. Last July, when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rescinded the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which gave EPA authority to regulate green house gas (GHG) emissions, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine convened a committee to perform an "independent assessment of the science underpinning the Endangerment Finding." Their report, "Effects of Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions on U.S. Climate, Health, and Welfare," Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, was published September 17, 2025. https://doi.org/10.17226/29239. In the report, the committee reached the overarching conclusion that: "EPA’s 2009 finding that the human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare was accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence. Today, many of EPA’s conclusions are further supported by longer observational records and multiple new lines of evidence. Moreover, research has uncovered additional risks that were not apparent in 2009." In short: it's us. What’s human-caused is also human-preventable Tying the effects of climate change to human activities is not about "who's to blame?" It's a matter of "who is empowered to act?" And again, it's us! Some of the necessary changes are hard, but innovation is making them less so. We must urgently decarbonize energy and transportation and thankfully falling prices and technology advancements have made solar and wind the cheapest source of electricity humanity has ever known. And, with affordable batteries, clean energy can serve us day and night. There are many things you can do.
Sustainable Newton, has useful information on our website to help you find the quickest, lowest-cost opportunities that fit your situation. See links for Action and Resources. Also check out the How to Take Climate Action in Your Georgia Community toolkit we wrote for Drawdown Georgia. But perhaps the most important thing you can do about the climate crisis is talk about it. Yale University, which surveys and tracks American attitudes on climate change, finds 66% of Americans are at least “somewhat worried” about global warming. Yet only 17% say they hear other people discussing it. You’re not alone. Speak up and others will too. 
Don't Try to Save the Planet
We don’t have to save the world -- Earth will be just fine without us. Take action because you want to save the places you love for the people you love to share them with. It’s personal.
This blog post is based on material I gathered earlier this year for a class I was asked to teach for the National Garden Club (NGC) Environmental School. If you leaf through the slides below, you'll find more examples of and links to the points made above.
NGC: Earth Stewardship - Effective Citizenship by Sustainable Newton
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