Earth’s climate in 2024 is “in a major crisis with worse to come if we continue with business as usual,” a team of 14 climate scientists warned in “The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth.” The report did not sugarcoat their view of the dangers humanity is facing.

“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” the report begins. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.”

The report is the latest such annual peer-reviewed paper published in the journal BioScience by an international team of scientists led by Oregon State ecologist William Ripple.

The authors found that 25 of 35 “planetary vital signs” reached record levels last year, including global temperatures, human climate pollution, fossil fuel subsidies, heat-related mortality rates, meat production, and loss of forest cover.

After decades of warnings from climate scientists and efforts by some policymakers and activists, “the world has made only very minor headway on climate change, in part because of stiff resistance from those benefiting financially from the current fossil-fuel-based system,” it says. “We are currently going in the wrong direction and our increasing fossil-fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are driving us toward a climate catastrophe. We fear the danger of climate breakdown.”

They did note a few positive indicators like clean energy production.

Continue reading at Skeptical Science…