2024 Wrapped: Yes, Climate Change Will Probably Kill You

But we’re not as screwed as you might think — or I may sound

A person walks along a road as the Franklin Fire approaches in Malibu, Calif., Dec. 10, 2024. (Source: Associated Press)

The year 2024 wasn’t just another chapter in the unfolding climate saga; it felt like the plot twist no one wanted to believe. For decades, climate scientists warned of ifs — if we pass this tipping point, if this system fails, if that glacier melts. But now, the “ifs” have turned into “whens,” and 2024 became the year we stopped debating. The signs of collapse were no longer hidden in data charts — they screamed from headlines and battered communities of a planetary endurance test against the “unprecedented,” the “uncharted,” and the “unpredictable,” relentless and unapologetic.

The evidence? It hit home early in the year, right in my very Patagonian backyard, an unmistakable reminder of its creeping brutality. Then came the stories that defied belief. Penguin chicks leaped off Antarctic cliffs to avoid starvation. Floods in Southern Brazil and Dubai turned roads into rivers. The last glacier in Venezuela vanished, taking a piece of history with it. Meanwhile, the Arctic tundra, long a silent ally in the fight against climate change, betrayed us, shifting from a carbon sink to a carbon source.

Each disaster felt like another block yanked from the precarious Jenga tower of planetary stability. How…