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Earth Is Barreling Toward a Second Year Above the 1.5°C Threshold
Last year was the warning — this year is the reckoning: welcome to the Age of Overshoot.
If you could ask a sea turtle why small increases in global temperature matter, you’d get a mouthful — of sea grass, maybe, but also something heavier: pushed to the edge. They’ve survived , gliding (but also enduring) through life like time didn’t exist. Volcanic eruptions, meteor strikes, shifting continents.
But now? A few tenths of a degree might do them in. The temperature of the sand where female turtles bury their eggs influences the gender of their hatchlings. A world that leans just slightly warmer skews the outcome. More heat, more females. At 31.1°C (88°F), it’s all girls. At 27.8°C (82°F), it’s all boys. And anything in between? A shrinking chance for balance.
The result is a prehistoric animal on grains of sand that are now, literally, too hot to carry her future. Because, in some rookeries, more than 99% of hatchlings are female.
The biological coin toss now hinges on decimal points.
