By Anna Buell
The warming of the earth’s atmosphere has not only continued but accelerated over the past decade, resulting in the NOAA reporting that January 2025 was the hottest January globally reported. The constant influx of frightening climate news tends to feel dystopian as we watch the consequences of our species’ legacy materialize before us. From the wildfires in California to the devastating storms in North Carolina, the eerie comfort of accepting this new reality calls to us. However, we must resist the urge to bury our heads in the sand. Understanding and embracing climate science, however complex it is, has and will continue to play a critical role in our ability to combat the global climate crisis.
A recent report from prominent climate scientist James Hansen and several of his colleagues entitled “Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?” provides a detailed explanation of why global warming is accelerating and its implications on the environment, people, and policy. While many climate scientists have struggled to rationalize the magnitude of the warming spurred by the 2023-2024 El Nino event, Hansen et al. argue that half of the unexpected temperature jump can be attributed to the restriction of aerosol emissions by ships, imposed in 2020 by the International Maritime Organization. Aerosols, or small particles suspended in the air, act as nuclei for cloud formation. Clouds reflect sunlight, resulting in cooling that counteracts the warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
While policies that limit aerosol emissions are beneficial to human health, they come at the cost of lowering this cooling ability. This recent decrease in atmospheric aerosols led to a significantly warmer El Nino than predicted. Warming models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rely on aerosol forcing remaining constant. Hansen et al. claim that this oversight has caused climate scientists to underestimate climate sensitivity; that is, the relative effect of rising greenhouse gas levels on global temperatures. According to Hansen in a webinar with Sustainable Development Solutions Network, “Humanity made a bad deal, a Faustian Bargain when we used aerosols to offset almost half of greenhouse gas warming. Particulate air pollution kills 6-8 million people per year. We can’t let that continue.”
Essentially, a change in human behavior has had unexpectedly large impacts on the Earth’s atmosphere. This is hardly a new phenomenon.
One of the most prevalent climate scientists has produced a report detailing that the state of the global climate is far more precarious than previously thought and could potentially lead to the long-term shutdown of the deep ocean currents that drive weather patterns in 20 to 30 years. It is hard to see the silver lining. And yet, here it is:
Our actions hold power.
When we first faced the shocking heat data from the 2023-2024 El Nino, we feared not that the world was ending or that the sky was falling, but something much more daunting: we didn’t know what was happening. Hansen et al. have answered this alarm. We can draw a clear line between our actions and their repercussions. Our well-intentioned political action led to an environmental change and this truth should serve as an invigorating driver in our continued fight for climate policy. While the paradoxical nature of aerosols raises issues of climate and public health tradeoffs, and recent global temperatures are cause for concern, we can find comfort in the knowledge that we are on Earth, not in the twilight zone. The New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund will continue its mission to promote environmentally conscious policy to combat global climate change and work towards holding human health and climatic conditions in conversation.
Anna Buell, an undergraduate intern at the New York League of Conservation Voters since January 2025, is a third-year student at New York University pursuing a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies.
