2023 Set to close just as it began, hot—Crazy temperatures around the world as climate change tips its hat to COP28's 'BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!

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World leaders have been discussing how to tackle climate change at the big-bash UN meeting in Dubai, COP28. The summit followed a year of extreme weather events in which many climate records were broken. We knew many weeks ago what the outcome of the COP28 meeting would be when Greta Thunberg famously told us the participants speak only, 'blah, blah, blah!'

The Summer of 2023 has smashed previous warm temperatures across the globe for many countries. I think I'm correct when I say 2023 produced the warmest day, week month and year for our planet. Winter, spring, summer and autumn were the hottest too. . . 

Temperatures of around 50 C (122 F) and higher, which, not so long ago, were never heard of, are becoming more normal across the entire globe. I'm talking warm temperatures here, but, all weather records in general are being busted, every day, month and year—It's difficult to keep up with!

The summer of 2023 was the summer when just about every country in the Northern Hemisphere appeared to be on fire. What happened to France, Spain, (Tenerife and the South) Portugal, Italy, the Balkans, Greece, the UK, Turkey, Kazakstan, the US, (Hawaii, California, Colorado and Oregon) Canada and many parts of North Africa, (Algeria, Tunisia and Morrocco) and not forgetting Asia was not only unprecedented but quite honestly disturbing. It was so bad one reporter claimed on the usually very calm and collected BBC:

"July will be unlivable over here [Southern Europe] very soon!"

Fact is, Mr BBC, July will "very soon" be unlivable all along the Northern Hemisphere. . . 

And as 2023 draws to a close, this week, temperatures across Spain smashed December records as a mass of hot air swept over the Iberian Peninsula on Tuesday, pushing the mercury close to 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) in the south. Local weather data revealed that Valencia, meanwhile, had highs of 27C (80.6F), while Alicante reached a slightly milder 24C (75.2F). 

Meanwhile, Australia's NSW has seen the hottest start to its summer on record for Sydney's west and south-west with the mercury surpassing 40C (104F) in parts of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria at the weekend. BOM Australia's MET Office has issued warnings across almost all of NSW, including Sydney and other coastal areas, with maximum temperatures expected to edge towards 40C in the coming days.

Not to be outdone, a higher-than-normal jet stream will bring an exceptionally mild Christmas for the UK and Western Europe this year with temperatures hitting 16 degrees C, (61F), it's not beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. . .

'Warning—The chapter below is not for the squeamish!

Let me put this into some kind of perspective, in 2008 I started blogging, climate change was my passion. As I said, back then 30 degrees C, (86 degrees F) was considered unusually hot and relatively scarce. 15 years later, however, those kinds of temperatures are now considered quite normal in the summer months. In July 2019 Holland broke its own heat record twice in just two days and smashed through the 40 deg C ceiling when a temperature of 41 degrees C (105 degrees F) was recorded. July 2019 must have been some kind of a benchmark because heat records were smashed all over Europe—Since then Holland has regularly recorded temps of 37, 38, and 39 degrees C in each of the summers since 2019. I would quite honestly predict 45 degrees C, (113 degrees F) will happen here within the next five years! Dutch summers are clearly warming up. I have personally observed that global warming is increasing, so it's not unreasonable for me to predict that 1 degree C, or 1.8 degrees F can be added to the average temp every summer because this is precisely what I have witnessed here in Holland since 2015! If warming continues as it has done during the last 15 years, temperatures of somewhere around 65 degrees C (149 F) or even higher will be quite possible by 2050 here in Holland. These temperatures are quite frankly unlivable, not just for us but for any living organism, anywhere in the world. Our whole ecosystem would have collapsed long before 2050 if this were to happen. What I'm saying, is quite simple, we are nearing (if we are not already there) the tribulation period prophesied in the Bible thousands of years ago. Now then, here is the caveat for anyone reading this post, you do not have to be 'religious' to understand. . . 

2050 is not very far away!