“Any work of art must first of all tell a story.”
Robert Frost
#ShowYourStripes
June 21 is “Show Your Stripes” Day. I feel like I just wrote this article telling you about the Climate Stripes graphic. A lot has happened in the past year, yet in some ways nothing has changed at all. Another dark red stripe was added to the graphic for 2024 (the hottest on record). The story the warming stripes are telling us is this: our home is rapidly getting hotter.
A refresher on the warming stripes
This graphic was developed by Professor Ed Hawkins and gives us a colorful depiction of the average temperature over time compared with the average over the entire period. Each stripe represents one year, and the darker the blue, the colder the year was compared with average. Conversely, the darker the red, the warmed the year was.
Warming stripe graphics are available for 149 different U.S. cities, 49 states, the U.S. as a whole, as well as for each country around the world. Although there are some minor differences in the patterns, no matter how you slice it, they all trend toward darker red in recent years.
A warming trend
Yes, the climate has always been changing. And no, the fact that the past 10 years are the 10 hottest ever recorded isn’t a fluke or a natural cycle. This is a trend going in one direction, and it is one that will continue until we reduce the levels of heat-trapping pollution in the atmosphere.
What can we do?
There is a lot at stake right now. If you are on social, maybe you could #ShowYourStripes by sending the warming stripes image. Or you could share this article – or other climate stories – with a friend. Congress is working to finalize a budget that reverses many of the tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, which have been spurring investments in clean energy projects around the country. It’s not too late to take five minutes to call or email your two U.S. Senators and ask them to protect support for clean energy. No matter what action you take, there is no more important time for us to show we care about climate change.
Let’s do something about climate change. Learn about it. Talk about it. Help solve it.