Six degrees hotter than normal. That is what the water measured in parts of the western Mediterranean this summer. Not a projection for 2050. A measurement from June. World Weather Attribution published its analysis this week. In three of the four European sea regions studied, the hottest two weeks of the year would have been virtually impossible in a preindustrial climate. Around two thirds of the excess heat traces back to carbon pollution. Roughly 80 percent of the western Mediterranean has sat under marine heatwave conditions. Most sustainability work happens at the scale of a single product. Allocation methods, emission factors, the boundary of one system. Reports like this change what that work is for. It stops being optimization and starts being triage. That shift is hard to sit with alone, and we don't think it should be.
