A quartet of recent climate reports neatly frames the emergency humanity finds itself in:

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Report Card documents carbon emissions from melting permafrost. Here’s the Washington Post’s write up.
• The UN’s Emissions Gap Report documents the increase in global carbon emissions. Here’s E&E News’s write up (via Science).
• A research collaboration, with guidance from the UN, has released The Production Gap report, which documents the threat from planned fossil fuel production. Here’s InsideClimate News’s write up.
• Another research collaboration has documented the trend of underestimating the costs of climate change (maybe it could be called the Economic Impact Gap). Here’s Yale Climate Connections’s write up.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that we’re left shaking our heads at these reports, given how hard it is to anticipate or even process these changes. But stay with me. My next post has some good news.