Editor's Note: "Global weirding"

As I write this, Washington, DC, has just emerged from one of its longest, coldest winters in years, yet Alaska’s famed Iditarod race was forced to truck in snow. At the same time, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data recorded 2014 as the hottest year on record; the Philippines faced a rare spring typhoon; and after four years of drought, California put mandatory restrictions on its citizens’ water use.

It’s getting weird out there.

In 2010, The New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman proposed renaming global warming “global weirding.” The idea—that as our planet’s atmosphere warms, we won’t all necessarily get hotter, but that things will get more unpredictable and unreliable for everyone—has proven true in many scary ways.

That’s why we’ve dedicated our second themed issue to climate change. Droughts are lasting longer and devastating already overtaxed freshwater systems. Wildlife is forced to alter innate habits and seek new habitats. Deforestation and other human activities are pumping frightening amounts of CO₂ into the air.

But positive things are happening too.

So take a tour of this uncertain new world with us, learn a bit more about climate change’s impacts, and see what WWF is doing—and asking you to do—to slow and adapt to the changes that are not just on the horizon, but are already here.

Alex MacLennan

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