World Environment Day

Friday the 5^th of June was World Environment Day. The Earth just experienced its hottest May on record, scientists said Friday—just a day after it was announced that atmospheric CO2 levels hit a new high.

"Progress in emissions reductions is not visible in the CO2 record," Pieter Tans, senior scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a statement. "We continue to commit our planet—for centuries or longer—to more global heating, sea level rise, and extreme weather events every year."

"The crisis has slowed emissions, but not enough to show up perceptibly,” geochemist Ralph Keeling, who runs the Scripps Oceanography program at Mauna Loa, explained.

Marking World Environment Day, United Nations Secretary-Gneral António Guterres said."Climate disruption is getting worse."

"Extinction is a political choice," Center for Biological Diversity senior scientist Tierra Curry declared in response to new extinction study. "We've reached a crossroads where our own future is at stake if we don't move away from fossil fuels and end wildlife exploitation, and at the same time, necessarily, address poverty and injustice."