So as we wrap up this episode, let’s just take a moment to appreciate the irony! While half the world was sipping cocktails under beach umbrellas, the planet was practically sending us push notifications: record wildfires, collapsing glaciers and floods that turned entire towns into Venice-themed resorts…without the gondolas.
The Summer’s disasters weren’t background noise; they were the main feature. But you wouldn’t know it, because most people were treating the climate crisis like that subplot in a TV series you keep fast-forwarding through, only to realize later—oops—that was the plot all along.
Indiana Jones once said, “It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.” And you can feel our planet’s mileage racking up fast. Every ignored heatwave, every drought, every flood, is us riding shotgun in a beat-up car speeding downhill with no brakes to bring back one of Balazs’s metaphor from a recent episode. We laugh, we scroll, we book our holidays, but every Summer we wait to care, the road gets shorter.
If this were Casablanca, this would be the moment I’d say, “We’ll always have Paris.” Except… if the Seine floods again, maybe we won’t.
So yes, it’s bittersweet. We can find humor in our collective denial—because humans are great at laughing in the face of destiny. But we also have to recognize the consequences. We don’t get infinite seasons of reruns with better plot twists. We get one shot to decide whether humanity is the protagonist who learns just in time—or the audience that realizes too late the ending was always written.
And with that, I’ll leave you to think about what role you’d rather play in the story.
My bet is still on you!
Until next time, goodbye!