The Guardian has done as good a job as any other corporate media outlet in reporting the ongoing bad news about climate change.

The Guardian continues with a story posted Monday, 23 March 2026.

Titled Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high, the article provides horrifying information in the subhead: “State of the Climate report finds Earth’s energy has moved dangerously out of balance, with oceans absorbing vast majority of trapped heat.” That’s no surprise, of course. I have reported many times in this space that the oceans absorb heat and greenhouse gases. The oceans act like a battery, initially absorbing and ultimately releasing heat and greenhouse gases.

Here’s the lede from The Guardian article: “Our home planet is struggling with a record energy imbalance, which is warming oceans to unprecedented levels, making weather more extreme and threatening health and food supplies, the World Meteorological Organization has warned.”

Details are provided in the following two paragraphs: “The United Nations body confirmed 2015 to 2025 were the hottest 11 years ever measured, but a still bleaker message was that the rising temperature experienced by humans on the surface was only 1% of the faster-accumulating heat in the wider Earth system.

More than 90% of that excess is absorbed by the oceans, which experienced the highest heat content in history last year. The rate of ocean warming has more than doubled over the past two decades, compared with the average over the previous 45 years.”

Moving on, The Guardian article provides additional details with the following paragraph: “The authors of the latest annual State of the Global Climate report say this highlights the increasing vulnerability of a planet that is moving ever further out of balance as a result of human activity. The burning of oil, gas, coal and forests releases heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, which are all at their highest level in at least 800,000 years.”

I’ll let that sink in: “greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, … are all at their highest level in at least 800,000 years.” That’s a long time, considerably longer than the length of time our species has occupied this planet. The self-proclaimed wise human first showed up about 150,000 years ago, according to Yuval Noah Harari’s award-winning book, Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind. Other humans in the genus Homo have occupied Earth for about 2.4 million years. Still, “greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, … are all at their highest level in at least 800,000 years.” This is more than three times as long as our species has been on this planet.

The consequences are explained in the following three paragraphs: “This disrupts the planet’s energy equilibrium. In a well-functioning system, the amount of radiation entering and leaving the Earth system is roughly similar. But a heat surplus has been accumulating since at least 1960 and has noticeably accelerated in recent years.

This is tracked for the first time in the new report, which shows the Earth’s energy imbalance increased by about 11 zettajoules a year between 2005 and 2025, which is equivalent to about 18 times total human energy use. Last year it was more than double that average.

At present, humans and other life forms on the surface directly suffer only a small fraction of that energy backup because 91% is absorbed by oceans, 5% by the land, 1% warms the atmosphere, and 3% melts ice at the poles and on high mountains.”

The oceans are doing their part in absorbing more than 90% of the energy. Still, some of the statistics are troubling, to say the least: “Earth’s energy imbalance increased by about 11 zettajoules a year between 2005 and 2025, which is equivalent to about 18 times total human energy use. Last year it was more than double that average.” If you’re looking for a single indicator that humans are wreaking havoc on Earth, I think this qualifies.

The article continues with a bit of misinformation I have come to expect: After some introductory information, the story claims “world leaders say it is now inevitable the planet will – at least temporarily – breach the target of limiting heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels set by the Paris agreement. They say the dire consequences are already evident in faltering harvests, worsening dengue outbreaks and increasingly severe heatwaves, forest fires and storms.”

If you’ve been paying the slightest bit of attention, then you know that world governments agreed we passed the 2 C Rubicon in October 2023. The Guardian and other corporate media outlets are reluctant to admit the full facts, preferring hope over reality.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is then quoted: “The state of the global climate is in a state of emergency. Planet Earth is being pushed beyond its limits. Every key climate indicator is flashing red. Humanity has just endured the 11 hottest years on record. When history repeats itself 11 times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”

The bottom line is provided in the final paragraph of The Guardian article: “There is no respite in sight. The Pacific is coming to the end of a La Niña phase, which is usually associated with cooler temperatures at the surface across much of the world. By the end of this year, forecasts suggest this could be replaced by an El Niño, which will bring more heating.” The lead author of the World Meteorological Organization report is then quoted: “If we transition to El Niño we will see an increase in global temperature again and potentially to record levels.”

There is little doubt that Earth is heating at an exponential pace. Reports from reliable organizations all deliver the same message: We have created an overheated planet, with negative consequences being reported far too frequently. There is no end to this information, which represents a predicament: There is no way out.

Author

"Dr. Guy McPherson is an internationally recognized speaker, award-winning scientist, and the world’s leading authority on abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction. He is professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he taught and conducted research for twenty years. His published works include 14 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. Dr. McPherson has been featured on TV and radio and in several documentary films. He is a blogger, cultural critic, and co-host of his own radio show “Nature Bats Last.” Dr. McPherson speaks to general audiences across the globe, and to scientists, students, educators, and not-for-profit and business leaders who seek their best available options when confronting Earth’s cataclysmic changes." ^source