Our rapidly heating planet is regularly shattering records these days. December through February was so warm — in fact, the hottest winter on record in the U.S. — it’s been described by some climate experts as a “lost winter.” Last year also set new records for global surface temperature, hottest summer and ocean heat content. Perhaps most ominously, the world averaged temperatures 1.4º C higher than pre-industrial levels during those 12 months. “The situation (the temperature trend) is bad enough as it is — there is no reason to sensationalize.” Now the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service revealed that March 2024 was 1.68º C warmer than pre-industrial times, prompting one NASA scientist (Dr. Gavin A. Schmidt) to warn the BBC that humanity is now in “uncharted territory.” This is the tenth month in a row to be the warmest on record for its respective month of the year. Schmidt, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Salon that “the long term changes in climate are already having effects on the probabilities of some extreme …