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2023 in climate: A year of extremes, normalization and surprises

Residents watch the McDougall Creek wildfire in West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on Aug. 17, 2023, from Kelowna. (Darren Hull/AFP via Getty Images)
Residents watch the McDougall Creek wildfire in West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on Aug. 17, 2023, from Kelowna. (Darren Hull/AFP via Getty Images)

As Here & Now continues its annual look at the year’s biggest stories, we turn to climate. It was by all accounts, a year of extremes: the most powerful storms, the hottest recorded temperatures, the deadliest wildfires.

In Canada, so much land burned that half the world’s countries could fit in the charred spaces. And yet, according to climate watcher, author and New York Times writer David Wallace-Wells, it was also a year of normalization — where events that once would have terrified us have simply become part of the landscape.

Host Robin Young talks to Wallace-Wells, author of the acclaimed book “The Uninhabitable Earth” about the year’s most important climate stories, including a few that bring hope.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.