“I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late. And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us.” So said President Obama as leaders from nearly two hundred countries gathered for the much-anticipated COP21 climate summit in Paris. (Everyone who has kids has heard the refrain, “You’re the worst parent ever…” — some of us as recently as this morning at the bus stop. If we don’t get moving on climate change, our kids will be right.)

+ “The heat accumulating in the Earth because of human emissions is roughly equal to the heat that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding across the planet every day.” The NYT with short answers to hard questions about climate change.

+ What exactly do scientists measure and what are they worried about? WaPo has a bunch of gauges and descriptions to explain how things like burning coal and clearing forests lead to glaciers melting, seas rising and oceans overheating.

+ “By mid-century, which, in the scheme of things, is not very long from now, the Syrian-refugee crisis is likely to seem routine.” The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert on how unstable temperatures can lead to an unstable world.