By Brandon Gage The heatwave baking much of Earth’s Northern and Western Hemispheres is a real-time consequence of humanity’s unrelenting thirst for fossil fuels, and these impacts are arriving decades ahead of what scientists have anticipated. For example, this week’s record-shattering temperatures in England were not predicted to occur until approximately 2050. The aridification of the American West – sparking wildfires and hastening the desiccation of reservoirs like Lake Mead – threatens the livelihoods of tens of millions of people. The rapid melting rate of polar ice sheets is also a sob…