Peony at first light, my garden, June 2014

Where I live in eastern Ontario, Canada, an unusually cool, wet spring has generated sumptuous gardens, planting problems for farmers, hordes of hungry mosquitoes, and complaints from people bound for the beach.

But in the big picture, on the only planet we have, yesterday the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its latest global climate report:

• May 2014 was the warmest May on record.
• Four of the five warmest Mays on record have occurred in the past five years.
• May 2014 marked the 351st consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th-century average.

When will we ever learn?

Scientists wrestle with urgent conundrums in Bold Scientists: dispatches from the battle for honest science, due September 20, 2014 from Between the Lines.