Those couple days of icy, freezing temperatures last February might stick out in your mind, but while a brief spell of cold days may affect your personal impression of the weather, don’t forget that the climate is heating up across the globe, thanks to rising levels of greenhouse gases.

Overall, 2014 was Oregon’s second hottest year since record keeping started in 1895, according to researchers with the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University. The average statewide temperature in Oregon in 2014 was 3 degrees above the average for the 20th century.

Globally, 2014 was the hottest on Earth in 134 years of recordkeeping, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says.

How can we slow the heat? The city of Eugene recently got shout-outs in Grist and Mother Jones for its energy inventory, reductions in emissions from transportation and for the City Council’s goals “to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and to reduce community-wide fossil fuel use 50 percent by 2030.”