Hank Green: Good morning, John, we are about to have gone around the sun again.  That's right, my next Vlogbrothers video will be made in the year 2015.  Over on SciShow, Michael Aranda just gave us some of the science superlatives of 2014: the deepest diving whale ever recorded, the most Earth-like planet, the highest CO₂ emissions, and the warmest months ever recorded.  2014 has been a big year in science, but it's also been a big year in general, so here on Vlogbrothers where things are more general, let's talk about some of the biggest, bestest, superlative-est things that happened this year.

First, with the very likely possibility that this will have been the warmest year ever recorded, and while we are an adaptable species, and I do have a lot of faith in us, figuring out how to grow all the food we need to grow with water landing in different places than it used to land, and protecting all of the infrastructure we already have with new infrastructure that's going to be very expensive... (groan).  

But there's also good news. 2014 saw the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Malala Yousafzai's acceptance speech made me cry, it probably will make you cry too if you watch it, and it also gave me hope about some very depressing, seemingly hopeless situations, so that's -- and she's 17.  What was I doing when I was 17?  I can't even talk about it.  I -- no.  

It was also probably the best year ever to be a nerd.  Sherlock came back, Orphan Black is awesome, we're getting new Star Wars movies and new Star Trek movies, and new Avengers movies, we had a new X-Men movie, new Doctor, new Veronica Mars, new Cosmos.  We landed a probe on a comet, Curiosity realized that it's definitely for sure roving around on an ancient Martian lakebed, got a female Thor, and a black Captain America.  It's been a good year.

I'll also venture to say that it's the first year in decades when America broadly decided that it had to confront its, you know, sort of mass, like, racism.  That's what it -- that's -- yeah.  Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, were all killed by police officers and were all unarmed.  In and of itself, that's actually not unusual, which is a sad thing to have to say.  Unarmed black men are shot and killed by police officers every year.  This isn't like a new explosion of police shootings.  What's different is all of the Americans, mostly Americans of color, who stood up and said that they have had enough, and advanced a national dialogue about police wearing body cameras, about the difficulties of being a person of color in America, about the systemic racism in the justice system.  These are problems that we've always had, but that we haven't talked about for a long time, like somehow racism went away after segregation.  

Discussions about systemic sexism were also advanced, with Emma Watson's he-for-she speech at the United Nations, and that video that got like 30 million views of this woman just walking around New York being harassed.

One final first for you: here in Missoula, Montana we had our first same-sex marriage at the courthouse, which just, I can't believe it took so long, but it happened.  As with any year, there's been good and there's been bad, and we talk more about the bad than about the good, but maybe that will lead us to fighting against the bad so that next year, in 2015, there will be less of it, though I'm sure the amount of it that we have is what we will mostly talk about.  Again.  As always.  

With help from some people on Twitter, I've created a playlist of some of the most important YouTube videos of 2014, including Emma Watson and Malala's speeches, and CGP Grey talking about why maybe in the future, jobs won't exist.  Should you be happy or sad? I'm not sure.  Everyone, thank you for another great year here at Vlogbrothers, and John, I'll see you on Tuesday.