Say, What Will “Hellish Global Warming” Look Like?

It’s doom worthy, as they trot out yet another tipping point fable

This Is What Our Hellish World Will Look Like After We Hit the Global Warming Tipping Point

the de facto assumption of climate change policy is that the world must limit the increase in global temperatures to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-Industrial levels, or risk hitting a tipping point where the impact becomes irreversible. The figure dates back to 1975, when economist William Nordhaus suggested that more than 3.6 degrees of warming would “take the climate outside of the range of observations which have been made over the last several hundred thousand years.” By the 1990s, 3.6 degrees gained traction in the scientific community and then in politics, when the European Council argued in 1996 that 3.6 degrees should be the United Nations’ red line for global warming. It wasn’t until four years ago, at a climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, that countries finally committed to “hold the increase in global average temperatures below” 3.6 degrees.

Yada yada yada. Anyhow, what does it look like?

Sure looks pretty cold and snowy, eh?

Anyhow, in a sidebar to the story, another cat is let out of the bag

A paper in Nature in October argued that we should instead measure various “vital signs,” like looking at extreme events around the planet. Negotiators at the December climate talks in Lima, Peru, have recognized that the proposed cuts mean accepting warming anywhere between 4 and 10 degrees. While many point out that 3.6 degrees is unrealistically low, scientists are meeting to reconsider whether this target is already too high.

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies climatologist Gavin Schmidt likened the 3.6 threshold to a speed limit: Going over the speed limit doesn’t ensure disaster, but it certainly raises the risk of it. “It means the faster you’re going around that curve, the more dangerous it is going to be,” he said. “What any one person might judge as a level that can be adapted to is going to be very dependent on where they’re coming from, what their culture is, how resilient they are, and how much money they have to adapt.”

Hence, all the reliance on “extreme weather” and blaming every weather event on “climate change”.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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