{"id":366440,"date":"2025-02-16T16:50:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T15:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=366440"},"modified":"2025-02-16T16:50:56","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T15:50:56","slug":"was-1-5c-a-climate-propaganda-whoopsie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=366440","title":{"rendered":"Was 1.5C a Climate Propaganda Whoopsie?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essay by<\/strong> Eric Worrall<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Mike Hulme<\/a>: \u201c\u2026 There\u2019s going to be a lot of work done to reconstruct a narrative \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Was the world\u2019s most influential climate target doomed from the start?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the world passes 1.5 degrees C of warming, a Cambridge scholar argues that putting a deadline on climate action was the wrong way to frame it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

A pair of<\/a> new studies<\/a> in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at historical data and came to the conclusion that the record heat last year \u2014 the first year to surpass 1.5 degrees C<\/a> \u2014 wasn\u2019t a temporary fluke, but a sign that the world is now soaring past this influential climate target over the long term. The new year continued that upward trajectory. Even as a natural cooling pattern called La Ni\u00f1a took hold recently, January managed to be hotter than ever, clocking in at a record 1.75 degrees C<\/a> warmer than the preindustrial average. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 So is the world now at the edge of disaster?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike Hulme, a professor of human geography at the University of Cambridge, asserts that it isn\u2019t. \u201cThere\u2019s no \u2018cliff edge\u2019 that emerges from any of the scientific analyses that have been done about these thresholds,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are, in many senses, just arbitrary numbers plucked because they are either integers or half of an integer.\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the thing that\u2019s going to happen is, \u201cWell, if 1.5 is now in the back mirror, what\u2019s in the front mirror now?\u201d There\u2019s going to be a lot of work done to reconstruct a narrative for those people who think that 1.5 was the be-all and the end-all.<\/strong> There\u2019s now going to have to be very significant work in reeducating and reframing what the future actually holds, if 1.5 is no longer the benchmark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026Read more:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/grist.org\/language\/world-climate-target-doomed-mike-hulme-deadlines\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Grist article is long, so it covers a lot of ground not mentioned in the quotes above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the fortuitously early arrival of 1.5C warming, and the lack of any accompanying climate disasters, will likely hasten the demise of the climate movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because unlike the 1970s global cooling scare, the internet age has abundant digital records of how alarmists tried to frighten people with \u201carbitrary numbers\u201d like 1.5C global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look forward to enriching attempts to \u201crebuild the narrative\u201d by replaying lots of ridiculous 1.5C scare campaign material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n