Experts: Aim of 2 Degrees Climate Goal Insufficient

An anonymous reader points out that a long held goal of keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising above 2 degrees Celsius might not be good enough. "A long-held benchmark for limiting global warming is 'utterly inadequate,' a leading U.N. climate scientist declared. Keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising past 2 degrees Celsius – a cap established by studies in the early 1970s – is far too loose a goal, Petra Tschakert, a professor at Penn State University and a lead author of an assessment report for the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said in a commentary published in the journal Climate Change Responses. Already, with an average increase of just 0.8 degrees Celsius, she wrote, 'negative impacts' are 'widespread across the globe.' Tschakert called for lowering the warming target to 1.5 degrees Celsius."

Comments

Re:Nutz

[Dutch Gun]

I don't think much life goes on if it was covered by 1000 meter thick glaciers.

If you get overrun by a glacier, I'm not sure how much sympathy I'd have for you.

Re:Tired of Consensus = Fact

[Citizen of Earth]

All of these estimates are based on elaborate math models

Math models so sophisticated, in fact, that they entirely failed to predict the current global warming hiatus.

Re:Complete article

[AmiMoJo]

Some people won't be happy until we build another control earth and repeat the experiment a few times, just to be sure.