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Maybe, maybe not. The Paris Agreement doesn't actually have a threshold: although it clearly intended to specify one, it's not worded precisely enough to actual

Maybe, maybe not. The Paris Agreement doesn't actually have a threshold: although it clearly intended to specify one, it's not worded precisely enough to actually do so. Sabine Hossenfelder has done a video on the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dqz7P-mORs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dqz7P-mORs Climatologists fight with each other in public over whether the threshold has been crossed or not. They often can't even give a straight explanation of their own position. Sabine shows a clip from a recent video call by Michael Mann where he presents a temperature graph that shows 1.5 of warming, but with a baseline of 1970. He claims the baseline doesn't matter and you can "quibble" over it! Unfortunately for Mann he's talking to someone who is switched on, and they point out that 1970 isn't pre-industrial so the Paris Agreement must have been voided years ago according to that data. Mann gets confused, starts stuttering, starts scrolling through his Twitter feed, points to another graph with a 1970 baseline and then claims the true baseline is actually 1900-2000. Again the guy he's talking to calls him out on it, asking if that's 1950 then it's still not pre-industrial times? Then Mann claims the official baseline is "late 19th century" and there has been only 1.4 degrees of warming since then. The video ends with the guy in the audience saying "Now I'm totally confused", which is reasonable because what Mann is saying isn't internally consistent. As Hossenfelder and many of the YouTube commenters point out, it's absurd to claim there's an important threshold of increase whilst also claiming the baseline doesn't matter. Those two positions aren't compatible.

matthewdgreen 2y ago
There are dozens of ways to look at the increase in temperatures that make it obvious it’s happening. The fact that humans can find some way to quibble about the exact baseline measurement and then convince themselves they’ve done something useful, that’s more an argument about the intellectual quality of (some) people than any point you should be making to win some argument.
RandomThoughts3 2y ago
> it's absurd to claim there's an important threshold of increase whilst also claiming the baseline doesn't matter. Because neither is true and neither is claimed. There are no important threshold and baseline will obviously shift what you are looking at. The threshold put forwards in conference (1.5°C or 2°C) are a communication device because it's easier to draw a line and explain that to people. They are only targets and are not the most important objectives set during climate conferences (the Paris agreement would absolutely not be voided by crossing 1.5°C by the way, that's nonsense). The fact is warming is obviously a continuous effect and the higher you go the more impact it has.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  1.5 degrees is not only written into international agreements, it gets saturation media coverage. The UN claims that above 1.5 degrees there are multiple tipping points that get triggered. It's universally presented as being of critical import, whether you agree with that or not. > The fact is warming is obviously a continuous effect and the higher you go the more impact it has. Are you sure that's a fact, or is it a communication device someone used on you? Look at the graphs Mann presents in the Hossenfelder video and you'll note that temperature increase isn't continuous, it's more like a step function with long plateaus, with the steps aligning with factors like El Niño. The problem with making up scientific-sounding thresholds for communication is that it's a form of the noble lie and it always ends badly. As Hossenfelder points out, the fighting over whether this threshold was crossed or not is a "science communication disaster". It's like the manager who pretends the company will go bankrupt on December 10th if everyone doesn't ship the product by that date, when in reality no such bankruptcy will occur and he just likes seeing everyone run around in a frenzy, increasing profits. The people doing it believe it's justified but that doesn't change the core dishonesty of the approach and inevitably, when it's revealed that the claims are lies, they will assume all such claims from you are lies. Why fret about any deadline ever again once you discover one of them was fake?
  - RandomThoughts3 2y ago
    > The UN claims that above 1.5 degrees there are multiple tipping points that get triggered. No, that's factually untrue. Go read the IPCC report which is the official communication of the UN on global warming. Absolutely nothing in it implies that 1.5°C is a tipping point. There is definitely effects with cliff like behaviour (permarfrost melting) but there is nothing magical about 1.5°C. > Look at the graphs Mann presents in the Hossenfelder video and you'll note that temperature increase isn't continuous, it's more like a step function with long plateaus, with the steps aligning with factors like El Niño. That's not what continuous means here. It's to be understood as opposite to step-wise. Increase has efffect which varies with the amount in a mostly continuous manner. That's why thresholds are necessary arbitrary. There is no plateau, it's oscillation with a trend because seasons. [0] Anyway, no one is saying that temperature increase linearily. That's why we always talk about average increase. That's implied when people talk about degree above a baseline. If you don't realise that, you will have hard time following a discussion about the climate. [0] https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/08/paris-agreement-thresholds-crossed.html https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/08/paris-agreement-thr... > Why fret about any deadline ever again once you discover one of them was fake? Nobody is fretting about deadlines. You are widely misunderstanding the issue if you think the discussion is about when. It's akin to asking when should we stop pouring poison in the river to which the answer is obviously as soon as possible. > Are you sure that's a fact, or is it a communication device someone used on you? I am old enough to read papers myself. Stop insulting me.

matthewdgreen 2y ago

There are dozens of ways to look at the increase in temperatures that make it obvious it’s happening. The fact that humans can find some way to quibble about the exact baseline measurement and then convince themselves they’ve done something useful, that’s more an argument about the intellectual quality of (some) people than any point you should be making to win some argument.

RandomThoughts3 2y ago

> it's absurd to claim there's an important threshold of increase whilst also claiming the baseline doesn't matter. Because neither is true and neither is claimed. There are no important threshold and baseline will obviously shift what you are looking at. The threshold put forwards in conference (1.5°C or 2°C) are a communication device because it's easier to draw a line and explain that to people. They are only targets and are not the most important objectives set during climate conferences (the Paris agreement would absolutely not be voided by crossing 1.5°C by the way, that's nonsense). The fact is warming is obviously a continuous effect and the higher you go the more impact it has.

mike_hearn 2y ago
1.5 degrees is not only written into international agreements, it gets saturation media coverage. The UN claims that above 1.5 degrees there are multiple tipping points that get triggered. It's universally presented as being of critical import, whether you agree with that or not. > The fact is warming is obviously a continuous effect and the higher you go the more impact it has. Are you sure that's a fact, or is it a communication device someone used on you? Look at the graphs Mann presents in the Hossenfelder video and you'll note that temperature increase isn't continuous, it's more like a step function with long plateaus, with the steps aligning with factors like El Niño. The problem with making up scientific-sounding thresholds for communication is that it's a form of the noble lie and it always ends badly. As Hossenfelder points out, the fighting over whether this threshold was crossed or not is a "science communication disaster". It's like the manager who pretends the company will go bankrupt on December 10th if everyone doesn't ship the product by that date, when in reality no such bankruptcy will occur and he just likes seeing everyone run around in a frenzy, increasing profits. The people doing it believe it's justified but that doesn't change the core dishonesty of the approach and inevitably, when it's revealed that the claims are lies, they will assume all such claims from you are lies. Why fret about any deadline ever again once you discover one of them was fake?
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  > The UN claims that above 1.5 degrees there are multiple tipping points that get triggered. No, that's factually untrue. Go read the IPCC report which is the official communication of the UN on global warming. Absolutely nothing in it implies that 1.5°C is a tipping point. There is definitely effects with cliff like behaviour (permarfrost melting) but there is nothing magical about 1.5°C. > Look at the graphs Mann presents in the Hossenfelder video and you'll note that temperature increase isn't continuous, it's more like a step function with long plateaus, with the steps aligning with factors like El Niño. That's not what continuous means here. It's to be understood as opposite to step-wise. Increase has efffect which varies with the amount in a mostly continuous manner. That's why thresholds are necessary arbitrary. There is no plateau, it's oscillation with a trend because seasons. [0] Anyway, no one is saying that temperature increase linearily. That's why we always talk about average increase. That's implied when people talk about degree above a baseline. If you don't realise that, you will have hard time following a discussion about the climate. [0] https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/08/paris-agreement-thresholds-crossed.html https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/08/paris-agreement-thr... > Why fret about any deadline ever again once you discover one of them was fake? Nobody is fretting about deadlines. You are widely misunderstanding the issue if you think the discussion is about when. It's akin to asking when should we stop pouring poison in the river to which the answer is obviously as soon as possible. > Are you sure that's a fact, or is it a communication device someone used on you? I am old enough to read papers myself. Stop insulting me.