So… maybe, but to my mind counterfactuals don’t really help clarify thinking about this kind of thing. The range of futures available to us today doesn’t really

So… maybe, but to my mind counterfactuals don’t really help clarify thinking about this kind of thing. The range of futures available to us today doesn’t really depend too much on alternate futures that may have been available had we done things differently in the past. I understand the political necessity of setting a concrete 1.5 degC warming target and messaging it as an all-or-nothing kind of goal, but “we missed it” isn’t an absolute. It’s not the line between “hellfire and brimstone” and “salvation”: there’s still a range of outcomes and behavior still matters. The fatalism strikes me as counterproductive and paralyzing: people can and will continue to try to survive, even if there are wildfires now, or hurricanes, or heat waves, or worse. Better, it seems to me, to focus on what actually is changing, how people are responding, and how to mitigate and adapt.