Short answers to hard questions about climate change
From Justin Gillis at the NY Times, some succinct answers to frequently asked questions about climate change, including:
Is there anything I can do about climate change?
Will reducing meat in my diet really help the climate?
Will a technology breakthrough help us?
Why do people question the science of climate change?
Is crazy weather tied to climate change?
And “How much is the planet warming up?”:
As of early 2017, the Earth had warmed by roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit, or more than 1 degree Celsius, since 1880, when records began at a global scale. That figure includes the surface of the ocean. The warming is greater over land, and greater still in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica.
The number may sound low. We experience much larger temperature swings in our day-to-day lives from weather systems and from the changing of seasons. But when you average across the entire planet and over months or years, the temperature differences get far smaller — the variation at the surface of the Earth from one year to the next is measured in fractions of a degree. So a rise of 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century is actually high.
I think part of the problem, at least for Americans, is that the temperature numbers typically bandied about — the magic number of two degrees above pre-industrial levels — are in Celcius, not Fahrenheit. That 2°C is 3.6°F…the entire Earth warming up by 3.6°F is a tremendous amount of heat.
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