Conversations on The Conversation

Just realised the last four posts were on threats. Not uplifting but I’ve been busy and have not written the posts I’ve been thinking about. This one will be different – or will it?

Earlier this week, The Conversation posted an open letter from climate researchers entitled Climate change is real: an open letter from the scientific community. I agree with the title of the letter and the conclusions but thought the language was a bit hyperbolic. Putting an English teacher’s hat on, isn’t it just a bit cute to describe recent findings on record annual emissions as “chilling”? And this:

Limiting global warming to 2°C is now beginning to look like a nearly insurmountable challenge.

Something that causes warming is chilling and a target you want to avoid by not going over it is nearly insurmountable? Oh dear, perhaps we need the humanities more than we think.