No, really! Per CNN’s John D. Sutter
2 degrees: The most important number you’ve never heard of
In 2013, I did something that’s a little scary for a journalist.
I asked you to tell me what to cover.
In the two years since, I’ve traveled the world writing about social justice issues that you selected in an online poll: I went undercover in Southeast Asia to follow the illegal trade in the pangolin, the world’s most trafficked mammal; I flew to a lawless town in Alaska to learn why that state has America’s highest rate of reported rape; I spent three weeks kayaking (and walking) a river in California that’s so dry it fails to reach the sea; and I met a family in Silicon Valley that’s living in a garage despite that region’s booming wealth from the technology sector.
So, wait, he’s taken lots of fossil fueled trips?
Starting today, Earth Day, I’m planning to spend the rest of the year writing about one tiny little number — 2 degrees. It may be the most important number you’ve never heard of.
Maybe that plan sounds excessive.
(Eight months reporting on one number!?)
But here’s why it matters: If we humans warm the world more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), we greatly up the odds of climate catastrophes.
Think super droughts, rising seas, mass extinctions and acidifying oceans.
We don’t want to cross that mark.
Doom!!!!!!!! Funny how 25+ years of spreading awareness has resulted in no one knowing that number. Of course, there have been multiple times over the past 5 million years or so where the planet was much warmer while humanity has been around. But, hey, facts are unimportant. Nor that humanity has spread around the globe, where people live in vastly different climates, many which are pretty darned warm.
Good news, though. If we drastically cut carbon emissions, we can stay below the 2-degree threshold. As part of this series, I’ll be exploring exactly what it would take to do so.
This matters a great deal this year, since the United Nations will gather leaders and policy experts in Paris in December to try to hammer out a new international agreement on climate change. Two degrees will be one useful benchmark to see if the world is on track.
Of course, the old big government solution.
