Why we need to stop talking about 1.5C
Call me naive - but 1.5C is no big deal.
One and a half degrees isn’t even the difference between a short sleeved tee and a cardigan. Walk outside, and I can tell you that it feels like ‘mid teens’ or ‘low twenties’.
Ask me to tell you if it feels like 16 degrees or 17.5 degrees? Not a clue.
Let’s be honest - a change in temperature of 1.5 degrees is harmless.
And yet.
Canada is burning. Madagascar is starving. Texas has gone from power cuts due to extreme cold; to power cuts due to extreme heat. Siberia is having its second 35C+ summer in a row. It was -5 in Kerala.
Talking about 1.5 degrees is great if you’re a climate scientist.
But the emphasis on 1.5 degrees is a disaster if you want people to act like their house is on fire.
If we care about keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees? The solution is to stop talking about 1.5 degrees.
The flaw of averages
Yesterday, the average temperature of my house was 20 degrees. Except:
The cellar was, as usual, around 15 degrees. The ground floor: a comfy 18 degrees. Walk up the stairs, and you felt the difference as it rose to around 21 degrees. And the attics? 31 degrees.
When you’re trying to get to sleep when it’s 31 degrees, the average temperature of the house is meaningless. And that’s the issue with 1.5.
The flaw of averages means that the real story of global heating is hidden by the average temperature.
It masks the truth that global heating isn’t incremental, or gradual, or small: it’s about heat domes in North America, forest fires in Siberia, snow in Kerala, and drought in Madagascar.
Climate change isn’t about averages. It’s about extremes. What we’re seeing is the reality of climate change: extreme changes in some places, less dramatic change in others; and an average that reflects both warmer summers and colder winters.
Weather versus climate
In weather terms, 1.5 degrees simply doesn’t affect us - a change in temperature of 1.5 degrees just doesn’t seem significant.
But our perception of temperature is wrong. We compare climate to weather. A more accurate comparison would be to liken our planet to a living being.
Think about your body temperature rising to 38.5 degrees. It makes you pretty sick.
And that’s how it is for our planet.
(Analogy courtesy of carbon literacy trainer Ana Ross)
Climate change is a human problem
Even if we understand that 1.5 degrees is a big deal, that still doesn’t make it meaningful. It still doesn’t really tell us what our human brains need to know.
Compare these two scenarios:
We may reach a 1.5 degree average rise in temperature by 2030.
In the next nine years we should expect to be living in a world where huge swathes of the land we currently use for farmland are no longer usable; where forest fires like the ones in California, Australia and British Columbia are normal; where hot, dry weather means mosquitoes thrive and millions more people die of malaria; where elderly and vulnerable people die every summer from heat waves; and most of the world’s coral reefs are dead.
Of course, it’s the same scenario. It’s just different language. One scenario is ‘science’. One scenario is ‘human’.
We need to understand climate change in human terms.
It’s too big a goal
Let’s assume that we understand that 1.5 degrees is a big deal. That we get what it means - we understand the impact and consequences at a human level.
But once we reach that realisation - the issue becomes monumental.
It’s too big to contemplate.
‘Couch to 5k’ is a much easier goal than ‘Run a marathon’.
‘Exercise for ten minutes’ is a more achievable goal than ‘Lose ten pounds’.
‘Write a 15,000 dissertation, due in six months’. Ouch.
We all know what happens if we are set a big goal, with a far-off timescale.
We just don’t start.
The reality is that 1.5 was always a difficult target. And the nearer we get, without meaningful action, the harder it is becoming to get started. The more hopeless and unachievable it seems. So we just don’t get going.
Setting a momentous, challenging target makes sense from the perspective of climate science. But it’s too big for us to act upon. It needs to be broken down into smaller, achievable targets.
We need goals that are smaller; and that we can relate to. How about:
“Reduce your energy use by 10% this year”.
or
“Reduce your consumption by driving fewer miles, in a smaller car, that you replace less frequently”.
These goals are manageable and realistic - and they achieve the same outcome.
It’s not all or nothing; win or lose
We’re aiming for 1.5 degrees. That implies that 1.4 degrees is a win, and 1.6 degrees is a fail.
At a top level: we need a figure. But at a day-to-day level - where meaningful action takes place - the idea of reaching 1.6 seems like a failure. And human psychology means that we’re cautious of taking on a challenge if we’re likely to fail.
Paradoxically, it means we aim for 1.5 - not 1.4, or even 1.3. Yet every climate scientist will tell you that every 0.1C makes a difference. One and a half degrees is a ‘least bad’ scenario - we just need to look at Canada to know that 1.5 degrees isn’t going to be ‘OK’.
Targets are good - they have their place.
But they’re not good if they mean we perceive a spectrum as binary. They’re not useful if they give us a false sense of security. And they’re not helpful if they overwhelm us to the point of paralysis.
What we need to do differently
Talking about 1.5 degrees doesn’t spur action. But it is important. We’ve failed, so far, to get around that conundrum. The North American heat dome is a tipping point in public opinion. We have to make it the turning point in how we communicate.
1) Talk about the reality of the extremes; not the meaningless average
We’ve got to stop saying that climate change is about 1.5 degrees. It’s not. It’s about 49 degrees in Canada, snow in Texas, cities that burn in Australia, and land that no longer supports food production in the Mediterranian.
We need to retrain ourselves. Global averages areirrlevant.
What’s relevant is how many degrees above average it is in BC right now. About how many degrees below average it reaches in Texas and Kerala. About how many more millimetres of rain than average are pounding your home town (or how much drier it is than ‘normal’).
Climate change causes extreme change. That’s the real story of climate change.
2) Talk in terms of human impact; not science speak
Of course, we can say that climate change means 49 degrees in Canada. But that scientific fact doesn’t address what really matters to us: human impact.
Climate change means hundreds of people dying from heat in Vancouver. It means forest fires razing towns to the ground; whilst down the road the melting glaciers cause floods. It means the wildlife of the Salish seas literally cooks to death. It means that, in the middle of a pandemic, teachers cannot open the windows or let their children play outside, because of the smoke from forest fires hundreds of miles away.
Climate change isn’t about averages and statistics. It’s about suffering, terror and death.
That’s what matters when we talk about climate change.
3) Use language that permits action
Whilst 1.5C is based in solid science, it doesn’t translate well into messages about behaviour change - it’s too abstract.
A forest is full of different levels - the entire forest, the canopy, the individual tree. And if you’re looking at a problem on the level of a forest then you struggle to see it from the perspective of a tree.
The idea of limiting change to 1.5 degrees is useful at the top level - the overarching scientific and political levels. But it doesn’t translate into what happens at a lower level - for us; ordinary people.
When we talk about climate change, we missing that - we listen to what’s said at the top level but we don’t translate it to an every day scenario.
We all feel helpless when we’re hit by the idea of ‘limiting climate change’. But bring that top level thinking down a couple of levels and that translates into ‘reducing our consumption’.
And suddenly, we can see how every tree affects the forest.
That is when the tipping point in public opinion becomes a turning point in meaningful change.
Many thanks to Sune Nightingale at Begin By Starting, whose thoughts and input were invaluable to this article.