Posted by Josh
I thought the BBC 4 programme 'Climate change by numbers' started well (and I am a big fan of Hannah Fry). But sadly it descended into the usual climate change innuendo and alarm.
The first number was fine - 0.85˚C is not scary and not catastrophic.
The second number, 95%, was, as ever, vague and hand wavy. So the 50% of the warming since 1950s we've caused amounts to... maybe 0.3˚C? So not that much after all. And the pause continues. And Arrhenius was wrong about the ice ages. And there's lots of uncertainty. How is Chelsea doing?
Worse was that by the third number the programme had left the planet and decided that the 0.3˚C warming had magically turned into 1˚C warming and we simply must do something about it. Or else.
Nice try BBC, great start by Hannah but it needed a medic by the end. At this rate I'm not sure the patient will make it all the way to Paris.
The number 63 comes from here.