The third sentence of the article states: ”To contain global warming, and its risks and consequences, warming compared to pre-industrial times (pre 1900) should not exceed two degrees Celsius.”
For this sentence to make any sense whatsoever three unstated assumptions would have to be true. First the temperature of the globe was constant until the industrial revolution; second the industrial revolution started in 1900; and third that there are no other factors to be considered.
All three assumptions are false.
The full quote from the article is below:
If CO2 emissions are halved by 2050 compared to 1990, global warming can be stabilised below two degrees. This is shown by two studies by a co-operation of German, Swiss and British researchers in the journal Nature.
To contain global warming, and its risks and consequences, warming compared to pre-industrial times (pre 1900) should not exceed two degrees Celsius. Although, according to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is no specific temperature threshold for dangerous climate changes, and the negative effects are gradually increasing, over one hundred countries have adopted this “2°C target”. Scientists have used a new probability model to calculate how much CO2 our atmosphere tolerates under these target specifications. This and another study2, recently published in Nature, produced similar results: From 2000 to 2050, a maximum of 1000 billion tonnes of CO2 may be emitted into the atmosphere. Roughly speaking, today, around one third of this wad has already been shot.
Climate Change: Halving Carbon Dioxide Emissions By 2050 Could Stabilize Global Warming
Hmmm. I guess these researchers, writers, and editors convenietly forgot that the earth has been around for a while and that life -- including mammalian life and primate life -- has thrived with CO2 levels far higher than what exists today.
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