The true meaning of global warming

Amy Harder, Axios - Global warming is like a fever, says well-known climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe — even a small rise is serious.

Adapting to the warming already underway is a top focus at the UN climate talks...

The planet is on track to warm around 5°F (just under 3°C) by the end of the century, according to the International Energy Agency's annual outlook released last week.

If governments enact current policy proposals, that increase could drop slightly — by roughly half a degree Celsius.

Reaching net-zero emissions by 2100 would keep the rise to about 2.7°F (1.5°C) — the goal set under the Paris Agreement, though such a goal is already largely out of reach, scientists say.

To many people, a two- to five-degree change sounds insignificant — just normal weather variation. But weather isn't the right frame. The better comparison is the human body, says [Katherine] Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, in the latest episode of the "Shocked" podcast.

"If our body temperature spiked by 2 degrees Fahrenheit in a very short period of time, which is exactly what the Earth's temperature has done, then we'd be feeling really achy," said Hayhoe, who's also a Texas Tech professor.

"Imagine if your body is running a 5, 6, 7-degree fever," she said. "That is life-threatening."

Catch up fast: Last year was the hottest on record, and 2025 is likely to rank among the hottest as well.

Flashback: A decade ago, the world was on track to warm closer to 9°F (5°C) by the end of the century, but efforts to scale cleaner energy have helped temper that....

 "The most important thing anyone needs to know about future scenarios is that the No. 1 source of uncertainty in terms of what will happen in the future is us," said Hayhoe, referring to humanity collectively.

The Guardian -  New advances in environmental science are providing a detailed understanding of the human cost of the Trump administration’s approach to climate.

Increasing temperatures are already killing enormous numbers of people. A ProPublica and Guardian analysis that draws on sophisticated modeling by independent researchers found that Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda of expanding fossil fuels and decimating efforts to reduce emissions will add substantially to that toll, with the vast majority of deaths occurring outside the US.

Most of the people expected to die from soaring temperatures in the coming decades live in poor, hot countries in Africa and South Asia, according to recent research. Many of these countries emitted relatively little of the pollution that causes climate crisis – and are least prepared to cope with the increasing heat.

ProPublica and the Guardian’s analysis shows that extra greenhouse gases released in the next decade as a result of the president’s policies are expected to lead to as many as 1.3 million more temperature-related deaths worldwide as the earth heats in the 80 years after 2035. The actual number of people who die from heat will be much higher, but a warming planet will also result in fewer deaths from cold.