“100s of Millions of People will Die” – ACF Climate Change Warning about Breaching the 1.5C Limit

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Bob in Castlemaine; The Head of the Australian Conservation Foundation Kelly O’Shanassy delivered a solemn warning last Tuesday to a packed audience of journalists, claiming that if we continue to burn coal and breach the 1.5C IPCC climate limit, “100s of millions of people will die”.

Gloves off over climate policy: ACF chief

By REBECCA GREDLEY
AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:44PM OCTOBER 30, 2018

Kelly O’Shanassy has run out of time to be polite over climate policy.

The Australian Conservation Foundation CEO says recent warnings from scientists and two decades of climate inaction mean the gloves are off.

“If we continue to burn coal and gas for decades to come, we will kill the 1.5 degree target, we will not have a habitable planet and hundreds of millions of people will die,” she told the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday.

“When people are defending burning coal and gas, then that’s what they’re really talking about – those hundreds of millions of people whose lives will be at risk.”

…

According to Andrew Bolt, a well known conservative Australian climate skeptic, the most shocking thing about this speech is not one journalist in the audience challenged this ridiculous claim.

AND NOT ONE JOURNALIST CRIED: “THAT’S NUTS.”

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
November 1, 2018 10:02am

…

Pardon?

“Hundreds of millions of people will die”? We will “not have a habitable planet”?

But get this: not a single journalist in the room said: “Are you nuts?” Not one asked: “What’s your evidence?”

To me, it’s mad, bad and dangerous that a room of journalists can hear a shiny-eyed speaker proclaim the end of the world — at least for humans — yet react without the slightest scepticism.

Have they no eyes to see or brains to think? Just look outside.

…

Even for green Australia this press silence in the face of indefensible claims is shocking.

If the world breaches the 1.5C limit, nobody will die because of the breach. All that will happen is on average Summer might last a few days longer every year, or winters may be slightly milder. Given that cold weather is a far greater killer than warm weather, breaching the 1.5C limit would likely save lives.

via Watts Up With That?

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October 31, 2018 at 09:29PM