This chart from Vox (via Digg) isn't the easiest thing to break down and understand fully, but once you get the hang of it, it quickly becomes quite chilling.

That degree and a half I mentioned means a change from where we were (approximately) back in the period ending in 2005. You can also see the new indication that the period from 2003 to 2012 already shows an increase; something like a quarter of a degree relative to the right hand side of the graph, with seven more years of data collection to work with. That would suggest that, with the six years of data collection we're about to start digesting since, that another, at least near quarter, degree of change might already have transpired. That would then also suggest that we've already ticked up most of the half degree part of the amount indicated in this post's title. And in fourteen years after that, we'll be up another half degree. Assuming, of course, that the rate of change itself stays the same.

That puts us in the two degree change band in the graph and, as the Vox article makes quite plain:

In short, panic

There’s a lot to glean from this graph, but here’s the takeaway: We’ve already crossed over into moderate risk on the first three RFCS. Pushing temperatures up 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels — the target at which the world claims to want to stop warming — puts us at high risk on the first three and moderate risk on the last two. That is the best-case scenario.

These are scientists, of course, and they tend to hedge their predictions with a lot of caveats precisely because they are very careful about what they feel they can declare from aggregate data concerning very complex, chaotic systems. And you certainly can't blame them for that. The upshot here, in any case, is that these are undoubtedly very conservative predictions; at least in my opinion. And so my back of the envelop conjecture concerning a quarter degree increase every seven years could be actually something more like a quarter every six (it could also be actually more than seven, but I think that the much lesser probability).

Being in the two degree band means "Extreme Weather Events" are in high danger red. "Distribution of Impact" risks are nearly red. And "Global Aggregate Impacts" are heading into orange, where you finally see both the biodiversity icon, and the economic impact icon; these of course after our food, and water are already in red danger zones.

And yet our economists, and politicians, think that each quarter down the road will just be another chance to make more money in our wonderfully expanding economy. You know. The one that never seems to respond very well to uncertainty, or disruptions. The one where the people with the money don't want to pay for anything that doesn't at least offer them the chance of making more.

If you think this puts us in a good position to handle what is coming then you have been drinking in far too much of the crazy-aid juice that a mutated economic operating system now excels in producing. Enjoy whatever desperate high you indulge in now because I know for a fact that the going up is not going to be worth the coming down.