The Future’s so Hot, We’ll Have to Move Inland
By 
The US Government issued a Climate Science Special Report. It makes more important, if depressing, reading. There’s really no simple excerpt, even from the Executive Summary. Just that the range of outcomes from drought to sea-level rise looks bleak. Meeting the 2°C target looks practically impossible: “Stabilizing global mean temperature to less than 3.6°F (2°C) above preindustrial levels requires substantial reductions in net global CO2 emissions prior to 2040 relative to present-day values and likely requires net emissions to become zero or possibly negative later in the century.”
Of course, the current administration is determined to worsen the problem, whether out of theology, ideology, or simple payoffs to their supporters in the carbon energy sector. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is busy putting the “capture” back into government regulations. None of this is news, but the report highlights just how devastating Trump’s reversals on climate are for the American people.
It’s a long read, but you should at least scan the summary. The report does a nice job of specifying levels of confidence and what they mean—although an article that the journal that I edit will be publishing relatively soon suggests that estimates should be even more precise, and always given in numbers. More on that, possibly, at a later date.
