What does ‘dangerous’ climate change really mean?

The conversation around climate change can sometimes seem riddled with magic numbers and dark thresholds. Researchers talk about the dangers of surpassing 2 degrees of warming. Headlines blare about the importance of reducing emissions by 2030. Even your friendly neighborhood climate reporter (hi!) gets tripped up by the complex calculations involved.

The conversation around climate change can sometimes
 seem riddled with magic numbers and dark thresholds.

But all this math didn’t get pulled out of a hat; it’s the product of years of careful research by scientists and painstaking negotiations among diplomats. So it’s worth understanding how the world comes up with these targets — and what might happen if we fail to meet them.

Read the story from The Washington Post by Sarah Kaplan - “What does ‘dangerous’ climate change really mean?”