Well, howdy there, Internet people? It's Bell again. So today, we're going to talk about

1.5 degrees, reality, and where it goes from here. The Paris Agreement laid out 1.5 degrees

above pre-industrial temperatures as a goal in 2015. It looks like this year will be the hottest

year of your life, so far, again. The expectation is that it will break the goal of 1.5

degrees Celsius above pre-industrial average. That's 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. So the question has come in, why are

scientists still talking about it as a goal? The goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep

temperatures well below 2 degrees. The goal is to keep it as close to 1.5 as possible. When you look at the actual text of the agreement, the goal is to keep it as close to 1.5 as possible.

When you look at the actual text of the agreement, the goal is,

holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees

Celsius above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the

risk and impacts of climate change. Even when it was signed, it was kind of assumed that they were going to miss 1.5.

The fact that we hit it this early on is obviously not good, but it does give you a tool in conversations.

The 1.5 degree language shows in writing in an international treaty that they saw this climb coming quickly.

And here we are a decade later and we've hit it. It's going to keep going up. Now, back to the

question that prompted this. Why are scientists still talking about it as a goal? They aren't. A lot of scientists are skeptical

of the two-degree goal already. Most of the people at COP 29 talking about this really aren't

scientists. Most of those still acting like this 1.5 is in reach are diplomats. They're probably treating it

like other diplomatic ventures, where if everybody is working toward the same goal, eventually

you'll get a deal that everybody can live with. The climate isn't something that can be negotiated

with, though.

It's science. It's math. People's opinions don't really matter. Many times the diplomats are banking on technologies that are promising, but are still emerging and are unlikely to solve the problem in time. There's a lot of hope and

not a lot of commitment. So what happens from here? One year breaking the 1.5 limit doesn't

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