But it's only a couple of degrees
Reading time: 2 minutesTL;DR
If your head is the oven but your feet are in the freezer, on average you feel about right.
1.5, 2, or even 3 degrees Celsius might not sound like much. But this is the global average. To shift the global average temperature by that much is huge.
But most importantly: 2°C warming is where most scientists expect tipping points to be reached, which will stop us from slowing the change down in our lifetimes.
Explanation
Some areas of Earth might get warmer by 10 degrees, some areas might even get colder. The increasing extremes are the danger, not the average. The average is just an indicator. The changing temperature also impacts rainfall and wind patterns.
Just because it sounds like a small number doesn’t mean it won’t create big problems. Also remember the problem is the change is happening too quickly for us to adapt to.
If we blow past targets like 1.5°C our next target isn’t 2°, it’s 1.501°. Similarly we can’t just blow past 2° figure and say we’ll try for 3° next. In between each of these temperatures is a massive difference in impacts on earth, and hundreds of millions people’s lives impacted.
These slipper temperature arguments are also why some people argue the true goal should be to just focus on getting us back to 350ppm CO2 in the atmosphere.