Intempéries

Experts call for a new ‘Climate Endgame’ research agenda, and say far too little work has gone into understanding the mechanisms by which rising temperatures might pose a catastrophic risk to society and humanity.

A new scientific paper proposing a scenario of unstoppable climate change has gone viral, thanks to its evocative description of a “Hothouse Earth”. Much of the media coverage suggests that we face an imminent and unavoidable extreme climate catastrophe. But as a climate scientist who has carried out similar research myself, I am aware that this latest work is a lot more nuanced than the headlines imply. So what does the hothouse paper actually say, and how did the authors draw their conclusions?