You also have to adjust for the fact that most of what climate scientists publish is already conservative. Get them talking one-to-one and their predictions for the next decades are dire.

Me, I take a pessimistic view - I don’t think you have to have a large percentage change in, say, crop production, or storm damage rebuilding costs, for economies to feel the effect - prices rise, labour is diverted from growth to maintenance, and adaptations are ultimately made, but in the intervening period expense has been incurrred, and by now the climate has warmed further. The costs end up growing astronomically, and at what point do governments fail due to popular discontent, at what point do further governments collapse and even wars start due to resource cost rises and the need for popular distraction, and mass migration caused by revolution and war nearby?

I’ve put my money where my mouth is - I’ve become itinerant, while I scope out where on earth to live this out - somewhere quiet, and remote, and self-sufficient, that hasn’t yet seen ecological disaster and might escape the worst of climate change due to geography. Sadly, everywhere I’ve been in the past few years, across all continents and hemispheres, even when these places as yet appear verdant and untouched, are feeling the wrath of a changing climate, and human-wrought ecological destruction, from drought to flood, from aquifer pollution to overfarming and desertification, and vast agricultural monoculture, highly vulnerable to moving growing zones and viable climates for pests.

I’d love to be able to do something to prevent this - I recycle, I don’t buy much, I travel overland wherever possible - but I fear we’re too far gone.

What humanity and our civilisation will be in 20 or 30 years I don’t know, but I fear it’ll be unrecognisable and almost unimaginable to us, even now.