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Comment by hesdeadjim | Hacker News Reader

One pet peeve of mine with climate change articles is that in the US Celsius is often used.

A&W tried introducing a 1/3 lb burger, and it failed horribly because the average consumer couldn't understand that 1/3 is greater than 1/4.

Now with climate change, that same person is going to shrug off 2.7C because "2.7 isn't much". Re-frame that as 5-10F, and that person is suddenly going to be much more interested, because a 5-10F increase in summer temperatures anywhere in the US is meaningful.

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> A&W tried introducing a 1/3 lb burger, and it failed horribly because the average consumer couldn't understand that 1/3 is greater than 1/4.

Why then they didn't come up with a 1/5 lb burger?

> the average consumer couldn't understand that 1/3 is greater than 1/4.

The average reader of France 24 understands Celsius and has no clue what a Fahrenheit is. No one uses Fahrenheit apart from the US. It's like imperial units, totally irrelevant if you are addressing a global audience.

F does have that nice comfort-zone granularity though. Swingier whole numbers around the zone of human activity. Maybe there's a way in which the numbers could be displayed side by side... Even for sheer generic number effects

I think that's mostly because you're used to it. I know that 18-22 °C is comfortable because that's how it is, but that's just out of habit.

A 1°C difference is about 2°F. Not that much more granularity and in practice we just round to the nearest °C and it gives a pretty good idea. It’s like inches and pounds: purely a matter of habit. OTOH, using °C makes much more sense for other reasons.

You're missing my point completely. If a news article is targeted at a US resident, it should use Fahrenheit for maximum impact. Globally and scientifically, of course use Celsius -- or even better, mention both.

This article isn't targeted at a US residents, but your comment seems to imply it should use Fahrenheit.

My comment was a generalization of climate change articles in general, figure it out and stop being pedantic.

I don't think the global mean temperature change is going to come off as particularly impactful either way. 5-10°F increase is notable, but doesn't sound particularly scary or urgent. It's the catastrophic consequences that are the scary part.

Yep I won't disagree that the actual consequences are far more severe than turning up the A/C and not going outside.

Depending where you live though, adding 5-10°F isn't entirely ignorable. If you live in Texas, that's taking a 100°F day and making it sound even more brutal. Or as a Coloradan, it's experiencing temperatures you never thought you'd see in the mountains, and being able to intuitively associate the increase in temperatures with the increase of wildfires.

A 10 degree increase in the average summer temperature would probably mean tens of thousands of deaths per day in less developed countries with humid climates. The human body doesn’t tolerate wet-bulb temperatures above 95F.

I'm not disagreeing. But just citing the global mean temperature rise does not convey those kinds of horrific consequences.

Okay. Here’s an article that conveys them more directly[1].

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heati...

Ten degrees is the difference between manageable and deadly with enough humidity. It's meaningful if you live in a place where it's meaningful.

How did you turn 2.7C into 5-10F, when 2.7C is less than 5F?

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