With the first viable (albeit watered-down) climate bill having just passed a historic vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday, that is a real shame. True, the policy scenario in the MIT study is a global policy scenario, and much different from the U.S.-only bill moving through Congress. Still, it is germane to note, as Freedman did, that “Under the [MIT] policy scenario, there is a 90 percent chance that climate change could be limited to below 3°C (5.4°F), compared to just a one percent chance of that occurring in the no policy case.” (Note the nice, probabilistic statement.)

Without that point, readers are still left with the important upshot that things are moving from bad to worst, climatologically speaking. But ignoring the point misses an even more important takeaway: that we still can, and should, do something.

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