Overshoot Creep

When the climate scientists describe goals such as limiting warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, which is to be accomplished by "dropping (emissions) 45% below 2010 levels by 2030", we should understand that they are building in a certain amount of what is called "overshoot". This means they know they can't actually hit the 1.5 target but will go beyond it and then hope to bring temperature back down. By normalizing this term "overshoot", they hope to reassure the public that as we approach 1.8 or 2 degrees, all is not lost, that we can flatten the curve and then bend it down through lowered emissions and sequestration. Should we though, be reassured? Given the record, I would suggest not. It is all too easy to imagine governments and capitalists normalizing the term to obfuscate and delay, after all, if we can overshoot and then return, why not overshoot by 2 or 3 or 4 degrees? Sure it dooms millions to misery and death, but that threat has never slowed capital accumulation or inspired mitigation in the past. They can die and eventually we can bring the temperature down. The important thing is that in the meantime, growth can continue apace. After all, overshoot victims will mostly be poor black and brown people in distant lands. The other thing to remember is that these predictions are based on modeling which produces multiple scenarios with varying outcomes. In this instance there are 53 scenarios and 44 of them involve a certain amount of overshoot. And they all incorporate percentages of likelihood, in other words, if we do such and such we have a 65% chance of achieving such and such outcome. A 35% chance of not. Ready to roll the dice? Reassured yet? To my way of thinking, the precautionary principle dictates that rather than overshoot we should be striving for undershoot. When climate scientist Vaclav Smil inists on setting "realistic" goals he is in essence saying we should learn to accept the fact of all this death and misery. Get real people. The ship is simply too big to turn in time. Given current power relations, that is. And it is much easier to accept the consequences of overshoot than to imagine a change in those relations. We also notice that as capitalism demonstrates its inability to slow emissions, there is geoengineering creep. More and more "serious" talk about the inevitability of aerosols being deployed. Slowly get used to it.