I think there are a lot of subtle things we might not notice, but could add up. For instance, if the conditions that are perfect to support certain plants or their pollinators shift ever so slightly, does that mean those crops start to fail?
Do certain animal species no longer thrive where they did, or move to new areas where they conflict with others?
It might take more than 0.6, but if it were 1 or 2 or 3, would rice still grow well in the paddies in Asia, would wheat still grow on the great plains?
(above questions rhetorical)
Not sure why you say these are rhetorical, I think they are good questions worthy of discussion (translation:
That's not gonna stop me! 
).
I was curious about this, as I have no idea. So I looked up historic average July temperatures for two farming communities in IL, both about equidistant from Lake Michigan (which affects local weather), and roughly equidistant from my home. I picked these as the first two I found with a reported delta of three degrees F for the July highs (at the high end of your "1 or 2 or 3" musings).
https://weatherspark.com/m/13498/7/Average-Weather-in-July-in-Woodstock-Illinois-United-States
https://weatherspark.com/m/14081/7/Average-Weather-in-July-in-Bradley-Illinois-United-States
I doubt you'd find any significant difference in the flora /fauna of these areas. They are just 85 miles apart as the crow flies, and about 80 miles straight North/South. From personal experience, I'd say there
might be a slight detectable "mildness" to the winters 100 miles South from Northern IL, but it sure isn't any big change. They both grow corn, soybeans, alfalfa, produce, raise cattle, etc., at similar rates. If I dropped you off in either town, you'd be hard pressed to tell which one was the Northern or Southern most. If you go another 100 miles South, the biggest difference you might detect is a slight Southern drawl in the local dialect. But the flora/fauna is still very, very similar.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Woo...64c4247a30!2m2!1d-87.8611535!2d41.1419768!3e0
I also give thought to the data that isn't there, which is why I commented.
The article I was referring to only stated that if temps warm then more people will die from heat and less from cold. But 20 times as many people die from cold. So...if it warms up does that mean for every heat related death there will be 20 times fewer cold deaths, and wouldn't that be a good thing?
When important information is left out it's either a lack of basic research or there's an agenda. They did state that cold related fatalities exceed heat related fatalities but then choose not to say that it was by a factor of 20. That's misleading.
Right. Even w/o a reference to the data (typical in most consumer articles), the bias is easy to detect. If there was no bias, it would report the numbers and conclude there are positives and negatives, and that by some measures the positives of a warmer climate outweigh the negatives. But they seem to focus on "more deaths from heat!!!".
And that makes me wonder - why does this bias exist? Seems to me that reporting fewer deaths due to cold could be a compelling headline as well?
-ERD50
