The following post is reblogged from Eschaton.

When I am your benevolent dictator, I will turn everything into metric. I will make it illegal to even say the words “pint” or “miles.” Punishable by death.

But… we keep Fahrenheit. Celsius is dumb and bad. Science can keep Celsius. For the rest of us, Fahrenheit is great. 0 is quite cold and 100 is quite hot. That is a very simple human scale. 0 is sorta cold and 100 means you died awhile ago is not very useful.

Sure people used to Celsius are used to it, but honestly my experience with people who are used to it is that they also find it a bit inadequate. 18? 22? Who remembers the difference.

Is it important? Maybe not. Except for one thing. 4 degrees doesn’t sound like much. I suspect it doesn’t sound like that much even to people who are used to Celsius. 4 is a little number. So when you hear about climate changing meaning a “4 degree average temperature increase” that doesn’t sound like ALL THAT MUCH, does it? But (doing the advanced math) a 4 degree C increase is…um, divide by 5, multiply by 9 (I am a weirdo who actually remembers the formula)…36/5.. Seven and a bit! OK that’s a bit scarier.