I think a better analogy for my view is: "the world has frostbite on its toes. If we make rash policy changes we can stop the frostbite now, but we need to cut our legs off. If we relax the constraint of stopping the frostbite immediately, it will continue to get worse in the short term but we will only lose a foot." This ignores the fact that we cannot stop climate change immediately even if we had perfect global coordination.

It's not about redefining the bar, it's about avoiding rash policies like biofuel subsisies which cause large harm for minimal gain.