essay on global warming fact or fiction

April 8, 2009

Is Global Warming a Myth?

How to respond to people who doubt the human impact on the climate

Dear EarthTalk: I keep meeting people who say that human-induced global warming is only theory, that just as many scientists doubt it as believe it. Can you settle the score? -- J. Proctor, London, UK

So-called “global warming skeptics” are indeed getting more vocal than ever, and banding together to show their solidarity against the scientific consensus that has concluded that global warming is caused by emissions from human activities.

Upwards of 800 skeptics (most of whom are not scientists) took part in the second annual International Conference on Climate Change—sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank—in March 2009. Keynote speaker and Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard Lindzen told the gathering that “there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons.”

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Most skeptics attribute global warming—few if any doubt any longer that the warming itself is occurring, given the worldwide rise in surface temperature—to natural cycles, not emissions from power plants, automobiles and other human activity. “The observational evidence…suggests that any warming from the growth of greenhouse gases is likely to be minor, difficult to detect above the natural fluctuations of the climate, and therefore inconsequential,” says atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, an outspoken global warming skeptic and founder of the advocacy-oriented Science and Environmental Policy Project.

But green leaders maintain that even if some warming is consistent with millennial cycles, something is triggering the current change. According to the nonprofit Environmental Defense, some possible (natural) explanations include increased output from the sun, increased absorption of the sun’s heat due to a change in the Earth’s reflectivity, or a change in the internal climate system that transfers heat to the atmosphere.

But scientists have not been able to validate any such reasons for the current warming trend, despite exhaustive efforts. And a raft of recent peer reviewed studies—many which take advantage of new satellite data—back up the claim that it is emissions from tailpipes, smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing potentially irreparable damage to the environment.

To wit, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences declared in 2005 that “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise,” adding that “the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” Other leading U.S. scientific bodies, including the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union have issued concurring statements—placing the blame squarely on humans’ shoulders.

Also, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 600 leading climate scientists from 40 nations, says it is “very likely” (more than a 90 percent chance) that humans are causing a global temperature change that will reach between 3.2 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

CONTACTS : Heartland Institute, www.heartland.org ; Science and Environmental Policy Project, www.sepp.org ; U.S. National Academy of Sciences, www.nas.edu; IPCC , www.ipcc.ch.

EarthTalk is produced by E/The Environmental Magazine. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk , P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; [email protected] . Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php . EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook .

The Global Warming Debate: Is It Real? Essay

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• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
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Introduction

The impetus for global warming, the arguments backing the idea that global warming is a reality, the arguments backing the idea that global warming is fiction.

The debate on global warming is turning out to be controversial with one side dismissing it as a creation of dishonest scientists and the other dismissing the other as behaving like the proverbial ostrich that buried its head in sand thinking that it was safe only to receive a stinging bite on its uncovered nether from the hyena.

Regardless of the side that has the truth, it is very important to treat the issue of global warming with utmost attention given the potential it has for causing misery on the planet. Whether it is already here with us or it will be here fifty to one hundred years from now, the increased temperatures that come with global warming, as well as the increased precipitation that in turn lead to increased sea levels, are not something that will change earthly life for the better. It is for this reason that global warming needs to be investigated in an organized manner and the evidence evaluated to determine what we are facing. In this brief essay, I will attempt to convey the issues raised by the two opposing sides regarding global warming. The evidence availed by those who claim that it is already here with us will be presented as well as the rebuttals of those who oppose that position.

To start with, the case made by those who think that global warming is already here with us is as compelling as any case can be. The evidence that global warming is with us already begins with the increased temperatures on the surface of the earth (Philander2000, pp.4-5). Scientists have recorded increased temperatures in various parts of the planet and this is something that should worry everyone. The increase is significant because it is more than one degree on the Celsius scale (Ruddiman 2005, pp.12-17). The source of this increase in temperature is said to be the greenhouse gases that are emitted in large quantities from factories around the world. The most common greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. The mechanism through which these greenhouse gases increase the earth’s surface temperature is that they trap heat and make it hard to escape thus making the atmosphere a huge hot greenhouse (Philander2000, pp.45-49).

The impact of increased temperatures is that precipitation in the form of rainfall has increased. There are numerous parts of Asia, the Americas, and Asia that are witnessing huge amounts of rainfall than it has ever been witnessed before. Floods resulting from these heavy rains have led to the destruction of both human, animal, and plant life. The result of the heavy rainfall is that the sea levels begin rising and this is something that has been proven. The evidence given in this case is that there are some islands in the major seas and oceans that have been submerged. A submerged island is a clear sign of increased water levels in the sea or ocean where the island is located (Houghton 1997, pp.34-36).

Far from rainfall and rising sea levels, ice and snow reservoirs in various parts of the planet have melted at a rate not witnessed before (Mathez 2009, pp.39-41). Mountains that were once beautiful with snow caps are now bare with rocky tops. What else can make ice and snowmelt from the top of mountains? Whatever it is, I am sure it is not cold. The South Pole and the North Pole that were once famous for their unchanging ice and snow levels are fast losing this reputation. This is a clear indication that the planet is gaining more heat than it should. Thus we are likely to witness more floods in some areas as we have already seen in some parts as mentioned in the above paragraph while some parts of the planet will experience scorching heat and therefore undergo desertification.

On the other hand, those who dismiss the alarm on global warming as false have tried their best to make their case as appealing as possible. They have done a commendable job of reducing the enormity of the discoveries made by those who think that global warming is already here and we, therefore, need to start taking immediate action. What do they say about greenhouse gases? They think that the amount of carbon dioxide has not increased on the planet (Horner 2008, pp.11-15). The plants make use of carbon dioxide in photosynthesis and therefore regulate the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide which is supposed to be around 3%.

In addition to the above, those who call global warming a fictitious ploy use their dismissal of the levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide to term the temperature shift of about one degree Celsius as normal rise and fall. They claim that it has been there throughout the history of the planet. They also dismiss the claim that ice and snow have disappeared as fictitious with the argument that it is a pattern that takes the form of the appearance and disappearance of snow caps on these mountain peaks through the climatic life of the planet.

The weaknesses of the second group which dismisses global warming are that they lack sufficient explanations for the disappearing islands and the flooding that is becoming common. They are also not availing any substantial explanation for the desertification that is being witnessed in many parts of the world.

In conclusion, the global warming issue as discussed above has two sides. One thinks the problem is already here and we need to take immediate mitigating measures while the other declares global warming a creation of scientists who have an enormous appetite for fiction. It is prudent that the issues raised by these two sides as discussed above are carefully analyzed and action taken given the seriousness of global warming; whether it is already here or a million years away. If it is here, it is good to deal with it and if it is not here, it is good to make it clear and safe the public from anxiety.

• Horner, C., 2008. Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed (1 ST American ed.).New York: Regnery Press.
• Houghton, J., 1997. Globa Warming: The Complete Briefing (2 nd ed.) .New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Mathez, E., 2009. Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future (1 st ed.).New York: Columbia University Press.
• Philander, G., 2000. Is the Temperature Rising? The Uncertain Science of Global Warming . New York: Princeton University Press.
• Ruddiman, W., 2005. Earth’s Climate Past and Future . New York: Princeton University Press.
• Effects on Society From Global Warming
• Phenomenon of the Global Warming and the Increase in the Temperatures of the Earth’s
• Global Warming and Melting of Polar Ice Sheets
• The Role of the Arctic in Increasing the Effect of Global Warming
• Global Warming and Effects Within 50 Years
• Global Warming Problem Overview: Significantly Changing the Climate Patterns
• Al Gore and Global Warming: Hurricane Katrina Was Avoidable
• Global Warming: Reality or Hoax?
• Global Warming Positive Aspects
• Global Warming: Physical and Economic Impacts
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, December 26). The Global Warming Debate: Is It Real? https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-warming-fact-or-fiction-essay/

"The Global Warming Debate: Is It Real?" IvyPanda , 26 Dec. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/global-warming-fact-or-fiction-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'The Global Warming Debate: Is It Real'. 26 December.

IvyPanda . 2021. "The Global Warming Debate: Is It Real?" December 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-warming-fact-or-fiction-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Global Warming Debate: Is It Real?" December 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-warming-fact-or-fiction-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Global Warming Debate: Is It Real?" December 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/global-warming-fact-or-fiction-essay/.

Is global warming real?

Scientific consensus is overwhelming: The planet is getting warmer, and humans are behind it.

In recent years, global warming and climate change have been the subject of a great deal of political controversy, especially in the U.S. But as the science becomes clearer and consensus grows impossible to ignore, debate is moving away from whether humans are causing warming and toward questions about how best to respond.

Temperatures rising

Evidence of rising temperatures is pervasive and striking: Thermometer records kept over the past century and a half show Earth's average temperature has risen more than 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius), and about twice that in parts of the Arctic .

That doesn’t mean temperatures haven't fluctuated among regions of the globe or between seasons and times of day. But by analyzing average temperatures all over the world, scientists have demonstrated an unmistakable upward trend.

This trend is part of climate change , which many people consider synonymous with global warming. Scientists prefer to use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems . Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas , and a range of other impacts.

All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

How is climate change measured?

Although we can't look at thermometers going back thousands of years, we do have other records that help us figure out what temperatures were like in the distant past. For example, trees store information about the climate in the place they’re rooted. Each year trees grow thicker and form new rings. In warmer and wetter years, the rings are thicker. Old trees and wood can tell us about conditions hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Windows on the past are also buried in lakes and oceans. Pollen, particles, and dead creatures fall to the bottom of oceans and lakes each year, forming sediments. Sediments contain a wealth of information about what was in the air and water when they fell. Scientists reveal this record by inserting hollow tubes into the mud to collect layers of sediment going back millions of years.

For a direct look at the atmosphere of the past, scientists drill cores through the Earth's polar ice sheets . Tiny bubbles trapped in the ice are actually samples from the Earth's past atmosphere, frozen in time. That's how we know that the concentrations of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution are higher than they've been for hundreds of thousands of years.

Computer models help scientists to understand the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns. Models also allow scientists to make predictions about the future climate by simulating how the atmosphere and oceans absorb energy from the sun and transport it around the globe.

We are the reason

Several factors affect how much of the sun's energy reaches Earth's surface and how much of that energy gets absorbed. Those include greenhouse gases, particles in the atmosphere (from volcanic eruptions, for example), and changes in energy coming from the sun itself.

Climate models are designed to take such factors into account. For example, models have found that changes in solar irradiance and volcanic aerosols have contributed only about two percent of the recent warming effect over 250 years. The balance comes from greenhouse gases and other human-caused factors, such as land-use changes.

The speed and duration of this recent warming is remarkable as well. Volcanic eruptions, as an example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth's surface. But they have no lasting effect beyond a few years. Events like El Niño also work on fairly short and predictable cycles. On the other hand, the types of global temperature fluctuations that have contributed to ice ages occur on cycles of hundreds of thousands of years.

The answer to the question, “Is global warming real?” is yes: Nothing other than the rapid rise of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity can fully explain the dramatic and relatively recent rise in global average temperatures.

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10 myths about climate change

With the climate crisis becoming a hot topic in mainstream media - there's a lot of confusion around what climate change actually is and what's causing it. That's why we've tried to clear up some of the most frequently heard myths, so that you can tell fiction from fact!

Myth 1. The Earth’s climate has always changed  

Over the course of Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, the climate has changed a lot, this is true. However, the rapid warming we’re seeing now can't be explained by natural cycles of warming and cooling. The kind of changes that would normally happen over hundreds of thousands of years are happening in decades. 

Global temperatures are now at their highest since records began. In fact, the 10 warmest years on Earth, since 1880, have occurred since 2014. [1]       

So, when people talk about climate change today, they mean anthropogenic (human-made) climate change. This is the warming of Earth’s average temperature as a result of human activity, such as burning coal, oil and gas to produce energy to fuel our homes and transport, and cutting down trees to produce the food we eat. You can read more about it here: How do we know climate change is real?

Myth 2. Global warming isn't real as it's still cold

Global warming is causing the Earth’s average surface temperature to rise which, in turn, is causing changes in our natural climate systems. These changes are making all sorts of extreme weather events more likely and more severe, including more intense droughts, heatwaves and hurricanes but also, strangely, an increased potential for more severe cold weather events    

There is also an important distinction between weather and climate. Weather refers to short-term changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and represents things such as temperature, rain and cloudiness. Climate refers to longer-term changes in the Earth’s atmosphere over extended periods of time. Short-term changes in the weather will continue and that is why we can still experience cold snaps, despite the fact that the Earth’s temperature is warming. On top of this, we will keep on experiencing natural seasonal variations as the Earth orbits around the sun, so winter will continue to feel cooler than summer, even though the overall temperature is higher than it was 100 years ago.

Due to where we are in the world, the UK and Ireland are likely to get more wind and rain as a result of climate change, while New York could see more snow. The complex interaction between factors in the Earth’s climate makes extreme weather events, both hot and cold, more unpredictable and impactful.

Myth 3. Heatwaves and wildfires have nothing to do with climate change 

Climate change makes extreme weather more frequent and intense, including heatwaves, wildfires and floods.

The evidence shows that extreme heatwaves have increased since the 1950s and human-induced climate change is the main driver; with every additional increment of global warming, these extremes continue to increase.

Because climate change creates warmer and drier conditions, even if a wildfire is started as a result of human activity, there is more fuel available when vegetation is very dry, and the relative humidity of the air will be lower, allowing fires to spread further and faster. In addition, the global wildfire season is getting longer, due to higher temperatures and longer droughts.

Wildfires can pose an immediate threat to the lives of people and animals in the area, as well as causing damage to soil, vegetation and whole ecosystems. Smoke and ash from wildfires pollute air, water and land.

Myth 4. China is mostly responsible for climate change 

Human-induced climate change is something that has been happening for many years and Western countries, like the UK, have played a big role in contributing to carbon emissions over the past 200 years. This means that only looking at who the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases are today is an oversimplification of a very nuanced topic.   

A lot of the products we purchase in the UK are manufactured in China, meaning that we are essentially transferring a large portion of our emissions to the countries responsible for creating the products we use. Part of the reason emissions from highly industrialised countries are so high is because of the high demand for products created by them, from countries such as the UK.

Despite being one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases today, in part because it’s such a big country, China’s emissions per person are less than other countries like the United States. 

China is also currently investing heavily in renewable energy. The increase in investment has been in response to the rapid growth of green business, the demand for renewable energy and the need to clean up air pollution in its major cities.  

Climate change is a global issue, and we all have a responsibility to step up to tackle the climate crisis. The problem will not be solved unless all countries put in as much effort as they can and work together. Action on climate change will need serious investment but has the potential to deliver huge benefits for nature and people. We all need to raise our voices and fight for our world!

Myth 5. Plants need carbon dioxide 

Plants do need carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to live. Plants and forests remove and store away huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. The problem is, there’s only so much carbon dioxide they can absorb and this amount is getting less, as more and more forests are cut down across the world, largely to produce our food.  

Let’s be clear, CO 2 itself does not cause problems. It's part of the natural global ecosystem. The problem is the quantity of CO 2 that’s being produced by us as humans; there hasn’t been this level of CO 2 in the atmosphere for thee million years. [2]  

Myth 6. Animals will adapt to climate change

This one isn't a complete myth; Darwin got the adaptation part right. However, let’s be clear, some plants and animals will adapt but not all.

To survive, plants, animals and birds confronted with climate change have two options: move or adapt. There are several examples of species that have begun to adapt to climate change already.

But increasingly, it's a different story for many. Given the speed of climate change, it’s becoming impossible for many species to adapt quickly enough to keep up with their changing environment. As habitats are destroyed by roads, cities and dams, moving becomes increasingly difficult. For those that can’t move or adapt, the future doesn’t look so positive.

Myth 7. Polar bear numbers are increasing 

This isn’t the case. Climate change is the biggest threat faced by polar bears. The Arctic is warming roughly four times faster than the rest of the world, causing sea ice to melt earlier and form later each year. This makes it more difficult for female polar bears to get onto land in late autumn to build their dens and more difficult for them to get out onto the sea ice in the spring to feed their cubs. Their main source of prey, seals, are also affected by climate change, as they depend on sea ice to raise their young.  

This means that in some parts of the Arctic, polar bears are having to survive with less food than they did previously. Polar bear populations are predicted to decline by 30% by the middle of this century.

Myth 8. Renewable energy is more expensive 

The  belief that renewable energy is expensive, simply isn’t true! Solar power and wind are the cheapest ways of generating electricity, meaning that the energy they produce is cheaper than nuclear, gas and other fossil fuels. Some estimates show that renewable energy can be up to nine times cheaper than gas! The   cost of renewables has fallen faster than anyone could have predicted, yet the UK Government are still backing dirty fossil fuels. [3]  

Right now, people are facing a huge rise in the price of energy and food. The main drivers of this include the price of fossil fuels, while crops around the world are also failing in the wake of droughts and floods caused by climate change. Tackling climate change and fixing the cost-of-living crisis go hand-in-hand. Both challenges have the same root cause – a reliance on expensive and polluting fossil fuels – meaning that both challenges have the same solution.    

Myth 9. Renewable energy can only work when it's not cloudy or windy 

The energy industry   is developing new methods for storing electricity and managing demand at peak times, meaning that even if the sun isn't shining or it’s not blowing a gale, it’s still possible to rely on renewable energy sources.

The majority of UK homes get their electricity from the National Grid. When you switch to a clean supplier, they guarantee that for every unit of electricity you take out of the grid, they’ll put the same amount of clean energy back in, helping to clean up our energy supply. 

Myth 10. Climate change is a future problem

There is no longer an excuse for inaction on climate change as it pushes the burden of addressing the climate crisis onto future generations.

We’re already seeing the devastating effects of climate change on global food supplies, migration, conflict, disease and global instability, which will only get worse if we don’t act now. Human-made climate change is the biggest crisis of our time. It threatens the future of the planet that we depend on for our survival and we're the last generation that can do something about it.

In 2015, 196 countries signed the Paris Agreement, uniting in the shared objective of halting global warming to 1.5°C (when compared to how hot the world was before the Industrial Revolution). To help with this, the UK is striving to reduce its carbon emissions by 68% by 2030 and is aiming to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Therefore, in order for us to successfully achieve this goal, we need to act now.

Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge the world has ever faced, but we have the solutions and we know nature can fight back. We need people all over the world to take action and join the fight for our world

[1] Global Temperature: Vital Signs – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov) 

[2] Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide: NOAA Climate.gov 

[3] Analysis: Record-low price for UK offshore wind is nine times cheaper than gas - Carbon Brief

Global Warming: Fact or Fiction

This essay will examine the debate surrounding global warming. It will assess the scientific evidence supporting global warming, counter-arguments, and the implications of this debate for policy and public perception. Moreover, at PapersOwl, there are additional free essay samples connected to Fiction.

How it works

• 1 Introduction:
• 2 Side One of the Issue:
• 3 Side Two of the Issue:
• 4 Conclusion:
• 5 Reflection:
• 6 References

Introduction:

Global Warming is the theory that the atmosphere of the earth is gradually increasing as a result of the increase in levels of greenhouse gases and pollutants being released. Since the Industrial Revolution, Earth’s global average temperature has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (The World Counts, 2014). There are generally two opinions regarding the argument of global warming: those who believe it is occurring and those who do not. People who believe in the issue back their opinions up using scientific evidence, while those who deny the issue generally do because they do not believe in science, they claim there is no solid evidence, or that the cause of the change in Earth’s temperature has no known cause (Why Do Some People Think Climate Change is a Hoax?, 2017)

Side One of the Issue:

The first source was an article titled, Climate change evidence: How do we know?.

This article was posted by NASA, which is a huge organization full of experts on outer space, making them very credible. The article is quite recent, as it was published in April of 2018. This means that the content found within the article is updated with the most recent information, data, and statistics. The purpose of the article is to inform the public of proof that climate change is indeed occurring. The article is factual and full of evidence proving the author’s point. The author is impartial because he/she is not proving any personal opinions, but facts and data. This source is incredibly useful because it contains the numbers needed for not only scientists, but anyone in need of the information. The information of the article has been reviewed by the NASA team. The source is incredibly reliable considering where it comes from, and its lack of personal opinion. The content has not been swayed based on any religious beliefs, political affiliations, etc. A limitation of the source is since NASA believes in global warming, they will only provide evidence that supports the theory.

The second source supporting the theory of climate change is, Global Warming by the Union of Concerned Scientists. This source comes from an organization of scientists who want to stop human influence on global warming. The publishing date is not given, as this is not a specific article, but the website of the organization. The purpose of the website is to inform readers of the causes and impact of global climate change. It also gives readers evidence of how global warming has affected specific areas of the U.S. The authors want to provide possible solutions to global warming, specifically what regular people can do to help out. The information is factual and appears to be very well researched, as other sources have the same facts. The information has clearly been reviewed by the organization. The information is objective because they are solely facts, making the source reliable. The source is not biased and does not appear to be altered by personal beliefs. A limitation to the site is a lack of references, however, as said previously, other sources have the same information.

Side Two of the Issue:

The first source that denies the theory of climate change is Top Ten Reasons Climate Change is a Hoax . The source comes from The News-Review and was published in April of 2018. The author does not have any listed credentials, making their credibility questionable. The purpose of the article was to try and argue that the idea of climate change is about money. The information is objective, and although the author used data, they only used data that proved their own point. The entire article is an opinion and is found in the opinion section of the website. This source is useless because none of the information is relevant or accurate. The source has probably not been reviewed considered that this is one person’s own personal opinion. The article is completely unreliable, and the author tries to argue that 30,000 scientists are either lying, or are unintelligent. The information has been swayed by political opinion because their only argument against climate change is that the idea was evoked from a disagreement about money. The author also felt the need to state the political party of the people he/she was disagreeing with, which only diminishes their credibility because it shows the argument they are trying to make is based not off of facts and evidence, but on political affiliations.

The final source that does not support climate change is, Catastrophic man-made global warming”” is a complete hoax. The source comes from a member of GlobalClimateScam by the name of ElmerB. The article was published in January 2015. The author does not have any credentials, considering that they are a random user on the site. The purpose of the information is to argue that global warming is fake. The author attempts to use evidence, however, the evidence is false. The author claims that polar bears are thriving, however, their habitat is melting, and their number are decreasing. The source is subjective and the author is using their own opinions to sway readers. The source is not useful because some of their evidence is false, making it obvious that the article was not reviewed. Much of the evidence they used is taken out of context, or they twisted facts/data in a way that made their opinion appear to be correct.

Conclusion:

The sources supporting the theory of global warming appear to be more credible than those who attempt to debunk it. This is because of the origin of the sources, the information being correct as well as recent/updated, and the plethora of certifications given to the authors. On the other hand, the sources for the global warming deniers completely lacked any credibility. The authors, like ElmerB, were random users on lesser-known sites, posting in the opinion section. Their facts were inaccurate, such as the claim that polar bears are thriving, while the author of the first article tried to accuse thousands of experts on global warming of either being uneducated or lying.

Reflection:

A benefit to my conclusion is an overall summary of the credibility of both sides to the question of whether or not humans are speeding up global warming. Based on the sources, readers are given insight into what kind of evidence both sides are using to support their argument. Specifically, readers of the sources who are trying to decide a position to support when considering human involvement in climate change should be able to see that the sources and evidence that argue humans are, in fact, speeding up global warming are much more credible than those that deny it. One major limitation to this research is the fact that only four sources could be used in total to decide whether an entire side of an argument is valid or not. More sources are needed in order to evaluate the credibility of both sides to such a large controversy in science.

Climate change evidence: How do we know? (2018, April 04). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

E. (2015, January 23). Top Ten Reasons Climate Change is a Hoax. Retrieved May 16, 2018, from http://www.globalclimatescam.com/opinion/top-ten-reasons-climate-change-is-a-hoax/

Global Warming. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming

Nikirk, J. (2018, April 17). “”Catastrophic man-made global warming”” is a complete hoax. Retrieved May 16, 2018, from http://www.nrtoday.com/opinion/letters/catastrophic-man-made-global-warming-is-a-complete-hoax/article_ff895c54-2ba1-55d7-9b81 0520235bc043.html

Temperature Change Over the Last 100 Years. (2014, October 21). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/Temperature-Change-Over-the-Last-100Years

Why Do Some People Think Climate Change is a Hoax? (2017, November 24). Retrieved May 16, 2018, from https://www.bestvalueschools.com/faq/why-do-some-people-think-climate-change-is-a-hoax/

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Debunking eight common myths about climate change

The world is warming at a  record pace , with unseasonable heat baking nearly every continent on Earth. April, the last month for which statistics are available, marked the 11th consecutive month the planet has set a new temperature high.

Experts say that is a clear sign the Earth’s climate is rapidly changing. But many believe – or at least say they believe – that  climate change  is not real, relying on a series of well-trodden myths to make their point. 

“Most of the world rightly acknowledges that climate change is real,” says Dechen Tsering, Acting Director of the Climate Change Division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “But in many places, misinformation is delaying the action that is so vital to countering what is one of the greatest challenges facing humanity.” 

This month, delegates will be meeting in Bonn, Germany for a key conference on climate change. Ahead of that gathering, here is a closer look at eight common climate-related myths and why they are simply not true. 

Myth #1: Climate change has always happened, so we should not worry about it. 

It is true that the planet’s temperature has long fluctuated, with periods of warming and cooling. But since the last ice age 10,000 years ago, the climate has been relatively stable, which scientists say has been crucial to the development of human civilization. 

That stability is now faltering. The Earth is heating up at its fastest rate in at least 2,000 years and is about 1.2°C hotter than it was in pre-industrial times. The last 10 years have been the warmest on record, with 2023 smashing global temperature records.   

Other key climate-related indicators are also spiking. Ocean temperatures , sea levels and  atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses are rising at record rates while sea ice and glaciers are retreating at alarming speeds. 

Myth #2: Climate change is a natural process. It has nothing to do with people. 

While climate change is a natural process human activity is pushing it into overdrive. A landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which draws on the research of hundreds of leading climate scientists, found that humans are responsible for almost all the global warming over the past 200 years.  

The vast majority of warming has come from the burning of coal, oil and gas. The combustion of these fossil fuels is flooding the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, which act like a blanket around the planet, trapping heat.  

By measuring everything from ice cores to tree rings, scientists have been able to track concentrations of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in 2 million years , while two other greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are at their highest in 800,000 years .  

Myth #3: A couple of degrees of warming is not that big of a deal. 

Actually, small temperature rises can throw the world’s delicate ecosystems into disarray, with dire implications for humans and other living things. The Paris Agreement on climate change aims to limit average global temperature rise to “well below” 2°C, and preferably to 1.5°C, since pre-industrial times.  

Even that half-a-degree swing could make a massive difference. The IPCC found that at 2°C of warming, more than 2 billion people would regularly be exposed to extreme heat than they would at 1.5°C. The world would also lose twice as many plants and vertebrate species and three times as many insects. In some areas, crop yields would decrease by more than half, threatening food security. 

At 1.5°C of warming, 70 per cent to 90 per cent of corals, the pillars of many undersea ecosystems, would die. At 2°C of warming, some 99 per cent would perish. Their disappearance would likely lead to the loss of other marine species, many of which are a critical source of protein for coastal communities. 

“Every fraction of a degree of warming matters,” says Tsering. 

Myth #4: An increase in cold snaps shows climate change is not real. 

This statement confuses weather and climate, which are two different things. Weather is the day-to-day atmospheric conditions in a location and climate is the long-term weather conditions in a region. So, there could still be a cold snap while the general trend for the planet is warming.  

Some experts also believe climate change could lead to longer and more intense cold in some places due to changes in wind patterns and other atmospheric factors. One much-publicized paper found the rapid warming of the Arctic may have disrupted the swirling mass of cold air above the North Pole in 2021. This unleashed sub-zero temperatures as far south as Texas in the United States, causing billions of dollars in damages. 

Myth #5: Scientists disagree on the cause of climate change. 

A 2021 study revealed that 99 per cent of peer-reviewed scientific literature found that climate change was human-induced. That was in line with a widely read study from 2013 , which found 97 per cent of peer-reviewed papers that examined the causes of climate change said it was human-caused. 

“The idea that there is no consensus is used by climate deniers to muddy the waters and sow the seeds of doubt,” says Tsering. “But the scientific community agrees: the global warming we are facing is not natural. It is caused by humans.” 

Myth #6: It is too late to avert a climate catastrophe, so we might as well keep burning fossil fuels. 

While the situation is dire, there is still a narrow window for humanity to avoid the worst of climate change.  

UNEP’s latest Emissions Gap Report found that cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent by 2030, the world could limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C compared with pre-industrial levels.  

A little math reveals that to reach that target, the world must reduce its annual emissions by 22 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent in less than seven years. That might seem like a lot. But by ramping up financing and focusing on low-carbon development in key transport , agriculture and forestry, the world can get there.  

“There is no question the task ahead of us is massive,” Tsering says. “But we have the solutions we need to reduce emissions today and there is an opportunity to raise ambition in the new round of national climate action plans.”  

Myth #7: Climate models are unreliable. 

Climate skeptics have long argued that the computer models used to project climate change are unreliable at best and completely inaccurate at worst. 

But the IPCC, the world’s leading scientific authority on climate change, says that over decades of development, these models have consistently provided “a robust and unambiguous picture” of planetary warming.  

Meanwhile, a 2020 study by the University of California showed that global warming models were largely accurate. The study looked at 17 models that were generated between 1970 and 2007 and found 14 of them closely matched observations.  

Myth #8: We do not need to worry about lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Humanity is inventive; we can just adapt to climate change. 

Some countries and communities can adapt to rising temperatures, lower precipitation and the other impacts of climate change. But many cannot.  

The world’s developing countries collectively need between US$215 billion and US$387 billion per year to adapt to climate change, yet only have access to a fraction of that total, found UNEP’s latest Adaptation Gap Report . Even wealthy nations will struggle to afford the cost of adaptation, which in some cases will require radical measures, such as displacing vulnerable communities, relocating vital infrastructure or changing staple foods.  

In many places, people are already facing hard limits on how much they can adapt. Small island developing states , for example, can only do so much to hold back the rising seas that threaten their existence. 

Without significant action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, communities will reach these hard limits faster and begin to suffer irreparable damage from climate change, say experts.   

The Sectoral Solution to the climate crisis  

UNEP is at the forefront of supporting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C, and aiming for 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels. To do this, UNEP has developed the Sectoral Solution, a roadmap to reducing emissions across sectors in line with the Paris Agreement commitments and in pursuit of climate stability. The six sectors identified are: energy; industry; agriculture and food; forests and land use; transport; and buildings and cities. 

Further Resources

• UNEP’s work on climate change
• The Sectoral Solution to Climate Change
• Adaptation Gap Report 2023
• Emissions Gap Report 2023

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Is global warming merely a natural cycle?

Scientists have been exploring the cause of the planet's rising temperature since the 20th century. Climate change skeptics say that human-caused CO2 emissions don't have an effect. DW takes a look at the facts.

It's true that within its 4.5-billion-year history, planet Earth has experienced periods of lesser and greater warmth.

Altering over many thousands of years, these shifting temperatures have been determined by variations in Earth's orbit around the sun. While greater distances have resulted in colder cycles, shifts closer to the ball of heat have led to warmer, interglacial periods. 

In the late 20th century, when scientists started looking at how temperatures have changed over time, they observed a much faster rate of planetary warming from the 1980s than had previously been recorded. 

In 1998, researchers from the US University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona published a study showing the average annual global temperature over the past 1,000 years. 

To work out earlier temperatures going back half a millennium before the thermometer was invented, they studied so-called proxy or natural records — measurements of ice cores, tree rings and corals.

The outcome illustrated little variation for many hundreds of years until the 20th century, when there was suddenly a sharp rise. 

In 2013, research published in the journal Science analyzed even earlier temperatures, dating back 11,000 years. The conclusion was the same: our planet has warmed faster in the past century than at any time since the end of the last ice age. 

The study also revealed that for the last 2,000 years Earth has actually been in a natural cooling period in terms of its position relative to the sun. 

But this natural cooling has gone unregistered due to unprecedented warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases, the paper explains. 

What do CO2 emissions have to do with climate change?

The greenhouse effect — a natural process that warms the Earth — is necessary to sustain life on the planet. It happens when certain gases in our atmosphere trap the heat emitted from Earth and act as the planet's very own greenhouse. The natural  heat-trapping gases  in our atmosphere, which include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, are necessary to keep the Earth's surface temperature warm.

Without the greenhouse gas effect, surface temperatures would drop 33 degrees Celsius (59.4 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) — making the planet a frozen, uninhabitable place.

For thousands of years, nature had well-regulated the concentration of these gases. But this started changing when humans began burning fossil fuels as a global means of creating energy — resulting in a sharp rise of unnatural CO2 emissions. This has interfered with the planet's atmospheric balance.

And, as a result, Earth started warming faster. 

According to the WMO's State of the Global Climate 2020 report, the average temperature that year was 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial levels . This refers to the period between 1850-1900, when fossil fuels were not widely used as a means of creating energy.

The report described increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere resulting from human activities, as "a major driver of climate change" . 

In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere had been 280 parts per million (ppm) for several thousand years before the industrial era. By 1999, it had risen to 367 ppm, the IPCC said. 

Established as a UN body in 1988, the IPCC has 195 member countries and assesses the science related to climate change. It has attributed atmospheric CO2 increase to anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions, with three-quarters of them coming from fossil fuel burning, and the rest from land use change.

In May 2021, the average global level of atmospheric CO2 hit 415 ppm . The last time CO2 levels were so elevated was some 3 million years ago, when sea levels were around 30 meters (100 feet) higher and modern humans didn't even exist .

Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,  said back in the late 20th century, when researchers started to look for answers to explain the warming trend, they examined different factors including greenhouse gases, solar energy, ocean circulation and volcanic activity.

"Only the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and industrialization gave us a prediction that lines up with the warming we're seeing," Cook told DW. 

He said the scientific community is as confident in human-caused climate change today as in the understanding of the theory of gravity.

"There are uncertainties and nuances to discuss in climate science," said Cook. "But the one thing pretty much every scientist agrees upon today is that the warming we're seeing is driven by burning fossil fuels." 

Why did it take a while to reach this conclusion?

A widely discussed analysis of the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming was published in 2013. 

Led by John Cook, a researcher with the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Australia's Monash University, American, British and Canadian researchers examined 11,944 climate abstracts published in peer-reviewed scientific literature between 1991 and 2011. 

Less than 1% of the research papers they reviewed rejected the idea of human influence on our climate. And while 66.4% of the abstracts expressed no position on the anthropogenic factor, 32.6% endorsed it. Further analysis of the latter figure revealed a 97.1% consensus on human-caused climate change.

Critics, however, slammed the findings on the basis that the 97.1% consensus was derived from less than a third of all papers reviewed. Most, they argued, had not expressed a view. 

Scientific consensus, however, can't be achieved by voting, but evolves through time as more research is done.

A more recent study conducted by a group of international authors confirmed that over 90% of climate scientists share the consensus that climate change is human-caused.

And a 2019 analysis of 11,602 peer-reviewed articles on climate change published in the first seven months of 2019 found scientists have reached 100% agreement on anthropogenic global warming. That research was carried out by a James Lawrence Powell, an American geologist and author of 11 books on climate change and Earth science.

"If an alternative theory of what is driving climate change rather than greenhouse gases would be supported by research and evidence, such work would be groundbreaking," said Benjamin Cook. "It would be Nobel Prize-level study. But we do not see this research." 

Human-caused climate change is endorsed by the IPCC. As far back as 1995, the intergovernmental body said "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

"A scientific approach means looking at the data, observations and model results to make conclusions," said Helene Jacot Des Combes, a climatologist at the University of the South Pacific, IPCC author and adaptation adviser to the Marshall Islands government. 

"And this all tells us that the current climate change is caused by human activities."

This article is part of a series in which DW is debunking myths surrounding climate change. Read also:

Part 2 — Is half a degree of warming really such a big deal?

Part 3 — Is China the main climate change culprit?

Part 4 — Climate protection: Can I make a difference?

Part 5 — Does climate protection stifle economic growth?

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How does global warming work?

Where does global warming occur in the atmosphere, why is global warming a social problem, where does global warming affect polar bears.

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Human activity affects global surface temperatures by changing Earth ’s radiative balance—the “give and take” between what comes in during the day and what Earth emits at night. Increases in greenhouse gases —i.e., trace gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that absorb heat energy emitted from Earth’s surface and reradiate it back—generated by industry and transportation cause the atmosphere to retain more heat, which increases temperatures and alters precipitation patterns.

Global warming, the phenomenon of increasing average air temperatures near Earth’s surface over the past one to two centuries, happens mostly in the troposphere , the lowest level of the atmosphere, which extends from Earth’s surface up to a height of 6–11 miles. This layer contains most of Earth’s clouds and is where living things and their habitats and weather primarily occur.

Continued global warming is expected to impact everything from energy use to water availability to crop productivity throughout the world. Poor countries and communities with limited abilities to adapt to these changes are expected to suffer disproportionately. Global warming is already being associated with increases in the incidence of severe and extreme weather, heavy flooding , and wildfires —phenomena that threaten homes, dams, transportation networks, and other facets of human infrastructure. Learn more about how the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, released in 2021, describes the social impacts of global warming.

Polar bears live in the Arctic , where they use the region’s ice floes as they hunt seals and other marine mammals . Temperature increases related to global warming have been the most pronounced at the poles, where they often make the difference between frozen and melted ice. Polar bears rely on small gaps in the ice to hunt their prey. As these gaps widen because of continued melting, prey capture has become more challenging for these animals.

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global warming , the phenomenon of increasing average air temperatures near the surface of Earth over the past one to two centuries. Climate scientists have since the mid-20th century gathered detailed observations of various weather phenomena (such as temperatures, precipitation , and storms) and of related influences on climate (such as ocean currents and the atmosphere’s chemical composition). These data indicate that Earth’s climate has changed over almost every conceivable timescale since the beginning of geologic time and that human activities since at least the beginning of the Industrial Revolution have a growing influence over the pace and extent of present-day climate change .

Giving voice to a growing conviction of most of the scientific community , the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), published in 2021, noted that the best estimate of the increase in global average surface temperature between 1850 and 2019 was 1.07 °C (1.9 °F). An IPCC special report produced in 2018 noted that human beings and their activities have been responsible for a worldwide average temperature increase between 0.8 and 1.2 °C (1.4 and 2.2 °F) since preindustrial times, and most of the warming over the second half of the 20th century could be attributed to human activities.

AR6 produced a series of global climate predictions based on modeling five greenhouse gas emission scenarios that accounted for future emissions, mitigation (severity reduction) measures, and uncertainties in the model projections. Some of the main uncertainties include the precise role of feedback processes and the impacts of industrial pollutants known as aerosols , which may offset some warming. The lowest-emissions scenario, which assumed steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions beginning in 2015, predicted that the global mean surface temperature would increase between 1.0 and 1.8 °C (1.8 and 3.2 °F) by 2100 relative to the 1850–1900 average. This range stood in stark contrast to the highest-emissions scenario, which predicted that the mean surface temperature would rise between 3.3 and 5.7 °C (5.9 and 10.2 °F) by 2100 based on the assumption that greenhouse gas emissions would continue to increase throughout the 21st century. The intermediate-emissions scenario, which assumed that emissions would stabilize by 2050 before declining gradually, projected an increase of between 2.1 and 3.5 °C (3.8 and 6.3 °F) by 2100.

Many climate scientists agree that significant societal, economic, and ecological damage would result if the global average temperature rose by more than 2 °C (3.6 °F) in such a short time. Such damage would include increased extinction of many plant and animal species, shifts in patterns of agriculture , and rising sea levels. By 2015 all but a few national governments had begun the process of instituting carbon reduction plans as part of the Paris Agreement , a treaty designed to help countries keep global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preindustrial levels in order to avoid the worst of the predicted effects. Whereas authors of the 2018 special report noted that should carbon emissions continue at their present rate, the increase in average near-surface air temperature would reach 1.5 °C sometime between 2030 and 2052, authors of the AR6 report suggested that this threshold would be reached by 2041 at the latest.

The AR6 report also noted that the global average sea level had risen by some 20 cm (7.9 inches) between 1901 and 2018 and that sea level rose faster in the second half of the 20th century than in the first half. It also predicted, again depending on a wide range of scenarios, that the global average sea level would rise by different amounts by 2100 relative to the 1995–2014 average. Under the report’s lowest-emission scenario, sea level would rise by 28–55 cm (11–21.7 inches), whereas, under the intermediate emissions scenario, sea level would rise by 44–76 cm (17.3–29.9 inches). The highest-emissions scenario suggested that sea level would rise by 63–101 cm (24.8–39.8 inches) by 2100.

The scenarios referred to above depend mainly on future concentrations of certain trace gases, called greenhouse gases , that have been injected into the lower atmosphere in increasing amounts through the burning of fossil fuels for industry, transportation , and residential uses. Modern global warming is the result of an increase in magnitude of the so-called greenhouse effect , a warming of Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere caused by the presence of water vapour , carbon dioxide , methane , nitrous oxides , and other greenhouse gases. In 2014 the IPCC first reported that concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides in the atmosphere surpassed those found in ice cores dating back 800,000 years.

Of all these gases, carbon dioxide is the most important, both for its role in the greenhouse effect and for its role in the human economy. It has been estimated that, at the beginning of the industrial age in the mid-18th century, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were roughly 280 parts per million (ppm). By the end of 2022 they had risen to 419 ppm, and, if fossil fuels continue to be burned at current rates, they are projected to reach 550 ppm by the mid-21st century—essentially, a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in 300 years.

A vigorous debate is in progress over the extent and seriousness of rising surface temperatures, the effects of past and future warming on human life, and the need for action to reduce future warming and deal with its consequences. This article provides an overview of the scientific background related to the subject of global warming. It considers the causes of rising near-surface air temperatures, the influencing factors, the process of climate research and forecasting, and the possible ecological and social impacts of rising temperatures. For an overview of the public policy developments related to global warming occurring since the mid-20th century, see global warming policy . For a detailed description of Earth’s climate, its processes, and the responses of living things to its changing nature, see climate . For additional background on how Earth’s climate has changed throughout geologic time , see climatic variation and change . For a full description of Earth’s gaseous envelope, within which climate change and global warming occur, see atmosphere .

Watch CBS News

10 common myths about climate change — and what science really says

By Jeff Berardelli

February 27, 2020 / 7:00 AM EST / CBS News

If you've ever engaged in a discussion about climate change , in person or online, you've probably encountered some arguments about what the science says. Some of those claims may sound logical but are actually misleading or inaccurate. 

In fact, misconceptions and outright misinformation have gotten so out of hand, just days ago NASA felt the need to publicly address one of the most popular myths: that a decrease in the the sun's output will soon trigger cooling and a mini ice age. 

This and other topics have been studied thoroughly and debunked over and over again by climate scientists. Nevertheless these myths persist, often as a result of an organized disinformation campaign waged by special interests whose goal is to raise doubts among the public and delay action on human-caused climate change.

Here is a look at 10 of the most common myths about climate change that persist in the public sphere and what science has to say about them.

Myth #1: It's the sun.

While it is true that varying intensity of energy from the sun has driven long-term climate changes like ice ages in the distant past, the sun can not explain the recent spike in warming.

Over tens and hundreds of thousands of years, the Earth's tilt and orbit around the sun varies in predictable cycles. The way these cycles interact with each other cause gradual increases or decreases in the energy from the sun reaching the Earth. That change in energy can gradually — over thousands of years — ease the Earth into and out of ice age cycles. Over about the past 800,000 years, these ice/melt cycles have occurred about every 100,000 years .

But the pace of the recent temperature spike has been markedly faster — taking place over 150 years, with the majority happening over just the past few decades. At that same time, the sun's output has been going in the opposite direction, diverging from the direction in temperature. As this NASA graph shows, solar irradiance is down slightly from a peak in the 1950s.

In fact, according to NASA , in late 2020 the current solar cycle is headed for its lowest level since 1750, meaning the lowest energy output from the sun in 270 years. Still, that change in output is minor, having varied by only  0.1% since 1750.

Myth #2: Carbon dioxide levels are tiny. They can't make a difference.

It's true, carbon dioxide (CO2) makes up a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, less than a tenth of a percent. But because of CO2's powerful heat-trapping greenhouse properties, its presence makes a huge difference. Currently, CO2 levels keep Earth's temperature at a comfortable average of nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit. As shown in the below animation, if CO2 abruptly dropped to zero, Earth's average temperature would also drop far below freezing, eradicating most life as we know it.

It should be noted: the drop in CO2 doesn’t directly cause the whole drop in temperature. Other feedbacks occur when CO2 is eliminated. Water vapor condenses out as temps fall thus tanking its greenhouse effect & Albedo (reflected sun) increases bec. of ice growth = more cooling. — Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) November 20, 2019

To be clear, a drop in CO2 wouldn't directly cause the whole drop in temperature. The biggest impact comes from the most abundant greenhouse gas, water vapor, which condenses out due to the fact that colder air holds less water vapor; this is what tanks the greenhouse effect in the simulation. Positive feedbacks like the growth of ice cover would further precipitate the temperature plunge. But it's CO2 which drives all this change. 

Because small concentrations of carbon dioxide have an outsized impact, scientists are very concerned about the recent unprecedented rate of increase. For the vast majority of the past million years, CO2 levels have been below 280 parts per million. Since the industrial revolution of the 1800s, levels have jumped to 415 parts per million — an astounding 48% increase in 150 years. 

As the below graph shows, that dramatic increase in carbon dioxide levels coincides with the rapid warming.

Myth #3: Scientists disagree on the cause of climate change.

Contrary to popular belief, scientists do not disagree that climate change is happening and that it is caused by humans. Various analyses over many years have shown that between 90% and 100% of publishing climate scientists agree that humans are the main cause of our warming climate. Many studies have evaluated the scientific consensus , but the most famous, which as of this summer has been downloaded 1 million times, is this 2013 paper quantifying that agreement at over 97%.

According to NASA, "Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position."

For perspective, NASA Goddard Institute climate scientist Kate Marvel put this consensus into relatable terms, "We are more sure that greenhouse gas is causing climate change than we are that smoking causes cancer."

Despite this scientific consensus, only 1 in 5 Americans understand that almost all climate scientists agree that climate change is real and caused by humans. That is called the " Consensus Gap ."

Myth #4: The climate has always changed. It's natural.

No scientist will disagree that the climate changes naturally. It always has and it always will. What makes the recent changes stand out is the unprecedented pace of change. 

Because "the present anthropogenic (human-caused) carbon release rate is unprecedented during the past 66 million years ," as scientists concluded in a 2016 study in Nature Geoscience , the rate of temperature rise is 10 times faster than that of the last mass extinction about 56 million years ago. 

Science has a firm handle on the various reasons why the climate changes naturally. Two examples are long-term fluctuations in sunlight due to changes in Earth's orbit, which modulate ice ages, and shorter-term release of sun-dimming ash from large volcanoes, like Mount Pinatubo , which cooled Earth's surface by 1 degree Fahrenheit in 2001.

None of these natural changes can explain the spike in heating since the 1800s. In contrast, physics calculates that most of the recent warming stems from heat-trapping greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels. According to climate scientist and data analyst Dr. Zeke Hausfather, "Our best estimate is that 100% of the warming the world has experienced is due to human activities. Natural factors — changes in solar output and volcanoes — would have led to slight cooling over the past 50 years."

Here's a brief video showing the different natural and human-caused factors which factor into temperature changes.

Myth #5: It's cold out. What happened to global warming?

It should be obvious that Earth as a whole can warm up and at the same time certain parts of the Earth can feel cold. Yet cold weather is common cited as evidence against climate change — both sincerely and, by some, disingenuously. Famously, in 2015, Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma held up a snowball on the Senate floor on a cold winter day to deny the existence of climate change. 

At issue here is the difference between weather and climate. When scientists use the term global warming, or climate change , it refers to a broad temperature shift across the entire Earth's surface over the course of years and decades. The term weather, on the other hand, is the short-term, sometimes abrupt day-to-day variation in any given location. A good way to think about it is: Weather is your mood; Climate is your personality. Global warming does not prohibit cold, it just makes extreme cold less intense and less likely. Winter is still winter, it's just not as wintery overall.

This is illustrated below. In recent decades, the ratio of record highs compared to record lows in the United States (and globally) is increasing, averaging approximately two record highs to every one record low. The duration of winter cold snaps is also decreasing, but of course cold air still exists.

Myth #6: In the 1970s scientists warned about a coming ice age. They were wrong. So why should we believe them now?

If you were of age in the 1970s you might remember a number alarming newspaper headlines warning of an ice age on the way. But a deeper dive reveals those articles were based on a small number of papers very much in the scientific minority.

In the mid 20th century, climate science was very much in its infancy — scientists were just learning to decipher the influence of competing forces regulating climate. In the 1960s and 1970s, the science began to mature as researchers unearthed the most prominent factors such as the cooling influence of aerosols and the warming influence of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide — concepts which have stood up to decades of rigorous testing.

Yet even at that early stage, a scientific consensus was emerging on warming, not cooling, in the near future. This was made clear by a 2008 study called "The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus," which conducted a survey of the peer-reviewed literature from 1965 to 1979. The research team found that of the 71 related research papers, 44 indicated warming while only 7 indicated cooling (20 did not make projections either way). "Global cooling was never more than a minor aspect of the scientific climate change literature of the era, let alone the scientific consensus," the authors write.

So why then was there such an outsized influence in the social consciousness from these few cooling papers?  For one thing, the paper suggests, ice ages make for very compelling and memorable headlines. But those stories often included contradictory evidence as well, and other news coverage at the time did focus on warming theories.

Selecting and highlighting past inaccuracies in science, even if they are the exception and not the rule, is an expedient way for politicians and opponents of climate action to sow doubt about the credibility of climate science.  

In short, while a handful of scientists did predict cooling a half a century ago, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers since then which substantiate that humans are heating the climate.

Myth #7: The temperature record is rigged or unreliable.

A common talking point among climate change skeptics is either "the temperature record is unreliable" or "the temperature record is rigged." That might be a plausible argument if all of science relied on just one or two records; however, there are many independent temperature records produced by various independent bodies worldwide, and their data are remarkably consistent with each other.

These organizations include NASA, NOAA, the UK Meteorological Service, the Japanese Meteorological Service and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, just to name a few. 

One of the variables they have to account for is a phenomenon called the Urban Heat Island effect. Simply put, large cities — which are expanding — heat up the local atmosphere due to the concentration of dark surfaces, buildings and industries releasing heat. The concern is this extra heat may "contaminate" surface temperature trends. Scientists have studied this phenomena thoroughly and the surprising conclusion is that the warming trend in the temperature record of urban sites, in general, is similar to rural sites. So the urban heat island effect is real but not very substantial.

The temperature records are carefully fine-tuned by data experts to account for factors including the urban heat island effect, instrument sites being relocated, and instrument type changes. While each organization has its own unique methods for data gathering and analysis, the resulting temperature records are largely in sync.

  Myth #8: Climate models are not accurate.

Considering how complex modeling the climate is, most model projections of future temperature, even the rather primitive climate computer models of the 1970s, 80s and 90s, were impressively accurate. This lends extra credibility to the much more advanced climate models of today in predicting future changes.

A recent study evaluated 17 climate model projections published between 1970 and 2007, with forecasts ending on or before 2017. The researchers found 14 of the 17 model projections were consistent with observed real-world surface temperatures, when they factored in the actual rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Here's the assessment of the lead scientist on the study, Dr. Zeke Hausfather: "Climate models have by and large gotten things right."

• Climate models have been impressively accurate for decades, study finds

Dr. Gavin Schmitt, the head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, posted an even more recent assessment of the state-of-the-art collection of climate models run in the early 2000s called CMIP3. He concluded, "The CMIP3 simulations continue to be spot on (remarkably), with the trend in the multi-model ensemble mean effectively indistinguishable from the trends in the observations."

In the graph below, the model projection is the black line and the colored lines are the actual temperature datasets from various agencies. As you can see, the magnitude and pace of temperature change consistently match.

To be sure, evaluating global temperature projections are not the only gauge of a model's accuracy. Models can be expected to be accurate on general trends, such as whether global temperatures will warm, overall rainfall increase or hurricanes get stronger. However, when it comes to predicting regional changes and other specific types of events, the climate models are far from perfect. Future projections like whether rainfall will increase or decrease in San Francisco, or whether more or fewer hurricanes will hit Florida, are still uncertain and on the edge of climate models' current ability.

Myth #9: Grand Solar Minimum is coming. It will counteract global warming.

Many scientists speculate that we are now entering the beginning of a Grand Solar Minimum — a period with decreased solar energy which could last a few decades. There is a general acknowledgement that this speculation may be true, but there is a lack of scientific consensus because of limited understanding of longer-term solar cycles.

If this happens it certainly would not be the first time. The most famous Grand Solar Minimum, called the Maunder Minimum, spanned from 1645 to 1715. The period indeed corresponds with a decrease in temperature, but was embedded in a much longer-term cooling period called the Little Ice Age (from about  the 1300s through the mid 1800s ). While it seems logical to assume the cooling during the Little Ice Age may have been due to a decrease in solar activity, leading theories actually point more so to volcanic activity . 

With that said, a scientific collaboration to reconstruct past temperatures, called PAGES2K , indicates that global average temperatures decreased by no more than a couple of tenths of a degree Celsius during the Maunder Minimum. During that time the solar irradiance decreased by one-quarter of one percent.

Several studies have been conducted on the potential impact of a Grand Solar Minimum in the coming decades. The consensus of these studies finds that global average temperatures would decrease by no more than around half a degree Fahrenheit, but likely less. In contrast, human-caused climate change has already warmed the planet by 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, and climate scientists forecast we could see about 4 degrees Fahrenheit of additional warming by 2100.

So, while a Grand Solar Minimum is possible, our best science tells us it would do nothing more than make a small dent in the overall warming trend. According to NASA, that amount of cooling would be balanced by just three years of greenhouse gas emissions and the warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the human burning of fossil fuels is six times greater than a possible decades-long cooling from a prolonged Grand Solar Minimum. And any impact of cooling would be short-lived, with temperatures bouncing right back after the minimum ends. 

It's also worth mentioning that during the Maunder Minimum certain regions, like Europe, cooled more than others. If this reoccurs during the next minimum, regional cooling may be slightly more impactful on those given regions, but it would still pale in comparison to the amplitude of warming from human-caused climate change.

Myth #10: Scientists claim climate change will destroy the planet by 2030.

Climate scientists are often accused of making alarming assertions about climate change, like "the impacts will be catastrophic by 2030" or "we only have a decade left to save the planet." First and foremost, scientists are not predicting this. However, some politicians and media headlines have used select bits of scientific data to fuel the impression of impending Armageddon.  

This specific myth comes directly from a quote in the 2018 Special Report produced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Here's what the quote actually says:

"The report finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require 'rapid and far-reaching' transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching 'net zero' around 2050."

To simplify, the report concludes that if the global community wants to avoid breaching the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, then we need to abruptly cut emissions by rapidly reducing the use of fossil fuels by the end of the decade. At this point the globe has already warmed by slightly more than 1 degree Celsius; the vast majority of scientists agree there is little to no chance that warming will be held below 1.5 degrees. 

Staying below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is a goal often cited as the limit needed to prevent the most severe consequences from climate change. But 1.5 degrees is not a magical cut-off point. There is no bright line separating "normal" from "catastrophic." Rather, the impacts of global warming get progressively worse as temperatures incrementally rise. Some have already started. 

One lead author of the IPCC report, Hans-Otto Pörtner, said, "Every extra bit of warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5°C or higher increases the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems."

For people who live near sea level, like on low-lying Pacific islands, 1.5 degrees of warming will in fact be catastrophic, because it can mean the difference between an inhabitable and uninhabitable homeland due to sea-level rise. For others who are less vulnerable or have more resources, 1.5 degrees won't have quite as drastic an impact.

The IPCC report lays out many other examples of the escalating damage produced by warming above 1.5 degrees.  For instance, at that level of warming, it's estimated that coral reefs will decline another 70% to 90%. If we hit 2 degrees Celsius of warming, the  death toll for coral reefs jumps to 99%. This would not only be devastating to the aquatic species which rely directly on reefs, but also to millions of people worldwide who depend on the ecosystem for sustenance and business, as well as the web of life as a whole.

So, no, the world will not end in 10 years due to climate change. But the longer action is delayed, the more dire the consequences will be and the more likely it is that the changes will be irreversible.

The Skeptical Science website has compiled an exhaustive list of common myths and misconceptions about human-caused climate change, each complemented by peer-reviewed scientific research to illuminate the topics.

Jeff Berardelli is a meteorologist and climate specialist for CBS News.

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How Climate-Change Fiction, or “Cli-Fi,” Forces Us to Confront the Incipient Death of the Planet

As part of its ongoing “Original Stories” series, Amazon has assembled a collection of climate-change fiction, or cli-fi, bringing a literary biodiversity to bear on the defining crisis of the era. This online compilation of seven short stories, called “ Warmer ”—containing work from a Pulitzer Prize winner (Jane Smiley) and two National Book Award finalists (Lauren Groff and Jess Walter), among others—offers ways of thinking about something we desperately do not want to think about: the incipient death of the planet.

There is something counterintuitive about cli-fi, about the fictional representation of scientifically substantiated predictions that too many people discount as fictions. The genre, elsewhere exemplified by Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy and Nathaniel Rich’s “ Odds Against Tomorrow ,” brings disaster forcefully to life . But it is a shadowy mirror. Literature has always been a humanist endeavor: it intrinsically and helplessly affirms the value of the species; its intimations of meaning energize and comfort. But what if there is scant succor to be had, and our true natures are not noble but necrotic, pestilential? We have un-earthed ourselves. Yet we claim the right to gaze at our irresponsibility and greed through fiction’s tonic filter. The stories in “Warmer,” which possess the urgency of a last resort and the sorrow of an elegy, inhabit this contradiction. They both confront and gently transfigure the incomprehensible realities of climate change.

The collection starts in the near future and marches forward chronologically. The first two entries, “The Way the World Ends,” by Walter, and “Boca Raton,” by Groff, sketch our “before” or “before-ish” purgatory: weather systems in rebellion—a “swirling, greasy snow” in central Mississippi, rashes of hurricanes—but their effects pale in comparison to what characters dread is to come. (Catastrophes hinted at in some of the stories serve as backdrops for subsequent ones, as if to fold “now,” “soon,” and “after” into one continuous descent: an unhurried extinction-in-progress.) In Walter’s contribution, a hydrogeologist in her late thirties contemplates the idiocy of freezing her eggs when “one hundred percent of legitimate climate scientists believe the world to be on the verge of irreversible collapse.” In Groff’s story, a mother berates herself for having a daughter—a “terrible mistake she had made out of loneliness. The sheer selfish stupidity of bringing a child into the beginning of the end of the world as humans know it.” Both authors summon a sense of frustration and crashing despair, and an anguished appreciation for the beauty of life as it is, which proves inseparable from the beauty of the lie that life will stretch on forever. One must give up on such beauty—one must not have children—and yet the tranquilizing pleasure of the world forbids it. After a storm, a student in Walter’s story notices “the clarity and richness, the way the air is imbued with moisture and the colors—the sky a soft white-blue, like a thing forgiven.”

Groff’s and Walter’s pieces are present-day snapshots; the next several tales in “Warmer” plunge the reader into “during” and “after”—climate change has further distorted society, and the collection’s aura of literary realism veers toward the speculative. Here, work from Jesse Kellerman, Edan Lepucki, and Sonya Larson conjures the oppressiveness of the heat, the desperate thrill of opening a freezer at the store. (“It used to get chilly right before dawn, Daddy told me. . . . Shiver was a word you could use.”) There are economies in which water is replacing cash; the lone, brilliant apparition of a tree; school classrooms where teachers of an older generation pine for what they lost, preaching activism and environmental responsibility to dirt-poor students. The stories think through details. (What would the billionaires do? Start a space colony.) And they feel through specific emotional textures, asking us to empathize with the generations we are now cursing through inaction. (In an Op-Ed for the Times , Michelle Alexander wondered whether Americans would approach the climate crisis differently if they believed in reincarnation.) Several authors foresee deep demographic rifts; hardened young people regard adults with contempt, confusion, and bitterness. (This is presaged in Groff’s tale, when a toddler stands “in the middle of the room, sucking her finger and glaring at her mother with her dark eyes.”) The ranks of those who can live comfortably are profoundly thinned. On Larson’s Long Island, the prospect of owning a fur coat seems laughable: Where would the animal come from? Where would the money come from? Where would the cold weather come from?

Kellerman’s entry, “Controller,” takes the form of an experiment, with climate as the independent variable. The same story unfolds three times, on the same January day, but at different temperatures. The subtle gradient alters details, down to whether a dog is alive or dead, and determines the pitch of the characters’ rages and resentments. (“The air had changed, no longer a palliative billow but deafening and full of wrath. . . . He might yet bend her to his will.”) The mechanics of the piece gesture at one reason that climate change can prove so tricky a literary topic. We metaphorize nature endlessly, converting its phenomena into reflections of ourselves. This process feels as unconscious as translating oxygen into carbon dioxide; it is difficult to pry out the autonomous meaning of the sky and the ground, to fight environmental battles on their own terms. For Groff (whose ocean, an alien wakefulness “chewing darkly on the sand,” should defy human comprehension, and yet is readily understood as avarice or mortality), our epistemic failures echo a failure to act, to respond. They have the weight of a spiritual failure. “She knew that she could not save her daughter, that there would be no saving,” Groff writes, borrowing the language of doomsday cults. “She would be left behind among the disappointed.”

Taken together, the stories in “Warmer” raise the question of whether a poetics of climate change exists. As with gun violence , the crisis demands a form of literary expression that lifts it out of the realm of intellectual knowing and lodges it deep in readers’ bodies. Novels about mass shootings often incorporate black humor, the dispersal of meaning through repetition, and a flat or deadened tone. The works in this collection feel less consistent in mood or manner, but they are similarly occupied by a shared set of challenges: the bigness, the unknowability, of the looming transformations, and how surreal it all seems, and how the author or reader might chart a path between hope and hopelessness. (“It’s one thing to hear adults say there’s no Santa,” a college kid thinks, in Walter’s story. “But to hear there’s no Future?”) Walter offers encouragement in the form of a student who suggests that “you shouldn’t give up hope until you’ve done everything you can.” Groff seems to counter that all we can do is still not enough. As a whole, the collection clears a space between these two poles, in which the meaning of “enough” deforms like melting ice. Perhaps, after the elephants and the whales all die, it is enough to forestall the drowning of Hong Kong. Perhaps it is enough to see snow. “Enough,” as the stories progress, keeps contracting: into the ability to walk outside; into a bowl of mint-chip ice cream; into “oil floating on top” of a polluted lake, forming “little rainbows, swirling away in delicate circles.”

The irrepressibility of this “enough” is not surprising. Literature has long celebrated the flare of beauty in impoverished circumstances; it consoles us with echoes of our own resilience. Even Groff’s story cannot walk away from art. Rather, it achieves a wild, morose fineness, like an El Greco painting. To read “Warmer” is to remember that many people are kind and caring, and to see the last gasps of our life on Earth infused with tragic meaning. But one wonders whether fiction is capable of telling a different story, one in which an intelligent pandemic ravages a planet and destroys itself in the process. Such a tale—non-hominal, untellable—is an asymptote, but Jane Smiley’s “The Hillside” may inch closest. Smiley’s protagonist, a horse, befriends one of the last surviving humans in a lush equinocracy bounded by wasteland. The teen-age human is interesting and mischievous. She appears to plan ahead and to feel affection, but, during the winter, she disappears, and is found in springtime with her throat torn out. “The grass was thin but green,” Smiley writes, “and a few herbs were emerging here and there.” High Note, the horse, is preparing to have a foal. The human is lying at the base of a hill. “High Note stared at her and walked away.”

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• Global Warming Fact or Fiction Essay

Global Warming Fact Or Fiction Essay

This cycle has kept the air perfect for millennia, but the destruction of more rainforest every single day threatens the temperature of the air, which contributes to the heating up of the planet. The reuse of land is detrimental to the rainforest's conservation efforts, and is a dangerous side effect of a more globalized world. Climate Change Deniers For those who resist the scientific evidence for climate change, or global warming for that matter, have their own beliefs. Some of these beliefs are business-oriented in nature , the belief that mineral usage in the United States and economic advancement potential should never be slowed down by the restrictions placed on industry due to protection of the environment. Those people who belief business and life are a zero-sum game, where there simply are winners and losers to every situation, do not want to cut their profit due to more federal regulation. These corporations also hold significant political connections and lobbyist organizations in state capitals. For business leaders there is no bigger fear than the slowing down of business due to fines and payments to government of any kind. Global Warming advocates have suggested that pursuing higher gas mileage in automobiles, for instance, would give the American car marketplace an early edge on their foreign competitors, offsetting the investment in these technologies, all while helping out the environment. The deniers say this is a rubbish way to think, and that it is more important to increase the withdrawal of oil for the pursuit of profit, which will lead to innovation . This leads to the debate about natural gas 'fracking', which is the process of extracting natural gas from hard materials underground by blowing up these rocks, and then flushing them out with a huge amount of water in order to collect the fuel released in this process. This is hazardous to the environment because the water left over from this process is contaminated. Some states are pursuing fracking anyway, like New York, but most climate change advocates see the contamination of water, which will be put back into the normal sewer system, is a hazard and a reason enough to stop fracking. Hundreds of millions of dollars can be made because of fracking investment, particularly in Canada , and therefore the big money interests will do anything to see the profits from this huge new endeavor for the natural resources community. This change could rebalance the acquisition of fuel back into friendly countries, and local jobs created, which is a good political incentive to promote fracking as a viable resource extraction method. Some people resist global warming simply because of the lack of firm evidence, people who do not see the forth coming problems, because they are not able to interpret science, or because they believe industrial harm to the environment will just be washed away in a few decades and the cycle will continue to repeat itself. This group of non-climate change believer tends to mistrust academics, and has confidence in the standard quo. Since very little of global warming will directly impact the United States, compared to say the Arctic or the Deserts, these people tend to see the problems as not being American, and therefore take a non-interest in the matter. This is a risky position to take, but it does allow for ignorance to the problem of global warming, and sometimes that is the best position for people to take to allow their own economic interests to flourish. These industrial titans are focused on short-term gains, and cannot focus on the long-term side effects of poor industrial processes along the way. The bottom line must match the goals of the prevention of carbon being released into the air, or else the businessman will not see a conclusive need for environmental action. This is where environmentalism has tried to succeed in changing the beliefs of every entrepreneur and businessman out there. It remains to be seen whether businessmen are truly buying the new movement in the same way it's being promoted to government agencies . An incredible amount of fuel is wasted by inefficient processes around the globe, and raising the quality of manufacturing will also reduce the overall cost of the maintenance of the equipment used. This is a good counter point to the arguments of the business, industry focused class of people. If their main concern is money, then looking into the long-term value added gain of new fuel processes allows for successful growth in the future. The better technology becomes at improving the environment, the more likely we will prevent catastrophe. This is why significant investment in science and technology is important to the private world as well as…

Sources Used in Documents:

Works Cited: "The Basics of Global Warming - Science of Global Warming - Environmental Defense Fund." Environmental Defense Fund - Finding the Ways That Work. Web. 25 July 2011. http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=35215 >. Klein, Naomi. Global Warming, Fact or Fiction. Web. 25 July 2011. . NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Web. 25 July 2011. http://www.noaa.gov/ >.

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Global warming – fact vs fiction

By Tom Elliott

In 1896, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist and future Nobel laureate, deduced that the combustion of coal and petroleum could raise global temperatures. In 1939, a British steam engineer named Guy Stewart Callendar found, at the weather stations he was monitoring, that the previous five years were the hottest in recorded history. Hum

ankind, he wrote in a paper, had become “able to speed up the process of Nature”.

Almost 80 years later, with the benefit of hindsight (and considerably more observed data) a panel of the world’s foremost scientists (the IPCC) concluded that humankind has indeed sped up the process of nature, and, by releasing CO2 from the ground, increased the Earth’s temperature by approximately 1C since the pre-industrial period (1850 – 1900).

They used this figure to illustrate the urgency of the matter on the cover of their report:

Despite all the data about the past, the latest models predicting the future and great efforts by many (including James Hansen, the United Nations and countless NGOs, among others) there has been no change in the above trend. While humankind is able to speed up the process of Nature, it is not able to slow it down, or even maintain it at a steady state.  The IPCC scientists predict that humankind will control their influence on Nature, but only because they have to. Going by past form, the influence will only accelerate further.

As positive minded employees of the Crowther Lab, dedicated to promoting and believing in natural climate solutions, we have to trust that at some point humankind will see the cliff-edge it is accelerating towards and pull back, en masse. The answer is when (we know how).

Last month YouGov issued the results of their questionnaire surveying the populations of nine countries and their attitudes towards conspiracy theories. Given the above, I was intrigued to see the results of one question in particular, do you believe the following statement to be true?

“The idea of man-made global warming is a hoax that was invented to deceive people”

One of the problems of achieving progress in a forum like the United Nations is that consensus is needed across all participants before any global agreement can be reached. As we’ve seen at COP24 it only takes c.2% (four out of 196 countries) to stifle negotiations.

Whilst views on global warming are much more varied than a simple true or false, the percentage of population that believe global warming to be a hoax could be a useful barometer as to how seriously politicians will commit to resolving the issue.  Whilst I don’t intend to do any analysis on the reasons, below we have summarised the total results.

We’ve highlighted those countries within the upper quartile of the nine countries surveyed.  It is perhaps no surprise that the United States stands out in its views on global warming, but I was taken aback by the size of the margin.  After removing the other two highest countries, more than double the proportion of the US population believes global warming is a hoax when compared to any of the remaining six countries. Expressed in real terms, 17% equates to approximately 56 million US citizens. That would be the sixth largest country in Europe; smaller than Italy, slightly larger than Spain.  Within Europe, Poland stands out – which may relate to its position as the largest (per capita) producer of coal in Europe – as well as Swedish men and Hungarian women.

We also analysed the results by age:

As you might expect there was a slight positive trend across the ages surveyed (early 20s to 55+), with a higher percentage believing global warming is a hoax amongst the older generations. This was particularly prevalent in the US, where an astonishing 27% of 55+ year old’s believed the statement to be true.

Perhaps more worryingly for the future, Poland’s population bucks this trend, with 15% of 25-49 year old’s believing the statement to be true (compared to 9% of the 55+ category).

In order for us to achieve real action on climate change and alter the historic trend line of the IPCC’s graph I believe the proportion of populations believing this statement needs to be less than 5% across the board.  So recognition should go to Portugal for doing just that!

We all have a role to play in educating our friends, families and colleagues – and over time that should translate into action!

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Guest Essay

I Created ‘Veep.’ The Real-Life Version Isn’t So Funny.

By Armando Iannucci

Mr. Iannucci is a television and movie director and producer whose hits include the HBO series “Veep.”

As soon as President Biden dropped out of the race, leaving his vice president to take on the candidacy, a pile-on of news organizations tracked me down to ask for comment. They weren’t after any insights on Kamala Harris’s campaign (I have none) but instead wanted to know how I felt now that events were tracking the main story line of my HBO show “Veep.”

The show stars the unbeatable Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Vice President Selina Meyer. As the series progresses, Selina is suddenly thrown onto the main stage when the president decides not to run for a second term, leaving her to go into the convention as the new presumptive nominee. For 24 hours, the mainstream media asked if I was pleased with the comparison.

This is the first time I’m setting out a definitive answer to that question, and the answer is: No, I’m not. I’m extremely worried! Not about Ms. Harris. I’m sure she’ll inject much-needed sharpness into the campaign. What worries me is that politics has become so much like entertainment that the first thing we do to make sense of the moment is to test it against a sitcom.

In fact, I fear we’ve now crossed some threshold where the choreographed image or manufactured narrative becomes the only reality we have left. Look how the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which happened only two weeks ago, so speedily transformed from real-time tragedy into iconography. No sooner had Mr. Trump ducked for cover when some indefinable Trumpy-sense clicked on, calculating with acute precision how best to turn the moment of survival into a sequence of living memes, first by asking for his shoes, perhaps so he could be seen to exit at full height, and then raising a fist to the clouds, mouthing, “Fight, fight, fight.” Someone died in that mindless violence, but what does it say about the supremacy of the defining visual that Mr. Trump commemorated the moment at his party’s convention by caressing the victim’s uniform live onstage?

Which brings us to the Republican convention in Milwaukee. The convention was not so much the choosing of a leader as the transfiguration of one — the Donald reborn as the One who brushed off death as if it were some loser mosquito whack job. With humility he declared himself chosen and protected by God, the sly implication being that while Mr. Biden was slowly stumbling toward his end, Mr. Trump was most likely immune from his. For 20 minutes Mr. Trump spoke with saintly measure of how he was going to unite the country and then for an hour more made it clear he would do this by delegitimizing every alternative point of view.

Heretics, including Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, promptly repented, with conviction in their voices and deadness in their eyes, and a collective hosanna rose from the assembly, many wearing anointed ear bandages to cover the stigmata they prayed would one day afflict the sides of their own heads. The whole event was about making us believe in Mr. Trump’s Second Coming (or his third, if you’re one of those who think his second came in 2020 but that was stolen and everyone knows it).

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Global Warming Fact or Fiction

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