Updated 1/1/2019
It is my opinion that climate change is one of the largest threats to our species that we will know in our lifetime. Despite the general apathy the general public feels, the overwhelming majority of experts in the field agree that anthropogenic (man-made) climate change is real and poses risk to all of us.
Since there is a sizable minority of Americans that are in denial about the existence of man-made climate change, I’ve decided to focus today’s article on refuting a few of the more common misconceptions and conspiracy theories.
Claim: “Man-made climate change is a scam perpetuated by scientists in on the scam”
“All the scientists in on the scam” constitute almost every single climate scientist on the planet. See the bibliography links at the bottom for a meta-analysis that determined between 97 and 99.9% of climate studies found evidence of man-made climate change. This cover-up would also include most people in STEM fields can that corroborate the climate scientists’ findings. Remember, peer-reviewed studies must be reproducible.
This logic doesn’t really make sense. It assumes that “Big Environmental” or whoever is able to simultaneously bribe every member of the climate studies field to reach the same conclusion with increasing frequency over several decades. What was first acknowledged as possible has gained acceptance by virtually every major scientific body in the world.
This type of logic indicates that the entire planet Venus does not exist as a perfect model of a runaway greenhouse feedback loop. We’ve been studying this planet for a very long time.
This logic ignores the obvious corollary that there is far more money to be had from large businesses manufacturing a non-existent scandal in an attempt to preserve the status-quo. Muddying the waters on anthropogenic climate change prevents legislation that could cost billions to each respective heavy-polluting industry.
Claim: “Climate change is moving the goalpost now that global warming has been disproven.”
The terminology shift from “global warming” to “climate change” was due to the difficulty the layperson has with understanding that the climate is an extremely complex system that must be observed over a long period of time. “Climate change” more accurately reflects both the small and large perturbations that may be seen in our climate. You can have a decade where artic sea ice extants grow followed by periods of shrinkage. The layperson will not take the root-mean-square of an oscillating system to see that there is an overall rise over a long period of time. They will just see that things are getting a little better this year while ignoring the bigger picture.
Global warming was never disproven.
It was relabeled.
Claim: “I just read that the Arctic sea ice extant is expanding! ”
As certain areas heat up, other areas may see greater cooling as global air flows and ocean currents shift. Ice extants are just one measure of our climate. It’s a complicated subject that requires a holistic approach rather than a single metric to determine trends. Skeptical Science has an excellent technical write-up of this subject.
Claim: “A famous climate scientist, Dr John Christy, has disproven man-made climate change and global warming.”
This is a study published regarding the satellite data that Christy was drawing from. It concluded that the substantial difference between Christy’s conclusions and everyone else was due to incorrectly applying tropical amplification (using an incorrectly calculated value of 0.56 instead of the correct value of 1.4 as determined by independent review of Christy’s data [which matches the number calculated by other studies/data sets]). Refactoring the math, you get a warming trend that has a slope of about 4x higher than the one that Christy calculated. This warming trend matches what other datasets and studies have expected with their models.
Short version: Scientist makes math error that supports his previous conclusions. Independent review points out math error. Everyone agrees. Review is published by scientist. Scientist that is wrong does not issue retraction after peer-review.
We only get one.Claim: “Even if climate change was real, we’ve had high temperatures and CO2 levels in the past!”
Ever since we developed permanent coastal cities, we’ve been fixed to a certain maximum temperature. If temperatures rise above that threshold, you get mass flooding, death, and destruction. Pointing out that a million years ago we had a 1000ppm CO2 level ignores the fact that such a climate is incompatible with human life as it exists today. We would not enjoy a world like that. If we had CO2 levels similar to that of the past, my city would be underwater. Besides, the last thing I need is an ichthyosaurus eating my pug.
Claim: “I saw a news headline that said some climate scientists think that climate change is inevitable.”
It is true that there are a fair number of climate scientists that believe that the complete and immediate stop of all human-caused polluting activity would not result in a significant impact on what will happen. They believe we have already signed our death warrants and nothing will save us at this point.
Some climate models predict that we’ve already gone too far to reverse climate change. Others feel that we haven’t been alarmist enough in our models which is reinforced when things like this happen.
At this point, I’d like to let other people speak for the remainder of this article. Here are some choice quotes (with attribution link) from various government and non-government organizations:
“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.” (2006) – American Association for the Advancement of Science
“Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem.” (2004) – American Chemical Society
“Human‐induced climate change requires urgent action. Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years. Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes.” (Adopted 2003, revised and reaffirmed 2007, 2012, 2013) – American Geophysical Union
“Our AMA … supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant.” (2013) – American Medical Association
“It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide.” (2012) – American Meteorological Society
“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” (2007) – APS Physics/American Physical Society
“The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.” (2006; revised 2010) – The Geological Society of America
“The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” (2005) – U.S. National Academy of Sciences
“The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Human ‘fingerprints’ also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.” (2009, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies) – U.S. Global Change Research Program
For further reading, here’s the famous 97% meta-analysis bib link:
Cook, et al, “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature,” Environmental Research Letters Vol. 8 No. 2, (June 2013); DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
Here’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a collection of 1300 experts in the field discussing the existence of man-made climate change.
Here’s how to do your own meta-analysis of climate change studies if you don’t believe the 97% study or the 99.9% study.
Here are some lesser known studies:
R. L. Anderegg, “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 107 No. 27, 12107-12109 (21 June 2010); DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107.
T. Doran & M. K. Zimmerman, “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Eos Transactions American Geophysical Union Vol. 90 Issue 3 (2009), 22; DOI: 10.1029/2009EO030002.
Oreskes, “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science Vol. 306 no. 5702, p. 1686 (3 December 2004); DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618.
As the magnum opus for this post, I present a list of some global organizations that hold the opinion that man-made climate change both exists and is a threat to human life:
Academia Chilena de Ciencias, Chile
Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, Portugal
Academia de Ciencias de la República Dominicana
Academia de Ciencias Físicas, Matemáticas y Naturales de Venezuela
Academia de Ciencias Medicas, Fisicas y Naturales de Guatemala
Academia Mexicana de Ciencias,Mexico
Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Bolivia
Academia Nacional de Ciencias del Peru
Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
Académie des Sciences, France
Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada
Academy of Athens
Academy of Science of Mozambique
Academy of Science of South Africa
Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS)
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academy of Sciences of Moldova
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt
Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
Africa Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science
African Academy of Sciences
Albanian Academy of Sciences
Amazon Environmental Research Institute
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Anthropological Association
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association of State Climatologists (AASC)
American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
American Astronomical Society
American Chemical Society
American College of Preventive Medicine
American Fisheries Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Institute of Physics
American Meteorological Society
American Physical Society
American Public Health Association
American Quaternary Association
American Society for Microbiology
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Australian Academy of Science
Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Australian Coral Reef Society
Australian Institute of Marine Science
Australian Institute of Physics
Australian Marine Sciences Association
Australian Medical Association
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Bangladesh Academy of Sciences
Botanical Society of America
Brazilian Academy of Sciences
British Antarctic Survey
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
California Academy of Sciences
Cameroon Academy of Sciences
Canadian Association of Physicists
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Geophysical Union
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Society of Soil Science
Canadian Society of Zoologists
Caribbean Academy of Sciences views
Center for International Forestry Research
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) (Australia)
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences
Crop Science Society of America
Cuban Academy of Sciences
Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters
Ecological Society of America
Ecological Society of Australia
Environmental Protection Agency
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
European Physical Society
European Science Foundation
Federation of American Scientists
French Academy of Sciences
Geological Society of America
Geological Society of Australia
Geological Society of London
Georgian Academy of Sciences
German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina
Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
Indian National Science Academy
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management
Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology
Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK
InterAcademy Council
International Alliance of Research Universities
International Arctic Science Committee
International Association for Great Lakes Research
International Council for Science
International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
International Research Institute for Climate and Society
International Union for Quaternary Research
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
Islamic World Academy of Sciences
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Kenya National Academy of Sciences
Korean Academy of Science and Technology
Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts
l’Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
Latin American Academy of Sciences
Latvian Academy of Sciences
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences
Madagascar National Academy of Arts, Letters, and Sciences
Mauritius Academy of Science and Technology
Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts
National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Argentina
National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic
National Academy of Sciences, Sri Lanka
National Academy of Sciences, United States of America
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Association of Geoscience Teachers
National Association of State Foresters
National Center for Atmospheric Research
National Council of Engineers Australia
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Research Council
National Science Foundation
Natural England
Natural Environment Research Council, UK
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Network of African Science Academies
New York Academy of Sciences
Nicaraguan Academy of Sciences
Nigerian Academy of Sciences
Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters
Oklahoma Climatological Survey
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Pakistan Academy of Sciences
Palestine Academy for Science and Technology
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
Polish Academy of Sciences
Romanian Academy
Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium
Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain
Royal Astronomical Society, UK
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
Royal Irish Academy
Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
Royal Scientific Society of Jordan
Royal Society of Canada
Royal Society of Chemistry, UK
Royal Society of the United Kingdom
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
Science and Technology, Australia
Science Council of Japan
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Society for Ecological Restoration International
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society of American Foresters
Society of Biology (UK)
Society of Systematic Biologists
Soil Science Society of America
Sudan Academy of Sciences
Sudanese National Academy of Science
Tanzania Academy of Sciences
The Wildlife Society (international)
Turkish Academy of Sciences
Uganda National Academy of Sciences
Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
World Association of Zoos and Aquariums
World Federation of Public Health Associations
World Forestry Congress
World Health Organization
World Meteorological Organization
Zambia Academy of Sciences
Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences
And with that, I end my vicious screed.
I trust this site http://www.climatedepot.com/ over ANY government funded study. That type of funding invites bias. These types of studies can not be performed without that money. Scientists, those that are in the field, need funding and don’t want to risk losing that funding. Follow the money trail. UN treaties, penalties on corporations, carbon credits, where does it all go? Climate reparations? Nope. It funds more studies, it subsidizes poorer countries, basically, it is just another way for the governments of the world to redistribute wealth. We will always have a changing climate. Does man contribute? Maybe in a very small way. I would say not nearly as much as the Sun in conjunction with the earths magnetic field. We will survive no matter what. If it gets hot and sea levels rise, there will be growing and moving pains. If it gets cold, there will be food shortages and better skiing. I think scientists in general mean well, but in the field they want to keep their funding, so why bite the hand feeding them? Its the doom and gloom that pisses me off the most. Live on the coasts, there will be problems, and not just from rising sea levels. How about science for science sake, not for the purpose of blame and monetary punishment? Report that temperatures are trending upwards or downwards, report on what may happen if trends continue, both the positive and the negative. Its always the negative. That right there tells me its a farce. I like your site! You have many interesting articles. I gotta disagree on this one though.
ClimateDepot.com is funded by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). CFACT gets a ton of their funding from industries that profit from polluting. Here’s an article on bankruptcy documents made public from one of the largest coal companies in the world that revealed that they had been funding an elaborate network of climate change denial speakers, organizations, etc. CFACT was on the list. http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/06/13114/peabody-coal-bankruptcy-reveals-extensive-funding-climate-denial-network
Instead of considering why the entire scientific community might be engaged in a global conspiracy to beg for more research money, it may be useful to consider the many-billion dollar energy industry’s known ties to fund climate change denial groups.
If there is doubt that such things happen, you may consider reading of similar denial groups associated with leaded gasoline and asbestos.
I always find it interesting that people get so upset when a private entity wants to defend its name from those attacking it by funding research to see if there is validity to the attacks. I guess when you are an oil company responsible for millions of jobs worldwide, whose product makes the economy of today possible, the constituents of which are found in almost every aspect of our lives today, with genuine impacts on millions of retirement accounts, then you should just shut up and take the criticism without complaint. Whereas if it is government funding, or NASA research, then it can have no bias whatsoever. It is almost like the people arguing that man is destroying nature, yet they don’t believe in any God, therefore we are in fact part of nature, just the evolutionary pinnacle of nature. Sorry, you evolved too much, you suck now. Go kill yourselves so the rest of us can continue to evolve in peace.
I never said the entire scientific community was engaged in a conspiracy, I did say there was definite bias, and if you want to eat, you do research in an area being funded. No need to try to insult me with lead and asbestos comments.
But you did not respond to what bothers me most about the whole issue. Why only bad news for climate change. Isn’t it odd that the earth has been around for so long, climate changing all that time, and it is only now that it is somehow ALL bad news. Granted, cavemen were not out there doing the nightly, but they survived. Animals died off without the help of humans long before extinction was a concept. If we all dropped dead in the next 24 hours I guarantee that species would continue to die off, and the climate would continue to change, without our help. Why is climate change never reported to have any benefits? Are we so scared of the unknown that we must treat everything as a negative? This is why it takes 3 years to build a mile of highway these days. Why we don’t launch our own space shuttles anymore. Why we will never get back to the moon, let alone Mars. We have become too scared of our own mortality and can’t face the unknown. Regulate this and regulate that. Red tape all innovation unless it is proven so safe as to make it useless to anyone. Unless that innovation is the flavor of the day in certain circles, then fund the hell out of it even if it can’t possibly solve any problems!
Anyway, thanks for the reply. You seem a decent fellow, but it is clear you and I have opposing beliefs on who to trust when it comes to government vs private industry. That is a tough divide to bridge. I know who the people of Venezuela wish they had trusted though.
There was no attempt to insult you regarding leaded gasoline and asbestos. Instead, it was merely meant to illustrate that industries will hire PR firms to defend their interests even if it means spreading misinformation. If I came off the wrong way, I genuinely apologise. Lack of free time lately = I don’t double check what I write as often as I should.
I can agree that there is bias in research. That’s why we peer review it and shoot down whatever doesn’t mesh. There’s a good blog you should check out that tracks study retractions at http://retractionwatch.com/
Climate change news isn’t completely doom and gloom. Our shift away from CFCs resulted in the hole in the ozone layer closing. We’ve generally been reducing our reliance on polluting processes and shifting towards more efficient and renewable sources. Our cars are more efficient. Our planes are more efficient. We’re getting better…
…
…but it might not be enough. There are some climate scientists that think we’re probably fine. They might be right. There are some climate scientists that think we’re totally screwed no matter what. They might be right. Most take a middle ground. Almost all think we have caused measurable climate change. The fact that we have almost certainly caused a global climate shift is worrying.
The fact that we have global warming is treated as a negative because of two things: oceanic water expansion and ice cap melting. The ice cap thing is pretty obvious. Oceanic water expansion is a little more difficult to discuss.
Whenever materials get warmer, almost all of them expand. The Concorde jet suffered about a foot of fuselage thermal expansion tip to tail when it would superheat during supersonic flight ops. Bearings are put on shafts by heating them in an oven to expand them and letting them cool to shrink-fit them on.
Water does the same thing… and the oceans have a lot of water.
If we heat the entire ocean up by a few degrees, we’ll see a massive change in the volume of the oceans. Projections vary but it doesn’t look very good for coastal cities.
Population centers tend to cluster around the coast.
We’ll see a lot of death and destruction in the future as coastal cities flood if we don’t do something to stop what’s happening.
Regarding why engineering projects take a long time …
It takes us a long time to evaluate all of the risks, rewards, costs, materials, contracts, etc. There are a lot of calculations, options to weigh, financing to secure, and Return on Investment to figure out. Is it worth the money to design the thing to do something? Is there a better way? In the case of a road, is there a better route? Is there public eminent domain seizure? What should it be made of? What gradient? Will it last 20 years? 50? How is it paid for? Where goes it go through?
Anyway, even if we disagree on climate change, I hope you enjoy the rest of the site! Thanks for reading!