By Marylou Bride
In a world struggling with extreme weather events and rising global temperatures, the scientific community has reached an overwhelming consensus: climate change is real, it’s happening now, and human activities are the primary driver.
Dr. Sarah Chen, lead climatologist at the Global Climate Research Institute, states, “The evidence is unequivocal. We’re seeing unprecedented changes in our climate system, from melting ice caps to intensifying hurricanes. These aren’t isolated incidents; they’re part of a larger pattern directly linked to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.”
Recent data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that the past decade was the warmest on record. Sea levels have risen by about 8 inches since 1880, with the rate of rise accelerating in recent years. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice is declining at a rate of 13% per decade, threatening polar ecosystems and contributing to a feedback loop that could further accelerate warming.
The economic implications of climate change are equally alarming. According to the World Bank, climate change could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030. Industries from agriculture to tourism are already feeling the heat, with some coastal communities facing existential threats from rising seas.
Despite all the information, there is still a faction of the population that denies the existence of climate change.
According to a June 4, 2024, report by UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), the leading global authority on the environment, the following are eight myths that debunk climate change deniers.
1. Climate change has always happened, so we should not worry about it.
The planet’s temperature has long fluctuated, with periods of warming and cooling; however, 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. 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.
2. Climate change is a natural process. It has nothing to do with people.
While climate change is a natural process, human activity is exacerbating the situation. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that humans are responsible for almost all the global warming over the past 200 years because of 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 two million years, while two other greenhouse gases, methane and nitrous oxide, are at their highest in 800,000 years.”
3. A couple of degrees of warming is not that big of a deal.
Even a half-a-degree swing could make a huge difference. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 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% to 90% of corals, vital to undersea ecosystems, would die. At 2°C of warming, some 99% would vanish. “Their disappearance would likely lead to the loss of other marine species, many of which are a critical source of protein for coastal communities.”
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 because of changes in wind patterns and other atmospheric factors. One much-publicized paper from Science — https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi9167 — 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.”
5. Scientists disagree on the cause of climate change.
A 2021 study revealed that 99% of peer-reviewed scientific literature found that climate change was human-induced. That was aligned with a widely read study from 2013, which found 97% of peer-reviewed papers that examined the causes of climate change said it was human-caused.
6. It is too late to avert a climate catastrophe, so we might as well keep burning fossil fuels.
The situation is grim, but there is still a small window for humans to avoid the worst of climate change. UNEP’s latest Emissions Gap Report found that cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030 could limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, compared with pre-industrial levels.
To reach that target, the world must reduce its annual emissions by 22 billion tons of carbon dioxide “equivalent in less than seven years.” Although it’s an intimidating number, it can be done by increasing financing and focusing on low-carbon development in industries like transport, agriculture and forestry.
7. Climate models are unreliable
Climate skeptics have long argued that computer models used to project climate change are unreliable and inaccurate. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading scientific authority on climate change, states that over decades of development, these models have consistently provided “a robust and unambiguous picture” of planetary warming.
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 their observations.
8: We do not need to worry about lowering greenhouse gas emissions because 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 $215 billion and $387 billion per year to adapt to climate change, but they have access to just a fraction of that total, according to 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.
Other websites that debunk climate deniers.
- https://news.umich.edu/nearly-15-of-americans-deny-climate-change-is-real-ai-study-finds/
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240202114938.htm
On another note:
- Financing the climate change naysayers: https://www.campaigncc.org/climate_change/sceptics/funders
Politics vs. solutions
As noted in last month’s opinion piece, “Green Power” by Terry Stokka, there are groups of people, including scientists, who decry climate change.
The issue has political leanings. According to a 2023 National Public Radio report, almost nine in 10 Democrats and a majority of independents believe that climate change is a major threat. On the other side, 70% of Republicans believe climate change is a minor threat or no threat at all.
Politicizing the topic often means that nothing will get done to mitigate the wildfires, rising seas, extreme weather events and hot temperatures.
It should be a goal that all sides in the political spectrum can someday agree to address the situation, while leaving politics behind.
