The Science

The Science / Climate Myths and Facts

Climate scientists argue about lots of things—how much warming will occur, and how fast; where the effects will be felt most strongly; what degree of warming will be irreversible But the overwhelming majority agree that climate change is happening and that fossil fuels are making it worse.

Here are informative links on:

The “hockey stick” controversy: why some have questioned the increasing rate of global warminghttp://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/the-hockey-stickWhy climate deniers have no credibility, in one simple pie charthttp://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chartThe future of sea icehttps://www.ccin.ca/home/ccw/seaice/futureProjected changes in precipitation by the end of the 21st centuryhttp://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/cms-filesystem-action/user_files/kd/pdf/gfdlhighlight_vol1n5.pdfProjected sea level rise in the United States     http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12782&page=251Western wildfires and climate changehttp://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/impacts/infographic-wildfires-climate-change.html#.Vb7y4PlViko

97% of climate scientists agree: climate change is real, and humans are causing it.

 

Spend less than 5 minutes on Cimate 101 with Bill Nye.

We can’t all be climate experts, and that’s okay! Still, it’s worth knowing some myths and facts.

Want to learn more about the science? Here are some good places to start:

  • This 6-minute clip from the documentary “Do the Math” features 350.org founder Bill McKibben explaining the number 350 (as well as the number 2, the number 565, and the number 2,765).
  • The National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a panel of 300 experts from federal agencies ranging from the Departments of Defense and Agriculture to the Smithsonian and NASA. Their report includes a comprehensive overview of how climate change will affect human health and disease — not to mention other informative sections on water, transportation, energy, food, and more.
  • Road map to a 100% clean energy system in the United States by 2050 — sounds impossible? A team of civil engineers and transportation specialists from Stanford University and UC Berkeley crunched the numbers, and they say it’s not only possible, but it will result in a net creation of ~2 million long-term jobs and the the elimination of tens of thousands of pollution-related deaths. Plus, we save money.
  • Skeptical Science is a blog written by a team of over a dozen highly-credentialed scientists in the fields of geophysics, environmental chemistry, statistics, and more. Their mission is to deal rigorously with the claims of so-called “climate skeptics” or “climate deniers.”
  • Open Source Systems, Science, Solutions (OSS) also has a thorough, somewhat more technical page dealing with climate myths and facts.
  • The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN’s definitive source for climate change information, including the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change, the current and future impacts on human lives around the world, and the most promising solutions available.