Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
So it comes down to this. Is it happening? If you read the scientists on this question, the very large con-
sensus is, Yes, the earth's climate is warming and the warming has accelerated.
Most Americans don't bother to actually read the science, though, and rely on the mass media, which
always has to make a claim of being balanced by presenting two sides of the story, even when there isn't
really a credible “other” side.
The other problem is that people listen to politicians or others with agendas not driven by science. As
Naomi Oreskes, author of
Merchants of Doubt
, wrote:
Politicians, economists, journalists and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement,
or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect. The scientific consensus can
be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it teaches humility, and no one can be faulted
for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that
we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.
Is it our fault? That's where it gets trickier. Again the very large consensus—90 percent by some estim-
ates—says Yes, humans are responsible for the activities that are causing the warming—primarily through
the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) along with the World Meteorological Organization,
told the
New York Times
, “In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely
than climate change to affect the future of our children. Feb. 2 [2007] will be remembered as the date when
uncertainty was removed as to whether humans had anything to do with climate change on this planet. The
evidence is on the table.”
Veteran science writer William K. Stevens agreed, in a column entitled, “On the Climate Change Beat,
Doubt Gives Way to Certainty.” Stevens wrote in 2007:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the likelihood was 90 percent to 99 percent
that emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, spewed from tailpipes and
smokestacks, were the dominant cause of the observed warming of the last 50 years. In the pan-
el's parlance, this level of certainty is labeled 'very likely.' Only rarely does scientific odds-making
provide a more definite answer than that, at least in this branch of science.
So given the current state of professional knowledge and a large and growing body of research and data,
there is little scientific debate over the reality of global warming, and only slightly less disagreement in the
scientific world over what role humans have played in creating the current crisis by burning fossil fuels
and deforestation. But there are scientists who say the greenhouse effect has been greatly exaggerated.
Yet most scientific groups are now quite sure that the greenhouse effect is happening. Among them is
the Geological Society of America, which issued an amended statement in 2010 reading:
Decades of scientific research have shown that climate can change from both natural and anthropo-
genic causes. 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. If
current trends continue, the projected increase in global temperature by the end of the twenty-first
century will result in large impacts on humans and other species. Addressing the challenges posed
