Some things about climate change are simply facts, not subject to opinion, theory or debate.
- Carbon dioxide affects the atmosphere, in particular how much heat it retains. More CO2 in the atmosphere means more heat from the sun stays in the atmosphere, heat that otherwise would have dissipated into space.
- The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing, and has been for decades.
- Humans have (so far) extracted and burnt an estimated 500,000,000,000 barrels of oil. Humans have also burnt absolutely massive amounts of wood (trillions of trees) and coal. The US burned over seven hundred million tons of coal in 2016 alone. All this burning released absolutely massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
- All scientific data shows the earth’s average temperatures are increasing. Only faulty data (all of which has been disproven) or outright liars (oil companies and their paid thinktanks) disagree with this assessment.
- The amount of snow and ice on Greenland and Antarctica is fricking huge. Greenland has 660,000 square miles of ice, and Antarctica has almost ten times that amount.
- The amount of snow and ice in the Arctic, and on Greenland and Antarctic, is decreasing, melting. The melt rate is increasing. The melt from Greenland and Antarctica is (duh) going into the oceans.
- Glaciers around the world are also declining. Billions of people get their drinking water from glacial runoff. No glaciers, no drinking water.
- The Earth has had periods of being warmer in the past than it is now. And sea levels were much higher during these periods than they are now.
- Around the world many major cities and towns are built near oceans, not much higher than sea level. A very large number of people live in these cities and towns.
- The melt from Greenland and Antarctic has the capacity to flood many coastal cities and towns. Not today or tomorrow, but within our children’s lifetimes.
- Every single climate scientist alive sees Climate Change as a major threat to humanity, except for those who are paid to say it isn’t a problem.
- Major oil companies have known about the possibility of Climate Change for decades and have been running disinformation campaigns to maintain the status quo. The mainstream media (and think tanks including the Fraser Institute) participated in this deception by not disclosing that many “experts” they presented or quoted were paid by oil companies to spread disinformation.
- Air pollution is a major cause of cancer.
- Fighting climate change means doing things like switching to green energy, wasting less, polluting less, planting trees, etc. All awesome things that would benefit the planet and every living thing on it. We should be doing these things even if there was no climate change!
Those are the facts. Now let’s do a quick analysis, examining if CC is a threat or not, and if humans take action, or not, what would the results be:
Do we really want to run the risk of Climate Change being a big deal (it is) and not take action? Anyone with even the slightest understanding of risk management knows we must take action. Everyone else is either an evil greedy liar, or they do not understand risk management.
References
All of the above is common knowledge. Google or Reddit for references. Follow the top stories (I prefer for the past week) at https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/
Related:
Oceans warming faster than expected and here
New England Journal: 250,000 deaths annually due to rising temperatures
Greenland melt releasing methane
Antarctic ice melts to record low
Miami already has a $3 billion dollar climate change problem
Thousands of animals die in unprecedented Australian heatwave
Melt rate of North American glaciers accelerating
12.5 billion tons of Greenland ice melts in one day (Aug. 1, 2019)
Top UK thinktank spend decades undermining climate science
Fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights
11,000 scientist warn climate change will release “untold suffering”
“Don’t be an optimist. Optimism never accomplished anything and it’s just an excuse to be lazy.”