Prior to publication of geochemist Wallace Broecker’s paper, “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of Pronounced Global Warming?” in 1975, scientists already knew that use of fossil fuels was causing increased emission of CO2 which was causing a warming of the Earth’s surface temperature and a consequent warming of surface waters, but industrial emissions might cause cooling, and they didn’t know which direction the dominant change might be. Broecker’s paper changed that and it also marked the first public use of the term “global warming”.
It also marked the beginning of pushback and denial from anti-science types and from the fossil fuel industry. Those who deny that human activity causes global warming offer up the lamest excuses, like pointing to snow in winter or the polar vortex effect of 2014 which caused a bitter cold wave to hit most of the northern U.S. hard.
The fossil fuel industry also pushed back, arguing that the warming of the planet was a natural phenomenon that had nothing to do with human activity at first, and then later, casting enough doubt and shifting blame away from their actions and products as much as possible while claiming that they were working to solve the problem.
All the while, they continue to make obscene profits off their products while holding back research on less environmentally damaging sources of energy.
Everything in the foregoing two paragraphs is a lot to unpack but I’ll simplify it from this point by restricting my comments to global warming and climate change. Hopefully, by the time you finish reading you’ll be able to distinguish fact from fiction and science from disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Let’s start by defining our terms. Global warming is defined as a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of CO2, CFCs, and other pollutants. Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Some might be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle, but since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas.
Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the planet, trapping heat and raising temperatures. Global warming, therefore, is one component of climate change. Climate change affects us in a variety of ways. It can negatively impact our health, ability to grow food, or work.
Sea-level rises and saltwater intrusion into agricultural areas have caused whole communities in some island nations or poor countries with extensive coastlines to move. Floods and protracted droughts have put millions at risk of famine, and increased the number of ‘climate refugees’’.
Global warming doesn’t mean the immediate end of winter. A bitterly cold day where you live also doesn’t mean that the planet’s not getting warmer as one American politician once tried to demonstrate by bringing a snowball into Congress.
In January 2019, for example portions of the US Northern Plains and Midwest saw temperatures dropping below minus-40 degrees Fahrenheit with windchills around 60 degrees below zero. Despite this, the average temperature in the U.S. that month was nearly three degrees warmer than normal.
In Australia and Asia, temperatures were seven or more degrees above normal. What will happen if the global temperature continues to rise is that winters will be less harsh overall.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the cold weather is just that, a weather event, and while it might be cold today where you are, somewhere else, someone is suffering from the heat. As the global temperatures rise, there will be more people in the latter than the former category.
Remember, weather is a measurement of conditions for a short period time, while climate is long-term. So, the next time some wag says “it’s cold outside, see that proves there’s no such thing as global warming,” you can ask, “Is it cold everywhere, or just here?” It’s not just where you are ‘warming’, but the whole globe that’s warming.
Global warming can also ‘cause’ cold weather. For example, when the jet stream is weak caused by Arctic and subtropic warming, the polar vortex also weakens causing a spread of cold temperatures, mainly in Europe.
That’s it. What you need to know. Climate change is real and global warming is dangerous, and don’t let anyone tell you different. – NWI
