Global Temperatures, from NOAA

In 2012, after years of lazy skepticism, I decided to examine the actual science of climate change and global warming. I abruptly became convinced that (1) the Earth is steadily warming, and (2) humanity plays a major role in this.

Note that I was never a “denier” of Climate Change or Global Warming. I’m almost never an immediate adopter or denier of any point of view; that’s just not my way. Over the years, my position on this subject morphed from “that sounds far-fetched” to “I don’t have enough information”, and then — for several years — “It’s likely, but I’m still not entirely convinced”.

Most new media reports regarding global warming and climate change quote lobbyists, activists, or (much worse) politicians. As we know from long experience, these are people known for wantonly manipulating or even fabricating evidence in order to accomplish their goals.

The few news reports that quoted actual scientists or referred to scientific studies always seemed to leave out the pertinent information. They would say how much the climate has changed, and that humankind is thought to be responsible for it, but would never make a concrete connection between man’s actions and the changing of the climate.

Man does X and then Y happens, doesn’t mean Man is responsible for Y — not without more information.

To my credit, I tended to believe that there was something to the whole idea, simply because of the sheer number of prominent and well-regarded scientists swinging in that direction throughout my lifetime. These are people afterall who are actually curious about the way the world works and spend their entire lives trying to figure it out. Most of them have nothing to gain but more knowledge.

On the other hand, I’ve read plenty of history where the majority of great thinkers, educated people, and yes even scientists were wrong about something major. Like whether the Earth revolved around the Sun or vice versa.

To my discredit, though, I wasn’t actively seeking out the information that the media neglected to pass along. Even in this internet age, with the information available — even the actual studies done by these scientists — I wasn’t looking for it with any effort.

However, I’ve always tended to agree with the means suggested by climate change activists, even if I wasn’t convinced of the reason for it, or the end they were trying to achieve.

They want to cut back on coal usage to keep us from warming the planet further. I wanted to cut back on coal usage too, because mining for it is destroying beautiful mountains and burning it puts smoke in the air that I don’t want to breathe. And the same goes for gas-burning cars and trucks, deforestation, and so on.

My Position

• Climate change / global warming is real; the numbers are out there. No one with the information disagrees.

• Though the climate will change over the eons all by itself, the current overall warming trend is at least partially attritubable to humanity’s actions, as are increasing temperature extremes, changes in rainfall and storm patterns, drought severity, and more.

• We have the ability to lessen our impact on the global climate.

I didn’t come to this new conclusion in an instant. But eventually the right information came my way and I began seeking out more facts. I was looking for the connection. What has convinced these scientists that we as a global society are responsible for climate change? When I really began looking, the answers were out there.

I first posted this on my blog in November 2012. I then decided to make it an updatable page on my website instead of a blog entry. Known edits are listed below.

EDITS:

• 2017.07.31: Corrected and added links in the ••• menu.
• 2018.11.13: Updated html and css. Rewrote introductory paragraphs to reflect the passage of time. Added link to this edits section into the ••• menu.
• 2020.10.15: Minor edits for clarification.