The Simple Truth About Climate Change

I'm tired of people saying that climate change isn't real, or isn't caused by human actions, or is too sciencey for their non-sciencey brains to understand. The truth is that the climate is changing, it's our fault, and the people who say otherwise don't want to admit that their actions are fucking up the only planet we have. It's really not complicated.

Granted, I am a scientist. I have a B.S. in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from one of the top ten public universities in the country and a Masters in Zoology. But you don't need that to understand climate change. Below, you'll see some of the anti-climate change arguments I've heard, and why they're incorrect.

For starters, "I'm not a scientist" is a total cop out. A scientist is someone who knows science. Science is facts supported by observations. Who wouldn't want to be someone who knows things based on their own observations?

"There's no evidence that the climate is changing." Scientists have been tracking the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since 1958 in what's called the Keeling Curve. The Keeling Curve shows that CO2 levels have gone up every single year since they started tracking it. Why is that important? Because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which means that it traps heat from the sun in our atmosphere instead of letting it bounce back out into space (like a greenhouse). In other words, CO2 levels going up mean Earth is getting warmer.

"But the climate changes every day." No, it doesn't. The weather changes every day. The climate is the overall pattern of weather over time.

"But it's freezing right now!" This is why scientists have generally stopped referring to what is happening as global warming and started calling it climate change instead. Even though, around the world, the last 15 years have been 15 of the 16 warmest years on record (the 16th year was 1998).

"But there's no evidence that it's our fault." Again, there actually is. Scientists have been able to look at ice from Antarctica that is 800,000 years old and get an idea of climate changes over that time (How amazing is that?). What they found is that we're overdue for an ice age. Except, when the Industrial Revolution started, people started burning a lot of coal, which started releasing a lot of CO2, which started trapping more heat in the atmosphere. 

So there you have it. Observations showing that the climate is changing in ways that are being caused by people. But all hope is not lost! Stay tuned for things we can do about it.