Despite the noise about uncertainty in the political arena, warming will actually save
lives not endanger them.
Do I believe scientists?
No!
The fundamentals of climate change have been understood by scientists for decades.
To start with, there are naturally occurring gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane
in the Earth's atmosphere.
In themselves, they aren't bad, in fact, we need them in limited quantities to keep
our atmosphere at just the right temperature for life as we know it to exist on Earth.
But, if we produce an excess of these gases as we have, the temperature rises as it has.
If you want, you can replicate this effect yourself in a simple lab experiment.
Here's how.
Take two identical bottles and set them side by side.
Put a thermometer in each bottle and seal them.
Then run a hose from a source of CO2 into one of the bottles.
Shine two heat lamps of equal intensity at equal distance onto each one.
Within minutes, you will see the temperature of the bottle with the carbon dioxide in it
rising faster and higher.
The bottles are like our atmosphere.
The lamps are like our sun.
Most of the solar radiation reaching the Earth is absorbed by the surface and atmosphere,
which in turn radiates energy out towards space as infrared energy, heat.
Most of the heat energy from the surface is then absorbed by the greenhouse gases in
the atmosphere and radiated back down toward the surface.
The more greenhouse gases we create, the more heat is absorbed and sent back toward the
surface to cause further warming.
This recycled heat does more than bump up the thermometer.
Warm air has the capacity to hold more moisture, and water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas.
So there's even more warming, which means the planet's entire hydrological cycle, the
water cycle, is affected.
More evaporation, more precipitation, more extremes in general.
For nearly a million years, the CO2 content of the atmosphere moved within a natural bandwidth.
But during the Industrial Revolution, humans started burning fossil fuels in increasingly
large amounts.
In fact, now, we, that's around 7 billion of us, rely on carbon-based fuels for 85 percent
of our energy.
Humans currently produce around 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year.
About 55 percent of that is absorbed by the ocean, land, and vegetation, while the rest
remains in the atmosphere.
Most of that excess comes from burning fossil fuels, and more than half of the emissions
come from power plants and factories, while about a third comes from our various forms
of transportation.
If we continue the current trajectory, by the time our children reach middle age, the levels
of atmospheric CO2 will reach twice that of our planet's long-time natural levels.
That is why we're already seeing the temperature increase, and we're already seeing the consequences.
More percent more moisture in the atmosphere above the ocean is enough to transition to
a new normal.
Dramatic weather events, floods, storms, droughts, fires, they're all happening at a frequency
and intensity we've never experienced throughout human history.
In other words, climate change.
We've set this chain in motion, but the truly cataclysmic changes can be prevented if we
act now.
Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas.
It is a harmless gas.
The first step is to separate fact from fiction.
This climate science is no longer a matter of opinion, politics, or dogma.
So let's not let a few dirty energy companies fool us or slow us down.
There are now increasing numbers of affordable, clean tech energy sources, all available to
us in limitless supply.
By embracing them, we will create jobs and improve the economy.
The current climate crisis is reality.
We can't wish it away.
What we can do is cease the debate and the denial and move on to solutions, together.
