7 Misconceptions about Climate Change
There are a lot of Facebook videos, discussions around the water cooler, and blabbering on cable news about climate change. Shockingly, everything on the internet might not be true.
Today I am here to set the record straight. Be the truth on the internet and halt all confusion!
Actually, I'm just going to list 7 things I hear, and do a quick paragraph on why that is wrong-o.
It was global warming, then that failed, so now its climate change.
Yes. We know it is a bad look when science does a rebranding effort. Never goes well.
It's like that one time that Kraft Foods tried to change their logo?
It went horribly.
Same for science re-branding. But the truth is, the climate is getting warmer. But it's not getting hotter everywhere, everyday, all at once. So to lessen the confusion, global warming became climate change. So instead of it being -20 degrees in Canada and saying "well looks like we solved global warming", you now have to freeze and come up with a different joke.
2. Doesn't the climate always change?
It always has changed and it always will change. What makes climate change stand out is the unprecedented pace of change.
The rate of temperature rise is 10 times faster than that of the last mass extinction about 56 million years ago. That mass extinction was also climate related. Cue spooky music.
3. What about the other side? Scientists don't all agree that climate change is real. And many who believe it don't know if humans are causing it.
Scientists DO agree that climate change is happening and that it is caused by human activity. To quote Kiefer Sutherland in 1992, "and any attempt to prove otherwise is futile because it just ain't true."
You get my point.
4. Humans only emit a small amount of the gases released each year.
True, true, true. But also before us, the emissions were in balance. The amount emitted was equal to the amount that could be captured. Think of it like money, if you are living at exactly your means, and then you can't use your old roommate's Netflix password anymore? Boom now you have to choose, debt or moving back in with that person.
We are choosing debt.
5. Climate scientists are in it for the money. There is a lot of money in getting government research dollars.
There is millions of dollars in research done every year. But that doesn't mean it's a lucrative business model. There is energy and politics behind the science because money is needed to run experiments to try and understand what will happen in the future of climate.
But scientists are not involved in a big green ponzi scheme.
6. We are heading into an ice age.
Yeah, we are. If we don't burn the whole house down first. I will write ice age posts 9,500 years from now to get your ready for that too. Tell your friends to subscribe to the newsletter before then.
7. Climate change won't affect me.
Sure, it’ll hurt the polar bears, maybe the coral reefs die, and maybe the people who live in swamp cities. But the world has warmed by over 1 degree since 1900 and look at me, I'm doing just fine. What’s the big deal?
Climate change touches everything. It will impact our health, our economy, our coasts, and our infrastructure. It makes heat waves hotter, wet seasons wetter, hurricanes more hurricanyer, and it nearly doubles the area burned by wildfires.
