Is the Globe warming up – Yes it appears to be warming up.
Does the Globe have a history of heating and cooling periods – Yes
Does Human activity heat up the Globe – Yes due to carbon burning and animal herds.
- There have been long periods of sustained heat and cold (e.g. ice age) in the history of the planet. But i don’t think we are in one now (from an historic perspective).
- This one is different as per the sentence in yellow below (from climate.gov). Unlike in the past, the current change (as you know) is caused by humans – not “natural” events. Now – due to 7 billion people driving cars and otherwise causing dangerous heat-trapping gases to permanently raise earth’s temperature and to negatively affect weather (more tornados, hurricanes, flooding etc. The other planet that suffers from this problem of trapped CO2 in the atmosphere. – Venus! Venus temps can exceed 900 degrees on the surface (hotter than Mercury) because there is nowhere for the heat to go. We are heading down that path – not naturally – but because WE are causing it.
- On the Union of Concerned Scientists website (ucsusa.org) – they offer a solution (we have heard it before, but we humans fail to act).
- Fight disinformation….Cut emissions/seriously cut back on fossil fuels…b) build resistance/enact goals and safeguards…remove CO2 at a higher rate than we contribute to it…. seriously ACT locally and globally (turn back the trends you see in the 2 graphs above
- SUMMARY – our current climate change challenge is fundamentally different than previous challenges – this one is CAUSED by humans and can be FIXED (to a great degree) by humans with smart sustained planning, budgeting and action. In other words, you can pay me now OR you can pay me later.
From climate.gov:
“…The more we overshoot what natural processes can remove in a given year, the faster the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide rises. In the 1960s, the global growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide was roughly 0.8± 0.1 ppm per year. Over the next half century, the annual growth rate tripled, reaching 2.4 ppm per year during the 2010s. The annual rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age 11,000-17,000 years ago.
I thank Jim McDonagh for his Research!