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Climate change: It’s a fact

New video debunks five myths about the climate crisis

By GRID-Arendal

September 30^th, 2020

GRID-Arendal has researched five arguments commonly used by people who deny the reality of climate change. The following video – “Climate change: It’s a fact” – presents this research and debunks these arguments in a simple-to-understand way. (Du kan også se videoen på norsk.)

Scientists have amassed overwhelming evidence that climate change is human-driven and has serious, negative effects on the environment and society globally. Still, misinformation that seeks to distort or downplay the truth about the climate crisis continues to spread via media outlets, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other platforms.

A number of reputable websites debunk climate change myths and misunderstandings, including Skeptical Science and Climate Nexus. Here we join this effort by presenting the evidence to bust the five climate change myths featured in the video “Climate change: It’s a fact”.

Myth #1: The weather is cold, so climate change isn’t real

False.

Weather and climate are not the same thing. As the scientists at the Skeptical Science website explain:

“A local cold day has nothing to do with the long-term trend of increasing global temperatures.”

In fact, some scientific research suggests that climate change could be contributing to worse winter storms.

New York Times climate reporter Kendra Pierre-Louis offers a good analogy to explain the difference between weather and climate:

“Weather is how much money you have in your pocket today, whereas climate is your net worth. A billionaire who has forgotten his wallet one day is not poor, anymore than a poor person who lands a windfall of several hundred dollars is suddenly rich. What matters is what happens over the long term.”

Long-term data show a very clear shift towards hotter average global temperatures. The following “Climate Stripes” graphic, by climate scientist Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading in the U.K., depicts how the global average temperature has warmed since 1850. Each year from 1850 to 2019 is represented by a stripe, starting from the left. Blue stripes represent years that are cooler than the average during the reference period of 1971–2000, while red stripes represent years that are warmer. The trend is obvious.

"Climate Stripes", by Ed Hawkins.

Further reading:

“Why is the cold weather so extreme if the Earth is warming?”, The New York Times
“Why cold weather doesn’t mean climate change is fake”, National Geographic
“Does cold weather disprove global warming?”, Skeptical Science

Myth #2: The climate is always changing, so climate change isn’t something to worry about

False.

The planet’s climate has changed over millennia, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of current warming, as climate scientist Stephanie Herring of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explained in an interview with National Public Radio:

“The current change that we're experiencing now is particularly alarming, and that is because in the history of human civilization, the climate has never changed this rapidly. And that's really what concerns scientists. It's not the fact that there is change, but it's the speed of that change.”

Indeed, a pair of studies published in 2019 found that the current global warming is unlike any seen on Earth in the past 2,000 years. Scott St. George of the University of Minnesota explained this in a commentary about the two studies, published in the journal Nature:

“The familiar maxim that the climate is always changing is certainly true. But even when we push our perspective back to the earliest days of the Roman Empire, we cannot discern any event that is remotely equivalent — either in degree or extent — to the warming over the past few decades. Today’s climate stands apart in its torrid global synchrony.”

What we’re experiencing now is a new and different kind of warming, caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels. The more the climate changes, the more difficult it will be for societies to adapt and thrive. As Herring put it, “our entire society is built around the climate that we know and that we've experienced.” So dramatic changes to Earth’s climate threaten civilization as we know it.

Further reading:

“Current warming is unparalleled in the past 2,000 years”, E&E News/Scientific American

Pieces of melting glacier ice on Svalbard, above the Arctic Circle. Photo: Peter Prokosch, GRID-Arendal.

Myth #3: There is no scientific consensus about climate change

False.

NASA explains that there is in fact a robust consensus among climate scientists:

“Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.”

In 2016, the authors of seven independent studies on this consensus collaborated to publish a joint “consensus on consensus” study, in which they declared, “the finding of 97% consensus in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.” Moreover, a separate study found that published scientific papers that did not accord with the consensus contained notable errors.

Major scientific organizations across the world also agree: human activities are the cause of climate change.

Imagine you were sick and went to 100 different doctors for a diagnosis. Ninety-seven of them told you the same thing. Would you believe the 97 who agreed with each other or the three who didn’t?

Further reading:

“Consensus on consensus hits half a million downloads”, Skeptical Science
“Here’s what happens when you try to replicate climate contrarian papers”, The Guardian

Scientists studying permafrost along Canada's Yukon Coast as part of the Nunataryuk project. Photo: Niek Speetjens, Nunataryuk.

Myth #4: A little global warming wouldn’t be so bad

False.

While a temperature increase of a couple of degrees in your local weather doesn’t make much of a difference, a two-degree rise on a global scale is a hugely threatening situation.

The average global temperature has risen about 1.1°C since pre-industrial times, and even with that amount of warming, negative impacts are being felt around the world. The global community committed under the Paris climate agreement of 2015 to try to keep the increase well below 2°C and ideally under 1.5°C because scientists have warned of dire consequences if the world warms above that level.

There's an enormous difference in the expected outcomes at 1.5°C of global warming versus at 2°C. A major scientific report released in 2018 by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that a rise from 1.5°C to 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures would put tens of millions more people at risk of life-threatening heat waves, floods, and water shortages. It would be expected to lead to far worse hurricanes and wildfires. It could mean critical losses of coral reefs and the end of Arctic summer sea ice. As the BBC explained when the IPCC report was released:

“A half a degree doesn't sound like much but whether it is coral reefs, crops, floods or the survival of species, everyone and everything is far better off in a world that keeps below 1.5C.”

Unfortunately, the world is on track to warm by more than 3°C even if countries keep the climate-action commitments they made under the Paris Agreement, the UN warned in a report in 2019.

But that is not a foregone conclusion. We as a global community still have the opportunity to change that trajectory and forge a brighter future.

Further reading:

“Why half a degree of global warming is a big deal”, The New York Times
“UN emissions report: World on course for more than 3 degree spike, even if climate commitments are met”, UN News

Ice loss off the coast of Greenland. Photo: Peter Prokosch, GRID-Arendal.

Myth #5: It’s too late to do anything about climate change

False.

It is most definitely not too late to act. By taking serious steps now, we can stop many millions of people from being pushed into poverty or killed by climate change, and prevent massive damage to the natural world we all depend on.

Climate change is already happening, and will continue to happen, but our actions will determine how bad it gets. If we take fast and dramatic global action, we have a chance of preventing some of the worst effects. If we do less to fight climate change, we’ll experience more of the bad impacts.

As the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) puts it,

“Every fraction of additional warming beyond 1.5°C will result in increasingly severe and expensive impacts.”

So every fraction of additional warming that we can prevent will make a huge difference.

As climate reporter Brad Plumer put it,

“Climate change isn't an issue with a single point of ‘success’ or a single point of ‘failure.’

What we're facing are (literally) degrees of change. The world will get hotter as we load more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And the higher the temperatures, the greater the risks for human civilization. A 2°C rise in global average temperatures would be disruptive. A 4°C rise would be much more disruptive. And 6°C rise would be far, far more drastic still.

At no point here does it make sense to say that we've ‘failed’ once and for all, or that it's … ‘game over.’ Things can always get worse. And it's still very unclear where we'll end up on that spectrum.”

As we act to slow climate change, we also need to be adapting and preparing societies around the world to cope with the warming that is already happening and will continue to happen to some extent no matter what.

Fortunately, climate solutions abound, and many of them will have the positive side effect of making the world a better place to live.

UNEP is promoting nature-based solutions, such as replanting forests, restoring peatlands, and protecting mangroves. Research suggests that nature-based solutions could achieve 30 percent of the cost-effective action needed by 2030 to keep warming below 2°C.

The nonprofit organization Project Drawdown has developed a science-based list of the most realistic and effective climate solutions, which if implemented together could get us on the right track. It features more than 80 approaches, from electric trains to plant-rich diets to health and education for girls to forest tenure for indigenous people.

As Jonathan Foley, climate scientist and executive director of Project Drawdown, recently explained:

“With solutions that exist now — not ones that are in the lab, not ones that are just science fiction or wishful thinking, but with solutions that actually exist today — we can stabilize our climate at 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees C. It wouldn’t be easy. It requires a lot of political will, a lot of leadership, and a lot of mobilization. But it’s all stuff that exists right now. That’s pretty amazing.”

Increasingly, people and organizations around the world are embracing and implementing solutions, including farmers, small business owners, city leaders, major corporations, and national governments. Will you join the most important movement of our times?

Further reading:

“These are the 76 climate solutions we need to scale up right now to have a chance”, Fast Company
“Nature ‘one of most effective ways’ of combatting climate change”, UN News
“Climate disruption is now locked in. The next moves will be crucial”, The New York Times

A mangrove plantation in Bali. Restoring mangroves is a powerful climate solution. Photo: Lawrence Hislop, GRID-Arendal.

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GRID-Arendal works with UNEP and other partners to communicate information about climate change, advance climate research, spur climate action in the private sector, and implement on-the-ground climate solutions such as mangrove conservation.

Lead image: The Cave Fire in Southern California in November 2019. Photo: Glenn Beltz, CC BY 2.0.

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