Original image source: Ripple, et al., 2022
What Role Do Humans Play in Climate Change?
Everyone says "look to the science" and I do too! Let's examine a bit of "science" first.
71% of the Earth is covered in water! That leaves just 29% to be occupied by humans (Williams, 2014). According to Science Daily, 95% of the world population lives on 10% of the land (JRC, 2008). So roughly 2.9% of the Earth's surface has people on it. Many preaching climate change are saying this 2.9% is affecting the worldwide climate.
NASA, one of the proponents of modern climate change being that humans are the principle cause of this round of change. However, in the same article they state that in the last 800,000 years there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods. The last ice age ended about 11,700 years ago. Climate change is NATURAL!
A fact we shall not overlook, also according to NASA (2022), in all of the history of the planet, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere has never been as high as it is today, and that is causing what they call a "greenhouse effect." Where they say in the last 800,000 years the CO2 level has never reached over 300 parts per million (PPM), in 1950 it was about 310 PPM and today it is nearly 420 PPM.
Now, just looking at these facts, if the CO2 levels are causing global warming, and these numbers have more than doubled since the last ice age, and it has spiked dramatically since 1950 - one would think we would be seeing a much more drastic change, RIGHT NOW in global warming and climate change. See the graphic below, every time the CO2 PPM hit a peak, it is followed, rather quickly, by a cooling off period - another ice age.
In fact, in the 1970's the media was all a-buzz about an impending ice age! (Washingto Policy Center (WPC), 2009). The WPC cites several headlines from 1969-1976:
“The Earth’s Cooling Climate,” Science News, November 15, 1969.• “Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age,” Washington Post, January 11, 1970.• “Science: Another Ice Age?” Time Magazine, June 24, 1974.• “The Ice Age Cometh!” Science News, March 1, 1975.• “The Cooling World,” Newsweek, April 28, 1975.• “Scientists Ask Why World Climate is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead,” New York Times, May 21, 1975.• “In the Grip of a New Ice Age?” International Wildlife July-August, 1975.• “A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable,” New York Times, September 14, 1975.• “Variations in the Earth’s Orbit, Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” Science magazine, December 10, 1976.
Granted, most of these are not "science" sources, but they were (and are) widely read and accepted media sources who assumably did their homework before reporting this "news." Today, these same outlets are preaching global warming!
I am not real sure (yet) how they are getting CO2 data prior to the 1950s, when CO2 levels started to be tracked, but take a look at the data from Climate Watch (Freidrich et al., 2014). While the United States is higher than several other countries, the U.S. output is about 50% of China's output and even less than the "others" in this graphic (not real sure who the "others" constitute).
So, from the perspective of this writer, unless the CO2 PPM continues to rise - I am more supportive of what they were saying in the '70s! We are due for a dramatic DROP in CO2 which will be followed by another ice age!
I would appreciate you sharing your thoughts and research.
References
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC). (2008). Urbanization: 95% Of The World's Population Lives On 10% Of The Land. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 11, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217192745.htm
NASA, (2022). How do we know climate change is real? Global Climate Change. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Ripple, W.J., Wolf, C. Gregg, J.W.,Levin, K., Rockstrom, J., Newsome, T.M, Betts, M.G., Huq, S., Law, B.E., Kemp, L., Kalmus, P. & Lenton, T.M. (2022). World scientists waring of a climate emergency 2022. BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac083
Washington Policy Center, (2009). Today it's global warming; In the '70s it was the coming ice age. https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/today-its-global-warming-in-the-70s-it-was-the-coming-ice-age
Williams, M. (2014). What percent of the Earth is water? Universe Today. https://phys.org/news/2014-12-percent-earth.html
Friedrich, J. & Damassa, T. (2014). The history of carbon dioxide emissions. World Resources Institute. https://www.wri.org/insights/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions
