Five Fundamental Facts About Climate Change Too Rarely Discussed
How Many Do You Know?
Reporting on climate change is growing daily. The Washington Post just announced the addition of more than 20 new positions for coverage of climate and extreme weather, and NBC renamed its weather group the climate unit. The media tell us in graphic detail about the disastrous consequences of hurricanes, coastal storms, and extreme temperatures, often including what is known about the contribution of climate change. They offered daily reporting from the international climate meetings last December in Glasgow, Scotland, and regularly report key statistics such as whether temperature records were broken. All these subjects are newsworthy and contribute to our understanding of climate change. Yet there are some fundamental facts that only rarely form the basis for a news story, but which are critical to understanding (1) why climate change is such an existential threat and (2) why there are a limited set of actions remaining to avoid disaster. Five of those fundamental facts:
1. Greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere are greater than at any time in the past several million years, when the earth’s climate was dramatically different. The last time the atmospheric CO2 amounts were above the current level, 420 parts per million, was more than 3 million years ago…
