5 Fool-Proof Arguments to Help You Convince Anyone That Climate Change Is Real
These arguments will help you combat the most difficult misbeliefs about climate change.
At some point in your life, you have likely come across someone who doesn’t believe that climate change is real.
This lack of belief could stem from a variety of things, including a lack of education in critical thinking, a lack of understanding of the peer review process, or even a fear of admitting that it’s real.
The issue with encounters with people who don’t believe that climate change is real is that arguing with them is incredibly difficult. Whether they throw logical fallacies at you or become downright rude when you try to produce your argument, these encounters rarely convince the un-believing party that climate change is real.
It can seem futile to argue with climate deniers when even thousands of scientists have continued to collectively tell the world that it is headed towards a grim future without any tangible result.
Despite how unpleasant these encounters can be, we climate activists need to keep having them so that we can respectfully eradicate unfounded climate-denying anti-science rhetoric.
Below are five different arguments you can use against some of the most common beliefs concerning climate change.
1. “Climate change is natural and has occurred many times throughout history.”
Your argument:
Since the first cyanobacteria began the process of photosynthesis 2.7 billion years ago (approximately 1.9 billion years after Earth first formed) and began producing oxygen that would alter Earth’s atmosphere such that it could support life, Earth has been through numerous phases, including periods of high atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. Mass extinctions caused by high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have occurred before human existence, such as the end-Triassic extinction that occurred approximately 201 million years ago. This major extinction event was characterized by major losses in both marine and terrestrial organisms and set the stage “for dinosaurs to dominate Earth for the next 136 million years”.
However, what Earth is currently experiencing with climate change is different than any warming or cooling periods experienced in the past, both in terms of rate and scale.
Where the end-Triassic extinction is associated with atmospheric fluxes that occurred in four pulses over approximately 600,000 years, our current state of climate change is occurring 20–50 times faster than even the most rapid climate change events throughout Earth’s history. This is demonstrated by the majority of our climate change occurring in the last 150 years, with specific emphasis on the warming caused since the 1970s.
Additional evidence of profoundly rapid climate change in our current history can be compared with estimates of global warming that occurred since the end of the last ice age (approximately c. 115,000-c. 11,700 years ago). Starting 18,000 years ago, Earth warmed 4–5 degrees Celsius over approximately 7,000 years. Comparatively, Earth has warmed 1.8 degrees Celsius in the last 200 years (with most of the warming occurring since the 1970s). This is a rate of warming that is over 10 times faster than the warming seen since the last ice age.
Therefore, while climate change has occurred throughout history, it has occurred at a much slower rate than what is currently happening.
Key points:
- Mass extinctions have occurred in the past due to climate change caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but these changes in atmospheric composition occurred over hundreds of thousands of years.
- The current state of climate change is occurring 20–50 times faster than the most rapid climate change events in Earth’s history.
2. “Scientists don’t even agree that climate change is happening.”
Your argument:
Over two years ago, the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change passed 99%, and as recently as 2021 has been proven to have reached greater than 99%.
For those that are unfamiliar with the peer review process, if you put 500 scientists in a room you would find that they wouldn’t agree on much. However, you would be hard-pressed to find one that doesn’t believe that climate change is happening. All of them would agree that more needs to be done to combat climate change and that something should have been done 40 years ago to prevent us from coming as far as we have in the wrong direction.
To put this consensus into perspective, scientists are more sure that climate change is occurring than they are that smoking causes cancer.
As mentioned previously, thousands of scientists have issued grim warnings about Earth’s future should climate change be allowed to continue as aggressively as it has. In 2019, 11,000 scientists from around the world stated collectively that they have a moral obligation to tell the world about what its future could be if global warming worsens. Back in 2017, 16,000 scientists from 184 countries published a letter warning that humans need to change their ways to avoid worsening climate change. And even further back in 1992, 1,700 independent scientists signed a letter warning that humanity’s future was at risk if environmental damage was not stopped.
In short, scientists have known that climate change is occurring for over a century, and consensus has now occurred thanks to solidifying the fundamental science of global warming and climate change.
Key points:
- Over 99% of scientists agree that climate change is happening.
- Thousands of scientists since 1992 have been fulfilling their moral obligation to tell the world about what its future could look like with continued global warming and climate change.
3. “Climate change won’t affect me so I don’t need to worry about it.”
Your argument:
Who here experienced the heat wave in British Columbia, Canada, in 2021 which happened to be the most extreme since the 1960s? The heat wave resulted in 600 deaths, with 526 deaths in just one week between June 25th and July 1st, sparked wildfires that reached hundreds of square kilometers, and killed over a billion seashore animals on the Pacific shore.
Who here experienced the monsoons in Bangladesh and India that have killed at least 114 people to date and have resulted in the evacuation of over 300,000 people? 4 million people, including 1.6 million children are currently stranded by flash floods. While the monsoon is an annual event, climate change is making it more frequent, intense, and unpredictable.
Who here experienced the forest fires in Australia during the bushfire season of 2019–2020? More than 24 million hectares (59 million acres) of land were burned during this season. Nearly 3 billion animals were affected, and nearly 65,000 people were displaced, with 3,100 homes destroyed. Studies have shown that these fires fit a climate change-driven trend of larger fires and worsening fire weather.
The above three examples are just a fraction of the hazardous events that are occurring in increasing numbers due to worsening climate change.
While people in different regions of the world will be affected differently, with some affected more than others, there are impacts from climate change that will generally affect everyone. Research by the Columbia Climate School in 2019 found ten different risks that will affect most people’s way of life due to increasing climate change, including (but not limited to):
- Damage to homes, particularly from floods and wildfires.
- More expensive home insurance.
- Outdoor work could become difficult due to the increasing frequency of heat waves.
- Higher electrical bills and more blackouts, caused by increased demand for electricity or extreme weather.
- Rising taxes to pay for mitigation and adaptation measures to extreme weather events.
- More allergies and other health risks.
- Increased food costs and decreased food variety.
- Decreased water quality.
- Outdoor exercise and recreational sports will become more difficult.
- Travel disruptions caused by extreme weather.
As discussed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “the impacts of climate change on different sectors of society are interrelated”. Therefore, just because the impacts of climate change are not always immediately evident, such as the destruction that comes from a wildfire, they will make themselves known eventually, such as decreased food production and the spreading of diseases that come with drought and flooding.
Furthermore, socioeconomic inequities can make groups who have the highest exposure to hazards and the fewest resources to respond more vulnerable. While wealthy individuals will be able to escape the worst of climate change by moving to less impacted areas, purchasing increasingly expensive produce, receiving the best medical care, and having access to clean water, those with a lower socioeconomic status will be more impacted and less likely to survive. With those in a lower socioeconomic bracket more likely to be the individuals producing food and providing the manual labor for centers to recover after disasters, their downfall will also impact those of higher socioeconomic statuses.
Therefore, the interrelation between climate change and its impacts on different sectors and classes in society will affect everyone, regardless of whether or not it’s immediately apparent.
Key points:
- Impacts from climate change don’t have to be as direct as experiencing flooding or a wildfire but can be as indirect as experiencing higher food costs and less access to cheap home insurance or taxes.
- While some sectors of society will be able to escape the worst of climate change, they will still be affected by the downfall of other sectors due to their interrelation.
4. “Our individual carbon footprint is negligible compared to countries like China and India so there is no need for me to change how I live.”
Your argument:
According to research conducted by the Rhodium Group in 2021, China emits more greenhouse gases than the entire developed world combined. The report found that China produced 27% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, with the United States in second with 11%, and India in third with 6.6% of emissions.
With these figures, it can be difficult to justify why decreasing our individual carbon footprint makes sense when it seems negligible compared to those of entire countries. However, it is illogical to compare your individual environmental impact to that of an entire country.
A more reasonable way to compare carbon footprints is to look at the average individual carbon footprint for people living in each country. This gives a better idea of where your carbon footprint ranks compared to those of individuals in some of the higher polluting countries.
A 2021 report by the German-based think tank Hot or Cool compared 10 countries selected to represent a range of average income levels. The 10 countries included Canada, Finland, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, India, and Indonesia (the United States and Australia, two of the most polluting countries in the world, were not included in this study). On a per-capita basis, the report found that the average Canadian produces 14.2 tonnes of CO2 each year, compared to 5.0 produced by the average Chinese, and 3.0 produced by the average Indian. Despite China and India being some of the most polluting countries overall, their citizens produce remarkably small carbon footprints.
Larger carbon footprints can be equated to greater incomes and more polluting lifestyles seen in the global north.
Therefore, while our individual carbon footprints are negligible compared to that of an entire country such as China, India, or the United States, our individual carbon footprint is not necessarily smaller than that of the people who live in those countries.
Why should we aim to reduce our individual carbon footprint? Because if every single person worked to reduce their carbon footprint even in one small way, the world would see substantial reductions in the release of greenhouse gases and the usage of non-renewable resources. While there is no universal sustainable lifestyle, there are small changes that each individual can make no matter where they live or their income that can help reduce their footprint. Our individual emissions will continue to be produced and emitted, but it is our decision how much we want to contribute to global warming, the emissions from entire countries notwithstanding.
Note to reader: This is one of the most difficult statements to argue against. While it’s easy to say how you can reduce your carbon footprint, it’s more difficult to say exactly why. To us climate activists, the answer is simple — why wouldn't you want to reduce your emissions? But to those who aren’t as passionate about the future of this planet as we are, it can seem like an easy way to write off the individual contribution to global warming. The logic in the above statement can also be expanded to corporations and the richest 1% who both contribute more than their fair share of emissions. The best way to combat this statement is to reaffirm that each individual has an impact on the planet and that reducing your impact is a small way to play a part in a much bigger worldwide goal.
Key points:
- It is illogical to argue that an individual’s carbon footprint is comparable to an entire country’s, therefore it makes more sense to look at the per capita carbon footprint of individuals living in different countries to determine who has a bigger impact.
- Individual emissions will continue to be produced and emitted, but it is our decision how much we want to contribute to global warming.
5. “How do we even know that humans are the ones causing climate change?”
Your argument:
According to the Fifth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2014, there is a 95–100% probability that human influence was the dominant cause of climate change between 1951 and 2010. This report is based on 9,200 peer-reviewed studies and was approved by the 195 governments that make up the IPCC.
Greenhouse gases, which enter the atmosphere and produce a warming effect on the planet, are emitted by anthropogenic (human) activities such as fossil fuel burning. Increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere caused by increased fossil fuel burning by humans are directly linked with increases in land and sea temperatures. Increases in sea and land temperatures have occurred since the Industrial Revolution and have risen in direct conjunction with increased greenhouse gas emissions.
A statistical climate model developed by Dr. Karsten Haustein and his colleagues at the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds was adapted by Carbon Brief to determine the estimated role of each factor that influences the climate between 1850 and 2017.
The results from this model (as seen in the chart above) show that only increases in greenhouse gas emissions are capable of having produced the magnitude of warming experienced over the last 150 years. Global warming should be about one-third greater than what is currently observed. However, any additional warming is offset by the release of atmospheric aerosol particles that reflect sunlight, are poor absorbers of heat, and increase the formation rate of clouds which also act to reflect sunlight.
To put the aforementioned results into an even clearer perspective, the above chart shows the link between human factors that cause global warming, natural factors that cause global warming, and the actual observed temperatures and modeled influence of all combined factors on global warming. These results find that observed global warming agrees with the warming that occurs due to human activities. Cooling that keeps the observed temperatures slightly below what would be seen if only human activities were present is produced by natural factors (primarily volcanic eruptions that produce atmospheric aerosols, discussed above).
Overall, only anthropogenic activities, particularly greenhouse gas emissions via fossil fuel burning, are capable of producing the global warming and climate change that has been observed in the last 150 years.
Key points:
- The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, based on 9,200 peer-reviewed studies and approved by 195 governments, found a 95–100% probability that human influence is the dominant cause of climate change between 1951 and 2010.
- Only anthropogenic activities are capable of producing the global warming and climate change that has been observed in the last 150 years when compared to all other influencing factors.
Final thoughts
Debating climate change with those who don’t believe it's real is a thankless task.
However, armed with the latest in climate research and backup up by decades of peer-reviewed work, it can be possible to dispel even the most convoluted arguments against climate change. By continuously working to promote the research surrounding climate change, it can be possible to drive global change that may prove beneficial to our future on this planet.
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