An Overview of the Popular Misconceptions of Climate Skeptics

Many climate activists are extremely pessimistic about the impacts of climate change. On the other end, most climate skeptics believe that climate change is not a serious problem. These beliefs are based on several entrenched misconceptions. Here, we will review the common misconceptions of climate skeptics.

Before moving ahead, it is important to clarify the use of the term “serious problem”. For this article, a serious problem is one that can have a major impact on the well-being of the global society. Currently, billions lack access to safe water and clean cooking fuels. There is low trust in governments. Global debts are surging. These are all examples of serious problems by my definition.

Four key misconceptions of skeptics about human caused climate change are discussed in this article. Please note that “human caused climate change” is referred to as “climate change” for brevity hereafter.

Misconception #1: Climate science is not settled. So, there is no need to worry about it.

Skeptics believe that climate change cannot be viewed as a serious problem because there are many uncertainties associated with climate science. As discussed below, this is a flawed argument.

Our climate is a very complex system. It consists of five components: atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and land surface. These components interact with each other in a convoluted manner. Uncertainties in climate science are expected because of the unusual complexity. The uncertainties will never be eliminated. But scientific efforts can decrease them by improving our understanding about the climate system.

Tens of thousands of scientists have studied the climate system to better understand it. Climate science has been one of the most intensive areas of research in recent decades. Scientists have had access to an array of weather and climate monitoring tools for several decades. These tools have been used to collect a vast amount of data. The data has provided valuable information about the past and the present climate. This information has been used to develop and validate scientific theories. Decades of such efforts have improved the understanding of climate change.

Because of these efforts, there is high certainty about several aspects of climate change and its impacts. We will review below some of the key aspects of our climate that are understood with high confidence and have global relevance. The information is from the latest report by the United Nations body on climate change (IPCC).

· The increases in CO2 and methane concentrations since 1750 are much higher than any natural changes over at least the past eight hundred thousand years.

· Human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land. The global temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any fifty-year period over at least the last two thousand years.

· Extreme events such as heat waves have become more frequent and intense across most land regions since the 1950s. Humans are responsible for these events.

· Humans are contributing to the global retreat of glaciers, decrease in artic sea ice and Greenland ice sheets.

· The global mean sea level has risen faster since 1900 than over any prior century in at least the last three thousand years. Humans are responsible for the rise.

· Humans are responsible for the acidification of oceans.

· The changes are negatively impacting our terrestrial and ocean ecosystems. This is critical because we are strongly connected to our ecosystems.

· Over three billion people live in regions that are highly exposed to climate change. A high proportion of other species are also exposed to climate change.

· Greenhouse gas emissions cause several changes that are not reversed over hundreds or even thousands of years. Examples of such changes include those in the oceans, ice sheets and sea levels.

· The impact associated with climate change is expected to increase significantly with every increment increase in global warming.

The scientific community has high confidence in the aspects discussed above because a large amount of quality data was available. However, such data is not yet available for all the climate impacts. Because of the lack of adequate data, several of the climate impacts are currently understood at low or moderate confidence levels. As more data becomes available, more of these impacts will be understood with high confidence.

One notable fact is key to this discussion. The impacts that are known with high confidence are adequate to show that climate change is a serious problem. Some aspects of climate science will never be completely understood. This is because of the ultra-complex nature of the topic.

But several aspects of the climate are well understood, i.e., scientists have a high confidence in these. Basic physics, the extensive data sets, error analysis, and climate models are all consistent with the conclusion that human activities are the cause. The established knowledge is adequate to show that climate change is a serious problem. It is misleading to use the excuse that climate science is not settled to delay efforts to mitigate climate change.

Misconception #2: There is no consensus about climate change.

Skeptics believe that there is no consensus amongst the global scientists. As discussed below, this belief is not justified.

What is consensus? In practical terms, it is a broad agreement or an agreement between a large majority. So, scientific consensus means that a large majority of the scientists agree.

We will first consider the view amongst climate scientists. The goal of climate scientists is to understand critical issues about climate science. Climate scientists publish their research findings in scientific journals. We can understand their views through their research papers.

Studies have looked at thousands of relevant research papers to understand the views amongst the climate scientists. Relevant research papers are those that discuss what has caused the climate to change. These studies found that only a small fraction of the papers was skeptical about climate change. Their analyses have revealed a broad agreement about climate change amongst climate scientists. Such analyses have a high level of transparency. Any person can redo these analyses using a free resource such as Google Scholar.

What about consensus in the rest of the scientific community? The scientific community consists of several millionscientists who are located across the globe. Most scientists belong to one or more scientific organizations. We can understand their views via the statements of the organizations they belong to. The scientific organizations around the globe openly support that climate change is a serious problem. This includes virtually every national academy and major scientific organization.

Such open and strong support from the organizations is possible because there is general agreement amongst its members about climate change. The support or consensus amongst the general scientific community is not surprising. It is a logical response. It acknowledges the efforts of climate scientists over the past several decades. The climate scientists have documented their efforts in tens of thousands of scientific papers. These papers have provided firm evidence of climate change. It would be illogical and unethical for scientists from other fields to ignore these findings.

Some skeptics use the past claims by certain scientists to challenge the conclusions about climate change. Certain scientists have made wild predictions that were completely wrong. For example, the famous physicist John Holdren proposed in the 1980s that the famines caused by climate change could kill a billion people by 2020.

It is not logical to use such predictions to challenge climate science. The wild predictions were based on speculations. They were subjective and not supported by scientific facts. The global scientific community did not support such predictions. The situation is distinctly different for climate change. The main conclusions about climate change are based on scientific principles and a gigantic number of observations. That is why the global scientists accept these conclusions.

Let us consider an illustrative example. Extensive research has shown that obesity can lead to major diseases. Medical science and observations support this conclusion. Therefore, the medical community all over the world accepts the conclusion. Wild claims in the past, present, or future cannot challenge the validity of the strong connection between obesity and long-term health.

Climate science is a very complex field. So, we expect that a few scientists will have different views about climate change. But there is no smoking gun argument presented by this minority. Specifically, the minority has not provided the needed evidence to counter the collective conclusions which are based on the work of a large majority of the climate experts. There is no reason to believe the minority and reject the large majority.

Consider the case where a person with brain tumor consults with ten cancer specialists. Nine of these believe that an immediate surgery would provide the best outcome. One specialist believes that chemotherapy alone would provide the best outcome. Statistically, this decision is straight forward. It would make most sense to proceed with an immediate surgery. There is a possibility that the one specialist is right. But that possibility is statistically much lower. Common sense would be to proceed with the alternative that is statistically far more probable. This logic extends to any serious problem.

Climate scientists agree that climate change is a serious problem. This conclusion from the super majority is statistically far more likely to be correct. It is common sense to accept the collective recommendation about climate change from the super majority of climate experts.

An important note: The consensus amongst the global scientists is that climate change is a serious problem. The consensus does not extend to the end-of-the-world views presented by many climate activists.

Misconception #3: Climate has always been changing. It is no different this time.

Indeed, the climate has been changing since the beginning of time. But there are two major differences between the past and the current change in climates.

· First, humans are driving the current change in climate. So, we can mitigate its impact. In contrast, the past changes were driven by natural causes.

· Second, the nature of the recent change is unusual compared to the past. For example, the speed of the recent warming is markedly faster.

The speed of past and present changes in temperature has been very different. Earth’s temperature has swung between cool periods and relatively warm periods many times over the past two million years. During the shift from the last cool period to the current warm period, the temperature increased by 5oC over 5000 years. For comparison, earth’s temperature has warmed by 1.1oC over just the last 150 years. Robust data is available which shows that the speed of global warming in the last 50 years has been more than any other 50-year period in the last 2000 years. Let us look at two more examples which show the unusual speed of the impact.

· Recent acidification of the oceans is far faster than during the past several million years. Sea levels have also been rising faster. The rise in sea levels since the year 1900 has been faster than any other century in the past 3000 years.

· Frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heat waves have been increasing at a fast pace in the recent decades. For example, the frequency of heat waves per year in the United States has increased by a factor of three since the 1960s. Heat waves are of concern because of their impact on health, agriculture, and energy production.

Slower rates of change, like in the past, allowed for a long time for the species to adapt to the changing climate. The enormously faster speed of the recent change is a significant concern.

Climate experts agree that the impact of climate change is going to worsen significantly with time. This is consistent with the trends observed over the past decades and the output from climate models. The more we wait, the worse will be the impact. So, urgent action is necessary.

The term urgent action can have a different meaning for different people. I will take a moment to share my definition. Urgent action is not a rapid embrace of inefficient solutions. Instead, urgent action involves a well thought out approach that will enable the fastest possible transition.

Misconception #4: We can manage the impacts of climate change. So, there is no need to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

Skeptics use two principal arguments to support this belief.

The first argument uses the decrease in deaths from climate disasters as evidence to suggest that we can manage the impacts. The global deaths related to climate disasters have decreased markedly over the last decades. The deaths have fallen by a factor of three from the decade of 1970s to the 2010s. During this time, the average global temperature has increased by 0.9oC. The deaths have decreased despite the fourfold increase in the number of climate disasters over that period. But the deaths have mainly fallen because of an increase in the use of early warning systems. The warnings have enabled evacuations in a timely manner and have prevented many deaths. But the number of deaths is not the only measure of the impact of the climate disasters. The number of people affected, and the economic losses have increased over the decades. The climate disasters have caused significant disruptions in many lives and significant economic losses. For example, the climate disasters affected 1.7 billion people and caused damage of $1.4 trillion over the last decade.

Climate experts agree that the frequency and intensity of climate disasters will increase markedly with an increase in warming. This will further increase the number of people impacted, and economic damages. The impact of climate disasters is already substantial and is expected to worsen markedly with time. Higher the temperature rise, higher will be the impact on lives and our ecosystem. It is misleading to argue that the decrease in deaths from climate disasters is evidence of our ability to manage the long-term impacts of climate change.

The second argument uses climate adaptation as an excuse. Climate adaptation involves the anticipation of the adverse effects of climate change and taking action to minimize damage. Climate adaptation is a crucial part of the solution. It can drastically decrease the life, property, and livelihood loss caused by climate change. But it is not a standalone solution for addressing climate change. There is scientific consensus that the impacts of climate change will increase rapidly if we do not take efforts to mitigate it. If we only focus on adaptation, we will always play catch up. The more we delay our efforts to mitigate climate change, the more we will have to adapt. This will greatly increase the technical and financial challenges for a good outcome.

The impacts of climate change are varied and affect every aspect of our ecosystems. Also, the risk of very high impact, low probability events increase with increasing warming. Climate adaptation by itself will fall short because of technical and financial limitations. This will cause a severe impact on the global society and every aspect of our ecosystem. A robust path forward must include urgent efforts to mitigate climate change along with adaptation.

Final Remarks

The global temperature has increased by over 1.1oC since the industrial revolution. The greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have caused this distinct rise in temperature. The atmospheric content of greenhouse gases has increased markedly. The increase has been directly linked to human activities such as the use of fossil fuels. The impact of natural causes has been separated from human causes. Basic physics, the extensive data sets, error analysis, and climate models are all consistent with the conclusion that human activities are the cause.

Climate change is having a substantial impact around the globe. Several impacts are understood with high confidence. Glaciers, sea ice and ice sheets are decreasing and sea levels are rising. Plants are growing faster. Oceans are being acidified. Severe events such as hot extremes are increasing. Cold extremes are decreasing. Overall, climate change is having a significant negative impact on the global ecosystem.

The trends in the data, the improved understanding of climate science and the climate models have clarified the future impacts. The impact is expected to become more and more severe as the temperature rises. Climate change will affect a large fraction of the global population over the next decades. It will have a significant impact on life, property and the ecosystems. The level of impact will depend on the rise in temperature. A higher rise in temperature will also increase the potential for low probability but very high impact events.

The implications are clear. Climate change needs our urgent attention. Strategies to moderate the impacts via climate adaptation alone will not be enough. The more we delay the efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the more we will have to adapt. Unwarranted delays will markedly increase the challenges for a good outcome. Both adaptation and a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will be necessary to lower the short and long-term impact from climate change.

One important note about policies that target climate mitigation. Policies that encourage inefficient solutions will cause major delays. So, it is crucial that the policies are consistent with the science and practical aspects of both climate and energy.

Note: This is a modified excerpt from my book “The Climate Misinformation Crisis: How to move past the mistruths to a smarter energy future. “