The recent debate about global warming has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've heard of in a long while. People are making claims that it's all about political agenda and making money and I just shake my head.
The reason for the research and the money that keeps going toward it is because deniers don't understand it. This is the same reason why the names keep changing. The overall concept is that what we are emitting in to the atmosphere at alarming rates is causing a distortion or an unwanted change in the way our ecosystem naturally evolves over time.
CHANGES IN THE CONCEPT OVER TIME
Originally this was called "Global warming", because one of the biggest effects was warming of the poles which we know to be happening (http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-photos/ice-melt-poles;http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/12/14/global_warming_ice_loss_continues.html;http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/29/ice-melt-global-warming/1736457/;http://www.worldwatch.org/melting-earths-ice-cover-reaches-new-high;http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-north-pole-is-melting/) but then deniers said ignorant things like, "well how come the winter here was so cold then if it's global warming?!"
So we adjusted it to say that it was "Climate Change" to illustrate other effects of this problem. The idea of climate change is that we are experiencing altogether warmer temperatures, but also that the seasons naturally make a shift to adjust with this. For this reason, winter starts later and lasts longer and summer starts later and lasts longer. We are noticing that the seasons we experience normally are now beginning to shift (http://www.livescience.com/5296-timing-seasons-changing.html; http://www.livescience.com/19679-climate-change-seasons-shift-mismatch.html; http://earthairwaves.kunm.org/2012/04/03/scientists-push-to-change-timing-of-seasons/; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5749560/Climate-change-shifting-seasons-is-causing-widespread-hunger.html) in a way that causes problems for certain places of established people. Deniers then said that it wasn't changing the climate any more or less than it was before and that all of the changes we see happen naturally whether humans were polluting the atmosphere or not (which is a wild assumption because we know that every action has an equal and opposite reaction (law of motion) everywhere in nature and closed systems naturally push for equilibrium and that increases entropy (law of thermodynamics)...but I digress...)
So now the people arguing for the epidemic have again relabeled it as "Climate Disruption" so as to illuminate how it's specifically caused by our industry and pollution (https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/how-much-has-global-temperature-risen-last-100-years; http://co2now.org/current-co2/co2-now/annual-co2.html;http://geospatial.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83476d35153ef015439106c90970c-800wi;http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/image/hpag200001/fb1010003.gif; http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/A-Look-at-World-Energy-Consumption-Over-the-Last-200-Years.html) and now naysayers are trying to argue that the scientists are lying to us and creating conspiracies about things. There are people actually trying to argue that the polar caps are increasing in ice despite the absolute non-truth of this.
WHAT THE HECK DOES CO2 HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
We are putting more CO2 in the air than ever before. To say this doesn't change the system is outrageous. You can't put more of something into a system without changing the way it works. If I take air out of the tires on your car and put in pudding it will function differently.
Moreover, the trends for polar caps melting is certain. We know this is certainly more than before because when we drill down in the ice and find ice from 12,000 years ago and test it, the CO2 levels are much lower and the thickness of ice that dates there is much thicker, meaning it was there longer and for a bigger area.
The conclusion of the data is that CO2 at lower levels is directly related to the ice being there and we are currently pushing the system to higher CO2 Levels.
If the earth had trees that grew nearly uninhibitedly before humans and then when we had the industrial revolution we started raping our land of trees and spewing unprecedented levels of CO2 into the atmosphere, what would lead you to think that we aren't changing the system? Furthermore, since it's obvious that we ARE changing the system, what makes you think that it wouldn't make the system worse if the system naturally uses trees to get rid of CO2and yet we are eliminating them and introducing copious volumes of it?
Carbon Dioxide is a "greenhouse gas" not because of some mysterious guess we are making. We have observed it absorbing heat rays since 1861. What happens is that it allows short wave radiation (the sun waves) to pass through, but the infrared waves given off of the earths surface by the sun (long wave radiation) is absorbed by carbon dioxide. You can literally test this in a lab anywhere in the world. The carbon dioxide then emits this radiation in all directions and a good portion of that is spewed back into the atmosphere and is unable to change. The increase in this longwave radiation heats up the earth and causes changes in high and low pressure systems causing more storms and melting at the poles. (http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-intermediate.htm)
Don't believe that we are having more storms and that they are worse?
We have had several hurricanes that hit America in 2013 alone
The prevalence of tropical storm/hurricane weather has increased dramatically:
Ike 2008 was Category 4 and made landfall as a Cat 4 (Sept 7, 2008) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike
Karl 2010 was Category 3 and made landfall as a cat 3 (Sep 17, 2010)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Karl_(2010)
Irene 2011 was category 3 and made landfall as a cat 3 (Aug 22, 2011) (also the 11th costliest in history for America) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irene
Sandy 2012 was Category 3 and made landfall as a Cat 3 (Oct 26,2012) (also the 2nd costliest for lives and money for America) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy
If they are more frequent and higher severity it's only a matter of time.
CONCLUSION
The real reason we are even putting money into fighting for the science is because the conspiracy theorists have a loud voice that is stopping progress. Whatever you want to call the epidemic (Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption) doesn't change that it's happening and that we are observing direct effects. Don't be a denier just because you like the conspiracy bandwagon. It's funny how when oil prices skyrocket you have the same people claiming big oil is a conspiracy, but when you have people arguing for low emissions and the atmosphere now the green fuels people are a conspiracy.
How about we are just messing up the planet and need to change things?
How about we are just messing up the planet and need to change things?
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