What is your personal climate change belief history?

Question

What is your personal climate change belief history?

Answer 1

When in high school I was casually interested in the subject. When I started university my initial direction was as a geologist but found weather far more interesting, so I started taking courses in weather and climate. My minor was in anthropology/archaeology and I soon realized ancient civilizations were heavily affected by climate change, so along with weather I began taking courses in climate change, environment and human impacts on the environment.

When I finished my degree I had a BSc Environmental Geography, described here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_geography .

I'm fortunate (sort of) in that I could continue in school, so I decided to turn my minor into a second degree in anthropology. I focused on courses that dealt with archaeology, food production, human behaviour patterns and human settlement patterns along with primate behaviour just for fun.

After my BSc in Anthropology I applied for and was accepted into a master’s program for Environmental Anthropology. There is a nice description here http://www.sfaa.net/eap/ea.html . I should be finished this program next spring.



So what do I know?

-I know that humans are smarter than bacteria, but collectively, not much smarter.

-An environment will not perpetually support a population that never stops growing.

-Bacteria are incapable of understanding this and will continually increase their numbers until they deplete the resources that keep them alive.

- Humans are capable of understanding this and will continually increase their numbers until they deplete the resources that keep them alive.

-Whenever humans have realized the environment that supports them is on the precipice of collapse, humans usually give it that final shove over the edge destroying that environment along with their own civilizations.

-The only difference between our civilization and past failed civilizations is we operate on global and not regional scales.

-Our behaviour is no different than past civilizations.

-Past civilizations who were lucky enough to be able to migrate did so whenever their environment was depleted.

-I know due to greenhouse gases we are on a path of self destruction and we will likely not act in time pushing our environment over the edge. This time we are unable to migrate and will likely take out the global human civilization within the next two hundred years.

Answer 2

When An Inconvenient Truth came out, I can remember not having the slightest interest in seeing it. A movie by a person who I viewed to be little more than a failed politician just didn't strike me as particularly scientific.



But as the media came out with a lot of AGW stories in response to the film, I became curious and bought a book on it. I read The Weather Makers in 2006, and since then I've been rather passionate about the issue. I've since read more books, but without a doubt I've learned most of what I know from the facts and opinions on this contentious little forum.



I was never a skeptic, but being on YA has made me less alarmist. That, I think, has helped me become better able to read alternative scientific arguments more unbiasedly, which is always good. It's a shame (for the skeptics) that most of the valid scientific arguments they could make are hardly ever heard, drowned out by the sea of garbage that the deniers ceaselessly spew.

Answer 3

I have always had an interest in weather. I was originally trained in physics and geology and worked for many years as a physicist (doing geology on the weekends). While working I took correspondence courses in meteorology, then was in an online master's program in atmospheric science, taking courses in atmospheric radiation, thermodynamics and numerical weather prediction (among others). I was president of the local chapter of the American Meteorological Society. Finally I decided to go back to school to pursue a doctorate in climate science. I have always been very skeptical of people that said the climate was changing. I think most people have very short and inaccurate memories for such things. When I started on the doctorate I had not made up my mind about AGW, but the evidence was enormous. I'm still pretty skeptical of the hockey stick graph, but it's such a small piece of the overwhelming evidence that I don't think it's crucial. The physics is clear and virtually inescapable. The models still have numerous places where they need to be fixed, but there is a lot of truth in them.



I'm still skeptical of the connection between hurricane strength and warming. I think that people that take the "wait and see" attitude are making an enormous bet with the planet's future.



I saw "An Inconvenient Truth," but thought that it was too much about Al Gore, and it also glossed over some of the details. In that sense it is ineffective rhetorically, because it would not win over people that disliked Gore, and the people that did like him probably agreed anyway.



It's the science that matters, done by real scientists and published in real journals--not the puffery of John Coleman or Anthony Watt or Lord Monckton. There are skeptical scientists, such as Roger Pielke, William Gray, and Richard Lindzen. If the science of AGW is faulty it will come out, but so far the evidence is not there.

Answer 4

I used to be a true skeptic and decided to read up on the scientific arguments.



I now understand that there is no doubt that the greenhouse effect is a physical property of greenhouse gases, that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has risen by nearly 40% recently due to the behaviors of mankind, and that continued inaction on this issue has the potential to harm billions of people around the world.



I now make fun of the silly deniers who ignore sound and well established physics and those who are ignorant enough to dispute scientific research with the latest conservative article found on some random editorial page.

Answer 5

A long time ago (1963), I was at a meeting of earth and planetary scientists. The results from Mariner's first trip to Venus were in. Venus is hotter than an oven. Most scientists present couldn't understand it. Then a buzz trickled around the convention. Greenhouse gasses (GGs).

I didn't know what GGs were. I asked a senior scientist sitting in the hall beside me. He explained that carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor trap the heat from the sun.

Then he explained that the scientists who studied GGs had calculated that it was a danger to the earth.

I thought this was horrible. He said the problem needed to be addressed or it would affect my grandchildren's old age. But the rate at which we put CO2 into the air increased, so it is affecting many ecosystems in my father's old age.

in 1963, we had 320 ppm CO2. Now we have 380 ppm.

BTW, I don't use 'belief' to describe understandings based on scientific data, physics, and computations.

Answer 6

Of course humans can and do impact climate, but it's not as drastic as some claim. The affect humans have on climate is insignificant on the grand scale of things.

Answer 7

I first heard about the issue in school and at home, not in any real depth but just the basics such as that the arctic will melt if we keep going down the road we're on. This was about 15-20 years ago.



I thought it sounded serious, but didn't really give it much thought until An Inconvenient Truth came out. I live in Britain, and at least for us this film seemed to be the catalyst that sparked more interest in the subject. I decided to read a book on the subject and chose The Rough Guide To Climate Change. This really explained the science quite well, together with the history of the issue. It all seemed to tie up very well.



While I was still reading the book, I kept wondering why there wasn't a vigorous debate going on over the issue. After all, polititions had pretty much ignored it for ages until An Inconvenient Truth brought it to the attention of the public, due to the fact that it might be quite tricky to find a solution for. Also, corporations such as oil companies surely would stand to lose a lot of money if Co2 emissions were drastically reduced.



I discovered the answer one day when browsing on YouTube. There WAS a vigorous debate going on, but it was mostly taking place in the US. From the reading I had done, many of the arguments I saw were obviously rubbish. How could Al Gore have invented global warming when it was established long before he even mentioned it? Also most of the deniers seemed to be under the illusion that global warming meant that the world was rapidly cooking. They did not seem to understand that global warming refers to a change in average global temperature of less than 1 degree so far, which is problematic because of the climate changes it causes, NOT because of the heat itself. This was one of the most basic facts that I learned from the book. Another very common skeptical arguement relies on the wrong assumption that we are being told by 'warmers' that the world has never warmed or cooled before humans started interfering with it.



So I kept reading, and researching both sides of the argument. I discovered that all the sources I checked that supported AGW agreed with each other over the important points and created a watertight case. Skeptical arguements on the other hand claimed a whole range of things. While some misunderstood what GW even means in the first place, many others just pointed to individual examples of parts of the world that used to be warmer. Even the more complex arguments against GW were easily answered, and again all the answers from all the sources I checked agreed with one another. Never did GW science contradict itself the way that 'skeptics' appeared to.



Never have I believed that GW science is true beyond any shadow of doubt. After all, science has sometimes been wrong in the past and it could be wrong again. I just think that when highly researched science is giving us a warning so stark we would be crazy to ignore it.



Then there was this amazing discontinuity between the two sides of the argument, that almost seemed to be a mirror.

-It's the biggest threat in history/It's the biggest hoax in history

-Oil companies such as Exxon are funding denial/Governments are funding the hoax as part of a plot to tax us more or fulfil an environmental agenda

-There's an overwhelming consensus among scientists/30,000 scientists disagree with GW

-Not addressing the issue may well mean the end of life as we know it/the measures proposed to address the issue will ruin us and mean the end of life as we know it

-More and more evidence is being accumulated/the evidence is debunked and some day soon the world will realise it



Overall it's clear that one side or the other is lying, and in my view it's very clear that there is one side who has the motivation, the means and the money to spread this level of deception.

In fact, it turns out it's not even a secret that Exxon oil have been pouring a lot of money into climate change denial, and being a huge multinational company trading in one of the world's most lucrative resources, they have a great deal of money to throw around. On the other side, I never could see what in the world a goverment would stand to gain if they were indeed lying about GW. The issue has been around far longer than any government has been talking about it, and it is rather tricky for them to address.



The most damning piece of evidence against skeptics turned out to be the 30,000 scientists against GW (formerly 22,000 and before that 17,000). Nearly every skeptic refers to this, and it turns out to be nothing more than an internet peition that anyone with a degree in any area of science can sign. I looked it up myself to be sure, and so can you. It's right here: http://www.petitionproject.org/ and you can see through it's own wording that it hardly represents a group of experts whose opinion actually means something. If there really was a large body of experts disputing GW, they would certainly not need to rely on some lame internet petition for their figures.

Answer 8

Was mostly agnostic about it till Algore's powerpoint movie came along... the whole presentation reminded me of a used car salesman trying to make a sale... His demand that the science was settled struck like a bolt of lightning...



I have worked in a scientific environment (NASA) in a former life, and at best that was a remark ignorant of the scientific method, but more likely, it was intended to cause the weak-of-mind to succumb to his views, much like Obi Wan Kenobe did to the guards at the Star Wars frontier town.



Algore has had "problems" with the truth.... Invented the internet... No controlling legal authority, Buddhist monk political contributions, the "Iced tea" defense, and then this bums' rush to buy the MGW crisis, as he flies around the world on a private jet and has made over $100 million as a MGW con man...



I, too was disturbed by the shoddy "ethics" of the much vaunted but faked "hockey stick" graph, and after that the entire MGW crisis argument became suspect.

Answer 9

In the late 1970s I studied the predictions that came from the early models in the 1960s. I became aware of Global Warming in college 30 years ago, and recall writing a paper concluding that things would never get as bad as the predictions because the world will react and develop new technology long before the "overshoot" becomes unavoidable. Man, I was wrong there. The "overshoot" means that the earth will continue to warm even after we reduce CO2 to 1930s levels due to changes already created -- such as reduction of ice caps. Our continuing delay will be rued by our grandchildren.

Answer 10

I became aware of climate change doing an engineering course in the late 60's. The main issue then was the coming Ice Age, as we were told we were most of the way through an interglacial period.



The current debate came to my attention about 8-10 years ago, and I treated it with interest and scepticism, as should all scientists.



I am always dismayed at the arrogance of humans who believe they control and effect everything. I am far from convinced that we are so powerful that we can effect the global systems. I have to doubt these people when they cannot even fully explain historic climate changes with any certainty, yet now seem to understand everything.



My real dismay in the current debate is how sceptics are treated with such disrespect, and are now in the same category as Holocaust deniers!



Have people forgotten that being in the majority does not make one correct? Are people still waiting for Christopher Columbus to fall off the edge of a Flat Earth? Have they forgotten how the Catholic Church's Inquisition persecuted Copernicus and Gallilieo for promulgating the ridiculous idea that the Earth revolved around the Sun, when everyone knew that the Earth was the centre of the Universe?



Have you also noticed how the great exponents of the current orthodoxy are all lawyers!! Al Gore is one, here in Australia our Minister of Environment is one, and the Minister for Climate Change is also one!! The involvement of lawyers makes me more than sceptical. Where are the World Leaders who have any scientific background at all? ( I think the last one was Mrs Thatcher).



As a scientist I believe the debate is far from over, with the case far from proved. I will decide on facts not spin, but I am leaning heavily away from Mr Gore's position.

Answer 11

Honestly I didn't think much about the subject until I saw 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Until then, it was sort of in the back of my mind as a problem, but I hadn't researched it and didn't know if it was a big deal.



After I saw the film, I decided to start researching the subject. I read a number of books about it to begin with, then started reading a lot of scientific articles from sources like ScienceDaily and the BBC which I trusted to supply the facts accurately. Then I started reading some peer-reviewed studies, and some sections of the IPCC report (most importantly, the summary for policymakers).



About 3 years ago I stumbled upon this site and started learning from some of the people answering here. One guy (Trevor) was actually a climate scientist, and provided absolutely brilliant answers which taught me a lot. Sadly he stopped using the site about 1.5 years ago. He was an invaluable resource.



So basically I try to read everything I can get my hands on pertaining to the subject. That includes arguments and papers written by 'skeptics' like Roy Spencer. Frankly I understand the 'skeptical' scientists' positions better than laymen 'skeptics' do. Every so often a 'skeptic' will raise a point which gives me some pause about AGW, but after I do a little bit of research, invariably I discover that the argument is flawed.



I've found that the more I learn about AGW, the clearer it becomes that the theory is scientifically sound. I don't bog myself down with conspiracy theories, political or otherwise. I find them to be nothing more than a distraction from the science. If you can understand the basic science, the conspiracies don't matter. Whether or not Mann's original statistical methods were flawed doesn't change the fundamental physics supporting AGW.



I've also found the more you know, the easier it is to differentiate between junk science and valid science. If you don't understand the basics, arguments by guys like Michael Crichton sound good. For all you know, he's making brilliant arguments. But once you understand the basics, it's easy to see the errors in his arguments. This is also why public debates are useless. Crichton was actually in a debate where he spent most of the time talking about how we should be concentrating on world poverty instead of global warming. Totally off-topic and irrelevant, but the audience didn't know any better, and many felt his side had 'won'. Like I said, unless you understand the basics, you can't tell what's junk science.



The biggest problem I've found in other people is that they form a political opinion about the subject before understanding the basic science. Until you understand the science, it's impossible to arrive at an informed and intelligent political position. That's why you get so many people who say AGW is a hoax because Al Gore is rich. In fact, most denier arguments are political in nature rather than scientific.



And what really irritates me is that self-proclaimed 'skeptics' rarely correct people who make these kinds of claims. In fact, they often egg them on. I've found that's a big difference between the two sides. When somebody says "it's hot today because of global warming" AGW proponents don't say "yeah it's hot where I live too!", we say "that's weather, not climate".



*edit* david b - it's called the greenhouse effect. Plus the fact that CO2 is the dominant radiative forcing right now. Plus the signatures of the enhanced greenhouse effect like the cooling upper atmosphere, decreasing diurnal temperature range, greatest warming at higher latitudes, etc.

Answer 12

I’m a lay person who has been interested in science since an early age. I have an extraordinary memory for detail, going back almost 50 years to when I was 1 ½ years old. It doesn’t surprise me at all that everything is connected, everything is interrelated and everything is interdependent. When I first saw the Mauna Loa graph at 12 or 13 it was immediately apparent to me that the immoveable object (physics) had met the irresistible force (humanity). This was at the time of the first oil crisis, so I had access to popular information about the link between our current civilization and our dependence on fossil fuels. I’ve always been a pessimist and it’s playing out as I predicted – Problem is ignored and allowed to get worse; no weaning off oil in 10 years like Nixon promised in 1973; 25 years of complacency with gas at $1 per gallon; no push for any sort of efficiency (except for business and industrial process where the improvements pay for themselves); no serious national consideration of the energy problem except to repeat the mistakes of the past (blood for oil). Except that I didn’t realize until many years later that it’s not just another pollution problem that can be remediated or fixed with a process change. It’s about us being required to leverage the energy in hydrocarbons to maintain our very civilization (unless we consciously undo it), and climate change being THE prime cause of civilization collapse. As Gwen says -The only difference between our civilization and past failed civilizations is we operate on global and not regional scales. Unless we consciously do something to change it, and quickly, the conclusion is inescapable. How could it possibly be benign to release millions of years worth of stored carbon in the space of 200 years? Of course it's not, and we are going to live to see (and pay for) the consequences

Answer 13

Several years ago when global warming was beginning to make the news on a regular basis I decided to look into it. I pretty much assumed it was true and expected to find scientific support for it and then could determine what, if anything, to do about it. I brushed up on the basic science, but it didn’t take long to realize that the topic was very complex. Still, I’ve never shied away from complex topics before, and science has been a lifelong interest.



Being raised in a family of scientists (PhD chemist father, BS chemistry & BS biology sister) taught me that careful analysis and critical thinking are essential, and having a strong science education (particularly in physics and systems) gave me the tools needed to assess the available data. Objectivity is key to reaching a correct conclusion, requiring you to read from both “sides” of the argument, and I have done this. After a while it’s not hard to sort out the facts from the writer’s spin. But the topic quickly took on a life of its own and the assumed truth of the global warming claims began to fade as I dug deeper.



Like most skeptics what I found was a lot of controversy, a lot of unsettled and inconclusive science (even the IPCC's reports show a high degree of uncertainly if you read the technical assessment, not the summary for policymakers), and a lot of politics (The UN’s Agenda 21 will scare the heck out of any freedom-loving American). The “act before we think” mentality of the politicians and utterly stupid notions like the "precautionary principle" are completely wrong and backwards to the scientific mind. I did see An Inconvenient Truth at one point, but it was too late by then. I spent most of the movie yelling at Al Gore regarding his “facts” and conclusions, and the faulty science that abounded. His agenda was fully transparent to anyone with analytical skills. Ultimately the alarmism, exaggeration of what was happening, shunning of valid opposing science, demonizing dissenting scientists, refusal to debate the topic, and the blatant politicization of the matter were factors in turning me from believer to skeptic.



Admittedly it is hard to get past the hype, hysteria, and political agendas, but it is not for those reasons alone that I’m skeptical. To me the claim that humans are solely to blame is tenuous. I both understand and acknowledge the valid science, and think that at the core it is mostly correct. But being right about the basic principles is miles away from establishing causality or placing blame. Consensus does not a valid argument make; and while most scientists agree on the basic principles, it is a far smaller number that agree humans make anything more than a minor contribution to warming.



Have we warmed? Yes. Is it humanity’s fault? That’s not so easily answered. Partially perhaps, but to say entirely pushes the bounds of reason and probability. Regardless of what part is human-caused, alarmism is unwarranted. It took a hundred years to get here, there’s plenty of time to work it out. The alleged “tipping point” is only theoretical. Science history is littered with potential disaster scenarios that never panned out. There are many different mechanisms at play in climate change; each with its own idiosyncrasies. The interactions between these physical systems are not completely understood, since climate science as a field of study is relatively young. As such, some mechanisms enhance certain effects, while others cancel them out. Some methodologies in the research are questionable or even unreliable, as are some of the conclusions. Plus some of the most vocal proponents are less than trustworthy (Mann, Hansen, Gore, etc.) and have very thinly veiled agendas that have little to do with environment.



The bottom line to me is that it is too early to say with the bold certainty offered by some that humans are irreparably harming the planet. With as many strong arguments against human cause as there are for it, one can’t help but be skeptical. And skepticism is the stock-in-trade of science anyway.



EDIT: I’m not giving any thumbs up or down on this question because it involves personal testimonials, and it seems that all have answered honestly – regardless of their persuasion.

Answer 14

Personally I have always been skeptical about the co2 causes warming con because I had a teacher in middle school back in the early 50s that pointed out the basic logic error in Svante Arrhenius theory of co2 being a greenhouse gas. I did not think to much about it until Gore produced his freak show and got all the followers shook up. Just for kicks with the help of some friends I did the experiments that claim co2 to be a greenhouse gas and to cause ocean acidity.



The results of the experiments were the same now as they were almost 60 years ago, co2 can only contribute to warming if atmospheric humidity is over 60% relative. Lower the humidity to 10% or less and will not retain heat any better than nitrogen will. In order for global warming or the green house effect to be active requires high humidity. If humidity is below 10% or so temperatures will drop almost to freezing at night. The problem with warming believers is they have never really seen the experiments performed let alone ever done them on their own.



What we have is someone reporting on a hundred year old experiment that was performed with built in errors that have never been pointed out in scientific publications because all the ones who see and understand the logical errors are skeptics and thus naturally politically incorrect!