Antinuclear

While most people accept the reality of human-caused global warming, we tend not to view it as an urgent issue or high priority.

That lack of immediate concern may in part stem from a lack of understanding that today’s pollution will heat the planet for centuries to come.

So far humans have caused about 1°C warming of global surface temperatures, but if we were to freeze the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide at today’s levels, the planet would continue warming. Over the coming decades, we’d see about another 0.5°C warming, largely due to what’s called the “thermal inertia” of the oceans (think of the long amount of time it takes to boil a kettle of water).

The Earth’s surface would keep warming about another 1.5°C over the ensuing centuries as ice continued to melt, decreasing the planet’s reflectivity.
To put this in context, the international community agreed in last year’s…

Life evolved to live within limits. It’s a delicate balance. Humans need oxygen, but too much can kill us. Plants need nitrogen, but excess nitrogen harms them and pollutes rivers, lakes and oceans. Ecosystems are complex. Our health and survival depend on intricate interactions that ensure we get the right amounts of clean air, water, food from productive soils and energy from the sun.

Climate change deniers either willfully ignore or fail to understand this complexity—as shown in their simplistic argument that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a beneficial gas that helps plants grow and is therefore good for humans.
Industry propagandist Tom Harris of the misnamed International Climate Science Coalition writes, “Grade school students know CO2 is not pollution; it is aerial fertilizer.” He adds, “Increasing CO2 levels pose no direct hazard to human health.”
The unscientific Heartland Institute-ICSC study he references claims, against all evidence, “Carbon dioxide has not…

People living around the Pacific Ocean, including Australia, parts of Asia and western North and South America, should expect wilder climate swings in the 21st century.
Extreme versions of El Niño and La Niña, the sibling Pacific weather patterns that can translate into torrential rains or searing droughts, will likely occur nearly twice as often—approximately once every decade—if greenhouse gases continue increasing on their current trajectory, an international team of scientists has concluded.

The results are actually very, very convincing, and terrifying in a way because we know the impact can be dramatic,” said Wenju Cai, an Australian climate scientist who was the lead author of two recent papers about the research.

If the predictions prove true, it could mean tens of thousands more weather-related deaths and devastating economic damages.

Using computer models that simulate how increasing greenhouse gases alter ocean and land temperatures and wind patterns, the study finds…