25/09/2025
This is my āboilerplateā summary which I use a lot. Feel free to copy and adapt:
Iām pasting my own words here (again), to save time:
Letās start with what (almost) all climate scientists are actually saying as I see it.
Disclosure: Iāve worked in a climate research institute, and studied and taught this at post-grad level.
This is long because the science makes no sense until you see the FULL picture, with ALL the common myths explained.
(Or read this https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change and/or watch this (which omits aerosols/dust and skips methane) https://youtu.be/iP2lH2EEr9I?si=6s36pFA6LhEJbz05).
Many are doing the equivalent of dismissing evolution because elephants and goldfish look different. Or astronomy because they donāt know the earth spins.
But science is typically more complex than it looks, and frequently counter-intuitive (eg heliocentrism, plate tectonics, heavier-than-air flight, etc). Even smart, sensible people can jump to wrong conclusions through the misapplication of common sense.
Climate science is simple in principle: Changes in (1) the sunās radiance (Milankovitch orbital and other cycles), (2) dust particles/aerosols, and (3) greenhouse gases, all impact the temperature on Earth in combination. Changes are usually slow and range from tiny to massive.
But itās fiendishly complex in reality. Albedo effects, air / ocean currents, feedback loops (such as when heating increases CO2 - as sometimes happens), and methane clathrate melt being just three of multiple complicators.
Miss out any one, as many do (and most miss out most), and you get convincing nonsense, especially in graphs, which makes the real data look like proof of a scam.
But see ALL of the āclockworkā, and the picture becomes compelling.
Put simply, the last three decades have seen a predicted, natural/cyclical, slight, brief drop in solar radiance - wobbles notwithstanding (this is NOT the start of the next glacial period / āice ageā in popular terms - thatās a few k years off, and weāre NOT emerging from one either, temperatures flattened more than 10k years ago).
And OUTSIDE the greenhouse layer we measure the expected cooling. But INSIDE the layer we measure rapid (in geological terms) heating - stronger and MUCH faster than the sun would deliver in a natural warming phase.
So itās NOT the sun.
Other greenhouse gases have not changed. But CO2 and methane have increased, and weāve known for 200 years that both trap heat.
Thereās been no asteroid strike or super-volcano, (CO2 from normal volcanos is dwarfed by human emissions - the effect is mainly brief local cooling from dust).
But the heating matches what weād expect from 200 years of burning coal, oil and gas, and C12 isotopes confirm that the excess CO2 does come from fossil fuels.
So it MUST be this minuscule but very capable gas, which is already:
1) warming the oceans: (Warm water is bigger than cold, which accounts for about 10cm sea level rise since 1880).
2) melting ice: (SEA ice displaces the same volume as water so causes no rise, but when it melts, so does LAND ice - adding a further 10cm, and that cold, fresh water cools the sea and changes its salinity, which can increase sea ice in the short term). While 20cm (or 5cm in our lifetimes) is too small to see without instruments, itās enough to increase coastal erosion and change sea currents - which changes local weather. And in the long term, thereās enough land ice to drown every coastal city.
3) charging-up and diverting jet streams and weather systems, which may deliver more ice, or colder or wetter conditions where you are).
And while CO2 is an essential āplant foodā, too much damages plants, (especially crops) by producing greenery not flowers/seeds/fruit, and by making the weather unsuitable: Droughts, floods, fires, winds, migrating diseases and dead pollinators are all VERY bad for plants. CO2 also acidifies our oceans, which is bad for sea life.
We need optimal CO2; not too much OR too little. (Remember, with none, Earth would be a frozen desert. And just half a degree rise in average temperatures will triple the area of Earth too hot for human habitation).
All science may be proven wrong by better science, but this is very VERY compelling.
The media hypes-up bad predictions about ice ages / sea levels etc, but scientists have been restrained, consistent, and remarkably accurate (the many models, verified by āhindcastingā, largely agree, and are now being confirmed by measurements, which allow for all necessary variations).
There are vast quantities of replicated, mutually-supportive data, collected and analysed by hundreds of thousands of qualified climate scientists, working across multiple specialisms - all funded in multiple, often independent ways. There are a few things we still donāt fully understand, (this is relatively new and hyper-complicated), but thereās no agenda or āgroup-thinkā, just a strong evidence-based consensus, involving a healthy level of debate. Climate scientists are NOT āwokeā or āfund hungryā. They are fact-hungry, independent-minded / down-right cussed, and many even vote conservative. But almost all agree on the above, as do almost all governments, universities and institutions, plus many businesses around the world.
Against this multitude is set a handful of qualified scientists who disagree - for whatever reason. You can explore the flaws in their thinking below: Omitting key factors, muddling local with global, mixing short with long term trends, etc.
Sadly, many champion these errors as truth. āZombieā theories, doctored graphs etc are endlessly regurgitated by a myriad semi-qualified āexpertsā (geologists, meteorologists, engineers), plus commercial bloggers, fossil-fuel employees, political activists, trolls, bots and sundry clever-clogs, usually with the errors amplified by confirmation bias and/or wild speculation.
Science always develops as we find out more, and sometimes an outlier view IS proven to be correct. But the mavericks who are proving right today are those who predicted more rapid warming.
The above is all endorsed in this list of 200+ myths, misunderstandings and mendacities - written by climate scientists with reference to peer reviewed papers. (Peer reviewās not perfect, but errors are a key part of the process. And what else should we rely on for science-based decisions? Guesswork? Religion? Google)?
Itās a good if not perfect resource, written for people whoāve been misled by googling in the ābiasphereā instead of understanding the scientific literature.
https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=percentage
Check the expertise tabs and comments to see that this is as robust as current science can explain.
Or here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
If you prefer videos, try these:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP&si=cx6JADfz3G7cpDzi
NB, I may not reply - not because I donāt have answers, but because Facebook doesnāt find you in long threads. Also, in 15 years of addressing misinformation about climate science I donāt think Iāve ever managed to enlighten anyone by debating. Opinions are usually too deeply entrenched:
https://research.com/education/why-facts-dont-change-our-mind
So I may not have convinced you. But maybe someone else is reading this who did want to understand.
We ALL need to understand, so we can decide together what to do about it:
The climate HAS always changed, but never before for the current, reversible reason
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