Conspiracy
Right now there are two major stances on human influenced climate change. One side believes that the concept is some kind of conspiracy and that human influenced climate change is not real. The other side accepts the evidence that human influenced climate change is real.I'll link to articles of some of that evidence later in the post, but what I want to do first is see if I can make a case for it with simple logic that everyone can follow. I'll start by asking: Which of these is more likely?
It's Not Real Side
A large group of scientists and small companies that are pushing their alternate energy solutions is conspiring to convince us that there is a danger of ruining our environment when there really is no threat. They are pushing for unnecessary changes that will probably cost us all more money.
It's Real Side
The fossil fuel organizations are spending huge amounts of money to convince us that human influenced climate change isn't real, and to buy politicians, so that they can hang on to their even larger source of income.
That one seems pretty obvious to me, but I'll spell it out. It's far more likely that the big oil companies are exerting every bit of influence they have to try to squash the idea of human influenced climate change (I'm shortening that to HICC from now on). What real motivation do 97% of climate scientists have to lie the same lie?
And why would anyone consider it a bad thing to look for alternate power sources? The easiest answer to that question is that big oil companies want us to not find alternates to their source of income. I'll point out that I'm just guessing here though. My goal in this section is to shake the belief some people seem to have that there is some kind of conspiracy pushing to trick us into believing in HICC.
It's well known and entirely accepted that our burning of fossil fuels pollutes our environment. Even if the world is big enough to absorb all the damage we're doing, and even if HICC was not real, we all know that we are polluting our world with the burning of fossil fuel. That's not in question at all. We should be looking for alternate sources of power already anyway. But it's in Big Oil's best interest to not allow us to make good progress. So again, I'm suggesting a possibility. I don't know that Big Oil companies are screwing us. I just suspect it.
So now hopefully you're thinking: "huh... that makes sense... the people that stand to profit the most financially are the ones denying HICC, and the people who stand to profit the most environmentally from accepting the evidence and acting to fix our mistakes is all of us."
Yes, there is room for financial profit on the side of alternate power sources. But that market is nearly completely open right now. Everyone has a shot at that profit. You just need to work for it.
Pollution and Greenhouse Gases
The next thing I'd like you to consider is pollution. As mentioned in the section on conspiracy, the fact that we're polluting with our burning of fossil fuels is not in question. We are polluting the environment. Everyone who drives a gasoline/diesel powered car/truck/boat/whatever is polluting the environment.Now think about that. Everyone who drives one of those vehicles. Billions of people around the world every single day churning out pollution.
Prior to the industrial revolution, how much of this kind of pollution was done? And as our need for electricity (supplied by coal burning power plants) increased with more technology and higher population growth, along with the spread of automobiles using gasoline, our level of pollution increased too.
So again: just think about it. Prior to our industrial revolution, how much pollution was there? After it, how much is there and are we continuing to add to it? Yes the world is big, but between our continually increasing use of polluting technology, and our deforestation to use the wood, and to make more room for cities, can you really believe that we are not making things worse? Even if you think that the few degrees of temperature change that has been noticed is silly and meaningless, do you really think that humans aren't making things worse on a global scale?
Those Few Degrees of Temperature Change
I think there's too much for me to address here in this section. And there's probably a lot I'm not aware of or that I don't understand. But I know enough to understand that those few degrees of temperature change in the trend are important and scary.Here's my first link...
http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/urgentissues/global-warming-climate-change/threats-impacts/
Tiny amounts of temperature change on a global scale make a big difference to the way EVERYTHING interacts. A little bit of melting ice caps, and we get long frozen gases adding to the air that make more changes. We get higher water levels affecting all the coasts. We get changes in water currents affecting the ecology of the oceans. We get animal species dying out. We get more drastic weather patterns...
This is something I've been thinking about: Heat is just a form of energy. It is a measure of the motion of molecules. In ice for example, the molecules of water move far less. The colder it gets, the less molecular movement there is. At absolute zero, there is no movement of the molecules at all. As the water gets above freezing, the molecules move more. As it evaporates it moves even more.
So when we talk about the world heating up by a few degrees, we're talking there being more energy and movement in our environment. It's how we end up with more drastic weather. More energy in a system means more action... more stuff happening. And this is a bad thing for us.
The Science
It's pretty simple. When you look at the increase in temperature lined up with our increase in burning of fossil fuels, it's pretty obvious we're doing something bad to our planet. But don't take my word for it... take the word of 97% or more of the people studying the situation. And stop listening to the big oil owned politicians.Some Links
https://www.edf.org/climate/climate-facts-dangers-and-what-you-can-dohttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-determine-the-scientific-consensus-on-global-warming/ (really interesting article actually suggesting my blog post might not be necessary as it says that most people already accept that human influenced climate change is real)
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ (this is a good one to read)
http://climate.nasa.gov/ (definitely a good source)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#Human_influences
https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/
Okay, I planned on sharing some links from deniers of climate change. So I searched for "climate change false", and got a decent list of articles. I tried reading them, but the stupidity started to make me angry. One guy near the top of the search results started arguing against the fact of climate change by talking about bats... more specifically, he claims that "climate change alarmists" assert that this human influenced climate change will kill a lot of bats. He then goes on to argue that wind turbines kill more bats than climate change. What that has to do with whether HICC is real or not I don't know. The author is an idiot.
You know what? Here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/02/09/top-10-global-warming-lies-that-may-shock-you/
I'll say it again... the guy is an idiot. He cherry picks some numbers that he does provide citation for, but then draws his own conclusions that make no sense. He suggests that climate change believers fail to prove their concerns, and then makes wild assertions of his own. I dislike this guy very much.
