The goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many.
Super fact 29: EV Cars emit less pollution than Internal Combustion Engine Cars, even considering manufacturing, disposal and EV Cars being charged by dirty grids.
EV Cars emitting less carbon pollution is a Super Fact
At least here in Texas it is quite common to hear people say that EV cars do not reduce emissions. After all EV cars use electricity from the dirty grid. It is also frequently implied that environmentalists and people who care about fossil fuel emissions do not understand that the electricity for EV cars typically comes from the dirty grid. However, the environmentalists I know do know that. In fact, they typically know more and have sometimes done the math. This is why I consider it a super fact. We know that it is true that EV Cars emit less carbon pollution. This is a fact that matters, it is not trivia, and yet this fact is frequently disputed, argued over, or surprising to people.
EV Cars are more efficient than Internal Combustion Engines
For starters, EV cars are much more efficient than Internal Combustion Engine cars, or ICE, and even a coal-fired power plant is less wasteful than a car engine. The net result is that the emissions caused by EVs via the electrical grid are significantly less per mile. The miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) for electric vehicles (EVs) varies by state/grid and depends on the model of the car but in general it is much better than for an ICE . Replacing gasoline-powered cars with EVs saves energy, regardless of the energy source used to recharge the EVs. For an ICE 16-25% of the original energy goes to the wheels whereas for an EV 87-91% of the original energy goes to the wheels.
16-25% of original energy goes to the wheels. Data from FuelEconomy.gov, Image by Karin Kirk for Yale Connections.87-91% of original energy goes to the wheels. Data from FuelEconomy.gov, Image by Karin Kirk for Yale Connections.
The Manufacture and Disposal of EV Cars
It takes more energy to manufacture an EV battery for an EV car than it does to produce a combustion engine. So, the production of an electric vehicle does emit more carbon than a petrol car. However, the lower emissions resulting from driving an EV means that an electric car quickly pays back that debt, so to speak. It is typically paid back within two years, according to Hannah Richie, the research director at Our World in Data. The statistics show that switching from an average ICE to an equally sized EV will save 1.2 tons of carbon emissions per person and year. That is a lot considering that the average carbon footprint per year is 4 tons worldwide and 14.4 tons per year for an American.
So, are electric vehicles definitely better for the climate than gas-powered cars? This article from MIT answers the question in the affirmative. The graph below includes construction of facilities, manufacturing of vehicle and battery, production of fuel, vehicle operation as well as disposal. It is taken from this government website and this article also answers the question above in the affirmative. This is an article from the Department of Energy is stating the same thing.
Lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions comparison of average gasoline car and average EV.
Hannah Richie at Our World in Data also states that other environmental damages related to EVs such as mining for minerals are less than the damage from mining and extraction for fossil fuel cars, and she claims that the price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by 98% over the last three decades. It should be noted that EVs are becoming increasingly common. According to Our World in Data in 2022, 88% of all cars sold in Norway were EVs and 54% of all cars in Sweden were EVs.
There are other EV myths that you may want to have debunked, such as Electric vehicle batteries are unreliable and need to be replaced every few years. In 2011 battery failures were common, 7.5%, but in 2023 battery failures were 0.1%. See this article for details and other myth debunking. A related post is my post on electrification.
I should add that there are some drawbacks with EVs such as the easy with which you can charge them, depending on your location. This post is not a promotion of EVs, and I do not drive an EV for various reasons. This post, like most posts in this blog, is about correcting misinformation and getting the facts correct.
It is a common belief that humans originated in Africa. That is true but human ancestry is complicated, and in the past, there were many human species and subspecies. Starting with Homo Erectus, it is estimated that they lived between 1.6 million years ago until about 100,000 years ago.
However, note that Homo Neanderthalensis is not an ancestor of Homo Sapiens. Homo Heidelbergensis was an ancestor to both. Homo Neanderthalensis originated in Europe and Asia and stayed there, whilst Homo Sapiens originated in Africa and ventured elsewhere (see picture below).
Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens (or Homo Sapiens Sapiens) interbred, and so did Homo Denisova and Homo Sapiens, and Homo Neanderthalensis interbred with Homo Denisova. What a mess! I can add that Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens were different species, so it may seem strange that they could interbreed.
However, species is a complex concept and at certain points in history you could consider Homo Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens to be different subspecies rather than different species. That is why you sometimes hear the terms Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Now when you know how complicated it is, I suggest you take a look at the map below.
The spread of Homo Erectus (yellow), Homo Sapiens (red) and Homo Neanderthalensis (dark yellow). NordNordWest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
I can add that genetic testing can reveal how much Neanderthal DNA you have. I took a test with 23AndMe to find out about my ancestry (it was 98% Scandinavian and Finnish) and to find out about my risk for genetic illnesses. 23AndMe also told me that I was in the 99 percentiles with respect to carrying Neanderthal genes, meaning that I had unusually many Neanderthal genes (but not 99%). However, no one has called me a Neanderthal to my face yet.
The Extent of the Neanderthal Habitat
The map below indicates where skeleton remains of Neanderthals had been found as of 2017.
Known Neanderthal range in Europe (blue), Southwest Asia (orange), Uzbekistan (green), and the Altai mountains (violet), as inferred by their skeletal remains (not stone tools). There were 165 such places by 2017. Nilenbert, N. Perrault, auteur du guide complet du canotageI, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
Other Neanderthal Facts
There are a lot of other interesting and surprising facts about Neanderthals, such as:
They lived in caves, but they also built shelters.
They had complex tools and skills, cooked and processed food and created art and jewelry, cooked glue, and had musical instruments (for example a bone flute).
Neanderthals not only used fire, they were able to control and maintain fire, and they used it to cook food, make tools, and for warmth and shelter.
Neanderthals were stockier and more muscular than modern humans, with broader rib cages and shorter limbs. This helped them conserve heat and survive in the cold environments in Europe and Asia during the ice ages.
They might have spoken language.
There’s evidence that they were seafaring as far back as 200,000 to 150,000 years ago.
Their brains were larger than ours. The braincases of Neanderthal men and women averaged about 1,600 cm3 and 1,300 cm3, respectively, which is considerably larger than the modern human average (1,260 cm3 and 1,130 cm3, respectively).
They had medical knowledge. They had knowledge of medicinal plants and well-healed fractures on many bones indicate the setting of splints. They also knew how to treat wounds.
They hunted big game.
They interbred with modern humans.
The Cause of the Ice Ages
Regarding the Ice Ages, which were a great challenge to Neanderthals, they are caused by earth’s orbital cycles. However, keep in mind that does not mean that orbital cycles are causing the current rapid global warming. NASA keeps track of the orbital cycles, and they should slowly be causing a cool down right now, not a rapid warming. In addition, if the warming was caused by orbital cycles (or the sun), the upper troposphere would be warming as well as the lower troposphere.
However, what we are seeing is a warming of the lower troposphere and cooling of the upper troposphere consistent with greenhouse gas emissions causing the warming (the blanket effect). To read more about what is causing the current global warming, click here.
Illustration of Milankovitch cycles from MIT’s Climate Primer.
Above from PBS explanation and overview of earth’s three orbital cycles.
Endangered Species
When I was a teenager, I read a few of Jean M. Auels novels about pre-historic humans. I loved them and I saw the movie. Now I am reading Jacqui Murray’s novels about pre-historic humans. Jacqui Murray’s books are even more fascinating and very realistic and well researched.
The latest Jacqui Murray book I’ve read is Endangered Species, the first book in her new series Savage Lands. This book is set to take place 75,000 years ago among Neanderthals and ancient Homo sapiens. I love all her books, but especially Endangered Species. I was also happy that she included canines as heroes in the book (Ump, White Streak, etc.) I am a dog lover after all. I can add that at the end of the book there are a lot of interesting Neanderthal Facts.
You can read my Amazon review for Endangered Species by clicking here and you can read my Virtual Book Blast post for Endangered Species (promoting this book) by clicking here. All the Virtual Book Blasts for Endangered Species feature interesting Neanderthal facts. To see a few more Virtual Book Blasts for this book click on the links in the list below.
Virtual Book Blast for Endangered Species – Darlene Foster – Click here
Virtual Book Blast for Endangered Species – Liz Gauffreau – Click here
Virtual Book Blast for Endangered Species – Carol Cooks – Click here
Virtual Book Blast for Endangered Species – John Howell – Click here
Virtual Book Blast for Endangered Species – Booomcha, Kymber Hawke – Click here
Front cover of Endangered Species. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.
Superfact 26: The disputed Hockey Stick Graph showing that recent global warming is unprecedented in the context of the past thousand years has been shown to be correct.
Initially some scientists criticized it for being wrong, and the rightwing media and think tanks, and especially politicians criticized the graph and even attacked the scientists involved accusing them of being frauds. Al Gore was harshly criticized for using the hockey stick in his documentary “an inconvenient truth”. There were congressional hearings, politicians intimidating scientists, fake scandals, threats, and lawsuits.
The propaganda campaign against the hockey stick graph succeeded in winning over the public and that included me. I was for the longest time convinced that the hockey stick graph was wrong and perhaps a fraud. I was wrong. I had been bamboozled just like large segments of the American public.
The scandal around the hockey stick curve and the related climate-gate (fake scandal) was used to question the entire concept of global warming / climate change. As you may know, the evidence clearly shows that global warming is happening and is caused by us.
It should be noted that the way Mann, Bradley, and Hughes implemented their statistical analysis was not 100% correct, but the discrepancy was very small and did not make a big difference. However, this discrepancy was very useful for their detractors.
The controversy led to an investigation resulting in the so-called North Report. The 2006 North Report published by the United States National Academy of Sciences endorsed the MBH studies with a few reservations.
Subsequent research has resulted in more than two dozen reconstructions, using various refined statistical methods and combinations of proxy records. They are not identical to the original hockey-stick graph but closely resemble it and consistently show a slow long-term cooling trend changing into relatively rapid warming in the 20th century.
Since there is now a scientific consensus supporting the hockey stick graph, it is important news, and a lot of people still have not gotten the memo or are refusing to believe it, I consider it a super fact.
Before The Hockey Stick Graph
Before the hockey stick curve there was a lot of talk about the medieval warm period and the little ice age. Many people used these periods to cast doubt on global warming claims by scientists. I should say that the climate scientists claim about global warming was not based on the temperature record for the last 1,000 years. It was because the observed recent uptick in average global temperatures was not expected naturally.
Their worries were based on the fact that our greenhouse gas emissions could explain the uptick whilst there was no climate cycle or natural phenomenon that could explain it. That combined with the fact that the manner in which the warming was happening (it’s fingerprint if you will) showed that it was our greenhouse gases causing it.
So, the comparably high temperatures during the medieval warm period and the very cold temperatures during the little ice age should not have mattered much. But as you can see in the graph below, the old temperature graphs could be used by global warming skeptics.
It should be noted that previous estimates for the temperatures during the medieval warm period and the little ice age were based insufficient data and guesstimates.
The graph below from the 1990 IPCC report shows three curves, a red, a blue and a black one, and a green extension to the blue from 1998 to 2007. The red graph shows a large bulge corresponding to the medieval warm period, a significant drop corresponding to the little ice age, and a minor uptick in recent temperatures. The blue curve shows a flattened medieval warm period with only a minor little ice age and sharper uptick in recent temperatures. The green extension stretching from 1998 to 2007 shows a significantly sharper uptick in temperatures. The black curve is an alternative temperature curve by Moberg.
As you can see the estimates for the average global temperatures during the medieval warm period and little ice age were too large. When the hockey stick curve came along (next graph), a propaganda tool was diminished, which led to the media storm.
The red line is from the 1990 IPCC report and shows what was believed at the time about temperatures during the last 1,000 years. The blue line is the (MBH) hockey stick graph from 1998. Graph taken from this page. William M. Connolley derivative work: Dave souza, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia CommonsThe so-called hockey stick curve depicting the last 1,000 years. The blue line is the first hockey stick curve ever created (by Michael Mann). He used proxy measurements such as tree rings, green-dots 30-year average, red temperature measurements. Wikimedia commons <<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en>>. This graph is taken from this page.
Multiple Hockey Stick Graphs
As mentioned, various refined statistical methods and combinations of proxy records, has resulted in another couple of dozen hockey stick curves that largely agree with the original MBH hockey curve. Below are a few examples taken from various sources. The first two graphs below are taken from the real climate website, a website created by climate scientists.
IPCC 3rd Assessment Report
Side-by-side comparison of the (left) original Mann et al (1999) “Hockey Stick” reconstruction as featured in the Summary for Policy Makers of the IPCC 3rd Assessment report (2001) and the (right) longer, sharper “Hockey Stick” as featured in the Summary for Policy Makers of the IPCC 6th Assessment report (2021).
Eight Hockey Sticks by New Scientist
The graphics below are focused on the northern hemisphere. The top graph shows the 2001 IPCC hockey stick curve with data from thermometers (in red). Below that graph are eight more hockey stick curves plus a red dotted line corresponding to the instrumental record. This was compiled for New Scientist by Rob Wilson of the University of Edinburgh, UK.
The top graph shows the 2001 IPCC version of the hockey stick curve stretching back 1,000 years. The error bars (in grey) show the 95% confidence range. The blue line is from tree rings, corals, ice cores and historical records. All curves correspond to the departures in temperatures in centigrade from the 1961 to the 1990 average.
The Hockey Stick Wars
I also wanted to add a few examples related to the propaganda wars against the first hockey stick graph and its author Dr. Michael Mann and climate science in general. If you haven’t followed this topic, I can add that it did get intense.
On April 23, 2010, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) to the University of Virginia (UVA). The CID demanded that UVA provide every email, record, or document it had related to Dr. Mann from his time there from 1999 to 2005. This resulted in a strong reaction from the scientific community.
On 2 March 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that Cuccinelli as Attorney General had no legal authority to demand the records from the university. Dr. Mann was also severely harassed and received chilling death threats against himself as well as his family, as documented in his book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines”.
In February 2024, Michael Mann won a defamation lawsuit against conservative writers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn (Mann v. Competitive Enterprise Institute). The jury awarded Mann $1 million in punitive damages and $1 in compensatory damages. The lawsuit was over blog posts written by Simberg and Steyn that accused Mann of manipulating data in his famous “hockey stick” graph. It was not so much about questioning the science but rather about the fact that they intentionally tried to ruin his reputation using false information.
For example, they were comparing him to the infamous pedophile Jerry Sandusky. Jerry Sandusky was a football coach at Penn State University and Dr. Michael Mann is a distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State.
Superfact 25: Global warming is happening. Or if you call it Climate Change or Climate Disruption is happening. And it is happening very fast. We also know that it is caused by us primarily as a result of our burning of fossil fuels. There is a long-standing scientific consensus on these two facts because the evidence is conclusive. Check the evidence below.
This is a long post. However, I summarized this somewhat complex issue in a post I hope is both comprehensive and easy to read at the same time. I believe you can learn a lot from reading it. Note in this post, Global Warming Is Happening And Is Caused By Us, I will use the terms climate change, climate disruption and global warming interchangeably, or nearly interchangeably. I am doing that on purpose.
A lot of people would like to dispute this fact. Including large segments of the public, politicians, and political organizations. I was once a so-called skeptic myself. However, climate scientists very rarely dispute this because of the large amount of compelling evidence. This is a good summary from NASA. We know it’s true, it is important, yet disputed, which makes it a super fact in my opinion.
Below I created a top 10 list of evidence for the fact that climate change / global warming is happening. As well as a top 10 list of evidence for the fact that we are the cause for it. Primarily because of our burning of fossil fuels.
Evidence that Global Warning is Happening
(1) The temperature records collected by numerous organizations show that global warming is happening. Organizations such as NASA, NOAA, the Hadley Centre, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, the World Meteorological Organization, and many more, use data from land-based weather stations, ocean buoys, satellite measurements, and other sources to monitor Earth’s climate. Comparison with the palaeoclimatological record shows that the rise in average global temperatures is extremely fast. This is the smoking gun. However, for those who question the data from all of these organizations there are other simpler types of evidence (see below).
(2) Global sea levels has increased by 20–25 cm (8–10 in) since 1900, with half of that increase occurring since 1980. Sea level rise occurs from a combination of thermal expansion and the melting of land ice, both which happen as a result of warming. This sea level rise has been the fastest in “at least the last 3000 years”.
(5) The Antarctic ice sheet is losing ice at a rate of about 100–200 billion tons per year, which has increased in the past two decades.
(6) Eco zones are generally shifting northward and to higher elevations, meaning that plant and animal habitats are moving towards cooler regions as temperatures rise in previously suitable areas.
(8) Extreme events are increasing in frequency showing that climate is changing
(9) After extensive research and scientific debates in the past there is now a long-standing scientific consensus that Global Warming is happening. This is not physical evidence itself, but it does not an appeal to authority fallacy either. Think about it in terms of probability.
(10) Old guys originating from northern climates like me, have noticed that the seasons are changing. Even if you dismiss all the evidence from NASA, NOAA, IPCC, and all the world’s meteorological institutions, and you claim that all the world’s climate scientists are all in a massive conspiracy, you cannot convince me of something that is contrary to what I can see with my own eyes.
Graphs and Videos Showing Global Warming
To see the NASA web page from where the YouTube video of the shrinking arctic ice is taken click here .Temperature anomaly graphs from NASA, Hedley Center, Japan Meteorological Agency, NOAA, and Berkley. Wikimedia commons << https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en>>.The so-called hockey stick curve depicting the last 1,000 years. The blue line is the first hockey stick curve ever created (by Michael Mann). He used proxy measurements such as tree rings, green-dots 30-year average, red temperature measurements. Wikimedia commons <<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en>>. This graph is taken from this pageTemperature record for the last 150,000 years. Notice the sharp uptick towards the end. This picture is taken from this article.
Confusion About Climate Change
Before continuing I would like to address a couple of issues that sometimes trip up people. And prevent them from learning about this topic.
The question “climate has always been changing, why would we be the cause now?”, is a good question. If asked honestly. However, it is a bad question if it is asked like a gotcha or a dismissive statement. In this case it is a bad question. Because the paleoclimatologists and the climate scientists, in other words the experts on past climate, are the ones telling us that the current climate change / global warming is caused by us, it is not “natural”. They obviously say that because they know something that the dismissive laymen don’t. All everyone needs is a tiny bit of reflection to realize that you’ve got something to learn from them.
Sometimes you come across people who have a hangup over the fact that we use a few different terms interchangeably, global warming, climate change, climate disruption, inadvertent climate modification, etc. The people who have a hangup about this jump to the incorrect conclusion that there is some sort of deception or backtrack going on. If I talk about my dog and my mini-Australian Shepherd, I am not confused or deceptive or backtracking anything. It is the same family member. Whether you call it global warming or climate change or something else is a distracting non-issue, a red herring if you will.
To add some information about it. Climate change has become the more popular term recently, but the terms climate change and inadvertent climate modification predates the term global warming, which became popular in the 1980’s largely because climate scientist James Hansen likes to use it. Climate change is a broader term since it could include global warming and global cooling, but in the current context, global warming is a good term as well since that is what is happening now.
One advantage of the term climate change is that the average warming trend is in itself not the major issue. The effects on the overall climate that warming has is the more important issue. You could say that you want some global warming when the weather is cold and it would make sense. But you don’t want the destruction of eco systems, oceanic and atmospheric circulation changes, sea level rise, worse storms, draughts, floods, wildfires, etc., that it causes.
Natural Causes of Climate Change
There are many different kinds of natural causes of climate change. Two billion years ago cyanobacteria developed a form of photosynthesis that absorbed carbon dioxide and emitted oxygen, as well as a way of extracting nitrogen using a process called nitrogen fixation. This made cyanobacteria extremely successful. One consequence of this was that the carbon dioxide was largely removed from the atmosphere, and the earth got very cold, but the oxygen that was now present in the atmosphere paved the way for the existence of multicellular life and animals. To find out more about this, read this book.
The planet changed but it took millions of years. The emergence of land plants did something similar. Examples of other slow-moving drivers of climate change are continental drift and the fact that the light from the sun has gotten 6% stronger over the last one billion years (0.006% per million years).
Cyanobacteria caused a global cooling two billion years ago while paving the way for the existence of multicellular life and animals. Stock Photo ID: 2197045895 by Andre Engelhardt.
65 million years ago an asteroid struck earth, which caused earth’s climate to change, which is probably what killed the non-avian dinosaurs. Another example of a past climate change driver is unusual volcanic activity. Volcanoes emit greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and water vapor, during eruptions.
However, their contribution to the total CO₂ emissions in modern times is very small compared to human activities. Annual volcanic CO₂ emissions are estimated to be around 200-500 million tons while humans add 37-40 billion tons, or 100 times as much. Therefore, it is unlikely that volcanoes contribute much to the current warming, but the fine sulfate aerosols emitted by volcanoes can cause a significant cooling effect for a few years.
Dinosaur and asteroids during extinction day Stock Illustration ID: 1438260563 by serpebluVolcano – An active volcano that erupts lava. Stock Illustration ID: 2497156167 by MERT1995
One type of important type of climate forcing that’s been the cause behind the multiple ice ages that we’ve had over the last two million years are earth’s orbital cycles, or the Milankovitch cycles. There are three of them, orbital eccentricity, change in axial tilt, and axial precession. Could they explain the current warming? No, they can’t because we are currently in a cycle that should be cooling the planet. And it was until now. Below I have included a video from PBS that explains these orbital cycles.
Illustration of Milankovitch cycles from MIT’s Climate Primer.<< Link-22>>.
From PBS explanation and overview of earth’s three orbital cycles.
There are also short-term solar irradiance cycles. There is an 11-year cycle and an 80-year cycle, but these correspond to small changes. The 11-year cycle corresponds to a temperature change of 0.05 degrees Celsius.
In addition, the Sun’s irradiance has been slightly decreasing over the past few decades. Changes in the sun’s irradiance cannot explain the sharp warming we are witnessing. As you’ve seen above, neither can volcanic activity nor any known orbital cycles, slow moving climate drivers such as continental drift cannot explain it and we did not get hit by an asteroid recently. However, what fits the bill almost perfectly is our greenhouse gas emissions.
Unlike weather, the climate is not particularly sensitive to initial conditions (chaos). For example, we can be pretty certain that July will be warmer than January in Minnesota. We use climate models to try to predict future climate. All climate models rely on the laws of thermodynamics. But they vary in regard to the different understandings of the best ways to incorporate those laws in a representation of all of Earth. They do not come up with identical results. But they all get the average temperature of each region of the world right.
In addition, the various old climate models from the 1990’s do a very good job of what has happened during the last 30 years. They aren’t perfect but they are useful and more importantly for our context they serve as powerful evidence that the current warming is caused by our emissions. You remove our emissions from the models and none of what we measure will happen. Climate models are therefore the smoking gun with respect to what is causing global warming, just like the temperature record is for the fact that it is happening in the first place.
Unfortunately, the climate models have been maligned and misrepresented by those who wish that the public do not pay attention to them. That’s why we need to mention additional types of evidence (see below).
Evidence that Global Warming is Caused by US
(1) Climate models – as we have seen above, climate models are the smoking gun evidence that we humans are causing global warming / climate change. In addition, both simplistic and complex climate models show that 100% of global warming is caused by humans.
(3) The upper troposphere is cooling, which shows that the heating is from greenhouse gases and not the sun or orbital cycles. To understand how the lower atmosphere is warming while the upper is cooling, think of the greenhouse gases as a blanket.
(4) winters and nights are generally warming faster than other seasons and times of day due to the increased presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which trap heat more effectively during colder periods. This is considered a key indicator of human-induced climate change.
(5) The speed of the warming, 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, or 0.17 degrees Celsius per decade is extremely fast. Known natural climate forcing tends to be slower.
(6) Human activities is the only known explanation for the current global warming. One way that we know that the current warming is caused by human activity is because we are currently in a cycle that should be cooling the planet. The same is true for the sun’s irradiance. It is not volcanoes or any other known cause. See the section above called “Natural Causes of Climate Change”.
(7) Isotope studies show that the origin of the greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere are from burning fossil fuels. This is referred to as the isotopic footprint.
(8) The observed temperature rise mirrors industrialization.
(9) More than 90% of excess heat from global warming is absorbed by the oceans, causing significant increases in ocean temperatures. Oceans absorb about a quarter of human CO₂ emissions, leading to lower pH levels. This is unprecedented in at least 26,000 years and is directly linked to anthropogenic CO₂. These effects have been carefully studied and observed.
This is a short one-minute overview of the causes behind global warming that is happening.
This video from NASA is a bit longer, 13 minutes. Click here to see the page this is coming fromNatural causes for global warming / climate change would have cooled the planet, not warm it. Click here to visit this NASA web page regarding the causes behind global warming.<<Link-31>>The carbon dioxide concentration measurements began in 1958 at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii. Since then, several other ways of measuring carbon dioxide concentration have been added.From Scripps institute. Keep two things in mind. First the warming from CO2 is delayed and may result in positive feedback that can manifest decades and centuries later. Secondly, human civilization developed during a period of stable climate. That CO2 levels and temperatures were higher millions of years ago is not much comfort.Going back 800,000 years. From Scripps institute.A Global Warming protest. It’s their future. Stock Photo ID: 1427361263 by manpeppe
The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Important facts that we know to be true and yet they are surprising, shocking or disputed among non-experts. Super facts are important facts that people get wrong. However, I also create posts that are not super facts but other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation.
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe is a book about human caused Climate Change, how bad it is, and what we can do about it. The good news is that we are not all going to destroy ourselves. It is still bad, but we can do a lot to avoid making it really bad. However, there are a lot misunderstandings regarding what really makes a difference. This book examines these issues with a good dose of realistic optimism and science. I read the hardback version (and my review on Amazon is currently the top review).
Hardcover – Publisher : Atria/One Signal Publishers (September 21, 2021), ISBN-10 : 1982143835, ISBN-13 : 978-1982143831, 320 pages, item weight : 1.05 pounds, dimensions : 6 x 1 x 9 inches, it costs $19.14 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Paperback – Publisher : Atria/One Signal Publishers (September 20, 2022), ISBN-10 : 1982143843, ISBN-13 : 978-1982143848, 320 pages, item weight : 8.8 ounces, dimensions : 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.38 inches, it costs $17.22 on Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Kindle – Published : Atria/One Signal Publishers (September 21, 2021), ASIN : B08BZW2BQG, 318 pages, it costs $14.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Audiobook – Published : September 21, 2021, ASIN : B08D4RGYM8, Listening Length : 8 hours and 7 minutes, it costs $16.40 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of Saving Us. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardcover version of the book.
Amazon’s description of the book
“An optimistic view on why collective action is still possible—and how it can be realized.” —The New York Times
“As far as heroic characters go, I’m not sure you could do better than Katharine Hayhoe.” —Scientific American
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Saving Us is one of the more important books about climate change to have been written.” —The Guardian
United Nations Champion of the Earth, climate scientist, and evangelical Christian Katharine Hayhoe changes the debate on how we can save our future.
Called “one of the nation’s most effective communicators on climate change” by The New York Times, Katharine Hayhoe knows how to navigate all sides of the conversation on our changing planet. A Canadian climate scientist living in Texas, she negotiates distrust of data, indifference to imminent threats, and resistance to proposed solutions with ease. Over the past fifteen years Hayhoe has found that the most important thing we can do to address climate change is talk about it—and she wants to teach you how.
In Saving Us, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation. We need to find shared values in order to connect our unique identities to collective action. This is not another doomsday narrative about a planet on fire. It is a multilayered look at science, faith, and human psychology, from an icon in her field—recently named chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy.
Drawing on interdisciplinary research and personal stories, Hayhoe shows that small conversations can have astonishing results. Saving Us leaves us with the tools to open a dialogue with your loved ones about how we all can play a role in pushing forward for change.
This is an extremely well written, informative, and hopeful book on climate communication. A decade ago I was doubtful that human caused climate change was anything to worry about even though it physically made sense that it was happening. I thought environmentalists were exaggerating and distorting the facts. In general I did not trust or respect environmentalists whom I thought were driven by leftist agendas.
I studied the topic on my own by reading books and scientific articles on the topic, and I learned what climate scientists, not opinionated bloggers, said about the topic. I was especially impressed by a book by James Hansen.
I came to realize that human caused global warming definitely was real and a serious problem. I think I was able to change my mind so easily because I never had a strong affiliation with a political tribe, I respected scientific expertise and my encounter with science deniers in other fields had inoculated me against their kind of rhetoric (it’s fairly universal). I’m an abstract thinker who loves pro-con-lists, and I prefer going in deep and I am not afraid of math, but I don’t think that’s typical.
The backside of that is that it made me a pretty crappy and easily frustrated climate change communicator once I came around. I felt I needed to take action so I joined Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), a bipartisan volunteer organization with good solutions and good practices. From CCL I learned how to communicate better. In this book Katherine Hayhoe praises CCL and use it as a model for how to approach climate change with respect to solutions and communication.
In addition to climate change communication she gives a high level overview of why we know that global warming is happening (there are 26,500 lines of independent evidence for climate change), how fast it is happening (10 times faster than the last ice age warming), and how we know it isn’t natural. It’s a simple overview, not a deep dive. I thought her analogy about driving while looking in the rearview mirror as you hit a curve to be genius.
She also discusses our cognitive biases, and why not to engage with the 7% who are dismissives, the abuse she’s been a victim of, and so called zombie arguments. Zombie arguments are dismissive arguments that have been thoroughly debunked over and over but won’t die because they fulfill an emotional need for those who are dismissive of climate change. She discusses the political divided in the US, the “blame and shame the consumer” tactic and the misguided “population control solution” and solutions aversion in general.
She describes our situation lucidly. That there is no particular known limit that will doom us all. It is like smoking; you don’t get lung cancer after a certain amount of cigarettes, it’s just better to stop as soon as you can. She discusses solutions and the economy, including cap and trade and a price on carbon, and she states we don’t have to harm the economy to solve climate change, and a lot is already being done the world over. It is a mostly hopeful view.
I was surprised to learn that if you take into account, production subsidies, tax breaks, land leases on public lands below market rates, and the cost of pollution, the IMF estimates that fossil fuel subsidies in the US top $600 billion per year, twenty times clean energy subsidies. That’s about $2,000.00 per person and year, or $8,000.00 per family per year. That’s a lot of money.
Because of my experience with CCL I recognized a lot of what Katherine Hayhoe was saying in this book, but I still had a lot to learn, and besides the book is hopeful, and intelligently written and therefore a pleasure to read. She stresses that the most important thing we can do to solve climate change is to talk about it. I love this book and I highly recommend this book.
Back cover of Saving Us. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the kindle version of the book.
Newstrade