Dear Friends,
You’ve got questions, and we have answers. No question is too simple or complex for our panel of science advisors who stand ready to field your questions about climate change.
James W. Porter, PhD, answers a question about whether the scientific community agrees that climate change is caused by human activities. Dr. Porter is a renowned marine ecologist who has devoted 50 years to studying coral reefs and marine ecosystems. A Josiah Meigs distinguished professor, emeritus, at the University of Georgia, he is also the award-winning filmmaker of Chasing Coral.
Read other Q&A here, and don’t be shy about asking your questions here.
Warmly,
The C-Change Conversations Team
Q: It is hard to imagine that at any time in Earth’s history, the climate was “consistent.” Ice ages, land shifts, etc, were not caused by humans. How do we know this current climate shift is not just another natural course of the planet? Aren’t there many different scientific opinions – all claiming the others don’t account for all the facts?
A: The scientific community is no longer divided on the fact that humans are responsible for the climate change we are experiencing. Within the last five years, in fact, the evidence has become so overwhelming that everyone in the scientific community agrees that the world is warming and that greenhouse gases – including carbon dioxide, methane, and others – are to blame. We now have the same degree of certainty that the Earth is warming as we do about the existence of gravity.
While it is true that over hundreds of millions of years, the Earth’s climate does shift, the changes (warming) that we are seeing now are happening so quickly that there are no geological precedents for them – they are not natural climate cycles. Humans are, in fact, having an effect on the planet on par with a meteorite strike.
