Debunking common climate change myths - Local 22/44 News
Debunking common climate change myths
Some misconceptions meteorologists hear a lot is that the climate is always changing so climate change isn’t a big deal. Well, this week we will debunk some of those myths about climate change to help understand the dangers that it brings to our life.
Ever since civilization existed, temperatures have been mostly consistent with the climate changing but that has taken place over hundreds to thousands of years. Since the industrial revolution, when emitting carbon dioxide really started to pick up, our climate has drastically changed with temperatures now 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit above where they were dating back to 1880.
So yes, the climate has been always changing, but now it’s changing at an unprecedented rate due to human caused emissions.
Another misconception is that there has always been carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so it hasn’t affected the climate much. While there have been fluctuations in the levels of carbon dioxide in earth’s history due to volcanos and plant and animal respiration, carbon dioxide levels have never gotten over 400 parts per million in history.
Since the industrial revolution, our burning of fossil fuels at an exponential level with no stop has increased the amount of CO2 over a very short amount of time. This in turn has all changed our climate at an unprecedented rate.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.