Health & Fitness
Among Scientists, the Debate is Over, Man-Made Climate Change is Real - and Bad
Climatologists are finished with the debate over man-made climate change and now are focused on mitigation. For the rest of us, it's time to learn about the Ultimate Golden Rule.
Most who follow politics closely know who the Koch Brothers are. Only those who are interested in science know about Richard Muller. But, just in case, the Koch Brothers inherited their father's oil refinery business. They are one of, if not the largest, contributors to conservative and libertarian politicians and their Super-PACs. As you might have guessed just by inference, they are climate-change deniers.
Richard Muller is a Professor of Physics at the University of California - Berkeley and has been one of the most outspoken critics, or skeptics of "climate change due to man-made global warming." He is also author of the popular science book, Physics for Future Presidents.
As you might imagine, the Koch Brothers found Richard Muller to be the best pick to research the science behind climate change. So, Muller and a dozen other scientists got to work. They tested and accounted for every seemingly credible counter-argument to man-made climate change. What they found is what the vast majority of climatologists have known for decades. If we don't do something now, eventually Earth will be uninhabitable for humanity.
I wish I was a fly on the wall when the Koch Brothers got those results back, especially considering it was a study they had funded.
While the results of this study were released almost a year ago, and those of us who follow such science closely heard the results at the time, most of the populace had not yet heard what Muller had to say. That may be what prompted him to write an Op-Ed in the New York Times on July 28th, 2012. It starts like this:
"CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."
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The Jimmy Carter Sweater speech isn't so funny now is it?
It's time to get serious about this problem. If you love your country...if you love your kids...if you love your grand-kids, and generations of kids to follow, you - all of us, have a responsibility to make change happen now before it's too late. The Law of the Iroquois and Seven Generation Sustainability is in order - the Ultimate Golden Rule.
