According to NASA’s Global Climate Change database, multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: “Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position.” The following is a partial list of these organizations:
American Association for the Advancement of Science:
“Based on well-established evidence, about 97 percent of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening.” (2014)
American Chemical Society:
“The Earth’s climate is changing in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate matter in the atmosphere, largely as the result of human activities.” (2016-2019)
American Geophysical Union:
“Based on extensive scientific evidence, it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. There is no alterative explanation supported by convincing evidence.” (2019)
American Medical Association:
“Our AMA … supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant.” (2019)
American Meteorological Society:
“Research has found a human influence on the climate of the past several decades … The IPCC (2013), USGCRP (2017), and USGCRP (2018) indicate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century.” (2019)
The Geological Society of America:
“The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2011), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (Melillo et al., 2014) that global climate has warmed in response to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases … Human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) are the dominant cause of the rapid warming since the middle 1900s (IPCC, 2013).” (2015)
U.S. National Academy of Sciences:
“Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions.”
U.S. Global Change Research Program:
“Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities.” (2018, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies)
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.”
“Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”
I’ll continue to trust science over conspiracy theory pundits and uninformed, wannabe meteorologists.
John Shamblin is a resident of the Village of Piedmont.
