In view of the immense power of natural weather and climate fluctuations and the great buffering capacity of the Earth, especially the ocean, it is easy to be skeptical about whether small anthropogenic changes of atmospheric composition can have important practical impacts.
I’ve tried to be a straight scientist doing the science and reporting it as best I can.
Talking nice about sun and wind and green jobs is just greenwash.
The fact is fossil fuel carbon will stay in the surface climate system for millennia.
I tend to be naive and gullible, I guess, but I try to believe that governments believe what they say.
Until the public demands otherwise, the policy makers will continue to serve their financiers.
As you get more global warming, you should see an increase in the extremes of the hydrological cycle – droughts and floods and heavy precipitation.
The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.
It’s as certain that as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will just keep burning them.
Scientists will say we can’t blame global warming for any single event. In a sense that’s right, but the fact that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing you can blame on global warming.
Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening.
I have been described as the grandfather of climate change. In fact, I am just a grandfather and I do not want my grandchildren to say that grandpa understood what was happening but didn’t make it clear.
We cannot afford to put off change any longer. We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.
Policy decisions on climate change are being deliberated every day by those without full knowledge of the science, and often with intentional misinformation spawned by special interests.
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
Burning all the fossil fuels will destroy the planet we know, Creation, the planet of stable climate in which civilization developed.
The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine.
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.
The United States did not sign Kyoto, yet its emissions are not that different from the countries that did sign it.
Politicians think that if matters look difficult, compromise is a good approach. Unfortunately, nature and the laws of physics cannot compromise – they are what they are.