Natural vs Human Caused Climate Change

  My introduction will be an explanation of " What is Climate Change".  My thesis statement will be "Climate Change is human caused".  My body will have these elements: First off  the rate of warming is unprecedented and has never happened before because it's so steep it gives us or plants and wildlife little time to adapt, as natural changes that have happened this similarly quickly but less quickly have coincided with mass extinction events.  The amount of greenhouse gases has always been a factor in the climate too. (Skeptical Science Climate Change Little Ice Age Medieval Warm Period). Second the human fingerprints and Greenhouse Gas fingerprints of Climate Change through atmospheric signatures. Third the CO2 comes from humans because of radiocarbon and isotopes. Third volcanoes eruptions have not increased and neither has the sun's warmth. Fourth the consensus on human caused climate change. Viewpoint of someone saying that Climate Change is natural and why that is wrong. Then I will do my conclusion.

Cook, John. Skeptical Science. “What does past climate change tell us about global warming.” 6th August 2015. <https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm>

Skeptical Science: A website that is a really good citation for my project because of disputes global warming myths by a myth vs facts basis very well.  This article says that greenhouse gases have always been a factor in the Earth’s climate.  And the climate has changed before, but rarely this fast, and when it does change this fast it is always destructive. (Cook, 2015).

Mann, Michael E., and Lee R. Kump. Dire Predictions, 2nd Edition: Understanding Climate 

 Change. New York.: Dorling Kindersley, 2015. Print.  

Callery, Susan; Jackson, Randal; Shaftel, Holly. Global Climate Change: Vital signs of the planet, "Facts: Scientific Consensus: Earth's Climate is warming". NASA. 19th June 2018.

<https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/>

Elevator Speech

This is my suggestion for our elevator speech for our presentation:  


My capstone project is on the misconceptions vs facts about climate change.  There are a lot of misconceptions about climate change.  You should know about them so you can can stay informed and know the truth and act on climate change.  We found and made a list of misconceptions which we narrowed down to 12.  The 12 misconceptions are Climate Change is caused by nature; consensus  on climate change is around 51-65%, there isn’t anything we do about climate change; climate is the same as weather; isn’t happening now, etc.  Two of the biggest ones are that it is not happening now, it is natural and the consensus of scientists on human caused climate change.  Climate Change is happening now hurricanes have gotten worse in recent decades, the oceans have gotten warmer, ticks and other Vectors are moving farther north, the global climate had increased by 1.5 degrees fahrenheit., the seas have risen on average 8 inches since 1820.  Climate  Change is happening now.  Climate Change is not natural because the number one rate of warming we see today is unprecedented compared what is show for past climatic changes, number 2, the atmospheric heat signature of greenhouse gases is a warming of the  lower atmosphere and a cooling of the upper atmosphere.  Volcanoes cool the lower atmosphere attend warm the upper atmosphere and their has been no increase in volcanoes, the Sun warms and atmosphere evenly the whole way through.  What we are seeing is mostly the Warming of the lower atmosphere and cooling of the upper atmosphere reminiscent of greenhouse gas emissions but with some natural effects as well.  Number 3 the carbon isotope of the ambient CO2 is from plants so it can't be the deep ocean or volcanoes  but other evidence from radiocarbon tells us that it is a radio-carbon dead source which plants actually are not, but fossil fuels.  The scientific consensus of publishing Climate scientists on human caused climate change is 97%.  Try getting 97% of anybody to agree on anything.  My personal elevator speech:

My capstone project is on the misconceptions vs facts about climate change.  There are a lot of misconceptions about climate change.  You should know about them so you can can stay informed and know the truth and act on climate change.  We found and made a list of misconceptions which we narrowed down to 12.  The 12 misconceptions are Climate Change is caused by nature; consensus  on climate change is around 51-65%, there isn’t anything we do about climate change; climate is the same as weather; isn’t happening now, etc.  The ones I did where Climate is not happening now, climate change is good for us, the amount of CO2 is not increasing, and climate varies just like a cycle so human caused climate change is not real.  Climate Change is happening now and is bad, hurricanes have gotten worse in recent decades, the oceans have gotten warmer, ticks and other Vectors are moving farther north, the global climate had increased by 1.5 degrees fahrenheit., the seas have risen on average 8 inches since 1820.  Droughts have also gotten worse, as have floods.  Hurricane Sandy storm surge and Hurricane Harvey’s rains have seem to be made worse by climate change.    Coral Reefs are currently bleaching because of it Climate Change. There are also many other impacts happening.  Climate  Change is happening now.  Climate Change is not good for us, Coral Reefs bleaching, more prolonged and warmer Heat waves and Droughts, more and heavier heavy downpours, more floods, stronger hurricanes, sea level rise, a decrease in air quality, a longer allergy season, more disease, damages to infrastructure, lessening water and food supply, more soil erosion and less forests, and damages to ecosystems, and less biodiversity and more forest fires, and sea ice and glacial ice melting and national security concerns caused by those and economic problems caused by those earlier problems as well.  So climate is not good for us ethier. The rate of CO2 is increasing for over 100 years, in 2013 it was at 400 parts per million today it is at 408 parts per million.  Climate does vary like a cycle but this is not a cycle.  The rate of CO2 is raising at an unprecedented rate as is the temperature, that we have never seen in nature before (using ice cores, sediment core, tree cores, coral cores, etc or from climatic models of the past), when something in nature has caused a rate close to this in the past mass extinction events have gone along with it. Also climatic fingerprints from atmospheric temperature signatures tell us that it is human activity because what we are seeing is close to what climate models are predicting for greenhouse gas emissions with natural factors not volcanoes or the sun.   Besides it doesn’t make sense does just because you haven’t seen something before mean that it won’t happen, I mean if you have never gotten the flu before does that mean that you will never get the flu for example.

Through my research I have found the that we have more of an idea of what climate change has contributed to certain hurricanes than I previously thought, in particular Hurricane Harvey in which the probability of the flooding it had was increased 3 fold by climate change, which 15% from the normal 5%.
(Carrington, Damian. Guardian. “Global Warming made Hurricane Harvey deadly rains three times more likely, research reveals”. Guardian. 13th December 2017.) I also found that ticks were moving as far north as Canada according to the National Climate Assessment of 2016. (
Bouchard, C.,G. Beauchamp, P.A. Leighton, R. Lindsay, D. Belanger and N.H. Ogden. National Climate Assessment. Parasites and Vectors. “Does high biodiversity reduce the risk of Lyme disease invasions?.”, 2013). I also found that in the Rocky Mountains that millions of trees have succumb to tree-killing insects, wildfires, and heat and drought. (
Union of Concerned Scientists “Global Warming Impacts The Consequences of Climate Change are already here.” Union of Concerned Scientists.) I also learned that Russia had a heat wave made more likely by Climate Change in 2010.
(Rosier, Suzanne. Climate Central. “Russian Heat waves made more likely by Climate Change.” Climate Central. 22nd February 2012.). I also learned the exact numbers of flooding and precipitation made worse by Climate Change. I learned that very heavy precipitation events, defined as the heaviest one percent of events, precipitate 67 percent more of the rain and other precipitation in the northeast, 15 percent more in the plains and 31 percent more in the Midwest than they did 50 years ago. (Union of Concerned Scientists. “Global Warming Impacts The Consequences of Climate Change are already here” Union of Concerned Scientists.). Most of the information I learned are exact numbers to more general facts I already knew.

Question Topic Connections

Hello I'm Brendan Wissinger and my capstone topic for Upward Bound Summer Program this year (2018) is Climate Change.  Climate Change is the change in the global climate toward higher temperatures because of human caused pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases possibility causing effects like the loss of Coral Reefs, more heat waves, longer droughts, larger heavy downpours, more floods, stronger hurricanes, increase in winter storms, sea level rise, lower air quality, national and international security crises, more disease, more problems with allergies and asthma, etc. Personally I know I lot about Climate Change because I have been interested in it since second grade.  Last year I did my capstone on Climate Change, particularly Sea Level Rise in New York City.  This year my question is:  “What are the misconceptions vs facts about Climate Change?”  I have never formulated anything about Climate Change about misconceptions vs facts but always have wanted to.  But have had answers to the main misconceptions and generally perceived thoughts (though I have never thought of them as generally perceived thoughts.),  For example Climate Change is not happening, Climate Change is good or Climate Change is caused by the sun, or that Climate Change is caused by Nature in general, or that CO2 is not increasing or that industry is the biggest contributor to climate change, or that climate change is not currently happening, misconceptions, or the dangers of sea level rise and current paths we are on, and scientific consensus, generally perceived thoughts.  So I don't have a semi-complete list of answers to misconceptions and facts nor a semi-complete list of questions.  And those are my two main questions: A list of generally perceived thoughts about Climate Change. And are they Incorrect or Correct and why.  Also I want to find an answer to where the pause or hiatus between 1998 and 2013 had any truth to it if possible to do that part, because it is another project in itself.