It’s time to tell the truth about Climate Change.

First, our climate is changing. The average worldwide temperature is rising slowly resulting in glacial melting and rising sea levels.

Second, human activity certainly has contributed to the warming of the earth. And there are steps we can take to mitigate the exhaust from carbon-based fossil fuels that pollutes our environment.

Third, but Climate Change is not the so-called “existential threat” it is portrayed by environmental activists who would have us believe we have only about ten years to prevent this catastrophe.

FEAR

Climate Change has become the latest hot political topic. Virtually every candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination of 2020 has hopped on the global warming bandwagon. Extreme political activists have embraced The New Green Deal promoted by New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey.

Recent reports indicate that the fear of warmer weather, rising seas, eroding shorelines and flooding of low-lying island nations and coastal communities is a leading concern in Europe.

Recognizing the potential danger of global warming, The Paris Agreement of 2015 formed an international effort to confront the threat of Climate Change through a comprehensive plan to limit the rise of the world’s temperature to fewer than 2 degrees Celsius.

The United States two years ago withdrew from the treaty. President Trump claimed the agreement violated America’s sovereignty and would force the nation’s companies to reduce production and lay off workers.

FACTS

The world’s climate is constantly changing. And there is little that humans can do to prevent the inevitable climatic fluctuations caused by the movement of our planet.

These range from the earth’s rotation from day to night, the tilting of its axis resulting in changing seasons and much longer transformations including periodic ice ages due to the Milankovitch Cycles.

This includes our most recent last ice age–the Pleistocene Epoch–from which we are emerging, hence the expected rise in worldwide temperatures.

RESPONSES

Although it’s futile to believe our species will ever be able to control long-term Climate Change, there are short-term steps that we can take to limit our contribution to atmospheric pollution and its greenhouse effect.

Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels for energy production certainly would be helpful. And we have made significant progress in switching to alternative energy sources.

Iowa, for example, still generates most of its electrical production from coal.  But that production percentage has dropped from 76 percent to 45 percent in the past decade while energy from wind has soared to 34 percent.

Other proposals range from the obvious to the interesting.   Adoption of technology to derive more energy from solar, thermal and tide sources makes sense is an example of the former.  Reducing methane production from agricultural practices has prompted creative research in less apparent areas.

CONCLUSION

Climate Change is a fact. And humans have contributed to a degree. But it is not life threatening. We have far more than a decade or two to reduce our role in polluting the planet.

Ignore the scare tactics of the alarmists who would have us believe that we are on the verge of extinction.

We have proved to be an extremely adaptive species that has learned to adapt to changing environments. Our genius for creative solutions will continue. We will survive.