People often fail to appreciate the sheer weight of scientific evidence attesting to humanity’s impact on the planet. In response, two University of Oxford academics have produced a primer to clarify what is known and what isn’t about climate change.
“Reasonable and intelligent people frequently ask us for a reference document to set out what is known and not known about climate change, including research that is sometimes contrary to prevailing societal beliefs,” say economics professor Cameron Hepburn and researcher Moritz Schwartz.
In their paper, which was sponsored by Pictet Group and can be read here, the authors address questions about the impact of climate change – whether there might be benefits, the scale of likely damage, and humans’ ability to adapt.
They use cast iron sources to answer doubts about whether climate change is happening, whether humans are actually causing it and arguments that it might not even matter.
So, for instance, in considering global temperatures, they take all the available high quality long-term temperature series – land and sea – and show how they offer clear evidence of an upward trend in warming during much of the past century, accounting for seasonal factors [see mean temperatures chart below]. They also offer similar evidence for concentrations of carbon dioxide – one of the major greenhouse gases – in the atmosphere [see carbon dioxide chart at bottom].
“Reasonable and intelligent people frequently ask us for a reference document to set out what is known and not known about climate change, including research that is sometimes contrary to prevailing societal beliefs,” say economics professor Cameron Hepburn and researcher Moritz Schwartz.
In their paper, which was sponsored by Pictet Group and can be read here, the authors address questions about the impact of climate change – whether there might be benefits, the scale of likely damage, and humans’ ability to adapt.
They use cast iron sources to answer doubts about whether climate change is happening, whether humans are actually causing it and arguments that it might not even matter.
So, for instance, in considering global temperatures, they take all the available high quality long-term temperature series – land and sea – and show how they offer clear evidence of an upward trend in warming during much of the past century, accounting for seasonal factors [see mean temperatures chart below]. They also offer similar evidence for concentrations of carbon dioxide – one of the major greenhouse gases – in the atmosphere [see carbon dioxide chart at bottom].
Hepburn and Schwartz then go on to deal with questions about how, or whether, to respond to the crisis – that mitigation is futile, or costly or would be unfairly apportioned. Here, they acknowledge the science is less robust, but also that the balance of probabilities tilts towards doing more rather than less, and sooner rather than later.
The evidence for climate change is there, but people don’t always know where to look for it. Hepburn and Schwartz offer a clear and comprehensive guide to the issues at hand and the data that clarify them.
