A quick read of NASA’s website makes it clear that there is almost unanimous scientific consensus that humans contribute to climate change.
It has been NASA’s position for years, during both Republican and Democrat administrations.
NASA’s leading paragraph on their website states:
“Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 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, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources.”
They include a graph which shows the rising earth temperatures:
The website then lists a “Statement on Climate Change from 18 Scientific Associations,” which reads:
“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.”
A few of the organizations backing the statement are:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
“Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening.”
- 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.”
- American Geophysical Union
“Human‐induced climate change requires urgent action. Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years. Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes.”
- 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.”
- American Meteorological Society
“It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide.”
“Earth’s changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions around the globe. While natural sources of climate variability are significant, multiple lines of evidence indicate that human influences have had an increasingly dominant effect on global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century.”
- 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 (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.”
But these “facts” haven’t stopped climate change deniers, mainly Republicans (including Donald Trump) from circulating bogus links on social media claiming NASA has “admitted” that fossil fuel does not cause climate change.
It is dishonest and incorrect.
Where did this bogus information about NASA come from?
Far-right radio personality Hal Turner ran a segment on Aug. 8, 2019, that purported to report on an admission from NASA that climate change does not occur from human-made factors.
This journalistic “scoop” did not come from a whistleblower or leaked documents, Turner stated, but from a 20-year-old educational feature on NASA’s publicly accessible online magazine, Earth Observatory:
“On its Earth Observatory web site, NASA published in the year 2000, the information they possessed about the Milankovitch Climate Theory, which was PROVED to be fact by core samples from the earth’s seas. Climate Changes – warming and destructive weather – happen naturally from changes in earth’s solar orbit, and the extent of earth’s axis tilt. NOT from man-induced factors!”
This story was picked up by the website Natural News, where it gained further virality.
One of the more telling approaches for outlets that promote a specific brand of climate-change denial is to report as news their “discovery” of something that, while perhaps new to them, is fundamental to the field of climate science and in no way in conflict with the concept of anthropogenic climate change.
As NASA points out, Milankovitch cycles do not complicate the scientific observation that human-released CO2 is causing an observable net increase in global temperatures.
Milankovitch cycles operate on time scales that are vastly greater — tens to hundreds of thousands of years — than the timescales at issue for anthropogenic global warming.
The assertion that NASA is “admitting” anything by acknowledging the not-at-all controversial existence of Milankovitch cycles is false, and a full article alleging as such betrays nothing but an ignorance of the field such outlets claim to be exposing.
And a quick glance at NASA’s own website – click here – will give you all the “factual” information you need.
From a Joint Statement from International Academies:
“Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities.”
And from the 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.”
Stop these propaganda pieces from spreading when you find them!