global warming not real essay

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5 big lies about climate change, and how researchers trained a machine to spot them.

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Protesters carry a sign reading "Tell The Truth" while walking in the street during the Shut Down DC ... [+] climate demonstration in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Sept. 23, 2019.

When it comes to climate change, the science is settled. So why does climate misinformation continue to spread online and in our media? And how are the climate deniers’ tactics changing? A pioneering new project has revealed new clues about such false claims and where they come from.

In the study, published by the journal Nature Scientific Reports , researchers identified a wide array of dubious climate claims, then programmed a computer to recognize them. The analysis has exposed the changing face of climate change denial, and details the ways in which powerful interest groups are attempting to delay climate action. Among the findings are new data to show how those spreading climate misinformation have switched over time from science denial—that is, claiming that climate science isn’t reliable—to solutions denial—the claim that solutions to slow or otherwise respond to climate change won’t work.

“One of the most valuable insights from our research was identifying the most prevalent categories of climate misinformation—attacks on the integrity of climate science, and misinformation targeting climate solutions,” said John Cook, a study author and postdoctoral research fellow with the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University. “This shows the value of using a model to provide an objective, quantitative analysis. My gut instinct was that science myths were much more prevalent than they actually are, when our analysis found they were a relatively small proportion of climate misinformation.”

Looking at climate-related content from 33 prominent climate contrarian blogs and 20 conservative think-tanks produced between 1998 and 2020, the team began by sorting the climate claims into brackets. They ultimately came up with five major themes of climate misinformation , namely: 1) Global warming is not happening; 2) Human-produced greenhouse gases are not causing global warming; 3) Climate impacts are not bad; 4) Climate solutions won’t work; and 5) Climate science or scientists are unreliable.

These five main themes were made up of 27 sub-claims and 49 sub-sub-claims, ranging from the humdrum “scientists are biased” trope to the otherwise true but completely irrelevant “CO2 is a trace gas” rhetorical ploy .

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These categories were then used to conduct what the researchers say is the “largest content analysis of contrarian claims to date.”

The analysis revealed that most climate misinformation does not take the form of climate myths—such as the falsehood that recent global heating is the result of a natural cycle—but rather focuses on undermining climate research and proposals to moderate and prepare for climate change.

The switch from outright “climate denial” to “solutions denial” likely came about because the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change is now so overwhelming. “Science denial has become untenable,” Cook told me. “So inevitably, opponents of climate action are strategically shifting to misinformation targeting climate solutions in order to delay climate policy.”

This aspect is important, he explained, “because most climate fact-checking focuses on science myths and have been largely neglecting the most prevalent forms of climate misinformation.”

Chart showing how different contrarian claims about climate change published by conservative think ... [+] tanks have changed over 20 years.

Indeed, while the conclusion of the COP26 climate summit last week left much to be desired , researchers noted that the conference did illustrate that the entire international community now accepted the physical science basis for climate change. “I'm proud because never before has science featured so strongly in the COP decisions,” said Joeri Rogelj, director of research and lecturer in climate change and the environment at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London. “They frame and inform the urgency and requirements of the challenge ahead.”

Yet groups including the Union of Concerned Scientists say that wealthy special interest groups, including fossil fuel companies, continue to disseminate misinformation with the express purpose of delaying climate action.

“Ultimately the purpose of all climate misinformation is to delay climate action—whether the argument is ‘global warming isn’t happening’ or ‘climate models are unreliable,’” Cook said. “The conclusion is always ‘therefore we shouldn’t act on climate change.’”

The report also offers insights as to where the money behind climate misinformation is coming from. All the major donors revealed by the research were American, and included the influential Donors Capital Fund, the ExxonMobil Foundation and Koch Affiliated Foundations. Also included was the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, operated by investment firm Vanguard, which was revealed this year to be the largest investor in the global coal industry , to the tune of $86 billion.

So with climate misinformation now categorized and broadly understood, what can be done about it?

Researchers at the University of Cambridge wrote last month that while some climate myths had gained traction among 1,722 survey respondents, members of the public were generally rather adept at spotting bogus headlines. Among their recommendations, postdoctoral research associate Mikey Biddlestone and Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology in society at Cambridge, suggested social media and traditional media could do more to broadcast the views of experts, who are generally trusted by the public. Also effective, they said, is the tactic of “prebunking,” whereby media use stories that “pre-emptively refute short extracts of misinformation” which can help audiences to “develop mental antibodies that allow them to detect misinformation on their own in the future.”

“In order to counteract climate misinformation, we need to combine the findings from our machine learning research with other critical thinking research identifying the misleading rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies in each of the misinformation claims,” Cook said. “Combining these two separate lines of research into a single coherent work will bring us much closer to the holy grail of fact-checking.”

The full report, in Nature Scientific Reports, can be read here .

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April 8, 2009

Is Global Warming a Myth?

How to respond to people who doubt the human impact on the climate

Dear EarthTalk: I keep meeting people who say that human-induced global warming is only theory, that just as many scientists doubt it as believe it. Can you settle the score? -- J. Proctor, London, UK

So-called “global warming skeptics” are indeed getting more vocal than ever, and banding together to show their solidarity against the scientific consensus that has concluded that global warming is caused by emissions from human activities.

Upwards of 800 skeptics (most of whom are not scientists) took part in the second annual International Conference on Climate Change—sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank—in March 2009. Keynote speaker and Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorologist Richard Lindzen told the gathering that “there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and chlorofluorocarbons.”

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Most skeptics attribute global warming—few if any doubt any longer that the warming itself is occurring, given the worldwide rise in surface temperature—to natural cycles, not emissions from power plants, automobiles and other human activity. “The observational evidence…suggests that any warming from the growth of greenhouse gases is likely to be minor, difficult to detect above the natural fluctuations of the climate, and therefore inconsequential,” says atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, an outspoken global warming skeptic and founder of the advocacy-oriented Science and Environmental Policy Project.

But green leaders maintain that even if some warming is consistent with millennial cycles, something is triggering the current change. According to the nonprofit Environmental Defense, some possible (natural) explanations include increased output from the sun, increased absorption of the sun’s heat due to a change in the Earth’s reflectivity, or a change in the internal climate system that transfers heat to the atmosphere.

But scientists have not been able to validate any such reasons for the current warming trend, despite exhaustive efforts. And a raft of recent peer reviewed studies—many which take advantage of new satellite data—back up the claim that it is emissions from tailpipes, smokestacks (and now factory farmed food animals, which release methane) that are causing potentially irreparable damage to the environment.

To wit, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences declared in 2005 that “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise,” adding that “the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.” Other leading U.S. scientific bodies, including the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union have issued concurring statements—placing the blame squarely on humans’ shoulders.

Also, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 600 leading climate scientists from 40 nations, says it is “very likely” (more than a 90 percent chance) that humans are causing a global temperature change that will reach between 3.2 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century.

CONTACTS : Heartland Institute, www.heartland.org ; Science and Environmental Policy Project, www.sepp.org ; U.S. National Academy of Sciences, www.nas.edu; IPCC , www.ipcc.ch.

EarthTalk is produced by E/The Environmental Magazine. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk , P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; [email protected] . Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php . EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook .

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Scientists agree: Climate change is real and caused by people

Climate change is real and caused by humans

The IPCC is not the only scientific group that has reached a clear consensus on the scientific evidence of human-caused global warming. As this NASA page points out, 200 global scientific organizations, 11 international science academies, and 18 American science associations have released statements in alignment with this consensus.

Graphic showing how atmospheric CO2 has increased since Industrial Revolution

Amanda Staudt is the senior director for climate, atmospheric and polar sciences at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, where she has worked since 2001. The Academies, she said, first began studying climate change in 1979, researching how much warming would likely happen if the amount of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were doubled.

Four decades later, those findings have held up and have been strengthened based on scores of continued studies and analysis. “The remarkable thing about that study,” she said, “is that they basically got the right answer” from the start. This 1979 study by the National Research Council, Staudt said, led to investment in climate science in the U.S.

Though this consensus has been thoroughly established, scientific research and new findings continue. Staudt said countless attempted rebuttals of climate science findings have been researched and disproved.

“We did a lot of studies in that time period, looking at those questions,” she said, ”and one by one, putting them to bed and convincing ourselves over and over again, that humans were affecting climate, and that we could document that effect.”

At the National Academies, reaching consensus requires open sessions and dialogue with scientists and agreement from committees, which typically consist of 12-15 experts. Their draft reports go through peer review, and reviewers’ concerns are resolved before publication is approved. The goal is for the complex science of climate change to become as thoroughly researched and substantiated as possible.

“One of the things I think about scientists is that we’re all inherently skeptics at some level,” Staudt said. “That’s what drives us to science, that we have questions about the world around us. And we want to prove that for ourselves.”

Scientists consistently reaffirm evidence that climate change is happening

Climate scientists worldwide go through similar processes before their findings are published. And their research papers, too, show a strong consensus about global warming. As NASA states on its website , “Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals 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.” (By sound practice, scientists resist saying science is for all times “certain” or that its findings are “final,” and the “extremely likely” language respects that practice.)

One of the studies about the consensus was led by John Cook, a fellow at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Cook and colleagues reviewed nearly 12,000 scientific papers to examine how aligned published research is on major findings on climate change. That study found that 97 percent of scholarly papers that take a position on climate change do endorse the consensus. The papers that rejected the consensus position contained errors, according to subsequent research .

In reviewing the papers, Cook has said he and his colleagues found the consensus to have been so widely accepted by 2013 that many researchers by then no longer felt a need to mention or reaffirm it in their research papers.

Also see: Causes of global warming: How scientists know that humans are responsible

Samantha Harrington

Samantha Harrington, director of audience experience for Yale Climate Connections, is a journalist and graphic designer with a background in digital media and entrepreneurship. Sam is especially interested... More by Samantha Harrington

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Global warming is real and has consequences – part i.

NEW HAVEN: A January 27 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal by a group of 16 scientists, “No Need to Panic About Global Warming,” contained many of the standard criticisms of climate skeptics in a succinct statement. The essay argued that the globe is not warming and delaying policies to slow climate change for 50 years will have no serious consequences.

At a time when we need to clarify public confusion about the science and economics of climate change, the 16 scientists have muddied the waters. Here, I describe some of their mistakes.

Their first claim is that the planet is not warming. More precisely, “Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now." It’s easy to get lost in the tiniest details here. Most people will benefit from stepping back and looking at the record of actual temperature measurements. The figure below shows data from 1880 to 2011 on global mean temperature averaged from three sources. We don’t need complicated statistical analysis to see that temperatures are rising. Furthermore, they’re higher during the last decade than they were in earlier decades.

One of the reasons that drawing conclusions on temperature trends is tricky is that the historical temperature series is highly volatile. The presence of short-term volatility requires looking at long-term trends. A useful analogy is the stock market. Suppose an analyst says that because real stock prices have declined over the last decade, which is true, it follows that there’s no upward trend. Here again, an examination of the long-term data quickly shows this to be incorrect. The last decade of temperature and stock market data are not representative of longer-term trends. The finding that global temperatures are rising over the last century-plus is among the most robust findings of climate science and statistics.

Their second argument is that warming is less than predicted by the models: “The lack of warming for more than a decade – indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections – suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause.”

What’s the evidence on performance of climate models? Do they predict the historical trend accurately? Statisticians routinely address such questions. The standard approach is to perform an experiment in which (case 1) modelers put the changes in CO2 concentrations and other climate influences in a climate model and estimate the resulting temperature path, and then (case 2) modelers calculate what would happen in the counterfactual situation where the only changes were due to natural sources, for example, the sun and volcanoes. They then compare the actual temperature increases of the model predictions for all sources (case 1) with the predictions for natural sources alone (case 2).

This experiment has been performed many times using climate models. A good example is the analysis described in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Several modelers ran both cases 1 and 2 described above – one including human-induced changes and one with only natural sources. This experiment showed that the projections of climate models are consistent with recorded temperature trends over recent decades only if human impacts are included. The divergent trend is especially pronounced after 1980. By 2005, calculations using natural sources alone under-predict the actual temperature increases by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade, while calculations including human sources track the actual temperature trend closely.

The IPCC report concluded: “No climate model using natural forcings [i.e., natural warming factors] alone has reproduced the observed global warming trend in the second half of the twentieth century.”

The skeptics next attack the idea of CO2 as a pollutant: By this they presumably mean that CO2, by itself, is not toxic to humans or other organisms within the range of concentrations that we’re likely to encounter, and indeed higher concentrations may be beneficial.

The question here is whether emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will cause net damages, now and in the future. This question has been studied extensively. The most recent thorough survey by the leading scholar in this field, Richard Tol, finds a wide range of damages, particularly if warming is greater than 2 degrees Centigrade. Major areas of concern are sea-level rise, more intense hurricanes, losses of species and ecosystems, acidification of the oceans, as well as threats to the natural and cultural heritage of the planet.

A final point concerns economic analysis. The 16 scientists argue, citing my research, that economics does not support policies to slow climate change in the next half-century:

“A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now.”

I did the research and wrote the book on which they base their statement. The summary is based on poor analysis and an incorrect reading of the results. The first problem is an elementary mistake in economic analysis. The authors cite the “benefit-to-cost ratio” to support their argument. Elementary economics teaches that this is an incorrect criterion for selecting investments or policies. The appropriate criterion for decisions in this context is net benefits – that is, the difference between, not the ratio of, benefits and costs.

Suppose we consider two policies: Policy A has a small investment in abatement of CO2 emissions. It costs relatively little, say $1 billion, but has substantial benefits, say $10 billion, for a net benefit of $9 billion. Now compare this with an effective and larger investment, Policy B. This second investment costs more, $10 billion, but has substantial benefits, $50 billion, for a net benefit of $40 billion. B is preferable because it has higher net benefits: $40 billion for B as compared with $9 billion for A. But A has a higher benefit-cost ratio – a ratio of 10 as compared with 5 for B.

In designing the most effective policies, we must look at benefits minus costs, not benefits divided by costs.

My study is just one of many economic studies showing that economic efficiency points to the need to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions immediately. Waiting another 50 years is not only economically costly, but will also make transition more costly when it eventually takes place. Current economic studies also suggest that the most efficient policy is to raise the cost of CO2 emissions substantially, either through cap-and-trade or carbon taxes, to provide appropriate incentives for businesses and households to move to low-carbon activities.

Yes, there are many uncertainties. That does not imply that action should be delayed. If anything, the uncertainties would point to a more forceful policy – one starting sooner rather than later – to slow climate change.

The 16 scientists urge avoiding alarm about climate change. I’m equally concerned by those who allege that we’ll incur economic catastrophes if we take steps to slow climate change. The claim that cap-and-trade legislation or carbon taxes would be ruinous to our societies does not stand up to serious economic analysis. We need to approach the issues with a cool head and respect for sound logic and good science.

Responding to the Climate Threat: Essays on Humanity’s Greatest Challenge

A new book co-authored by MIT Joint Program Founding Co-Director Emeritus Henry Jacoby

From the Back Cover

This book demonstrates how robust and evolving science can be relevant to public discourse about climate policy. Fighting climate change is the ultimate societal challenge, and the difficulty is not just in the wrenching adjustments required to cut greenhouse emissions and to respond to change already under way. A second and equally important difficulty is ensuring widespread public understanding of the natural and social science. This understanding is essential for an effective risk management strategy at a planetary scale. The scientific, economic, and policy aspects of climate change are already a challenge to communicate, without factoring in the distractions and deflections from organized programs of misinformation and denial.

Here, four scholars, each with decades of research on the climate threat, take on the task of explaining our current understanding of the climate threat and what can be done about it, in lay language―importantly, without losing critical aspects of the natural and social science. In a series of essays, published during the 2020 presidential election, the COVID pandemic, and through the fall of 2021, they explain the essential components of the challenge, countering the forces of distrust of the science and opposition to a vigorous national response.

Each of the essays provides an opportunity to learn about a particular aspect of climate science and policy within the complex context of current events. The overall volume is more than the sum of its individual articles. Proceeding each essay is an explanation of the context in which it was written, followed by observation of what has happened since its first publication. In addition to its discussion of topical issues in modern climate science, the book also explores science communication to a broad audience. Its authors are not only scientists – they are also teachers, using current events to teach when people are listening. For preserving Earth’s planetary life support system, science and teaching are essential. Advancing both is an unending task.

About the Authors

Gary Yohe is the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Emeritus, at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He served as convening lead author for multiple chapters and the Synthesis Report for the IPCC from 1990 through 2014 and was vice-chair of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Henry Jacoby is the William F. Pounds Professor of Management, Emeritus, in the MIT Sloan School of Management and former co-director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which is focused on the integration of the natural and social sciences and policy analysis in application to the threat of global climate change.

Richard Richels directed climate change research at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). He served as lead author for multiple chapters of the IPCC in the areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation from 1992 through 2014. He also served on the National Assessment Synthesis Team for the first U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Ben Santer is a climate scientist and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow. He contributed to all six IPCC reports. He was the lead author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC report which concluded that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”. He is currently a Visiting Researcher at UCLA’s Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering.

Access the Book

View the book on the publisher's website here .

Order the book from Amazon here .

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Essay on Global Warming

Updated on
Nov 23, 2023

Being able to write an essay is an integral part of mastering any language. Essays form an integral part of many academic and scholastic exams like the SAT , and UPSC amongst many others. It is a crucial evaluative part of English proficiency tests as well like IELTS , TOEFL , etc. Major essays are meant to emphasize public issues of concern that can have significant consequences on the world. To understand the concept of Global Warming and its causes and effects, we must first examine the many factors that influence the planet’s temperature and what this implies for the world’s future. Here’s an unbiased look at the essay on Global Warming and other essential related topics.

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Since the industrial and scientific revolutions, Earth’s resources have been gradually depleted. Furthermore, the start of the world’s population’s exponential expansion is particularly hard on the environment. Simply put, as the population’s need for consumption grows, so does the use of natural resources , as well as the waste generated by that consumption.

Climate change has been one of the most significant long-term consequences of this. Climate change is more than just the rise or fall of global temperatures; it also affects rain cycles, wind patterns, cyclone frequencies, sea levels, and other factors. It has an impact on all major life groupings on the planet.

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century, primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels . The greenhouse gases consist of methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapour, and chlorofluorocarbons. The weather prediction has been becoming more complex with every passing year, with seasons more indistinguishable, and the general temperatures hotter. The number of hurricanes, cyclones, droughts, floods, etc., has risen steadily since the onset of the 21st century. The supervillain behind all these changes is Global Warming. The name is quite self-explanatory; it means the rise in the temperature of the Earth.

Sample Essays on Global Warming

Here are some sample essays on Global Warming:

Global Warming is caused by the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere and is a result of human activities that have been causing harm to our environment for the past few centuries now. Global Warming is something that can’t be ignored and steps have to be taken to tackle the situation globally. The average temperature is constantly rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius over the last few years. The best method to prevent future damage to the earth, cutting down more forests should be banned and Afforestation should be encouraged. Start by planting trees near your homes and offices, participate in events, and teach the importance of planting trees. It is impossible to undo the damage but it is possible to stop further harm.

Digvijay Singh

Having 2+ years of experience in educational content writing, withholding a Bachelor's in Physical Education and Sports Science and a strong interest in writing educational content for students enrolled in domestic and foreign study abroad programmes. I believe in offering a distinct viewpoint to the table, to help students deal with the complexities of both domestic and foreign educational systems. Through engaging storytelling and insightful analysis, I aim to inspire my readers to embark on their educational journeys, whether abroad or at home, and to make the most of every learning opportunity that comes their way.

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Essay on Global Warming – Causes and Solutions

500+ words essay on global warming.

Global Warming is a term almost everyone is familiar with. But, its meaning is still not clear to most of us. So, Global warming refers to the gradual rise in the overall temperature of the atmosphere of the Earth. There are various activities taking place which have been increasing the temperature gradually. Global warming is melting our ice glaciers rapidly. This is extremely harmful to the earth as well as humans. It is quite challenging to control global warming; however, it is not unmanageable. The first step in solving any problem is identifying the cause of the problem. Therefore, we need to first understand the causes of global warming that will help us proceed further in solving it. In this essay on Global Warming, we will see the causes and solutions of Global Warming.

Causes of Global Warming

Global warming has become a grave problem which needs undivided attention. It is not happening because of a single cause but several causes. These causes are both natural as well as manmade. The natural causes include the release of greenhouses gases which are not able to escape from earth, causing the temperature to increase.

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Further, volcanic eruptions are also responsible for global warming. That is to say, these eruptions release tons of carbon dioxide which contributes to global warming. Similarly, methane is also one big issue responsible for global warming.

So, when one of the biggest sources of absorption of carbon dioxide will only disappear, there will be nothing left to regulate the gas. Thus, it will result in global warming. Steps must be taken immediately to stop global warming and make the earth better again.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Global Warming Solutions

As stated earlier, it might be challenging but it is not entirely impossible. Global warming can be stopped when combined efforts are put in. For that, individuals and governments, both have to take steps towards achieving it. We must begin with the reduction of greenhouse gas.

Furthermore, they need to monitor the consumption of gasoline. Switch to a hybrid car and reduce the release of carbon dioxide. Moreover, citizens can choose public transport or carpool together. Subsequently, recycling must also be encouraged.

Read Global Warming Speech here

For instance, when you go shopping, carry your own cloth bag. Another step you can take is to limit the use of electricity which will prevent the release of carbon dioxide. On the government’s part, they must regulate industrial waste and ban them from emitting harmful gases in the air. Deforestation must be stopped immediately and planting of trees must be encouraged.

In short, all of us must realize the fact that our earth is not well. It needs to treatment and we can help it heal. The present generation must take up the responsibility of stopping global warming in order to prevent the suffering of future generations. Therefore, every little step, no matter how small carries a lot of weight and is quite significant in stopping global warming.

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FAQs on Global Warming

Q.1 List the causes of Global Warming.

A.1 There are various causes of global warming both natural and manmade. The natural one includes a greenhouse gas, volcanic eruption, methane gas and more. Next up, manmade causes are deforestation, mining, cattle rearing, fossil fuel burning and more.

Q.2 How can one stop Global Warming?

A.2 Global warming can be stopped by a joint effort by the individuals and the government. Deforestation must be banned and trees should be planted more. The use of automobiles must be limited and recycling must be encouraged.

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There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.

While Earth’s climate has changed throughout its history , the current warming is happening at a rate not seen in the past 10,000 years.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ), "Since systematic scientific assessments began in the 1970s, the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theory to established fact." 1
Scientific information taken from natural sources (such as ice cores, rocks, and tree rings) and from modern equipment (like satellites and instruments) all show the signs of a changing climate.
From global temperature rise to melting ice sheets, the evidence of a warming planet abounds.

The rate of change since the mid-20th century is unprecedented over millennia.

Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.

The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia. 1 It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun’s energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Scientists demonstrated the heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases in the mid-19th century. 2 Many of the science instruments NASA uses to study our climate focus on how these gases affect the movement of infrared radiation through the atmosphere. From the measured impacts of increases in these gases, there is no question that increased greenhouse gas levels warm Earth in response.

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly 10 times faster than the average rate of warming after an ice age. Carbon dioxide from human activities is increasing about 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age. 3

The Evidence for Rapid Climate Change Is Compelling:

Global Temperature Is Rising

The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and other human activities. 4 Most of the warming occurred in the past 40 years, with the seven most recent years being the warmest. The years 2016 and 2020 are tied for the warmest year on record. 5 Image credit: Ashwin Kumar, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

Colonies of “blade fire coral” that have lost their symbiotic algae, or “bleached,” on a reef off of Islamorada, Florida.

The Ocean Is Getting Warmer

The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 100 meters (about 328 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.67 degrees Fahrenheit (0.33 degrees Celsius) since 1969. 6 Earth stores 90% of the extra energy in the ocean. Image credit: Kelsey Roberts/USGS

The Ice Sheets Are Shrinking

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 279 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2019, while Antarctica lost about 148 billion tons of ice per year. 7 Image: The Antarctic Peninsula, Credit: NASA

Glaciers Are Retreating

Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa. 8 Image: Miles Glacier, Alaska Image credit: NASA

Snow Cover Is Decreasing

Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and the snow is melting earlier. 9 Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Sea Level Is Rising

Global sea level rose about 8 inches (20 centimeters) in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and accelerating slightly every year. 10 Image credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk District

Arctic Sea Ice Is Declining

Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. 11 Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Extreme Events Are Increasing in Frequency

The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. 12 Image credit: Régine Fabri, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Ocean Acidification Is Increasing

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30%. 13 , 14 This increase is due to humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the ocean. The ocean has absorbed between 20% and 30% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in recent decades (7.2 to 10.8 billion metric tons per year). 1 5 , 16 Image credit: NOAA

1. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, WGI, Technical Summary . B.D. Santer et.al., “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere.” Nature 382 (04 July 1996): 39-46. https://doi.org/10.1038/382039a0. Gabriele C. Hegerl et al., “Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method.” Journal of Climate 9 (October 1996): 2281-2306. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1996)009<2281:DGGICC>2.0.CO;2. V. Ramaswamy, et al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling.” Science 311 (24 February 2006): 1138-1141. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1122587. B.D. Santer et al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes.” Science 301 (25 July 2003): 479-483. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1084123. T. Westerhold et al., "An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years." Science 369 (11 Sept. 2020): 1383-1387. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1094123

2. In 1824, Joseph Fourier calculated that an Earth-sized planet, at our distance from the Sun, ought to be much colder. He suggested something in the atmosphere must be acting like an insulating blanket. In 1856, Eunice Foote discovered that blanket, showing that carbon dioxide and water vapor in Earth's atmosphere trap escaping infrared (heat) radiation. In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized Earth's natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations. In 1896, a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. In 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth’s atmosphere to global warming. In 1941, Milutin Milankovic linked ice ages to Earth’s orbital characteristics. Gilbert Plass formulated the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change in 1956.

3. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, WG1, Chapter 2 Vostok ice core data; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record O. Gaffney, W. Steffen, "The Anthropocene Equation." The Anthropocene Review 4, issue 1 (April 2017): 53-61. https://doi.org/abs/10.1177/2053019616688022.

4. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

5. https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20170118/

6. S. Levitus, J. Antonov, T. Boyer, O Baranova, H. Garcia, R. Locarnini, A. Mishonov, J. Reagan, D. Seidov, E. Yarosh, M. Zweng, " NCEI ocean heat content, temperature anomalies, salinity anomalies, thermosteric sea level anomalies, halosteric sea level anomalies, and total steric sea level anomalies from 1955 to present calculated from in situ oceanographic subsurface profile data (NCEI Accession 0164586), Version 4.4. (2017) NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index3.html K. von Schuckmann, L. Cheng, L,. D. Palmer, J. Hansen, C. Tassone, V. Aich, S. Adusumilli, H. Beltrami, H., T. Boyer, F. Cuesta-Valero, D. Desbruyeres, C. Domingues, A. Garcia-Garcia, P. Gentine, J. Gilson, M. Gorfer, L. Haimberger, M. Ishii, M., G. Johnson, R. Killick, B. King, G. Kirchengast, N. Kolodziejczyk, J. Lyman, B. Marzeion, M. Mayer, M. Monier, D. Monselesan, S. Purkey, D. Roemmich, A. Schweiger, S. Seneviratne, A. Shepherd, D. Slater, A. Steiner, F. Straneo, M.L. Timmermans, S. Wijffels. "Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?" Earth System Science Data 12, Issue 3 (07 September 2020): 2013-2041. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2013-2020.

7. I. Velicogna, Yara Mohajerani, A. Geruo, F. Landerer, J. Mouginot, B. Noel, E. Rignot, T. Sutterly, M. van den Broeke, M. Wessem, D. Wiese, "Continuity of Ice Sheet Mass Loss in Greenland and Antarctica From the GRACE and GRACE Follow-On Missions." Geophysical Research Letters 47, Issue 8 (28 April 2020): e2020GL087291. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087291.

8. National Snow and Ice Data Center World Glacier Monitoring Service

9. National Snow and Ice Data Center D.A. Robinson, D. K. Hall, and T. L. Mote, "MEaSUREs Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Daily 25km EASE-Grid 2.0, Version 1 (2017). Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/CRYOSPHERE/nsidc-0530.001 . http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/snow_extent.html Rutgers University Global Snow Lab. Data History

10. R.S. Nerem, B.D. Beckley, J. T. Fasullo, B.D. Hamlington, D. Masters, and G.T. Mitchum, "Climate-change–driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era." PNAS 15, no. 9 (12 Feb. 2018): 2022-2025. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717312115.

11. https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS, Zhang and Rothrock, 2003) http://psc.apl.washington.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/ http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/projections-of-an-ice-diminished-arctic-ocean/

12. USGCRP, 2017: Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I [Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, 470 pp, https://doi.org/10.7930/j0j964j6 .

13. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F

14. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/Ocean+Acidification

15. C.L. Sabine, et al., “The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2.” Science 305 (16 July 2004): 367-371. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1097403.

16. Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate , Technical Summary, Chapter TS.5, Changing Ocean, Marine Ecosystems, and Dependent Communities, Section 5.2.2.3. https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/technical-summary/

Header image shows clouds imitating mountains as the sun sets after midnight as seen from Denali's backcountry Unit 13 on June 14, 2019. Credit: NPS/Emily Mesner Image credit in list of evidence: Ashwin Kumar, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

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GREAT ENERGY CHALLENGE

Climate Change Myths: Sorting Fact from Fiction

There’s no consensus on global warming. Climate models are inaccurate. Temperature records are unreliable. Earth’s climate has changed before. Oceans are cooling. Human CO2 emissions represent a tiny percentage of overall CO2. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas.

And so on, and so on. We’ve heard them all.

Climate change is one of the most contentious issues facing society today. The question of how (or whether) we respond to climate change ultimately is a matter for policymakers to decide, but politics cannot (and should not) be separated from good science.

With that in mind, Marc Airhart with the University of Texas at Austin has developed a series of reports that track research conducted by climate scientists’ at the Jackson School of Geosciences on eight of the most common myths about climate change. All told, the reports provide an informed perspective on this important public policy debate.

Myth No. 1: What global warming? Earth has actually been cooling since 1998. Some people skeptical of global warming claim that Earth’s global surface temperatures have been falling or have leveled off since 1998. They point to data now several years out of date from U.K. researchers that put 1998 as the warmest year on record. They also point to an unusually cool summer in North America in 2009 followed by an abnormally cold winter across the northern hemisphere. People who had to shovel record snows from their driveways or live without power during ferocious snowstorms in the northeastern United States began to doubt decades of scientific evidence on global warming. Continue reading this myth …

Myth No. 2: Increased carbon dioxide (CO2) can’t contribute to global warming: It’s already maxed out as a factor and besides, water vapor is more consequential. Some climate skeptics claim that the carbon dioxide (CO2) currently in the atmosphere is already “saturated” in its ability to absorb longwave radiation from Earth and therefore additional CO2 in the air won’t make a difference — won’t, that is, absorb more heat. They also argue that water vapor is a more potent greenhouse gas and therefore increases in CO2 shouldn’t be a concern. These claims have been made in recent years by Hungarian physicist Ferenc Miskoczi and other scientists. They were repeated in the Skeptic Handbook, published in 2009 by science writer Joanne Nova. Yet the seed of the argument actually goes back more than a century. Continue reading this myth …

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Myth No. 3: You can’t trust climate models because they do a lousy job representing clouds and aerosols. Climate modelers have traditionally had a hard time incorporating clouds because clouds are very complex. On the one hand, by reflecting sunlight, they tend to cool Earth. On the other, they tend to hold in heat from the surface, which is why cloudy nights tend to be warmer than clear nights. The models also divide the atmosphere up into blocks much larger than clouds, so it’s difficult to create realistically sized clouds. Continue reading this myth …

Myth No. 4: There have been big climate changes in the past, such as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, so why can’t recent climate changes just be explained by natural variability?

People who dispute evidence of recent global warming sometimes point to two episodes in the past 1,000 years called the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period — times when northern hemisphere temperatures were higher or lower than average for decades or even centuries — as examples of internal variability, a kind of natural randomness in the climate system that can’t be explained by any specific forcing. If true, perhaps internal variability could explain the current rapid global warming, skeptics argue. In other words, maybe our current warming is just an unlucky roll of the dice, a blip rather than a long term trend. Continue reading this myth …

Myth No. 5: Natural forces such as solar variability, cosmic rays or volcanic eruptions can explain the observed warming.

Nearly all of the heat at the surface of Earth comes from radiation from the sun. Perhaps, as one hypothesis goes, that radiation has become more intense in recent decades and is making the planet warmer. A second, more complicated hypothesis involving the sun proposes that higher solar activity tends to suppress the levels of cosmic rays, high energy particles from space, hitting our atmosphere. Cosmic rays help form water droplets and clouds. Clouds are thought to have an overall cooling effect on the planet. Still with us? So in this view, if the sun is more active, then there are fewer cosmic rays, less cloud cover, and a warmer Earth. Continue reading this myth …

Myth 6. The urban heat island effect or other land use changes can explain the observed warming.

The urban heat island effect is a well documented phenomenon caused by roads and buildings absorbing more heat than undeveloped land and vegetation. It causes cities to be warmer than surrounding countryside and can even influence rainfall patterns. Perhaps, the argument goes, ground based weather stations have been systematically measuring a rise in temperature not from a global effect but from local land use changes. Continue reading this myth …

Myth 7. Natural ocean variability can explain the observed warming.

The oceans are the largest single reservoir of heat in the climate system. And they do have internal cycles of variability, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). These cycles have impacts on the sea surface temperature in specific regions that vary from year to year and even from decade to decade. So perhaps, the argument goes, we just happen to be in a warm period that will last a few decades and the oceans will eventually switch back to a cool period. Continue reading this myth …

Myth No. 8: In the past, global temperatures rose first and then carbon dioxide levels rose later. Therefore, rising temperatures cause higher CO2 levels, not the other way around.

Ice cores from Dome C in Antarctica record surface temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 going back over 800,000 years. During that time, several ice ages came and went. After each ice age ended, temperatures rose first and then several centuries later, CO2 concentrations rose. This lag, some skeptics conclude, proves that CO2 increases are caused by global warming, not the other way around. Continue reading this myth …

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ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Global warming.

The causes, effects, and complexities of global warming are important to understand so that we can fight for the health of our planet.

Earth Science, Climatology

Tennessee Power Plant

Ash spews from a coal-fueled power plant in New Johnsonville, Tennessee, United States.

Photograph by Emory Kristof/ National Geographic

Global warming is the long-term warming of the planet’s overall temperature. Though this warming trend has been going on for a long time, its pace has significantly increased in the last hundred years due to the burning of fossil fuels . As the human population has increased, so has the volume of fossil fuels burned. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas, and burning them causes what is known as the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is when the sun’s rays penetrate the atmosphere, but when that heat is reflected off the surface cannot escape back into space. Gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels prevent the heat from leaving the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide , chlorofluorocarbons, water vapor , methane , and nitrous oxide . The excess heat in the atmosphere has caused the average global temperature to rise overtime, otherwise known as global warming.

Global warming has presented another issue called climate change. Sometimes these phrases are used interchangeably, however, they are different. Climate change refers to changes in weather patterns and growing seasons around the world. It also refers to sea level rise caused by the expansion of warmer seas and melting ice sheets and glaciers . Global warming causes climate change, which poses a serious threat to life on Earth in the forms of widespread flooding and extreme weather. Scientists continue to study global warming and its impact on Earth.

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Related Resources

Isn't there a lot of disagreement among climate scientists about global warming?

No. By a large majority, climate scientists agree that average global temperature today is warmer than in pre-industrial times and that human activity is the most significant factor.

Cartoon showing people lined up for different buses bearing signs that indicate most scientists are baording the bus called "human-caused change"

Today, there is no real disagreement among climate experts that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming. NOAA Climate.gov cartoon by Emily Greenhalgh.

Consensus of experts

The United States' foremost scientific agencies and organizations have recognized global warming as a human-caused problem that should be addressed. The U.S. Global Change Research Program has published a series of scientific reports documenting the causes and impacts of global climate change. NOAA , NASA , the National Science Foundation , the National Research Council , and the Environmental Protection Agency have all published reports and fact sheets stating that Earth is warming mainly due to the increase in human-produced heat-trapping gases.

On their climate home page , the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicines says, "Scientists have known for some time, from multiple lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate, primarily through greenhouse gas emissions," and that "Climate change is increasingly affecting people’s lives."

Photo of a scientist hanging from a rope into a snowpit that shows soot layers

Soot from fires and air pollution contributes to global warming, and its impacts may be especially strong in the Arctic, where it darkens the snow and ice—as shown in this photo—and accelerates melting. Despite some uncertainty about just how much influence soot and other aerosol particles have played in climate change in the past century, there's little debate among climate scientists that the primary driver of recent global warming is carbon dioxide emissions. Photo from NOAA Ocean Today .

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) issued this position statement : "Scientific evidence indicates that the leading cause of climate change in the most recent half century is the anthropogenic increase in the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, tropospheric ozone, and nitrous oxide." (Adopted April 15, 2019)

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) issued this position statement : "Human activities are changing Earth's climate, causing increasingly disruptive societal and ecological impacts. Such impacts are creating hardships and suffering now, and they will continue to do so into the future—in ways expected as well as potentially unforeseen. To limit these impacts, the world's nations have agreed to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels. To achieve this goal, global society must promptly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions." (Reaffirmed in November 2019)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) What We Know site states: "Based on the evidence, about 97 percent of climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is happening."

Consensus of evidence

These scientific organizations have not issued statements in a void; they echo the findings of individual papers published in refereed scientific journals. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) maintains a database of over 8,500 peer-reviewed science journals, and multiple studies of this database show evidence of overwhelming agreement among climate scientists. In 2004, science historian Naomi Oreskes published the results of her examination of the ISI database in the journal Science . She reviewed 928 abstracts published between 1993 and 2003 related to human activities warming the Earth's surface, and stated, "Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

This finding hasn't changed with time. In 2016, a review paper summarized the results of several independent studies on peer-reviewed research related to climate. The authors found results consistent with a 97-percent consensus that human activity is causing climate change. A 2021 paper found a greater than 99-percent consensus.

Probably the most definitive assessments of global climate science come from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Founded by the United Nations in 1988, the IPCC releases periodic reports, and each major release includes three volumes: one on the science, one on impacts, and one on mitigation. Each volume is authored by a separate team of experts, who reviews, evaluates, and summarizes relevant research published since the prior report. Each IPCC report undergoes several iterations of expert and government review. The 2021 IPCC report, for instance, received and responded to more than 78,000 expert and government review comments.

Every five years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change convenes hundreds of international scientists and government representatives to review and assess peer-reviewed research on climate science. In each cycle, the panel publishes three key reports: one on the basic science , one on impacts , and one on mitigation .

The IPCC does not involve just a few scientists, or even just dozens of scientists. An IPCC press release explains: "Thousands of people from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC. For the assessment reports, IPCC scientists volunteer their time to assess the thousands of scientific papers published each year to provide a comprehensive summary of what is known about the drivers of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and how adaptation and mitigation can reduce those risks."

Governments and climate experts across the globe nominate scientists for IPCC authorship, and the IPCC works to find a mix of authors, from developed and developing countries, among men and women, and among authors who are experienced with the IPCC and new to the process. Published in 2021, the Sixth Assessment Report was assembled by 751 experts from more than 60 countries (31 coordinating authors, 167 lead authors, 36 review editors, and 517 contributing authors). Collectively, the authors cited more than 14,000 scientific papers. In other words, the IPCC reports themselves are a comprehensive, consensus statement on the state climate science.

In the headline statements from the Sixth Assessment report's Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC concluded:

It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole – and the present state of many aspects of the climate system – are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years. Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has strengthened since [our last report].

Cook, J., D. Nuccitelli, S.A. Green, M. Richardson, B. Winkler, R. Painting, R. Way, P. Jacobs, and A. Skuce (2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters , 8, 024024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 .

Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P.T., Anderegg, W.R.L., Verheggen, B., Mailbach, E.W., Carlton, J.S., Lewandowsky, S., Skuce, A.G., Green, S.A., Nuccitelli, D., Jacobs, P., Richardson, M., Winkler, B., Painting, R., Rice, K. (2016). Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters , 11, 048002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 .

Doran, P., and M.K. Zimmerman (2009): Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Eos , 90(3), 22–23.

IPCC. (2013). Factsheet: How does the IPCC select its authors? Accessed January 3, 2020.

IPCC. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Geneva Switzerland. Accessed January 22, 2020.

IPCC. (2021). Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3−32, doi:10.1017/9781009157896.001.

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. (2021). https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/

Lynas, M., Houlton, B.Z., Perry, S. (2021). Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters , 16, 114005. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 .

Oreskes, N. (2004). The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Science , 306, 1686. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1103618 .

Oreskes, N. (2018). The scientific consensus on climate change: How do we know we're not wrong? Climate Modelling , pp. 31–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65058-6_2 .

Sherwood, S. (2011, May 10). Trust us, we're climate scientists: The case for the IPCC . The Conversation .

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Climate Change
Facebook Fact-checks

Did 1,609 scientists sign a declaration saying ‘there is no climate emergency’? Not quite

If your time is short.

Based on the descriptions and listed credentials of the 1,609 signatories, not all were scientists.

Several signatories were in fields including engineering, medicine, law, economics and psychology. Some did not list any background in science. Some were deceased.

There is wide consensus among climate scientists, scientific associations and institutions that climate change is real and primarily caused by humans burning fossil fuels.

"There is no climate emergency," posts proclaimed on X, formerly Twitter, sharing a message allegedly supported by more than a thousand scientists.

Some X users circulated a " world climate declaration " that they claimed proves the climate crisis is a " hoax " and is " based on politics, not on science ."

"1,609 scientists, including two Nobel laureates, gathered together to sign a declaration, proclaiming that ‘there is no climate emergency,’" a Sept. 15 X post said.

The claim misleads by overlooking a few details.

First, there is wide consensus among climate scientists , scientific associations and institutions that climate change is real and is caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels. Nearly 200 scientific organizations around the world assert that climate change is caused by human action. Second, the statement about this document being signed by 1,609 scientists glosses over key information about both the document and its signatories. The document was published by Climate Intelligence or Clintel, a group founded by science journalist Marcel Crok and geophysics professor Guus Berkhout, who began his career with oil giant Shell in 1964.

Clintel’s website says the group aims to "generate knowledge and understanding" of the causes and effects of climate change and climate policy. It makes its stance clear: "The climate view of CLINTEL can be easily summarized as: There is no climate emergency."

A scan of the 1,609 signatures shows that not all were scientists. Several were from other professions; some listed no science background at all.

In September 2022, Agence France-Presse analyzed a previous version of this document published in 2020, which then had 1,200 signatories. Many signatories were scientists of various kinds, including 40 geophysicists and 130 geologists. Only 10 of the signatories described themselves as climatologists or climate scientists, Agence France-Presse found.

About 200 signatories were engineers. Other professionals were mathematicians, medical doctors and agricultural scientists. Six signatories were deceased.

Featured Fact-check

The updated version with 1,609 signatories , published Aug. 14, marked 12 people as deceased. Among the scientists, specialties included geology, chemistry, physics and agriculture. Those with climate expertise were few.

The list included engineers, doctors, lawyers, mathematicians, architects, entrepreneurs, and economists. Others did not list any occupation at all. Some descriptions read:

"Sceptical (sic) Scientific Contrarian in the Climate Debate"

"Leadership development and coaching"

"Physicist and YouTuber"

"Sculptor, designer and innovator"

The two Nobel laureates who signed the declaration — John F. Clauser (the 2022 winner for physics) and Ivar Giaever (who shared the 1973 prize for physics — have a history of denying the climate crisis .

The declaration — a version of which was published as early as 2019 — made six claims, including that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Others downplay the threat, severity and impact of climate change such as, "warming is far slower than predicted," and "global warming has not increased natural disasters." This list of claims has been assessed as having "very low" credibility by scientists, as reported in a review published by Climate Feedback , a global network of scientists that debunks inaccurate climate change claims. The reviewers said the statement gave cherry-picked information about carbon dioxide and climate change impact and presented them in a "biased and misleading way."

The statement that "1,609 scientists signed a declaration saying ‘there is no climate emergency’" contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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Our Sources

X post , Sept. 15, 2023

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Global Climate Intelligence Group, World Climate Declaration: There is no climate emergency , Aug. 14, 2023

Climate Intelligence, About Us page , accessed Oct. 3, 2023

Centre for Global Socio-Economic Change, Professor Guus Berkhout , accessed Oct. 3, 2023

Agence France-Presse, Climate 'declaration' recirculates debunked claims , Sept. 7, 2022

Climate Feedback, Letter signed by "500 scientists" relies on inaccurate claims about climate science , Sept. 23, 2019

Newsweek, Nobel Prize Winner Who Doesn't Believe Climate Crisis Has Speech Canceled , July 24, 2023

Scientific American, Climate Chatter Dominates Island of Nobels , July 13, 2015

PolitiFact, Copious evidence proves climate change is not a ‘fraud’ , Jan. 31, 2023

Yale Climate Connections, Scientists agree: Climate change is real and caused by people , Feb. 17, 2022

NASA, Scientific Consensus: Earth's Climate Is Warming , accessed Oct. 6, 2023

State of California, Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, List of Worldwide Scientific Organizations , accessed Oct. 9, 2023

The Nobel Prize, John Clauser , accessed Oct. 9, 2023

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1973 , accessed Oct. 9, 2023

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Forget ‘doomers.’ Warming can be stopped, top climate scientist says

Michael Mann points to prehistoric catastrophes, modern environmental victories

Alvin Powell

Harvard Staff Writer

Keeping the Earth’s warming below the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold that scientists believe will stave off climate change’s worst effects is a tall task, but one of the world’s top climate scientists believes climate “doomism” won’t help the fight. And Michael Mann is all about the fight.

“I push back on doomism because I don’t think it’s justified by the science, and I think it potentially leads us down a path of inaction,” said Mann during a talk last Thursday at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs . “And there are bad actors today who are fanning the flames of climate doomism because they understand that it takes those who are most likely to be on the front lines, advocating for change, and pushes them to the sidelines, which is where polluters and petrostates want them.”

“I push back on doomism because I don’t think it’s justified by the science, and I think it potentially leads us down a path of inaction.” Michael Mann

One recent victory for the University of Pennsylvania professor stems back to 2012, when climate change deniers and critics of his work wrote blog posts accusing him of scientific fraud. Mann demanded retractions. They refused, and he sued them for defamation. The case dragged on for years, but in February, Mann won $1,000 in punitive damages from one blogger and $1 million from the second.

Mann’s lecture, “ Can Lessons from Earth’s Past Help Us Survive Our Current Climate Crisis? ,” sought lessons from past climate change events in the Earth’s history, encompassing the demise of non-avian dinosaurs, the “Great Dying” 250 million years ago, pop musicians The Police — who sang of doomed dinosaurs — and famed astronomer Carl Sagan.

Mann, whose most recent book, “Our Fragile Moment,” was published in September, said the demise of the dinosaurs offers an example of the potentially deadly impact of climate change — in that case, from global cooling.

It is believed that a comet struck the Earth 65 million years ago, resulting in the death of non-avian dinosaurs. Most of them were not killed by the strike itself, but the drop in temperature caused by the rise of dust from the impact, which blocked the sun.

Small mammals, able to shelter in burrows, did survive, beginning an evolutionary process that would lead to humans. Sagan, the late scientist and science communicator, warned of a similar effect in the event of global nuclear war, which would likely bring on “nuclear winter” severe enough to bring on an extinction event.

Mann also discussed the “Great Dying,” which killed some 90 percent of species. It took place at a time when the Earth’s temperature spiked relatively suddenly in geologic terms. He said it was likely brought on by carbon dioxide being released in a major outbreak of volcanism that stretched thousands of years.

The current human-induced climate change has parallels to that time but is occurring much more rapidly, over tens of years rather than thousands.

“Warming today is hundreds of times faster than any warming in geological history,” Mann said, adding that the direction of the temperature swing — warmer or cooler — doesn’t matter. “Anything that takes you from the climate you’re adapted to is a threat.”

Mann’s work brought that point home back in 1999, when he and colleagues published a reconstruction of climate for the past 1,000 years. They used statistical methods they’d devised to combine climate proxies like ancient tree ring data, ice cores, and lake sediment into a single picture of the Earth’s climate history.

Represented graphically, the global mean temperature data resembled a hockey stick, with centuries of slowly declining temperatures making up the long handle and the sharp uptick in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution making up the blade. That “hockey stick” graph has since been hailed as evidence that the recent decades’ warming is neither natural nor a figment of scientists’ imagination.

During the event, Mann said the “Great Dying” era offers other lessons because it has been theorized that the warming was due to a major release of methane from the ocean, and some climate pessimists, whom he called “doomers,” believe a similar dynamic is already at work today, at least partly due to thawing of the arctic permafrost. In fact, he said they believe that enough methane has been released that it is already too late to avoid extinction-level warming.

Mann rebuts this view, noting it is inconsistent with the latest scientific understanding of the ancient event as well as evidence about today’s situation. And it serves as a distraction at a time when urgent action is needed.

Many have noted the already-existing anxiety about climate change inaction among today’s youth. Mann said in the interview during his campus visit that he would hope examples of the past will energize them rather than make them feel helpless.

Younger people today, he said, haven’t lived through high-profile environmental crises of the past, such as water pollution like that of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, once so full of industrial pollutants it periodically caught fire; power plant emissions, which created acid rain that damaged downwind forests and made lakes acidic; and the creation of a massive hole in the Earth’s protective ozone layer, which threatened to raise cancer rates around the Southern Hemisphere.

Each of those problems, while not on the scale of climate change, was analyzed by scientists and solved by policy: the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the international Montreal Protocol.

Mann’s talk wassponsored by the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program and its Arctic Initiative ; the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy ; the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability , and the HKS Climate, Energy, & Environment Professional Interest Council .

It was introduced by Henry Lee , director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program, and by Shorenstein Center senior fellow Cristine Russell , who engaged Mann in a question and answer session after his talk.

Mann noted that a difficult road lies ahead, but there is time still to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. He cited as encouraging the U.S. passage of the Inflation Reduction Act — which contains significant provisions to fight climate change — and the global agreement in 2021’s COP 26, whose commitments, if enacted, would limit warming to 2 degrees C, which Mann acknowledged is still too high.

“It’s not too late for us to take the actions to keep warming below 1.5 Celsius. The obstacles at this point aren’t physical, they are not technological, they are entirely political,” he said. “And political obstacles can be overcome.”

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In Landmark Climate Ruling, European Court Faults Switzerland

Experts said it was the first time an international court determined that governments were legally obligated to meet their climate targets under human rights law.

People hold banners with pro-climate messages.

By Isabella Kwai and Emma Bubola

Reporting from London

Europe’s top human rights court said on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated its citizens’ human rights by not doing enough to stop climate change, a landmark ruling that experts said could bolster activists hoping to use human rights law to hold governments to account.

In the case, which was brought by a group called KlimaSeniorinnen, or Senior Women for Climate Protection, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said that Switzerland had failed to meet its target in reducing carbon emissions and must act to address that shortcoming.

The women, age 64 and up, said that their health was at risk during heat waves related to global warming. They argued that the Swiss government, by not doing enough to mitigate against global warming, had violated their rights.

It is the latest decision in a broader wave of climate-related lawsuits that aim to push governments to act against global warming , and countries’ domestic courts have handled similar cases. But experts said it was the first instance of an international court determining that governments were legally obligated to meet their climate targets under human rights law.

“It is the first time that an international court has affirmed clearly that a climate crisis is a human rights crisis,” said Joie Chowdhury, a senior lawyer with the Center for International Environmental Law, an international group that voiced its support for KlimaSeniorinnen’s case.

Although the decision is legally binding, experts say that states are ultimately responsible for complying.

Annalisa Savaresi, a professor of environmental law at the University of East Finland, said she expected the country to heed the court’s ruling. “Simply because Switzerland is Switzerland: It’s a rule-of-law state, it’s not a rogue state,” she said. “They are keen to be seen as doing the right thing.”

With many other countries failing to meet their climate targets, the ruling could also encourage more members of the public to sue, experts said.

“I expect we’re going to see a rash of lawsuits in other European countries, because most of them have done the same thing,” said Michael Gerrard, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in New York. “They have failed to meet their climate goals, and failed to set climate targets that are adequate.”

Climate lawyers also hope that the ruling will inform other upcoming opinions by international courts , including the International Court of Justice .

The European ruling, Mr. Gerrard said, was unlikely to affect court decisions in the United States, where states, cities and counties are suing fossil fuel companies over the damages caused by climate change and young people are filing lawsuits over what they say is a failure by the state and federal governments to protect them from the effects of global warming.

But, Mr. Gerrard said, “the idea that climate change impaired fundamental rights resonated throughout the cases.”

The court’s ruling on Tuesday covered three cases in which members of the public argued that their governments, by not doing enough to mitigate against climate change, were violating the European Convention on Human Rights. It rejected as inadmissible two of the cases, which were brought by the former mayor of a coastal town in France and a group of young people in Portugal.

With heat waves sweeping Switzerland in recent summers, the litigants, who worked on the lawsuit for nearly a decade with Greenpeace and a team of lawyers, pointed to research showing that older women are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses .

Four of the women said they had heart and respiratory diseases that put them at risk of death on very hot days. Many others in the group, who live across Switzerland, said they struggled with fatigue, lightheadedness and other symptoms because of the extreme heat.

Under its climate commitments, Switzerland had vowed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. But the ruling said that between 2013 and 2020, Switzerland had reduced its emissions levels only around 11 percent. In addition, it said, the country had failed to use tools that could quantify its efforts to limit emissions, such as a carbon budget.

By not acting “in good time and in an appropriate and consistent manner,” the ruling said, the Swiss government had failed to protect its citizens’ rights.

The court ordered Switzerland to put in place measures to address those shortcomings, and to pay the KlimaSeniorinnen 80,000 euros, about $87,000, to cover their costs and expenses.

The Swiss government had argued that human rights law does not apply to climate change, and that addressing it should be a political process. But Switzerland’s federal office of justice, which represents the country at the European court, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Swiss authorities would analyze the judgment and examine the measures the country needs to take.

The court said that given the complexity of the issues involved, the Swiss government was best placed to decide how to proceed. A committee of government representatives for the court’s member states will supervise Switzerland’s adoption of measures to address the ruling.

Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti, a co-president of the KlimaSeniorinnen, called the decision “a victory for all generations” in a statement on Tuesday.

A second case that the court considered focused on a complaint regarding Grande-Synthe, a French town on the coast of the English Channel that faces an increased flooding risk because of climate change. Damien Carême, who was the town’s mayor from 2001 to 2019, argued in the lawsuit that France had endangered Grande-Synthe by taking insufficient steps to prevent global warming.

The court ruled that his case was inadmissible, however, because Mr. Carême, who is now a member of the European Parliament, no longer lives in France and therefore no longer has a legally relevant link to the town.

The court also ruled inadmissible a lawsuit brought by six Portuguese young people against 33 Paris Climate Agreement signatory countries, including Portugal, for not complying with their commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions. The applicants argued that the current and future effects of climate change — including heat waves, wildfires and the smoke from those blazes — affected their lives, well-being and mental health.

The court ruled that the applicants had not exhausted all of the legal options in Portugal and that bringing a complaint against the other 32 countries would entail an “unlimited expansion” of the states’ jurisdiction.

David Gelles contributed reporting from New York.

Isabella Kwai is a Times reporter based in London, covering breaking news and other trends. More about Isabella Kwai

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in London, covering news across Europe and around the world. More about Emma Bubola

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Have questions about climate change? Our F.A.Q. will tackle your climate questions, big and small .

“Buying Time,” a new series from The New York Times, looks at the risky ways humans are starting to manipulate nature to fight climate change.

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Just 57 companies linked to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions since 2016

Analysis reveals many big producers increased output of fossil fuels and related emissions in seven years after Paris climate deal

A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study has shown.

This powerful cohort of state-controlled corporations and shareholder-owned multinationals are the leading drivers of the climate crisis, according to the Carbon Majors Database , which is compiled by world-renowned researchers.

Although governments pledged in Paris to cut greenhouse gases, the analysis reveals that most mega-producers increased their output of fossil fuels and related emissions in the seven years after that climate agreement, compared with the seven years before.

In the database of 122 of the world’s biggest historical climate polluters, the researchers found that 65% of state entities and 55% of private-sector companies had scaled up production.

During this period, the biggest investor-owned contributor to emissions was ExxonMobil of the United States, which was linked to 3.6 gigatonnes of CO 2 over seven years, or 1.4% of the global total. Close behind were Shell, BP, Chevron and TotalEnergies, each of which was associated with at least 1% of global emissions.

The most striking trend, however, was the surging growth of emissions related to state and state-owned producers, particularly in the Asian coal sector.

This expansion, which has continued since, runs contrary to a stark warning by the International Energy Agency that no new oil and gas fields can be opened if the world is to stay within safe limits of global heating. Climate scientists say global temperatures are rapidly approaching the lower Paris target of 1.5C above the pre-industrial era, with potentially dire consequences for people and the rest of nature.

“It is morally reprehensible for companies to continue expanding exploration and production of carbon fuels in the face of knowledge now for decades that their products are harmful,” said Richard Heede, who established the Carbon Majors dataset in 2013. “Don’t blame consumers who have been forced to be reliant on oil and gas due to government capture by oil and gas companies.”

The Carbon Majors research has helped to change the narrative about responsibility for the climate crisis by apportioning emissions to the entities that profit from taking fossil fuels out of the ground rather than the individuals that later burn and discharge them in the form of emissions. This ongoing study has been cited in climate lawsuits and was the basis for the Guardian’s 2019 series, The Polluters , which named and shamed the 20 companies behind a third of all carbon emissions.

The database has now been updated and was relaunched on Thursday on a dedicated public access website , which is hosted by InfluenceMap.

It includes a striking comparison between long-term emissions trends dating back to 1854, and more recent developments since the 2016 Paris deal.

The historical record encompasses 122 entities linked to 72% of all the fossil fuel and cement CO 2 emissions since the start of the industrial revolution, which amounts to 1,421 gigatonnes.

In this long-term analysis, Chinese state coal production accounts for 14% of historic global C0 2 , the biggest share by far in the database. This is more than double the proportion of the former Soviet Union, which is in second place, and more than three times higher than that of Saudi Aramco, which is in third.

Then comes the big US companies – Chevron (3%) and ExxonMobil (2.8%), followed by Russian’s Gazprom and the National Iranian Oil Company. After that are two investor-owned European firms: BP and Shell (each with more than 2%) and then Coal India.

The 21st century rise of Asia becomes apparent when the historical records are compared with data from 2016-2022. In this recent period, the China coal share leaps to more than a quarter of all CO 2 emission, while Saudi Aramco goes up to nearly 5%. The top 10 in this modern era is dominated by Chinese and Russian state entities and filled out with those from India and Iran. Western capitalism does not appear until the 11th placed ExxonMobil with 1.4%, half of its historical average.

The picture may change again in the future. The United States is by far the world’s biggest oil and gas producer even if operations are fragmented among many different companies rather than one state behemoth. President Biden has granted licences to multiple new exploration projects. Gulf states are also planning to step up their output.

ExxonMobil , Chevron , BP and Shell all have net zero emissions targets, though their definitions of that goal and methods to achieve it vary. Many of the companies on the list have made some investments in renewable energy.

Daan Van Acker, program manager at InfluenceMap, said many of the entities in the Carbon Majors database were moving in the wrong direction for climate stability. “InfluenceMap’s new analysis shows that this group is not slowing down production, with most entities increasing production after the Paris agreement. This research provides a crucial link in holding these energy giants to account on the consequences of their activities.”

Heede argues that fossil fuel producers have a moral obligation to pay for the damages they have caused and exacerbated through their delaying tactics. He cites the proposal made by Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, for oil and gas companies to contribute at least 10 cents in every dollar to a loss and damage fund.

He was also encouraged by actions to hold fossil fuel firms to account. As examples, he cited the billboards that sprang up in Houston, Texas, after a hurricane that declared: “We Know Who Is To Blame” beside the names of oil companies, or the campaign in Vermont to create a climate superfund paid for by polluters that would allay the rising costs from floods, storms and heatwaves.

“This is a threat to civilisation as we know it,” he said. “If business as usual continues we won’t have a livable planet for our children and grandchildren. We must collect political, corporate and political will to avoid the worst threat that climate change poses. We can do this.”

The Guardian approached Exxon, BP, Chevron , Total Energies, Coal India, Saudi Aramco and Gazprom for comment.

A spokesperson for Shell said: “Shell is committed to becoming a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, a target we believe supports the more ambitious goal of the Paris agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. We continue to make good progress on our climate targets, and by the end of 2023, we had achieved more than 60% of our target to halve Scope 1 and 2 emissions from our operations by 2030, compared with 2016.”

Greenhouse gas emissions
Fossil fuels
Oil and gas companies
Climate crisis

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How to make Michael Twitty’s matzoh ball gumbo, a soup of Black and Jewish cuisines

Culinary historian Michael Twitty cuts vegetables for his okra gumbo, a recipe featured in his book "Koshersoul."

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With a rainbow knitted kippah affixed to the crown of his head, Michael Twitty is paced and intentional as he moves through the test kitchen at the L.A. Times. He’s here to make one of his classic Passover dishes, matzoh ball gumbo, which combines two recipes from his food memoir “ Koshersoul .”

The crimson stew adds buoyant, scallion-studded matzoh balls to a heartening okra gumbo, joining two staple dishes from Jewish and Black Southern cuisines. Chicken broth and diced tomatoes lend the finished gumbo their umami, with a Creole spice blend that imparts a gentle, humming heat.

Twitty, who hails from the Washington, D.C., area, says he’s always wanted to winter in Los Angeles. He’s been living at the junction of Beverly Hills, Pico-Robertson and West Hollywood since November and, following a short trip back to the East Coast in March, plans to stay through June.

After hosting a conversation at chef Martin Draluck’s Black Pot Supper Club series in February, Twitty will take over the kitchen at Baldwin Hills’ Post & Beam restaurant with his “Koshersoul” dinner pop-up on Wednesday, May 15. The evening will include back-to-back dinners with recipes from the book. The first service will lean into Twitty’s Jewish background with West African brisket and peach rice kugel, as well as matzoh ball gumbo. The second will embrace a cookout vibe with the same brisket plus barbecue chicken and lamb (all of the meat will be kosher), baked beans and collard green lox wraps.

“Koshersoul,” the follow up to his James Beard Award-winning “The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History,” details Twitty’s journey as a Black, gay and Jewish man and draws meaningful links between Afro-Atlantic and global Jewish culinary practices, including the contributions of Jews of color. It was named the 2023 book of the year at the National Jewish Book Awards, making Twitty the first Black author to win the distinction. Currently, Twitty is working on a cookbook with essential recipes from the American South and has plans to write another food memoir and history that will serve as a queer journey through the culinary world.

Michael Twitty became the first African American author to win the National Jewish Book Award in 2023 for his book “Koshersoul.”

Chef and author Michael Twitty adds matzoh balls to okra gumbo in a Passover recipe from his “Koshersoul” book.

He credits food historian Marcie Cohen Ferris for inspiring the matzoh ball gumbo recipe. Published in 2010, Ferris’ book “ Matzoh Ball Gumbo ” explores the historic foodways of Southern Jews, including the influence of Black Southerners and Black women in particular.

“When I make this dish, I’m thinking how can we connect to that past and history, and recount the people who were often nameless?” says Twitty. He says that for European Jews assimilating in the Deep South in the early and mid 20th century, food, often prepared by Black domestic workers, was a conduit for belonging.

Rather than a blending or “fusion” of culinary styles, Twitty sees his matzoh ball gumbo as an act of preservation. It’s a continuation of Southern food stories, highlighting the traditions that extend across the African and Jewish diasporas.

an illustration of a pot simmers on the stove

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“You can compare it to soup and dumplings from Jamaica, or omo tuo from Ghana,” he says. “In West and Central Africa, the main meal is often a soup, sauce or stew with a starch — sauce and fufu, sauce and banku, sauce and millet or rice balls. There are so many parallels there.”

He continues, saying that, “Jewish tradition is extremely fluid and flexible. We eat foods that have their roots in very ancient ideas, but bear very little resemblance to their original concept.”

Twitty begins by methodically chopping the herbs and vegetables for his gumbo and matzoh balls: parsley, green onions, garlic and the “holy trinity” of onion, celery and bell pepper.

Next, he makes the dough for the matzoh balls. Cooking alongside Twitty reminds me of sharing kitchen space with my late great-grandmother Madea, a born-and-raised Mississippian. Like her, he measures in pinches, makes last-minute adjustments (such as substituting salt for baking powder in the matzoh ball dough) and gives a deep, satisfied grunt when his taste-testing yields the desired results.

Once the matzoh ball dough is finished, Twitty seals the bowl with plastic wrap and puts it in the refrigerator to rest.

As he slices the okra into razon-thin rounds, our conversation winds from the Yiddish words for matzoh ball and Passover (kneidlach and Pesach, respectively) to his experiences traveling to Italy and various countries in West Africa.

We’re weeks away from Passover, but the atmosphere feels similar to a Seder Twitty might host. The conversation is peppered with laughter, and topics that are usually avoided at the dinner table — namely, religion and politics — are met with curiosity and understanding. Such discussions, Twitty says, are integral to the spirit of Passover. He describes a long history of Seders that supported early labor movements, women’s rights and Black and Jewish liberation.

“It’s exactly what Pesach is supposed to do, which is open those gates of liberation and lack of constraints to the rest of humanity,” he says. “It can be both an origin story moment for the Jewish people, and a human liberation story for all of mankind. It was always meant to be that way.”

Twitty pauses to give the roux his full attention. He stirs slowly, peeking into the deep-bottomed pot to gauge its progress. The potato starch that he uses instead of flour takes longer to brown, about 15 minutes. Twitty dips a spoon in to taste; his throaty purr tells us that it’s ready for more broth.

Green and red onion, ginger and garlic add aromatic, peppery notes to chef Michael Twitty’s matzoh ball gumbo.

Sliced okra is added into a pot of simmering gumbo.

Chef Michael Twitty adds tomato paste to his gumbo.

After adding the cooked vegetables, tomatoes, okra, thyme and Creole seasoning, we let the concoction simmer and turn our attention back to the matzoh balls. We fill a large pot with salted water and wait for it to reach a rolling boil. Twitty shapes the dough into walnut-sized spheres.

One by one, the matzoh balls get dropped into the pot with boiling water. In a departure from the recipe in his book, Twitty takes them out early and transfers them to the gumbo, where he lets them simmer under a lid for an additional 15 minutes.

Finally, we ladle the gumbo into bowls, at least two or three matzoh balls per serving. The okra retains a pleasant crunch and the matzoh balls are savory, a persuasive replacement for rice or even chicken. Someone notes the rare silence that has befallen the kitchen — this gumbo is good.

After letting it simmer for 90 minutes, Michael Twitty checks to make sure the okra gumbo has thickened to his liking.

There are several of us in the kitchen, and Twitty’s gumbo speaks to different parts of each of our heritages. For me, the okra and tomato-rich broth recalls my maternal Mississippi roots, while the matzoh balls take someone else back to childhood experiences making them alongside their Bubbe.

“We have to remember that we co-created the Southern culture with Indigenous people, with white people, with immigrants from all over the world,” Twitty says. “And all of those stories have to be told for it to be a true, full and honest recounting of how we got here, and what mistakes we should refuse to make going forward.”

Find Michael Twitty at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 21, at Booth 410, where he’ll have signed copies of “Koshersoul” available to purchase, 2-3 p.m. Tickets are available for Twitty’s “Koshersoul” dinner pop-up at Post & Beam on Wednesday, May 15, and can be purchased via Eventbrite .

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Danielle Dorsey is the assistant editor and writer of guides for the Food section. Previously, she was the senior West Coast editor at Thrillist, where she covered food, drink and travel across the California region. She grew up across San Diego and Riverside and has happily called Los Angeles home for more than 15 years.

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Average global temperatures have increased by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.2 degrees Celsius, since 1880, with the greatest changes happening in the late 20th century. Land areas have warmed more ...
Is Global Warming a Myth?
Most skeptics attribute global warming—few if any doubt any longer that the warming itself is occurring, given the worldwide rise in surface temperature—to natural cycles, not emissions from ...
Scientists agree: Climate change is real and caused by people
[Leer en español aquí] The scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that it is human-caused is strong. Scientific investigation of global warming began in the 19th century, and by the early 2000s, this research began to coalesce into confidence about the reality, causes, and general range of adverse effects of global warming.This conclusion was drawn from studying air and ...
Global warming: Is it real? Get the facts.
Scientific consensus is overwhelming: The planet is getting warmer, and humans are behind it. In recent years, global warming and climate change have been the subject of a great deal of political ...
Global Warming Is Real and Has Consequences
The essay argued that the globe is not warming and delaying policies to slow climate change for 50 years will have no serious consequences. At a time when we need to clarify public confusion about the science and economics of climate change, the 16 scientists have muddied the waters. Here, I describe some of their mistakes.
Responding to the Climate Threat: Essays on Humanity's Greatest
The scientific, economic, and policy aspects of climate change are already a challenge to communicate, without factoring in the distractions and deflections from organized programs of misinformation and denial. Here, four scholars, each with decades of research on the climate threat, take on the task of explaining our current understanding of ...
Global warming
Modern global warming is the result of an increase in magnitude of the so-called greenhouse effect, a warming of Earth's surface and lower atmosphere caused by the presence of water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and other greenhouse gases. In 2014 the IPCC first reported that concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and ...
Scientific Consensus
Scientific Consensus. Temperature data showing rapid warming in the past few decades, the latest data going up through 2023. According to NASA, Earth's average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record since recordkeeping began in 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. On top of that, the 10 most recent ...
Essay on Global Warming with Samples (150, 250, 500 Words
Sample Essays on Global Warming. Here are some sample essays on Global Warming: Essay on Global Warming Paragraph in 100 - 150 words. Global Warming is caused by the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the earth's atmosphere and is a result of human activities that have been causing harm to our environment for the past few centuries now.
Essay on Global Warming
Q.1 List the causes of Global Warming. A.1 There are various causes of global warming both natural and manmade. The natural one includes a greenhouse gas, volcanic eruption, methane gas and more. Next up, manmade causes are deforestation, mining, cattle rearing, fossil fuel burning and more.
Evidence
The current warming trend is different because it is clearly the result of human activities since the mid-1800s, and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia. 1 It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the Sun's energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and ...
What evidence exists that Earth is warming and that humans are the main
Full story. We know this warming is largely caused by human activities because the key role that carbon dioxide plays in maintaining Earth's natural greenhouse effect has been understood since the mid-1800s. Unless it is offset by some equally large cooling influence, more atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to warmer surface temperatures.
Opinion
Even the poorest countries, while still unacceptably vulnerable, are suffering far fewer human and economic losses to climate-related disasters. Global warming is real and getting worse, Pielke ...
Climate Change Myths: Sorting Fact from Fiction
There's no consensus on global warming. Climate models are inaccurate. Temperature records are unreliable. Earth's climate has changed before. Oceans are cooling. Human CO2 emissions represent ...
Global Warming
Global warming is the long-term warming of the planet's overall temperature. Though this warming trend has been going on for a long time, its pace has significantly increased in the last hundred years due to the burning of fossil fuels.As the human population has increased, so has the volume of . fossil fuels burned.. Fossil fuels include coal, oil, and natural gas, and burning them causes ...
Isn't there a lot of disagreement among climate scientists about global
Published February 3, 2020. No. By a large majority, climate scientists agree that average global temperature today is warmer than in pre-industrial times and that human activity is the most significant factor. Today, there is no real disagreement among climate experts that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming.
Is global warming merely a natural cycle?
06/28/2021. Scientists have been exploring the cause of the planet's rising temperature since the 20th century. Climate change skeptics say that human-caused CO2 emissions don't have an effect. DW ...
PDF Climate Explained: Introductory Essays About Climate Change Topics
Climate Explained is a collection of short primers that answer diverse climate change questions, including why it's cold outside if global warming is real, how we know that humans are responsible for global warming, and the relationship between climate change and national security. Image 1. Example Climate Explained essays on the Yale Climate ...
Climate change
Many climate change impacts have been felt in recent years, with 2023 the warmest on record at +1.48 °C (2.66 °F). Additional warming will increase these impacts and can trigger tipping points, such as melting all of the Greenland ice sheet. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C".However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global ...
PolitiFact
Centre for Global Socio-Economic Change, Professor Guus Berkhout, accessed Oct. 3, 2023 Agence France-Presse, Climate 'declaration' recirculates debunked claims , Sept. 7, 2022
Warming can be stopped, top climate scientist says
Harvard Staff Writer. April 3, 2024 6 min read. Keeping the Earth's warming below the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold that scientists believe will stave off climate change's worst effects is a tall task, but one of the world's top climate scientists believes climate "doomism" won't help the fight. And Michael Mann is all about the fight.
Switzerland's Climate Shortfalls Violate Rights, European Court Rules
The women, age 64 and up, said that their health was at risk during heat waves related to global warming. They argued that the Swiss government, by not doing enough to mitigate against global ...
Just 57 companies linked to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions since 2016
A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world's global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study has shown.
A Generation Lost to Climate Anxiety
A Generation Lost to Climate Anxiety. By David Zaruk. FR170512 AP. In a far-reaching new essay in The New Atlantis, the environmental researcher Ted Nordhaus makes a damning and authoritative case that while the basic science of CO2 and climate is solid, it has been abused by the activist class in service of a wildly irresponsible and ...
Soil nitrogen availability drives the response of soil microbial
Although soil microbial biomass responses to experimental warming have been extensively studied, the mechanisms through which elevated temperatures influence soil microbial biomass remain unclear. In this study, we performed a global meta-analysis to quantify the global pattern of soil microbial biomass in response to warming. Our findings suggest that global warming effect is not apparent ...
The next housing disaster
The next housing disaster - Weekly edition of The Economist for Apr 13th 2024. You've seen the news, now discover the story.
How to make matzo ball gumbo with author Michael Twitty
Chef Michael Twitty adds tomato paste to his gumbo. After adding the cooked vegetables, tomatoes, okra, thyme and Creole seasoning, we let the concoction simmer and turn our attention back to the ...