Climate Change/Global Warming - History of Our Understanding of the Issues
The critical points in understanding global warming are: 1) ample evidence suggests that it is occurring; 2) the evidence overwhelmingly points to enhanced radiative forcing through the enrichment of the atmospheric greenhouse gases that are being released by human industrial processes, primarily fossil carbon and equivalent emissions; 3) it has been accelerating and certain aspects of it have accelerated faster than early models predicted; 4) globally we are doing little to mitigate the causes and consequences; 5) adaptation (to the extent that adaptation is possible) requires that we implement many of the same strategies that were needed to avoid the impacts; and 6) many other environmental maladies would benefit from global warming mitigation measures (e.g., biodiversity loss).
