This is the new Reality Drop. No games, just truths.

Man-made climate change is here.

Climate change is a reality we can no longer ignore. We see the impacts in our everyday lives, from extreme superstorms, to heat waves, to massive wildfires and droughts. But climate denial, bankrolled by Dirty Energy companies and justified by pseudoscience, persists.

Reality Drop, inspired by Skeptical Science, is a library of science-based rebuttals to climate change deniers.

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Showing 8 myths:

  • #3: Carbon dioxide isn’t the main cause of warming

    Deniers say: It's not just carbon dioxide. What about volcanoes, solar variations, methane, aerosols and clouds?
    Science says: Ask the majority of climate scientists: Man-made carbon pollution is the cause of the global warming we’re seeing now.
    Scientists know our climate is changing, primarily due to carbon pollution from the burning of dirty energy like oil and coal. It's true that other factors affect our climate, including other greenhouse gases such as methane. Solar variation, volcanoes and clouds all affect the climate, too. But scientists take all these factors into account and weigh the contributions that each one makes to our climate. When they do, it's clear that man-made carbon dioxide pollution is overwhelmingly responsible for the warming we’re experiencing now.

  • #23: Other planets are warming

    Deniers say: It's not just the Earth that's warming — what about Mars?
    Science says: We don't know if other planets are warming. We know the Earth is — and it's our own fault.
    
It’s true that the sun affects the climates of the planets in our solar system — including our planet. If the sun’s energy significantly increased, we would expect most or all of the planets to warm up. But there’s no good evidence of consistent warming on planets other than Earth. And the variation that’s occurred in the sun’s energy over the course of the 20th century just isn’t significant enough to account for the large-scale climate change we’re seeing here. Multiple lines of evidence confirm that humans, not the sun, are the primary cause of the climate change that's happening here on Earth.

  • #41: It cooled mid-century

    Deniers say: From 1945 to 1975, the planet cooled. What happened to global warming?
    Science says: In the middle of the 20th century, the global climate cooled over the short term. Carbon dioxide pollution is warming our planet over the long term.
    Over the last 130 years, global temperatures have increased due to carbon pollution from the burning of dirty energy like oil and coal. It’s true though that around the middle of the last century, the temperature record shows a short-term cooling trend. Generally, the trend has been attributed to an increase in sulfur pollution, which rapidly forms tiny particles in the air known as "aerosols" that reflect incoming solar energy back into space. The surge in sulfur dioxide pollution was mostly due to industrial activities that picked up after World War II, as well as several volcanic eruptions in the early 1960s. We’ve come a long way since then to limit sulfur pollution, since it’s bad for our health and causes acid rain. Even today though, we still emit some. And even today, sulfur pollution is masking some of the warming caused by carbon pollution from dirty energy. None of this changes the fact that the Earth is steadily warming and carbon pollution is the primary cause.

  • #101: Carbon limits will hurt the poor

    Deniers say: Life under the climate change agenda will be even worse for people living in poverty.
    Science says: Poor people are the ones who will suffer the most if we don't do something about climate change.
    Contrary to what climate deniers would have you believe, it is the poor who will suffer the most if we don't do anything about climate change. Whether in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world, low-income people are often most vulnerable to extreme weather disasters linked to our warming climate. They’re the ones hurt the most when climate change reduces food and water supplies. They have the least access to the care they need when climate change threatens their health. Fortunately, clean energy is often a path out of poverty, as can already be seen in many parts of the world. For example, in Bangladesh today, over one million homes have solar panels. In many cases, a single solar power system is enough to keep a family fed, keep their businesses open longer, and help their children study after the sun goes down. Fighting climate change by reducing carbon pollution is a win-win for all of us.

  • #102: Renewable energy kills jobs

    Deniers say: Switching to renewable energy would be dangerous to the economy.
    Science says: Clean energy is one of the world's fastest growing industries, and it employs millions of people in America alone.
    The best way to create jobs and grow the economy is to invest in clean, renewable energy like wind, solar and geothermal power. Clean energy is one of the world's fastest growing industries. Global investment in clean energy climbed to $260 billion worldwide in 2011, a record high. That’s a 5% climb compared to 2009 and five times the investment made in 2004. And 2010 was the first time that investment in renewable energy surpassed investment in fossil fuels. According to one estimate, global clean energy investment will grow by another $140 billion by 2021.

    All this investment creates jobs. Just look at the solar industry in the U.S., where jobs more than doubled from 2009 to 2011. According to one comprehensive study, the green energy economy (which includes clean energy) employs 3.1 million Americans today. Clean energy investment is a smart jobs plan. Pollution isn’t.

  • #104: Renewable energy is too expensive

    Deniers say: Renewable energy is a nice idea, but it just isn’t economically viable.
    Science says: The wind and the sun are free, and they also don't ruin the climate.
    The claim that renewable energy is too expensive is out-of-date propaganda. The price of clean, renewable energy is plummeting. In some parts of the U.S., it's now almost as cheap to buy solar as it is to buy electricity from coal or gas. New estimates suggest wind power now costs customers about the same as natural gas in some areas and is even a little cheaper than coal. So it's no surprise that clean energy is one of the world's fastest growing industries, and already makes up 20% of the world's energy supply. Best of all? When you use clean energy, you don't have to pay for the millions of kids with asthma as a result of air pollution from coal. You don't have to pay Middle Eastern dictators to hand over their oil supplies. And you don't have to pay for the devastating financial and human impacts of climate change.

  • #107: Natural gas is a bridge fuel

    Deniers say: Natural gas is a ‘bridge fuel’ with relatively low carbon emissions.
    Science says: Natural gas is a bridge to nowhere. It undermines progress on clean energy and is dangerous for our climate.
    Natural gas is a dirty fossil fuel. Like coal and oil, it produces carbon pollution that disrupts our climate and greatly increases our risk of costly disasters. Nonetheless, natural gas is often touted as a temporary “bridge fuel” that will help us move away from coal and toward renewable energy like wind and solar. But here’s the thing: We don’t have to wait. The longer we delay our transition to truly clean energy, the worse off we’ll be. Natural gas is mostly made of methane, which is a greenhouse gas over 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. If methane leaks from natural gas extraction and distribution prove to be as high as initial studies indicate, natural gas could even be worse for our climate than coal. Moreover, the International Energy Agency found that a large natural gas boom, even with practices to reduce methane leakage, would still put us on track for an unsustainable global temperature rise of 3.5 degrees Celsius. The good news? We have viable alternatives. In 2012, the top new electricity source in the U.S. was wind power — not natural gas. To reduce carbon pollution, we need to ramp up our clean energy use without any further delay — and not get sidetracked by dirty energy like natural gas.

  • #108: Clean coal is the answer

    Deniers say: Why invest in wind and solar when we have clean coal?
    Science says: Don’t be fooled by the promise of “clean” coal. “Clean coal” is the industry’s tooth fairy. There’s no such thing. Wind and solar on the other hand, are real clean energy technologies that are viable today.
    In reality, there’s no such thing as "clean coal” — it’s a false solution. Coal is a dirty fuel — from start to finish. During the coal mining process mountaintops are blasted away and toxic slurry ponds left behind. Burning coal results in pollutants that are harmful to human health, like mercury and smog. As if this weren't enough, worldwide, more carbon pollution comes from the burning of coal than any other fuel. A limited number of coal plant operators are now experimenting with capturing the carbon pollution their plants produce and storing it underground. But the present cost of this technology — known as Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) — is extremely high and safe storage areas are limited. While CCS may play a limited role in a low-carbon future, it shouldn’t be mistaken for a quick fix to the climate crisis. To make meaningful progress in curbing climate change we need to invest in real clean energy sources, like wind and solar, which are more economically viable and better for our climate and health, too. That’s the bit Big Coal won’t advertise.